The Fire Nation Prince

Chapter 21: Tremor and Flame

The instant the last word left General Fong’s mouth…

Zuko moved.

His left heel shifted back, drawing power from the ball of his foot as his right hand snapped down and carved a sharp crescent in the air. Fire surged forward in a twisting arc, a whip of orange and white-hot flame that tore across the cracked stone ground like a viper.

Fong didn’t flinch.

He stomped once.

A wall of earth burst up at an angle, catching the flame mid-curve and splitting it along its edge. The heat scorched the stone, but didn’t breach it.

Zuko was already in motion.

He launched forward, low and fast, right hand drawing inward at his hip while his left foot dragged flame in a wide circle behind him. He vaulted into a spin, bringing both legs up into a double-kick as his fists fired twin jets of fire, a tight, crisscrossing blaze aimed straight at Fong’s chest.

Fong ducked low, one hand driving into the dirt.

The ground beneath Zuko’s landing spot shattered, and a thick spike of earth burst upward. Zuko twisted mid-air, barely dodging it as the shockwave punched through his left boot sole.

His foot landed skidding, sparks flying off his metal heel.

He didn’t stop.

Zuko lunged forward, slammed his left palm into the ground, and kicked backward, a ring of fire erupted in a wide pulse, spreading like a shockwave across the battlefield.

Fong leapt high, crouching mid-air as if weightless. Both palms slammed downward, a hammer of stone broke free from the crumbling upper plaza behind him and hurled itself into the air toward Zuko.

Zuko stood into a rising kick, flame blooming off his shin in a sweeping arc.

The hammer and the fire collided…

A shockwave erupted.

Debris rained.

Flames licked the stone.

Zuko rolled under a falling beam, swept his leg wide, and from his outstretched fingertips cast a horizontal spiral of flame. Fong landed hard and drove his palm into the ground.

The flame sank.

The ground under it swallowed the fire whole. Fong had reshaped the terrain mid-strike, rerouting Zuko’s flames into an underground fissure.

But Zuko was already mid-air again.

He dropped, one hand gripping his wrist, and fired a stream of concentrated flame downward, like a jet engine roaring. Fong raised a column of stone but Zuko crashed through it, shoulder-first, smashing it in half with the momentum of the fall.

He landed in a slide, elbow-first, sending a fire burst across the ground as he spun on his hip to avoid a second earth spike.

Fong met him there.

Fist against fist.

Stone against heat.

The impact was seismic.

A pillar of dust exploded outward from their collision. The shockwave knocked back a ring of stunned Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom soldiers, who had frozen to watch the fight.

Zuko slid back ten feet, boots carving black lines in the dust.

Fong staggered but barely. He cracked his neck once.

Zuko sprinted forward again, dragging fire from the soles of his boots in curling trails.

He launched a low fire sweep, Fong vaulted backward and raised a vertical wedge of stone to split the path.

Zuko broke through it, arms wide, a flame coiled around each limb.

He pivoted mid-step, twisting, driving the fire into a double arc…

Fong caught it with a dome of packed earth, the shell glowing red with heat but holding.

Zuko leapt, using the dome as a launchpad. Fire burst from his back like twin wings. He shot up, twisted mid-air, and flipped, dropping heel-first like a burning meteor aimed for the general’s head.

Fong raised both arms and met him with a rising column of stone fists, three, layered atop each other in a vertical cascade. Zuko collided with the top fist.

Explosion.

Dust.

Stone shards.

Fire sparks.

Zuko was thrown sideways, arms bracing over his face as he twisted and slammed into the ground in a hard roll.

He came up bleeding from the right temple.

Fong stood tall, arms at his sides, breathing hard now. A small burn sizzled at his left shoulder.

Zuko rotated his neck once.

Then planted both feet.

They stared.

The earth quaked again.

And the battle resumed.

Fong cracked his knuckles.

Zuko wiped blood from his cheek.

For a moment, there was silence, only the howl of distant fire, the shifting rubble under their feet, and the quiet creak of cracked metal plates in Zuko’s boots.

Then Fong stepped forward.

“You’ve improved,” the general said, voice calm but resonant. “No longer just your father’s stray mongrel.”

Zuko didn’t answer.

He moved.

A sharp stomp and spin, fire erupted from his heel, curling like a scythe. Fong ducked and countered with a straight uppercut of earth, catching Zuko mid-step. The stone burst through the ground like a battering ram. Zuko blocked with crossed forearms, flames hardening around his wrists…

Still, he was flung backward.

He landed on both feet, skidding, barely keeping his balance.

“You’re not the only one who’s been training,” Zuko muttered, rotating his left wrist to shake off the impact sting.

Fong charged.

Zuko met him with a forward roll, then launched a flurry of short, explosive jabs, each one sending tight bursts of fire aimed at Fong’s joints.

Fong absorbed three. On the fourth, he stomped and raised a platform under Zuko mid-strike, throwing the prince off balance. Before Zuko could recover, a slab of rock slammed into his ribcage, sent by Fong’s backhand.

CRACK.

Zuko let out a grunt of pain as he crashed against the plaza wall, coughing smoke and blood.

“Too slow,” Fong said flatly, lifting a chunk of debris and hurling it like a cannonball.

Zuko rolled, narrowly avoiding the strike, the boulder shattering the stone wall behind him.

“Your flames…” Fong continued, stepping forward, each footstep dragging up chunks of earth like armor, “they dance. But they don’t bite.”

Zuko’s eyes narrowed.

He exhaled once. Then again.

