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Blue Mask	By : PatPat Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality > Het- Male/Female Views: 11083 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
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- 8
Blue Mask, Two Swords, and Sozin’s Comet
Breaking the Triangle
By Pat Squared
________________________________________

Jian Li, formerly Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, sat across from the pretty Fire Nation girl his sister sent to watch him.

“I raise you to twelve brass hills.”

The spy looked at her tiles and then tossed them into the pile of discarded tiles.

The other two players called believing that the majician was lying.

Jian Li waited for the other two to flip over their cards.

“Fu Ma has a pair of Empresses. Hahn has two pair, sages and merchants. Ty Lee please flip my cards so that they cannot accuse me of stacking the deck again.”

Ty flipped over the magician’s tiles and announced, “Three dragons. The pot goes to Jian Li ... again.”

Jian collect his coins amid the muttering and groans of his fellow players.

The young man had over the weeks made and won enough coins to make his way back to the village where his uncle was working as a storyteller and buy a small hut and field. However Jian Li did not want to give his sister a chance to hunt down and kill both uncle and nephew.

Ty Lee acrobatic and unarmed combat skills were impressive.

The acrobat could face a squad of earth benders and as long as she could get within touching distance she could easily paralyze the lot. Azula recruited her for just that one purpose, her ability to block the flow of qi that all benders needed to interact with their element. The banish prince knew a few pressure points and a full points to weaken someone’s qi but he could not apply the knowledge with the virtuoso that she did, even if she giggled incessantly and talked about pink auras all the time.

Seeing that a pretty couple drew in more money than two individual acts the ringmaster integrated the pair into an act. Jian Li was stuck sharing some of his secrets with his sister’s minion as she became his regular assistant in the Oni Challenge.

Tonight was going to be the start of the spring festival and the city fathers paid a lot to bring in Jian’s Oni Challenge and Ty Lee deer-horns versus Jian’s twin dao (willow sabers). Tonight there would be no safety devices or hidden guy wires and the weapons would be real. The act would be in the open. The only prop would be a wire hung between two buildings.

Jian grew to hate height or more correctly the crazy things that Ty did on the wire. He just managed to get to the point where he could wire walk and do a few tricks. But she was annoying him with her constant bounce when she walked. Not even the Avatar was so...damn bouncy.

Ty Lee was an acrobat playing spy.

Ty Lee was a little girl trapped in an adult’s game.

Ty Lee faithfully kept a dairy where she faithfully recorded all her thoughts. Her thoughts were not deep by any standard of his imagination. The worst part was the fact that she was crushing on him and trying to figure out how to approach him so that Jian Li could track down Azula’s enemies.

She even had little drawings of him and her together. In the earlier pages she had little drawing of that water bender’s annoying brother and her. Zuko spent a large portion of his youth away from women and even he spotted the danger signs.

Ty Lee, I got to get you out before they pop that bubble of whatever you built around that head of yours. Jian Li is going to show you why you don’t drabble around in this life.

In due time, the card game broke up. Everyone went to to their beds to rest. However, Ty Lee would have to report every couple days to his sister.

Following her to where Gloom Girl and his sister, Acid Wench, was hiding was so easy that he wondered if it was a trap. The girls were talking.

Translation: Acid Wench gave orders. Gloom Girl suck up any positive emotions like a water spout. Acrobat Girl, bless her naivety, did not really understand what was happening.

Azula needed both of the girls. Jian Lee would break the triangle and hopefully Azula would be so fixated on her issues that she would not sniff his meddling in her plans. The only way he would ever be free of his past was if they believed that he was dead. He planed everything carefully. Now was the time to act.
________________________________________

Ty Lee was not ready when Jian Li grabbed her, spun her around, and kissed her as she wish for in her journal.

Ty Lee was stunned by the pressure of Jian’s body pressing up against her. She was even more stunned when he used one of her techniques to paralyze her.

Jian Li whispered into her ear, “Normally, I would just jab a few pressure points and disturb your meridians. Then I would sell you to a brothel keeper who would make a fortune selling Fire Nation noble flesh to illiterate Earth Nation peasants with fertilizer stuck to there bare feet.

“However your two gal-pals look like they would fetch a fortune if they were not Fire Nation spoiled brats. Unfortunately for them if Ozai would not spring to save his male heir, what would he do for a mere girl. I know that Azula and what her name ... Mai had you contact me to hire my services to find and bring back her incompetent brother and dotting uncle. Let me show you just how loyal they are to you.”

He jabbed a couple spots on her back that paralyzed her vocal cords. Then he walked off into the darkness as she cursed her fate.
________________________________________

Jian Lee wore a set of apothecary robes. Under the outer cloak were his swords. Ty Lee would only be helpless for a hour, maybe two at the most.

“Princess Azula and Lady Mai of the Fire Nation, you wanted to have a deal so badly with the bandit that stole your precious little knife, a blanket, a small pouch, and some food that you sent an empty headed ditz to find and recruit me. No wonder why you have yet to capture the Avatar. Your brother at least hunted the air bender with every waking breath. You two look like you are camping out in your daddy’s gardens back in teh Fire Nation.”

Azula was upset and Mai examined him.

“Mai, I know about your knives and your skill with them. The servants back at Omashu...New Ozai gossiped and word gets around about the dagger throwing daughter of Omashu’s or would you rather say New Ozai’s governor. I too, can play that trick. However, fighting here and now won’t get you your goals and don’t yield me any profit. I know that princess here can bend quite well. You can’t, Mai. Your pal, Ty Lee probably told you that I can bend fire.”

