Tonight is the night, the bedraggled girl thought to herself as she leaned against the back wall of her cell. Tonight is the night I will finally escape from this hellish establishment and climb my way back to the top… Where I belong.
She gritted her teeth as all the memories of how close she came to being crowned the Queen of the Fire Nation flooded her head. If only that damned brother of hers hadn't turned into a traitor. If only he hadn't brought that pesky little Waterbender along to interfere with their Agni Kai. She was sure she would have won if she hadn't had to deal with that blue-eyed parasite. She could have been the first female ruler of the Fire Nation… Of the entire world.
She could have had limitless power over every living, breathing thing on Earth, and the mere thought of what she'd been reduced to (a defeated, seething mental patient) was enough to make steam blow out of her ears.
But she had to remain calm. She and her father had discussed this plan over and over again whenever they were permitted to visit each other, and the only way their heist would work was if she could keep herself composed.
She smirked. Of course she could. It was silly of her to doubt herself, really. She was Azula, daughter of the former Phoenix King Ozai. She was royalty. She had been trained since childhood in the arts of tact, strategy, and grace. She was the sibling who should have been sitting on the throne, not Zuko.
And whenever she escaped, rallied her supporters, and took down that scarred cretin, that was exactly where she'd be. She simply had to wait.
About an hour passed before she could hear the heavy footsteps and loud chattering of her evening guards coming to retrieve her for her nightly bathroom break. This was it. This was her chance.
She casually inspected her nails as the key turned with a clink in the lock of the heavy, metal door. It had one very small window with stubby iron bars obstructing the opening. She supposed they were there to prevent more aggressive inmates, such as herself, from gouging the eyes out of the guards with chopsticks or suffocating them with a harsh grip on their throats. She had to hand it to them, it was a smart move. She wasn't entirely sure that she wouldn't have tried either of those tactics, had the opportunity presented itself.
"Alright, prisoner, you know the drill," said the shorter, stockier guard as the door swung open. "Keep your hands raised above your head where we can see them at all times, ya-da ya-da ya-da, don't try anything funny."
Azula smiled mockingly at him. "'Prisoner'? Oh, come now, surely we've seen enough of each other this past year to be on a first-name basis. No need to keep re-enforcing all these tired formalities, don't you agree?"
The taller, skinnier guard rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, just get a move on."
She shrugged nonchalantly and proceeded down the hallway as they asked.
Alright, Daddy. Time to make you proud.
As soon as she passed through the doorway leading into a separate hallway, she grabbed the doorknob and bashed the door into the shorter guard's face. He stumbled backwards into the taller guard, crying out in pain and clutching at his now-broken nose. They both collapsed to the ground, and Azula noticed that the key to that particular ward had fallen out of one of their pockets.
The taller guard noticed too, and tried desperately to wiggle out from under his partner in order to get a hold of it. His fingertips barely grazed the cool metal before Azula swooped in and plucked it from the ground.
"Well, boys, it certainly was lovely to see you again," the former Fire Princess quipped as she stood triumphantly above them. "Though I'm terribly sorry to inform you that this is our last encounter. In fact, the next time you see me, it will most likely not be in person, unless you decide to show up for my coronation. Otherwise, you'll just have to settle for gazing at my lovely face on posters around the city that will be created for that event."
With that, she locked the two bumbling idiots in the ward and sped off to her point of escape. She envisioned the prison map that her father had smuggled in for her as she quickly and quietly sprinted down various corridors. Two right turns, then a left. After that, she would have to keep running straight until she came to the nearest window in the vicinity that had a considerably low drop to the ground. Not that she needed things to be easy, of course. It was just that she was about to escape from the Boiling Rock and preferred that all her limbs stay intact for her getaway.
She could hear shouting and felt the muffled thumps of footsteps behind her as more and more guards were alerted to her presence. A satisfied and somewhat arrogant smile spread across her face. Good. They should be worried.
