Azula wakes up feeling like she's been run over by an empire-class battleship.
"Oh thank god, you're awake!" someone exclaims: Jaune. She blinks blearily in his direction, feeling the cottony dryness of her mouth, the screaming ache of her muscles. She's lying on a cot of some kind in a tent, it looks like.
She sits up, instantly more alert. Her chest ripples with pain at the movement, but when she touches her bloodstained front, there's no wound. And Weiss's Aura…
Weiss?
(…here.)
She's so faint now, like a whisper in the wind, Azula can barely hear her. It's like in the beginning, but now their roles have been firmly reversed. How ironic. Weiss sends her a packet of reassurance, sensing her mood, but it's weak, and under it, Azula can detect Weiss's obvious gloom at the situation. Getting physically injured badly, putting a mountain of strain on her Aura, has greatly accelerated her soul's decline, and then, too, when she had been burned in the fog...
"How am I alive?" Azula asks, pragmatically, probing her chest for a wound, not finding anything.
"You were dying after you took that arrow," Jaune says, "but I managed to unlock my Semblance, at the last second, while Pyrrha and that woman were fighting…"
"I suppose that means Cinder Fall wasn't able to obtain the remaining power of the Fall Maiden, then," Azula says. She makes a few more tentative movements, stretching a little bit. Jaune must have some Semblance alright, because the pain is fading fast, and she finds herself feeling fresh, invigorated, not as if she's just come back from the verge of death. Weiss hums a little tone of agreement. "How wonderful."
"Weiss…" Jaune starts, hesitantly. Then, he says, "No, you're not Weiss, are you? When I was boosting her Aura, it was so weak, it was almost gone, and I could also feel something, someone else mixing it with it… That was you, whoever you are."
"You're smarter than I gave you credit for," Azula says. She sees Jaune's look and sighs, and says, "I'm not your enemy. It was me, too, who took the arrow for your friend. Weiss and I have something of a partnership. That's all you need to know." Now, Azula frowns. "Tell me everything that happened. Where am I? How long has it been?"
Roughly eight hours have elapsed since the start of the attack which began with Amity. In the time that Weiss and her have been unconscious, a lot has happened. With help from Penny and other students, General Ironwood was able to regain control of half of his original fleet and is currently working to combat the rogue other half. The CCT Tower has gone down and global communications have been lost. The White Fang has been mostly scattered, thanks to the defeat of their leader.
"It was Ruby, Blake, and Yang who brought Adam Taurus in, actually," Jaune says. "It was a really close fight, and Yang took a few hard hits, but they managed to get through it okay."
The bit of Weiss's tension that had tightened her stomach when she had heard White Fang eases out. "Where are they right now?" Azula asks.
"They're back at Beacon," Jaune says, his expression wry. "They took a brief period of rest to recover and came by to see you, then went back with Ren and Nora and the others. I'm... here because everyone decided that I'm more valuable away from the front lines and staying back to heal the injured."
Jaune checks her over for a bit, then fetches her a new clean shirt and some pants at her request. When she climbs to her feet, he tries to protest, but Azula dismisses his concerns.
"You did a good job," Azula says, neutrally. "I'm fine now. I'm going to see what I can do to help." She pauses, and adds, "Thank you."
She's more than fine. With each passing second she feels more and more excellent, like she could take on an entire army all on her own. She stretches. It's been so long since she was this invigorated. This is quite nice.
"If you're sure. Then, I'm going to check on Pyrrha and make the rest of my rounds," Jaune says. "Look, if you feel the wound reopening or anything like that, come find me."
War makes everyone grow up fast, Azula thinks, watching the back of Jaune's head as he disappears. The gladness that she feels at knowing Ruby, Blake, and Yang are alright, that's Weiss's feelings reaching her and also a little of her own. Alone now, she tries to summon a bit of fire, and it appears in her palm, almost zealously, and the smile creeps up on her face. Yes. This is quite good.
Leaving the tent herself, Azula can see more clearly that she's still in the Vale city. It seems like this is the safe zone that Yang had mentioned earlier. The smell of smoke is acrid in the air. There are more tents, and harried soldiers stepping this way and that, and also what look like seasoned Huntsmen and Huntresses talking amongst each other. Airships are constantly arriving and taking off in the background, likely evacuating refugees while simultaneously bringing in reinforcements.
According to what Jaune said, Headmaster Ozpin died holding off Cinder long enough for the transfer of the Fall Maiden's power through the machine to complete (oh well; Azula can't honestly say she's very bothered by it). Pyrrha and Cinder subsequently fought each other to a standstill, both eventually retreating, both heavily injuring each other in the process, too. Looped around Beacon Tower in the distance, Azula spies the form of the giant dragon Grimm. Cinder is supposedly holed up there right now, licking her wounds.
