Team Girl Power + Zan 9

When I returned with the unconscious Bumi, meeting Azula half way up along the way towards the castle, she thankfully wasn't suspicious at all, and merely praised me for managing to get him back even at my 'disadvantage'.

When we got back and regrouped with Ty Lee and Mai, I thought that was us done in New Ozai and we'd be returning to the royal barge for a bit before beginning to chase after Aang and his friends.

I couldn't have been more wrong. But at least Tom Tom 'mysteriously' appeared in the castle, right behind his parents that very night.

Azula did indeed decide she wanted to capture the Avatar, but we where stuck in New Ozai for an entire week while Azula planned and traded messages, calling parts of the army to New Ozai so she could pick and choose what she wanted.

I didn't see much of her beyond meal times, and I wasn't even allowed to eat with them imply because it wasn't 'proper', I was only there because well, I was actually an Imperial Fire Bender, a member of the royal guard and Azula's hand picked bodyguard, despite how little I acted like it.

Beyond that, it was a period of time where I was again left with very little to do beyond train. Mai had little to no interest in me, Azula was incredibly busy, which left just Ty Lee to spend time with outside of training. Not that I was complaining.

The sly look she gave me when the governor heard about all the weapons in the armoury outside 'his' castle going missing completely made my day.

Ty Lee generally spent her time practising her flexibility and acrobatics, watching me train, walking around the city with me, generally hanging around me really or around Mai since Azula again, so busy.

It suited me just fine, and the more time we spent together, the more her affection and reputation metres slowly rose up bit by bit.

I was honestly strong enough to strike out on my own I thought. But, then do what? I didn't really have a plan yet to be honest. So until I fully had a plan I figured, living my life day to day, slowly getting better and just letting myself get dragged along for a little while longer wasn't a bad option.

I mean, I got access to plenty of nifty toys. Like, on one of my walks around the city, I came across another barracks, mostly identical to the first, the only difference being that instead of iron war axes there had been iron halberds. So I again, stuck them all within my inventory, weapon racks and all.

And I made a game out of discretely stealing money pouches from Mai's father. I was up to over two hundred fire nation gold pieces after the week. But the greatest thing I got my hands on, had to be when the army finally arrived. While the assembled higher ups were meeting with Azula, I managed to sneak off and grab a Tundra Tank and store it in my inventory. So whenever I wanted, I could pull it out and drive wherever I wanted as I pleased.

It was steam powered, so really all I needed was water, and I could easily stop at any river and just fill my inventory up with it as I pleased. Eat your heart out Katara.

Other than that, as mentioned before, I spent much of my time training. I kept mostly to the basics for most of the days, but there was one technique I worked on learning. One I always liked seeing Zuko use. Coating his dao blades in fire.

Flame Channelling, the technique was called. And it worked on many different things, not just dao blades, and in the process I learned quite a bit about shaping my fire into specific patterns and shapes. And in the process of all the training I did over the week, not only did my endurance stat rise by three points.

I also while training and working with Flame Channelling, coating my swords with it and such, getting a feel for shaping my flames around them, ended up learning another technique, an advanced form, a tier up from the Flame Channelling.

Flame Shaping. It was a way of shaping my flames into specific patterns and shapes. It ended up being enough for me to rise passed the Expert tier of Sozin Style Fire Bending, right up into Elite tier. Apparently, there was one more tier before the master tier.

And it opened up a lot of avenues for me, Flame Shaping that is. Because with it, I could begin the process of creating the signature technique I had in mind.

Still, on the seventh day, a week after meeting Aang, everything that Azula wanted had arrived and had been properly set up to her specifications.

On top of the food, drink, clothing currency and more she desired as necessities, she also had four mongoose lizards brought along. Massive dark scaled reptile creatures twice as large as a horse, easily capable of carrying a person and even running across water. They were like gargantuan versions of those frill necked lizard things from Australia, only without the frills and looking more like a salamander. One for each of us.

I would have loved to meet mine and play around with it a bit. But I didn't get the chance, because the final demand Azula made to her peons, was for a Tank-Train. A massive armoured tank as large and as long as a bus, with multiple train compartments attached at the back. Three to be precise. One to keep the supplies in, one for the mongoose lizards to stay in and one for the three girls to rest and stay within.

And where was I in amongst all this? I was in the cockpit, the one stuck with the job of driving the thing constantly, since it was coal and fire bending powered and it wasn't 'proper' for a young teenage male to sleep in the same room as three young noble ladies.

Despite the protests Ty Lee made in my honour. To be fair though, out of the three, she was the only one I could spend an extended amount of time around without getting irritated.