Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to either the Batman: Arkham City game or the Avatar: The Last Airbender television series.
Professor Hugo Strange pulled up the sleeve of his uniform and gazed at his watch. Its hands read a quarter past two in the afternoon. Resetting the sleeve to cover the watch he once again looked across the small table towards the door leading out of the interrogation room. His TYGER Operatives were late delivering his first interview subject of the afternoon. Perhaps they were having trouble locating her in Cobblepot's territory, the bowery. Perhaps they had succeeded in locating her but she was proving difficult for them to subdue. Given the abilities described in the file by the late Dr. Penelope Young, he wouldn't find it at all surprising.
She was a highly skilled martial artist with pyrokinetic abilities who had found a means to combine the two talents to create a deadly fighting style she referred to as "fire bending." Combining that with a keen intellect, a strong tactical mindset, and a certain mental instability that lent itself to delusions and extreme flights of fancy, the girl was a difficult subject to manage and had proven to be a potent threat for the Gotham City Police until, of course, the Batman intervened.
It was almost half past two before the door finally swung open, his cue to begin recording audio. Two guards with tazers at the ready entered first taking up positions on either side of the door while two others in the hallway outside proceeded to roughly push a young teenaged girl into the interrogation room before slamming the door shut and locking it. Strange stood to greet her, first taking stock of her appearance. The metallic gleam of the handcuffs that decorated her wrists was the only color to offset the deep red and gold of her costume (her favored colors it seemed) which she wore under a set of what appeared to be samurai armor that had been painted over to match (likely obtained from Cobblepot's collection when she first allied herself with him). Her long dark hair was in wild disarray that nonetheless served to frame a bruised, battered, and bloodied face with a pair of the most piercing golden eyes glaring out of it. Noticing a general dampness about her and patches of white foam here and there on her person he rightly concluded that his guards had done as he ordered and doused her with extinguishing chemicals before bringing her in.
"Miss Azula," he greeted her with a false warmth he'd developed from decades of practice, "so good of you to join me for this little talk. Do you know who I am?"
She made no move to respond.
Undeterred, Strange continued, "I am Professor Hugo Strange, administrator of the Arkham City facility. The reason you were brought here this afternoon is your failure to appear for your first scheduled psychiatric evaluation last week. I hope you understand now what measures I will be forced to take if you prove to be uncooperative in the future."
Again, no apparent response from the girl.
"Guard," Strange spoke in the direction of the two at the door. "Please remove the patient's restraints."
Responding to the order, the guard on the left moved forward, withdrew a keychain from his pocket, and proceeded to remove the cuffs binding the girl's wrists. All the while she remained motionless, as though she had somehow entered into a catatonic state while simply standing there. Her eyes, which never once broke contact with Strange's own, served as the only indicators that she was at all aware of her surroundings.
With the handcuffs removed the guard returned to his station and Strange settled back into his seat at the table.
"Please, Miss Azula, take your seat," he spoke gesturing briefly towards the chair on the opposite side of the table. "We have much to discuss, you and I."
She continued to glare at him a moment longer, perhaps hoping that if she continued long enough she could cow him into submission. When that finally proved useless she broke eye contact for a moment, apparently to organize her thoughts, before returning her gaze to Strange and beginning to speak in that intensely sharp, subtlely accented voice that he readily recognized from Dr. Young's recorded patient interviews.
"I am not Miss Azula. I am Princess Azula, her royal highness. It doesn't matter to me who you are or what you do, you will address me properly."
She famously believed herself to be royalty from an alternate reality, although whether it was the truth or merely another one of her delusions was impossible to determine. For his part, Strange chuckled softly in response while shaking his head. "I am not one of your subjects, Azula, and am under no obligation to address you in such a fashion. But, in the interests of developing amicable relations between the two of us, I will refer to you as "Princess Azula," if that is your wish."
"If it is your wish to have amicable relations with me then you will release me from this place so I can find a way to return to my home," she spoke tersely with obvious agitation.
"That, I'm afraid, is something I cannot do, Princess. The only way you will ever be leaving this facility is if I am suitably convinced that you no longer pose a threat to society."