The situation has become complicated. This is definitely close to the best case scenario she could have hoped, but it's still too early to call it a victory. Everyone has worked hard while she was off being unconscious. General Ironwood has probably almost redeemed himself. Good for him. And now, if Azula can just pull this off...
Descending from the sky, Azula spies an airship bearing the snowflake logo of the Schnee Dust Company.
For the second time since she's woken up, Azula allows herself a smile.
(...plan…?)
"Of course," Azula says. "But first, let's go say hello."
Weiss's father steps off the airship surrounded by a minutiae of yes men and security droids.
He sees her approaching, and it seems his mustache practically quivers with rage as his eyes narrow into thin slits. "Weiss!" He immediately goes for the slap, but Azula easily catches his hand. She's not going to let anyone touch her like that ever again. Her own father, who has at least never struck her in reality, has that going for him.
"Hello, Father. That's a nice airship. I know you have plenty of other airships, and plenty of other drones and technology, a veritable private army, that the SDC has been funding in secret," Azula says, sweetly, deciding to dive right into business. "So then. This is what you're going to do. You're going to take that army and deploy it here in order to assist General Ironwood with combating the Grimm."
"You insolent child! What do you think gives you the right to talk to me—"
"I'll talk to you however way I please, since you deserve exactly none of my respect," Azula says. Her grip tightens around Jacques Schnee's hand, applying pressure, and she relishes in the way his expression screws up with pain. "But if you need convincing, how do I say this, it'll be a good publicity stunt. God knows the company needs it after all your shoddy leadership."
" This is what we're going to do," Jacques Schnee hisses, but any chance of him being intimidating is thoroughly dashed by the fact that Azula still has his hand in hers, and is steadily increasing the pressure still, and she can feel how cold and sweaty it has become, his fingers twitching in her grasp. "You are going to come back with me, to Atlas, where I can keep a personal eye on you from now on, since it's becoming more and more apparent that you have forgotten your manners, and that you need to be reeducated on the matters of—"
"No," Azula says, casually. "You see, I'm not going back with you. I'm going to stay here and fight as is my right to make such a decision for myself. And you will deploy your army and help Ironwood, because here's another thing to convince you, think of how the headlines would look, if everyone learned of how you abandoned the heiress of the company, your precious daughter, to die in an active warzone without so much as lifting a finger to help, how after you came all this way to fetch her, you decided to just up and head on home because she gave you a little attitude. Oh, and maybe you disowned her on top of all that. Go ahead if you want, but I don't really think there's a good way for you to spin that sort of story."
"Weiss—!"
"Look, I'm offering you a win-win situation, and the alternative is a lose-lose for both of us, so for once why don't you just listen and do as I say?"
Any tighter and she's going to be breaking bone. They're drawing a lot of attention from the gathered crowd. Weiss's father's face is purpling with rage and pain, but at last he gives in with a tiny nod, and Azula lets go. Jacques Schnee glowers impotently at her for a good three seconds, then spins around and barks at one of the men standing there, looking dumbfounded. "What are you waiting for? Get it done!"
He promptly turns around and starts climbing back into the ship. Before the door closes, he turns around and gives her another dirty look, and Azula mentally apologizes a little bit to Weiss. This might (will definitely) cause more problems for her in the future, if they make it that far.
Then she laughs, because at the moment, Weiss is in shock and awe and is also happy.
It's easy enough to get to Beacon Academy again. Azula just has to follow the trail of destruction. There are still Grimm everywhere and the occasional White Fang member, but for the most part, Azula avoids them, knowing that for what's to come, she has to conserve her strength. Weiss forms glyphs for her to push off of when she can, and Azula is grateful, how good Weiss has become at reading her mind. The closer they draw to Beacon Tower, the thicker the hordes of Grimm grow.
When she sees the familiar color of Ruby's red cloak, surrounded by a flock of giant Nevermores, of course she still has to intervene.
"Holy shit!" Yang's mouth visibly drops wide open when Azula drops in front of the group, bending a huge wall of fire at the Grimm in the sky. The white-blue flames that rush at the Nevermores in a tidal wave exceed even Azula's expectations, and they back away with hurried flaps of their wings, screeching. She can feel the dawning sunlight of a new day on her back and experiences a sudden heady rush of exhilaration.
"Weiss!" Ruby throws aside Blake's concerned arm and rushes over to her. Azula braces herself, expecting maybe another attempted slap, but instead Ruby just pulls her into a hug.
She feels Weiss fighting to the surface, just barely, just enough to say, "I'm alright, Ruby."
"You really know how to scare us," Blake huffs out, and comes over and touches her shoulder. "Glad you pulled through after all. Again. You have to stop doing that nearly-dying thing."
"But seriously, what the hell was that ?!" Yang says, gesturing at the remnants of some of the downed Nevermores, slowly dissipating into black smoke. Her expression is still slack with amazement. "Is that your Semblance? That's actually insane!"
"That's firebending," Azula corrects, and she can't help the smile that graces her lips. "Although I may have overdone it a little."
