The clicking of metal boots echoes through the empty hallway as the firenation princess walks towards the throne room. The two imperial firebenders that flank the door bow to her as she approaches and only rise again as she passes them and enters the throne room. The familiar intimidating rush of heat causes a feeling of anxiety to rush over her body as she walks into the amber lit room. The silhouette of her father watches as she approaches his throne then kneels in front of him. "I have a task for you, Princess Azula." The dark voice of the firelord breaks the silence between the two. "Those foolish sages lied to us, lied to you and now I know the full truth. I know why you have been unable to produce anything when being trained by the earth kingdom slaves nor the scrolls from the air nomads." Her amber eyes widen as the feeling of fear intensifies as her father stands from his throne and approaches her. "You are not the avatar." Ozai says as he comes to a stop in front of her.

"I'm s-sorry father I..." She says, trying to come up with any sort of explanation however Ozai places a hand on her head.

"Shhh..." Ozai shushes her. "The fault is not your own, but merely the order of your birth."

"You don't mean..." She says as she looks up to meet his eye.

"Yes, your brother, Zuko is the avatar." Ozai says calmly, the news hits her as hard as a boulder as her blood runs cold in her veins. Of course it was him, the first born, the heir to her throne. "I fear I have made a mistake, sending him off on that journey after forcing the sages to lie to him. I had thought that he would be gone forever but fate has had other plans."

"What do you need me to do?" Azula asks as Ozai starts to walk around the room.

"My traitor brother Iroh has brainwashed him against us, he's actively fighting against the firenation now. Admiral Zhao's invasion force at the north pole was completely decimated by the avatar. 100,000 men, only 5,000 survivors. From what the survivors have told me, the avatar took the form of a sea dragon in order to annihilate our soldiers and protect those water savages in the north." Ozai turns his back to Azula as he walks back up to his throne. "You are either going to bring him to me so we can reeducate him or you are to kill him."

"What if I manage to bring him back?" Azula asks, causing Ozai to stop in his tracks before turning to face her once again.

"Don't worry, daughter. Your position on this throne is cemented, you will be my successor when the time comes. The avatar will serve us, and then he will die. If he doesn't, then you will do what must be done." Azula swallows the fear that's been building and stands before bowing to her father and leaving the room. "Bring glory to the firenation my daughter, and come home with honor."

As she exits the room, the fear begins to subside but she doesn't let it show until she gets past the imperial guards and rounds the corner. Once far enough away, she gasps for breath holding a hand to her chest. Just being in the presence of her father almost gives her an anxiety attack each and every time she's in front of him. After taking a few moments to regain her composure, she has to get everything in order to track down her uncle and her brother. She takes a deep breath and seals herself before standing upright and marching down the long hallway. Large tapestries of her forefathers hang high above in the rafters and reflect off the mirrored floors, looming over her as she walks towards her room. "Azula." A soft motherly voice echoes from behind her causing her to stop in her tracks. She recognised the voice instantly, the voice of her mother. "Azula. Take care of your brother. He needs you now more than ever." The memory of Ursa echoes the last thing she ever told Azula on the night that she vanished. "I love you more than you could ever know."

"How could you love a monster?" Azula answers the voice before walking down the hall at an accelerated pace. As she passes one of the large mirrors on the wall she sees Ursa staring at her with tears running down her face.

General Fong's Fortress.

Yue and Katara watch as Aang darts around on an air scooter orbiting a man dressed in a black and dark green robes. He has a large wide conical rice hat draped in black fabric with a bushy green feather off to the side. His head is tilted downwards over his eyes as his arms are folded inside of the large sleeves. Aang is continuously hounding this man with question after question but try as he might, the young airbender can't break the older man's patiences just to satiate his own boredom. Just as the earth bending master takes a long sigh preparing to ask Aang to stop bothering him with questions, the shadow of Appa covers the courtyard of the fortress prompting Aang to look upwards towards Appa. The airbender doesn't notice the direction he's going and ends up slamming right into the sturdy form of General Fong.

"You're back! How did it go?!" Aang asks as he sprints over to Zuko who's sliding off of Appa. "Did you fix your firebending? Also some guy with a cone shaped hat is here, he says he's an earthbending master."

"Yeah, I have it back." Zuko responds, his tone a bit more uplifted than it had been these past few days. "Also who are you talking about? I thought we were gonna go get Bumi to be my master." He asks as a black garbed man walks up to the prince before bowing.

"Greetings Avatar, I am Dong Jou of the Dai Li. General Fong has requested that I come here to train you before you have to continue your journey." The bearded man greets as he bows to Zuko.

"It's nice to meet you." Zuko responds before repeating the gesture and bowing to his new earthbending master. "Are you able to come with us as my earthbending teacher?" He asks, getting straight to the point.

"I'm sorry, I cannot. I was under the impression that you would be training here at General Fong's encampment for the foreseeable future." Dong Jou responds, "When do you intend on leaving and where are you going?"

"We are going to Omashu to find King Bumi. He's friends with Aang and myself from a past life. I was going to ask him to teach me." Zuko responds, "Master Pakku already sent out the messenger hawk to Omashu."

"He is an excellent master, but I fear that Omashu may have already fallen. The last courier we received from them arrived over a month ago, and he carried with him news that an invasion force was spotted near the city." Dong Jou responds apologetically, "You didn't say when you were going to leave though."

"In a few days, probably by the end of the week." Sokka chimes in, "We were only gonna stay here to get directions to Omashu and inform the general of what happened at the north pole."