The flame at his feet began to ripple, brighter. Hotter. No longer orange. Flickers of white at the core.

Then he disappeared in a flash of flame, jetting low, like a fiery blur straight at Fong’s flank. Fong turned, but Zuko had already slid beneath his strike, arms sweeping wide in a flame cyclone aimed at his spine.

Fong grunted as his back scorched.

Zuko kept moving, hands flaming, spinning into a twin-kick that caught Fong’s temple.

Blood sprayed.

The general staggered, but did not fall.

Instead, he roared and drove both fists into the ground.

The stone beneath them exploded upward in a shockwave ring, like a pond being shattered by a meteor.

Zuko was thrown clear off the ground. He twisted mid-air and launched a fire burst to stabilize…

Too late.

Fong burst from below with a roar, delivering a brutal shoulder ram mid-air, slamming Zuko through a stone arch.

The prince hit the ground with a choking gasp.

Blood trailed from his lip. One eye already swelling. His armor dented.

Fong approached, arms layered in gauntlets of stone.

“You can’t win this,” he said. “Your fire is fury. My earth is fate.”

Zuko pushed himself up slowly, one knee down, hand braced on a scorched stone tile.

He spat blood and flame together.

“You talk too much.”

Fong lunged again.

Zuko brought both arms forward and unleashed a focused inferno, the heat so intense it melted the cobblestone between them. The air distorted. Soldiers watching in the distance had to shield their faces.

Fong plowed through it.

Roaring, he crashed into Zuko like a bull, grabbing him by the collar and driving him into the ground, where a crater cracked beneath them.

Zuko’s armor shattered at the shoulder. He gasped as his back struck jagged stone.

Another punch came down…

Zuko twisted, letting it graze past, and retaliated with a direct flame burst from his mouth, catching Fong in the face at point-blank.

The general reeled back, blinded momentarily, but not beaten.

Both men staggered apart.

Zuko’s knuckles were skinned. His left side bruised, possibly broken. His flame was still burning bright, but his balance now showed the price.

Across the plaza, Fong wiped charred flesh from his jaw, his eye bloodshot, his knuckles scorched raw.

And still, he grinned.

“You’re starting to bleed properly now.”

Zuko stood again.

Wiped his mouth.

And said nothing.

Zuko stood.

His legs trembled. Blood streaked his left temple and pooled beneath the cracked edge of his shoulder plate. His breath came in short bursts, teeth clenched against the weight of every bruise.

But he smiled.

It was small. Quiet.

Then he raised both hands.

Flames erupted.

Not like before.

This wasn’t the broad, pulsing fire of classic bending. This was refined heat, burning hotter than it had any right to. The color flickered erratically, starting orange, shifting to white at the core, then surging into a pulse of blue that hissed in the open air like metal against water.

Blue. White. Orange. Blue again.

It didn’t settle.

It didn’t need to.

It was alive.

Fong stepped back half a pace. Just one. His brow furrowed, not in fear, but in caution. In calculation.

He squinted at the flames dancing in Zuko’s palms, watching the heat rise, the way the surrounding air shimmered with distortion.

A long breath passed between them.

Then…

A voice cut through the chaos:

“Reinforcements! Reinforcements are here!”

Zuko’s head twitched toward the sound.

Fong turned sharply, eyes narrowing.

“General! More firebenders at the harbor gate!” an Earth Kingdom soldier called out.

And then another voice.

Calm. Cool. Drawled with purpose.

“Long time, General Fong.”

All heads turned.

High above, on the sloped rooftop of a half-collapsed storage building, stood a man in rich crimson armor, patterned identically to the Fire Nation elite, but without the theatrical mask or crested helmet. His hair was tied back in a short topknot. His frame was broad but lean, posture relaxed.

He stood with hands behind his back, observing like a nobleman at a festival.

General Rulo.

“So you finally showed up, Rulo,” Fong called up, voice dry.

Rulo shrugged with a half-smile. “We received the messages late. You know how bureaucracy is.”

Thunder.

From the harbor came a deafening boom.

Then another.

The forward-mounted catapults on Zuko’s flagship had found their range. The barrels roared in unison, and flaming boulders launched into the air like comets, smashing into Earth Kingdom barricades along the inner causeway. The impact splintered stone, sending shockwaves through the lower streets.

The air turned thick with dust and fire again.

Zuko straightened, breathing harder now. The blue in his flames flickered once more before fading to orange, his energy pulling inward, conserving itself.

Fong laughed.

Really laughed.

A deep, throaty bellow that echoed between the crumbling buildings and shattered walkways.

“Looks like your lapdog brought fireworks,” he called, flashing a wide grin.

He turned to his men, dust clinging to his bare torso.

“Let’s move out, boys! This fight’s gone soft!”

“Retreat?”

“Tactical relocation!” he barked, still laughing.

Earthbenders began to pull back. Some laid down temporary cover, walls of stone, lifted chunks of rubble to block line-of-sight as others carried the wounded.

Fong gave Zuko one last look.

“Not bad, Prince. But this ain’t the capital. You’re in my land now.”

Then he slammed his foot down,the ground split behind him, forming a sliding path of crumbling earth. He surf-launched himself backward, disappearing into the rising dust, his laughter still ringing long after his silhouette vanished.

From the rooftop, Rulo watched, arms still behind his back.

He turned his head slightly toward the artillery teams now assembling below, giving a simple nod.

Zuko remained standing.

Smoke in his lungs. Blood in his teeth.

But alive.

Just barely.

[A/N: Read 15 to 20 chapters ahead available right now on .com/saiyanprincenovels.com.]