The forementioned window, her gateway to freedom and all it entailed, finally came into view up ahead. However, her path was cut short by the prison warden, who darted into view from a side hallway a few yards in front of her.
"Going somewhere, Princess?" The man had to be at least in his early fifties, but was fit for his age. He was also a Firebender, Azula knew, and had seen him many times at Uncle Iroh's various Pi Sho tournaments when she was younger. He had never supported the war effort whenever her father had been Fire Lord, and was more than happy to take on the job of keeping all the war criminals in line in jail.
Azula stopped in her tracks, relaxed her shoulders, and smirked as she placed a hand on her hip. She could take him.
"I suggest you get out of my way, old man. You wouldn't want to get hurt, now would you? Especially not from attacks inflicted by a young girl like me. Wouldn't exactly boost your reputation, you know."
The warden barked out a quick laugh, but narrowed his eyes at her nonetheless, clearly insulted by the fact that a teenager was patronizing him. "You'll do well to keep your mouth shut, girl. Now do as commanded and go back to your cell, before you do something to get into even deeper trouble than you're already in."
It was Azula's turn to laugh, and what a maniacal laugh it was. "I don't think you understand, warden. I'm leaving. Not that it hasn't been fun, playing the deranged, teenage criminal who was thrown in a psychiatric ward in prison for a year, but I really did nothing to deserve this punishment and I've decided I'm not going to put up with it anymore. So if you could just step out of the way-"
"Seize her!" The warden pointed to the crowd of guards standing a few yards behind her, his face red from anger.
If Azula had time to roll her eyes, she would have. Unfortunately, the accomplice who was waiting outside for her in a boat had persistently and nervously reminded her father that he could not wait forever for her arrival. She would just have to reserve her witty put-downs for a later time and take out these guards as quickly as she could. It would be easy enough.
She spun around and sent a huge wave of fire roaring at the armor-clad fools. She wasn't a stupid girl. She knew they hadn't expected it, seeing as how the prison cook was instructed to dissolve anti-bending tablets in any known bender's drink. It hadn't been hard to dispose of the liquid when no one was looking, whether she poured it in the pot of a plant or forced it upon another unlucky soul in the cafeteria.
The untamed orange flames sent them scattering off in all different directions, yelping and panicking like the cowards they were.
Twenty or so down, the warden to go.
She whirled around just in time to send a counteractive ball of fire straight at the one he'd aimed at her seconds before. It felt excellent to finally let her chakra loose, to finally release all the pent-up frustration she'd been trying to ignore in the form of her blessed element. The fact that she was taking a great deal of it out on the "boss" made it that much better. She had always been one to assume authority rather than answer to it.
She dodged flame after flame as she closed the distance between them. She was finally able to edge close enough so that the end of her cracking, sizzling whip of fire sent him flying backwards into the wall. He clasped the upper part of his left arm as he struggled to stand. However, he was too greatly weakened and simply slid back down to the floor.
"Can't say I didn't warn you," Azula chided as she stooped down so that they were on eye level. With one swift movement, her fist collided with the warden's head and he blacked out instantly. She ripped off one of his heavy, steel-toe boots and flung it at the window. She was off into the night before any guards discovered their unconscious superior in the hallway.
A/N: Alright. So. Welcome, whoever you are, to my attempt at writing a half-decent Azula and Jet fic that was originally going to be an attempt at a half-decent Zutara fic before this wild idea popped into my head. I really don't know why I had suddenly got the feeling that I should write it about them instead; the idea just sort of appeared out of nowhere, dragged me into an alleyway, and beat the living snot out of me until I finally agreed to comply. So, here I give you chapter 1. There could be many more chapters, depending on your opinion of how it's going so far. I know there really isn't much to go on as, again, it is only the first chapter, and Jet is so far nowhere in sight. I guess I should warn you that this is most likely going to be a slow moving story at first, seeing as how I don't even have chapter 2 written yet (oops). I just wanted the get it started and post SOMETHING so I felt like I was making some progress with this. Well, I'll get back to writing so you can get to reading. Au revoir!