"Very well, I will train you with the time I have. Do you intend on going to Ba Sing Sei in the near future?" The agent asks, and this off-topic question raises Iroh's attention.

"I don't know, why? Is there anything we need to know about the city?" Zuko asks which causes the Dai Li agent to reach into his sleeve for a moment to fetch something.

"In order to enter the city, you need passports or an invitation. I can give you this, and it will allow anyone in your group to enter the city with you. When I return to Ba Sing Sei, I will inform my superiors of your identities. However, they may wish to question former general Iroh about why he wishes to reenter Ba Sing Sei." Dong Jou says, and while the answer seems innocent enough, Iroh himself is suspicious over it.

"Just let them know that I am no longer a part of the firenation, and my only purpose now is to train my nephew. I am his firebending master." Iroh says before bowing respectfully to Master Dong Jou. "If you'll excuse me my nephew, I am going to retire. The journey was long and tiring, and I wish to get some rest."

"You don't have to ask Uncle," Zuko says before Iroh hugs him and then walks away back to the barracks where team avatar have been garrisoned for their time here. "I know some very basic things about earthbending, just lifting up small stones and creating platforms."

"Good, I was under the impression that you wouldn't have any knowledge." The earthbender explains. "Let's go to the training yard, less things to destroy there." The dai li agent leads Zuko towards the wider courtyard of the fortress where they can begin their training.

Dong Jou has Zuko stop in the center of the court yard before walking a few paces out in front of him. "I'm sure you know how different the other disciplines are from one another. While there isn't much information about airbending outside of your master, I'm sure you are already aware that Earth is the opposite of that element like Water is with Fire. It requires patience, stubbornness and strength." Dong Jou explains before flexing his arms outwards, stepping into a wide stance. He lifts his arms up over his head then circles them down and back up again causing a massive pillar of stone to lift from underneath him and ascend into the air. "You need to strengthen not only yourself physically but mentally as well. Today, your task is to knock me off this pillar. You are not allowed to use any other forms of bending aside from earthbending."

"You're not even gonna show me anything first?" Zuko asks but the earthbender doesn't answer immediately, instead he merely folds his hands into his cloak and looks down expectantly at Zuko to see what he's going to do.

"I just did." Dong Jou responds before going silent and observing what Zuko is going to do.

Realizing that he isn't gonna get much more than just that from the earthbender. Zuko decides to walk around the pillar to try to think about what to do. From on top of it, he sees Dong Jou take a seat then produce something from within his cloak. From what Zuko could guess watching the earthbender raise something to his mouth, it was a ball of onigiri or something edible. He looks up in annoyance for a moment trying to figure out what the earthbender wants him to do. Walking to the shadow of the large pillar Zuko looks up at the earth bender who's calmly eating an afternoon snack, trying to judge the distance. After coming up with a rough idea, Zuko raises his foot and stomps hard on the ground causing a small boulder to jump up before he punches it towards the pillar where Dong Jou is seated. The Dai Li agent tilts his head to the side letting it sail harmlessly past him as he continues to calmly eat the rice ball. This is going to be harder than he initially thought, but Zuko is persistent if anything.

Deciding to repeat this, Zuko once again lifts more rocks to throw towards the agent atop the pillar getting a mixture of different responses from him again. Dong Jou merely moves to the side, taps a foot on the pillar causing it to shrink slightly or when one gets close to actually hitting him, sticks up a hand and catches it before crushing the rock. Zuko shifts his plan of attack from throwing one at a time to using multiple at once, using more force as he performs the technique. This time more boulders launch up from the ground allowing him to throw them at his new teacher. While Zuko can't see it from the ground, Dong Jou smirks seeing Zuko quickly adapt to this before finishing off the rice ball and standing up. However, the more he dodges and counters the attacks he can tell that Zuko is getting more and more frustrated with his efforts being in vain. "Stop Dodging!" Zuko yells before throwing a fireball towards the Dai Li agent. Around him the other soldiers reflexively duck out of the way but the dai li agent sticks up and stops the fireball with a single hand. For a moment Zuko is stunned that the earthbender stopped the fireball but a split second later, a pair of stone hands is thrown at him by Dong Jou clasping over his arms and his mouth.

"Seeing as you can't follow directions, your new task is to get out of that." The earthbender says before slamming the pillar back into the ground and walking away.

Angrier than he has been in quite a while; Zuko glares and sulks, having been restrained by the stone cuffs of the earthbender. The young avatar strains against the stones trying at first to just jerk his hands free, but whatever technique the dai li agent had used on him, causes the stony hands to tighten around his wrists after he relaxes. He huffs in annoyance trying to think of a way to get out of the restraints around his arms. Getting to his feet, Zuko stands up from the ground and flattens out his stance and flexes his muscles. He strains hard against the stone cuffs over his hands managing to get them to budge for a moment before his breath escapes him and he relaxes again. Focusing hard, determined to free himself from the restraints, Zuko growls in frustration before wrenching his arms out of the stone cuffs over his arms causing the pebbles to fall to the floor. He lifts a hand up to his mouth and rips away the other stone hand that Dong Jou had fired at him. Across the courtyard, the dai li agent watches in slight amusement as Zuko frees himself from the restraints. "He's a fast learner, though not very good at listening." Dong Jou mutters to himself with a slight smirk on his face.

"So, ready to try that again?" The master asks as he approaches Zuko who merely glares at him in annoyance. "Or do we have to do this song and dance again?" He asks rhetorically.

"Yeah, let's go." Zuko responds prompting the master to repeat the process in creating the large pillar to restart the exercise.