The young man lit a small flame on his palm letting the flame turn his grin into a demonic lear.

“Maybe not good enough for a traditional Angi Kai where I can not use my twin beauties. However, I can keep off your highness’ flames long enough to use my pretties to kill you. One nick and a Water Tribe poison I use on my blades will kill you slowly. I have taken the liberty of developing an immunity to the poison. Unless you have developed an immunity...there is no antidote. May I call you, your terrible highness, Azula, or future Fire Nation Queene-poo? Okay, Queene-poo it is. Just how much are you going to pay me for the Avatar, your brother, and your uncle?”

Azula took a deep breath.

“A lot.”

Jian Lee cocked his head slightly to the side.

“A lot of what. Animal droppings, I don’t think so. Being a by-blow of one of those semi-noble Fire Nation commanders has taught me that a lot is a very relative term. A lot, I can only start to imagine all those tax revenues that enter the coffers. Especially once the Avatar is dealt with and you don’t have to pay for a war anymore. Are we talk Clan Zu a lot? OR are we talking Clan Kozun a lot?”

Azula’s eye bulged at his casual use of a Fire Nation idiom. The young man juggled the flame bouncing it on each one of his fingertips.

“You know too much for an Earth Kingdom circus performer.”

“Assumptions, your highness, will be the death of you someday. Your little Ty Lee is an acrobat playing at the greatest game because you forced her too. I am a professional assassin hiding out of the next of kin of several old clients and playing magician while I wait for my next contract.”

Jian Li tilted his head to the side and smiled, “Perhaps we can agree on a new contract. However my price is higher than the norm. Many thugs seek quantity. They are crude, but effective. I on the other hand believe that my profession is a performance art form that can only be appreciated by those who savor the death of their rivals. Hire the others if you merely want a death. Hire me if you want your foes to experience an epiphany when I claim their souls for Yunlao’s judgment.”

He started jungling two fireballs with one of his hands.

“Killing is a messy business. Capturing someone to only have them tortured is also a messy business. Life and freedom are delicate and precious commodities and I don’t destroy either without sufficient compensation to assuage my guilt and make surety to the gods, highness.”

Azula thought for a second and came up with a price.

“I promise you the weight of their heads in gold.”

Azula was not the creative type. Calling Omashu New Ozai...the girl was only creative when it came to being sadistic. During the hunt ofr the Avatar, Zuko had learned that his training limited him and had to learn how to think outside the box.

Jian Li’s sarcastic tone was working. For years, Azula pushed Zuko’s buttons. Now he returned the favor.

“Azula, why do you insist on those tired clichés? Everyone I deal with says the same thing. Heads, heads, heads – why must everyone be so fixated with heads. Have you no imagination...I forgot...you were the one who renamed Omashu New Ozai. If I did not know better, I would believe that you were related to some earth benders with that unimaginative line.

“I personally prefer gems and precious stones. They are small, portable, lightweight and highly valued all over the world. Specifically sapphires, emeralds, rubies, and heavenly jade spark my lust for wealth. However, I am not talking cut glass for the peasants, but something that you would be proud to own and wear at a formal public ball. I understand that your mother’s clan... Kozun isn’t it... owns several gem mines throughout the occupied territories. Merely grant me those mines and a tax exemption on the sale of gems and I will toss in your daddy dearest too.”

“You have gone too far. Treason,” the princess sputtered in shock.

Jian Li laughed.

“Treason, what treason are you talking about? Let me enlighten you. You will be the Fire Lady. Your word will be law. You get to define what is and what is not treason. You have benefited from treason when you help your daddy kill your grandfather by setting up your mother to do the deed. Killing your grandfather’s valet was a great cover, but you should have killed him earlier.”

“How dare you accuse me of regicide? I will cut off your...”

The young man merely held up his hand.

“You are not the only noble to have problems with daddy dearest. Your daddy rutted with a succession of concubines and palace maids. So did his drinking buddies. One of them was responsible for my existence.”

“Unlike you, my father hated me. He reluctantly had me educated in the ways of our ancestors and then I was told, ‘Sorry not good enough because your mother was nothing but a whore in my eyes.’ My birthright was given to an idiot sibling who could not even deal with one spoiled brat prince. Killing your brother would have been my obligation if only they did not throw me out of the family.”

“Zhao.”

Jian Li was hurt to be confused with monkey-face.

“Wrong guess, highness. Zhao, the monkey-face son of a bitch, was always an idiot. Too much damn inbreeding among you noble types. Why he ever sported that hair style and the two sideburns are beyond my comprehension? Even the brothel girls could not stand his presence. I now have my eyes on a bigger prize than some honorable name and naval commission. Money is my favorite thing. Second is breaking the spirit of something like your little ditz. My price is simple. Ten pounds of royalty quality gems per head when I deliver. Your little ditz for my toy when I walk out of here tonight. Take it or leave it. Agreed?”

Jian Li merely waited several minutes staring at the princess as Azula hemmed and hawed but in the end she could not resist the silent close. He could see the hatred in Mai’s eyes. However, Azula held the power. And Azula would have to be the one to exercise it.

Azula smiled, “Agreed, Mister ...”

“...Li. My mother’s name served me fine.”

“I hated that bouncy bitch anyways. She is too naive to last long in our business.”

“If you want to contact me, have Mai leave word with the inn keeper at the Inn of the Seven Swans. I will get the message in a while after that. It will take about three to four days. I will leave word at the same place when I have a trophy for you to collect. Don’t worry, I will collect my new toy on the way out.”

Ty Lee was in tears as she heard Azula bargain her away like a slave to the assassin.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Blue Mask