Chapter 74 - Traveling

The Fire Lord is groaning while trying to struggle free. Unfortunately for him, seras is hundreds of times stronger.

"You....Sicken me." The atmosphere around seras becomes darker as her eyes glow brighter.

Ozai can't say anything because his throat is being crushed.

"You have no idea how lucky you are. If the avatar didn't need to defeat you so I could go home. I swear, I would have given you so much pain you would have wished to die." Seras let's her hand go because she saw that he was about to pass out.

"Let go of my father!" Azula yells as she lightning bends at seras.

The lightning bolt went through her stomach and the pain was agonizing. Despite that, seras still didn't move from her spot. She stares into the fire lords eyes and he sees something he's never seen before. Death.

"Azula.....you're intelligent, beautiful, and strong. However these magnificent traits of yours have been overshadowed by something disgusting. Something....lesser." Seras speaks while standing up.

Her wound was closing as she spoke. She walks closer to the princess who was speechless and caresses her cheek. The action made her flinch from some violent emotions she couldn't process and smacks the hand away.

"Shut up! You don't know me! You've never even met me before!" She punches out with a large blue flame but seras side stepped it.

"Oh princess....I know much more than you think." She whispers into the young girl's ear from behind before phasing away.

Azula attacked behind her but when she looks in that direction nobody was there. She frowns in thought when she hears her father coughing. Azula immediately drops what she is doing to attend to him.

"Guards! Send for the Healers!" Azula commands those waiting outside which sends the palace into a flurry of actions.

Seras reappears outside of the palace walls and morphs her clothes while inside a crowd. When she entered, she was wearing her South Pole clothes that katara gave her. But when she exited, she was wearing clothing to what katara wore while in the fire nation.

"This should give me a while." She smirks before looking around.

Soon she finds what she was looking for.

"One detailed map please." She points to a section which has multiple brochure-like papers on it.

"Coming right up." The employee smiles before taking one and placing it in her hand.

Sees immediately opens it and discovers a completely detailed map of only the Fire nation. She counts the towns necessary to go through before getting to her destination. The man looks to the side as she rolls it up before phasing away.

"That'll be two silver, please." He opens his palm waiting for change when he notices seras was missing.

"Thief! Catch the thief!" The employee yells immediately but when soldiers come to ask where she went he couldn't tell them anything.

"Sir, don't waste our time on fake reports. If you do this again we'll have no choice but to put you in prison." The guard spats out in annoyance because he wasted his time.

"But I-" the employee can't finish because the soldiers left.

While he was getting chewed out, seras was on another road chewing a fruit she also stole while reading the map.

"If I head east, there should be a port which will have ships. Maybe I can find smugglers heading to the North Pole...." she mumbles before throwing away the center part of the fruit.

As seras escaped the palace with ease, Zuko just got a letter from his father via his uncle's bird carrier. He reads it and as he gets further along his expression becomes more grim.

"Zuko?" His uncle asks in worry.

"It seems Azula was the one that actually got credit for catching that blonde fire bender. Now it's going to be almost impossible to reclaim my honor." He grits his teeth as the letter becomes ash.

"Azula?.....I'm sorry nephew. However the avatar is still out there and when you capture him I'm sure you'll reclaim what you think you lost." He pats Zuko's shoulder.

"You really think so Uncle?"

"Of course! I guarantee it." He smiles assuringly making Zuko believe him.

Zuko decides to conduct more training making iron be alone in the room. When zuko closes the door, the original smiling face turned into one of iron. He combs his beard with his hand as he looks out the window.

'That young lady, even without her bending should be too powerful for a simple commander and his subordinates to capture. That means there was either an accident or she allowed it to happen.'

'However I don't believe she'll allow herself to be captured as she seemed too prideful for such a thing. So she must have encountered something that rendered her weak enough to be taken.' His thoughts stop here because he can't infer anymore from the information he has been given.

He calmly takes a sip of tea before sighing like he has the whole world on his shoulders.

As this was happening, the gang has just set up camp for the night in low spirits.

Aang has been worried about how he has less than a year to master the other three elements and katara is worried about seras. Suffice to say that their trip is full of anxiety, at least for the two of them.

"Cmon guys! Turn those frowns upside down!" Sokka yells in an upbeat mood but the others don't respond.

"Katara~ you know you want to waterbend. It always makes you happy." He wags his arms around in a silly movement.

"And aang. Come on and sneeze, you know you want too~" he uses a feather to attack his nose making the air bender ticked.

""SHUT UP SOKKA!"" They both hell in unison which makes him back up.

"How can I relax and water bend when one of my friends was captured by the fire nation! How can you be such an idiot!?"

"I literally have the whole world on my shoulders and I only have a year to save it! How can I be playing around!?"

Both of them yelled at the same time making their statements confusing. Sokka eventually settles down as he throws away the feather.

"Finally!" He sighs loudly making the two confused.

"Do you guys have any idea how awful it was riding in that awkward silence? I know the situation is bad, but seras can handle herself. You saw how easily she beat up the Kyoshi warriors and took out the soldiers in the South Pole." His statement makes them remember.

"..." he notices that that made them less worried.

"Now that that's good, can we please, at least for my sanity, travel with some conversation?" He pleads making them smile.

"Haha, you're right sokka. Seras is strong, I'm sure she'll be ok." Katara wipes away a tear while smiling.

"That's true. Plus she knows we're heading to the North Pole so if we get there we might meet her there." Aang says.

"Precisely! That's exactly what I was thinking." Sokka pulls out a map and unfolds it.

"We're here and it seems we're half way to the North Pole. If all goes well we should get their in 3 or 4 weeks."

"Great! Then I can finally learn water bending."

"Right? Then let's head to bed so we can head off early." Sokka puts the map away as they all head to bed.