She slammed her fists down on the table, "I'm not a threat to your society," she ground out through clenched teeth, "there's no reason for you to hold me here."
Strange made a show of opening the folder that contained Azula's file and flipping through it, "I am sure that there are certain members of the Wayne Enterprises security staff, Science Department, and the GCPD who would beg to differ with you on that assessment."
"They were in my way. They got what they deserved."
"Did they? During your attack on the Wayne Enterprises Science Department you held a young women hostage, Dr. Helen McCarthy was her name. She was one of Dr. Howard's assistants for his dimensional tunneling research. It says here in the coroner's report," he withdrew the document from the folder, "that before she died she suffered a combination of first, second, and third degree burns across the entirety of her body, each of them in the distinct shape of a handprint. Dr. Howard testified that you were torturing her in an attempt to force him to help you return to the place you claim is your home dimension. Tell me, Princess," he spoke softly, gazing at her through his the thick lenses of his glasses, "was Dr. McCarthy standing in your way? Did she get what she deserved?"
If she could set Hugo Strange on fire with her gaze alone, he did not doubt that she would have done it. "What is it you want from me, Strange? Why am I here?"
"I simply wish to better understand you. To hear your story in your own words. To learn what forces made you the person you are today, especially at such a young age. Won't you talk to me?"
Azula shook her head, "No. I already went through this with that Young woman. She recorded our interviews, listen to those or, better yet, interrogate her if you're so interested."
"Unfortunately," Strange began as he removed his glasses and began cleaning them with a small piece of cloth, "Dr. Penelope Young is no longer with us. The Joker killed her during his takeover of Arkham Island last year. I believe that you were there that night, incarcerated in the intensive treatment ward. I confess I am curious to know, why you did not join with the Joker at that time. I'm sure in the chaos you could have easily found the opportunity to take your revenge on the Batman for the way he humiliated you."
"I stayed in my cell that night for two reasons, the first being that Joker tends to be as much of a threat to his allies as he is to his enemies."
"An impeccable observation," Strange said, setting his glasses back in place. "And the second reason?"
"When I kill the Bat, when he is slowly being consumed by blue flames, screaming as his skin melts off of him, I want him to know not just that he's dieing at my hands but that it was happening purely for the sake of my own revenge, no one else's. Not as just a part of that clown's schemes."
"Hmmm, interesting," Strange muttered softly to himself. "We'll return to the subject of the Batman another time, perhaps. You have asked me why you should tell me your story when you have already told it to Dr. Young on a previous occasion. For myself, I wish to satisfy my own curiosity about your case and follow my own line of questioning that differs from Dr. Young's in many respects. I also hope to produce a more satisfactory audio record of you as an interview subject as your mastery of the English language has improved significantly over these years."
"None of this is motivating me to cooperate with you. You can have your thugs beat me all you like. I have no reason to help you."
"Don't you? Tell me, how goes your quest to find a way to return to your home dimension? Not very well I expect."
She grimaced, as he'd clearly hit a sore spot. "These things take time, Strange. I'm sure a man in your profession can understand that."
"I can see to it that it takes far less time if you cooperate with me. Please, Princess Azula, sit and tell me your side of the story. I promise you, after today, each time you come to see me at the appointed time I will provide you with a vital piece of information for your research. My contacts can supply me with all the research documents related to the dimensional tunneling project that is currently underway at S.T.A.R. Labs in Metropolis. You want to go back to your home, yes? And take your revenge on all those who betrayed and ruined you? I can help you to make it possible."
This finally tore the, until then, ever present scowl off from her face. She suddenly seemed disoriented, unsure of what to do anymore, this new information suddenly made her precious defiance seem significantly less valuable than it had been.
Professor Hugo Strange watched her make her decision, a small smile curling his lips ever so slightly as Princess Azula reached out a pale hand, pulled her chair out from under the table, and sat down.
"What do you want to know?" she asked, meeting his gaze once more.
"Please," Strange replied as he leaned forward against the table, steepling his fingers as he did so, "tell me everything."