Zuko Doesn't Join The Gaang Early - Tumblr Posts
Can you imagine if Zuko hadn’t shown Uncle Iroh the Appa flyer and Uncle had just stayed home. How the whole stealing the Avatar’s bison plan would go?
First Zuko removes Appa’s chains (except for like two chains for steering). He knows that you have to say yip-yip by now, and Appa has no problem letting him climb on, they take off… The moment they are above the lake Zuko notices that he has a) nowhere to take Appa and b) no way to steer him away from the Gaang, whom Appa is currently flying towards at top speed.
The Gaang are delighted to see Appa rescuing them from the Dai Li, and then they notice the still-disguised Blue Spirit clinging to his back. And only Aang knows who the that is. Sokka and Katara are like ‘the Blue Spirit, of the Wanted Posters? Wanted mostly for crimes against the Fire Nation? Noice.’ Then Detective Sokka asks if he is even the real Blue Spirit or a copycat, because what are the chances of the original ending up in Ba Sing Se, so far from his first appearances, right?
Meanwhile Aang has been making his classic ‘I’m not mentioning something that I really should’-faces, and huh, what Sokka says makes sense. He kind of wants to believe it too, seeing as they’re about to storm the palace and there would be no time to deal with Zuko, if he were here. So hopefully it isn’t him! (He is still ready to protect his friends from maybe-Zuko at a moment’s notice, of course.)
Anyway, Zuko manages to keep his mouth shut (the Blue Spirit disguise kinda helps with that), and he reluctantly has to admit that fighting the whole Team Avatar right now might not work out super well, but he also can’t just leave and try again tomorrow. And that’s how Zuko gets dragged along when they depose Long Feng and tell Kuei about the war…
He gets home in the evening and has to explain to his worried Uncle that he has technically helped the Avatar with a coup. The Blue Spirit is officially an Earth Kingdom hero now and has been invited to join the Earth King’s personal security. He doesn’t even have to take the mask off or talk (they can give him some paper to write when they really need to ask some questions) because Kuei doesn’t realize that isn’t exactly normal hiring practises for royal security. It’s still a prime information-gathering opportunity, though. Yes, he knows it’s dangerous and he even told the Earth King (in writing) that he has to work for his uncle and that’s how you were invited to serve tea to the Earth King, Uncle! (For real this time.) (Safety concerns are suddenly a lot less important to Iroh.)
(This is the best case scenario – worst case, the Gaang realize who he is, kick his ass, and later they tell the Earth King he has infiltrated Ba Sing Se and now the City Guard, the Dai Li and maybe the Army are searching for him. Fortunately they don’t know where he lives, but fat chance of being able to work at the new Upper Ring teashop with Uncle.)