Three days have passed since seras fled the palace and she is leisurely taking her time to head to a port. If she ran, she could have crossed the distance in a few hours, but she decided against it.

'It would have ruined the scenery if I ran, I'm glad I took it slow." She takes a fruit from a tree and bites into it.

Seras stops at a boulder and rests as she takes out her map. She traces the route she has taken and sees that the next village is close by.

"It seems like its going to be dark soon." She looks up and sees that the sky is a dark red.

She walks for another half hour when she reaches civilization. It's a little premature to call it that, but people live here so it's better than sleeping outdoors. She heads to an inn and opens the door only to be shocked by the proprietress standing inside.

'Are you fucking shitting me!?' She mentally yells to herself as she stares at an elderly women who is smiling warmly.

"Welcome young one. Is it just you tonight?" The woman asks gently.

".....yes. Just me." The woman ignores the strange pause as she welcomes seras inside.

'Hmm? No luggage?' She thinks to herself as she lets this young woman inside.

"How much for a single night?" Seras asks.

"It'll be 10 copper. However that doesn't come with a meal. If you wish to have dinner it will be another 3 copper."

"That won't be necessary. A meal actually appeared before me tonight and I'll be eating it in my room." Seras hands her ten copper coins.

"Is that so?" She asks back in confusion but decides to not question as seras walks upstairs.

"It doesn't matter because it's a full moon. Tonight. If seras were to turn around she would notice an insane grin that has no business being on such an old woman's face.

Seras Laos down on the bed and stares at the ceiling. Her eyes show doubt because of the woman she has just met. The woman was Hama who taught Katara blood bending in book 3.

'Should I? But then Katara wouldn't learn Bloodbending which she uses against her mothers killer. However is that really bad? She never liked having this ability.'

'Let's do it this way. If she tries to use her Bloodbending on me tonight, I'll kill her, if not then I'll let her go. That should be fine, right?' her thoughts stop as she hears a knock on the door.

"Excuse me? Just making sure you have everything you need before I go to bed myself." Hama's voice sounds from the door.

"I'm fine. Thank you for asking." Seras replies but doesn't open the door.

"Very Well. Have a good night."

"I will.....I definitely will..." she states the second sentence as a whisper when she hears the low cackling coming from the proprietress.

At 11:30, seras felt her body beginning to feel wrong. Almost like her organs and blood were pushing against her skin. It was definitely a creepy feeling but it became almost painful as it got stronger.

'You definitely chose the wrong person to do this to, Hama.' her eyes glow red making it the only thing anyone would be able to see through the window.

Seras allows her body to be controlled as she feels that she could break free at any time. She is controlled to go through the inn and outside to walk uphill. Her body unnaturally steps through the forest like an unskilled puppeteer is controlling her.

"Heh...hehe...I wonder why you're not screaming?' A creepy laughter sounds out from the forest which echoes.

"...miss Innkeeper?' Seras asks with mock fear but Hama doesn't know that.

"Hehe, yes it's me. Now, tell me. Are you frightened? Scared of what's going to happen to you?" Her questions get louder despite it being a whisper.

Seras can feel breath on her neck as her body keeps walking.

"Am I scared? Not really." She would yawn if she could but for some reason she can't despite being able to speak.

"What? Ha, you have bravado. But eventually they all scream. Hehehee..." He rlong fingernails touch her neck which makes seras have enough.

"Is that so!" Seras turns around and grabs the woman's throat at the last word making her eyes bulge from confusion.

"Wha-!" She can't finish because seras pushes her body against a large tree with a lot of force causing her old bones to crack.

"You know, if you didn't do this shit I was planning on letting you go. At least until a few months later. But, now you only have yourself to blame for what's going to happen." Seras grins wide as she uses her other hand to break Hama's right wrist which was about to bend the water form the tree behind her.

"Aaagh!!" She painfully roars.

"Hama the Blood bender. Ah Man, that has such a nice ring to it, doesn't it?' Her fangs get shown because she is smiling so wide which causes the screaming woman to stop in fear.

"Y-you...What are you!" She yells hoping someone would be out here.

"Shhhh....you're sucking all the fun out of this for me. I even paid 10 copper for that crappy room so at least give me some extra service." She rubs her hand on the woman's necks making her freeze in place no longer able to yell.

"Yesss, I like silence from my meals every now and then. Don't get me wrong, the screams and the cat and mouse games are fun, but sometimes a girl just wants a quiet dinner in the moonlight." She whispers gently as her mouth gets closer.

Seras notes Hama's neck after finishing the sentence. The woman's frail body doesn't take long to get even more frail and in a few seconds she becomes dust in the wind. Seras stares at the clothes which fell on the ground with a blank look.

A couple minutes later her blank look disappears as she begins laughing. Her laughter gets louder until it becomes so loud multiple trees lose their long standing inhabitants.

"Hahahaahahaha! This feels amazing!!! Heheeh! I feel so giddy from happiness!!" She begins to skip through the forest at weird intervals phasing through trees and bushes.

Seras practically dances through the area not knowing why she feels like this. Eventually the feeling goes away and she reigns in the insanity.

"Haha. That was amazing." She sighs before looking at her hands.

She takes what she knows about earth and fire bending before trying a movement with her arms. She waits a few seconds but nothing happens making her displeased.

"Aw man....and I really wanted to try water bending right away." She pouts before deciding to head back to the inn.

However when seras looks up, she doesn't recognize where she is and frowns at the fact she got lost when she was in that moment of insanity. She tries to find her way back to a few minutes when she gives up.

'It's not like I had anything important at the inn.' She jumps up into a tree and lays on a large branch before closing her eyes.

Before she falls asleep her mouth forms a curve as to the many ideas she has had for when she obtained water-bending.

'Water has always been the most interesting element to me...'