"I'm so mad at you for lying to us, but I can't even stay mad," Ruby's voice comes out muffled where it's buried in Azula's shoulder. "Jaune and Pyrrha filled us in. They told us if you weren't there, then it's possible that woman would have… that they'd be…"
"Hate to break up the touching reunion," comes a drawl, and Azula looks over to see a scruffy looking man with dark hair, wine red eyes, a scythe slung over his shoulder, "but we're still in the middle of a fuck ton of enemies and nowhere near where we should be."
Ruby wipes at her face and lets her go. She brandishes Crescent Rose with a determined nod. The scruffy man is Qrow Branwen, Ruby and Yang's uncle, and he's a highly skilled Huntsman. The reason the four of them are smack dab in the middle of the Beacon campus by themselves while the other Huntsmen and Atlesian military teams are working on closing the perimeter of the school is because they have their own covert mission they're trying to carry out, hopefully without drawing the attention of Cinder Fall if possible.
Some of the Nevermores that escaped the first volley of flames converge on their location again, and they quickly deal with the Grimm, leaving a little breathing room to talk.
"We have a plan to take down the dragon," Ruby says.
"Well, that's excellent," Azula says. "Because Weiss and I have a plan to take down Cinder Fall."
"With all due respect, kid," Qrow scoffs, "she killed Ozpin and significantly injured the other half-Maiden. While your Semblance is very flashy, I sincerely doubt you could do a single thing to her."
"I'd love to hear your plan for the dragon, then," Azula says.
"So apparently I have death lasers in my eyeballs," Ruby says, excitedly.
Weiss radiates disbelief and exasperation. Azula blinks, then despite the situation, snorts in a rare moment of true amusement. "Okay. Right. I think things will go just fine."
They cut their way through the swathes of Grimm and reach the base of Beacon Tower. Judging by the way the interior of the tower keeps lighting up with flashes of red orange color, Cinder Fall is clearly not having a good time and might be in the middle of losing her mind. Above them, the dragon howls, spreading its wings. Giant black droplets of liquid drop down from its body and onto the ground, forming dark pools from which Grimm continued to crawl out of.
Weiss lights up a line of glyphs up the side of the tower for Ruby's group to run up.
"Let's do this!" Ruby says. Then, to Azula, more seriously, "We're counting on you two. Watch yourselves."
They disappear up the side of the tower to confront the dragon. Secretly, Azula thinks they must have the harder job of the two.
Now that she's figured out who Cinder Fall really is, her true identity, now that Azula has her bending back, she knows she can win.
(Still...careful…)
I know, Azula thinks back.
She walks into the tower.
The interior is half-crumbled with the signs of previous battles, dark and shadowed.
"Firebender," Cinder's voice comes out in a snarl, dripping with rage and pain. She emerges from the shadows of the sparking elevator, limping, one leg at an awkward angle. Blood drips down from a gash on her forehead, covering her right eye, but the single orange eye she does have burns with hatred. "I should've just killed you when I had the chance. How dare you get in my way and ruin everything."
"If it was a plan that could've been stopped by me blocking a single arrow," Azula smirks, cocking her head, "then you have to admit it was a pretty flimsy and idiotic plan. Actually, the truth is, you're quite stupid, aren't you? You've just happened to be extremely lucky up until now."
Pyrrha Nikos has done a number on Cinder, but more than the physical injuries, Azula is counting on the mental blow. Cinder doesn't even have the veneer of the cool confidence and poise Azula is familiar with as she screams in fury now and lashes out with an open palm, launching a stream of fire at Azula.
Azula grounds her stance and with a surge of her own flames simply parries Cinder's attack aside.
"That's impossible," Cinder says, when the fire has cleared, and she sees Azula standing there completely unharmed, and she sees Azula's stance. The look of horror on her face, combined with the anger and hate, Azula relishes in it. "If Pyrrha Nikos died, then the Maiden power would have come to me!"
"This isn't the power of the Maidens. It's mine . You thought all along that it was because bending doesn't exist in this world, that it was a physical impossibility that you couldn't bend, you almost even convinced me," Azula says. "But the truth was, that was just an excuse for yourself, because you're weak, through and through, and you could never figure this simple little thing out."
Her voice rings out loudly and derisively into the open air of the tower. Cinder's single eye widens, as if unable to believe what she's hearing. Finished with her taunt, it's Azula's turn to go on the offensive, launching a stream of white-blue flame at Cinder. Cinder rolls to the side, dodging it, then propels herself in a fury at Azula, twin jets of flame shooting from her palms, going for a short range blast of fire. It's a sloppy attack, telegraphed from a mile away, and Azula easily dodges it, and she strikes Cinder solidly in the side with a kick.
"If this were an Agni Kai," Azula says. "You'd already have lost. But that's no surprise, since you've lost all the important Agni Kais in your life, and you don't have a single scrap of honor or dignity left in you."
The tower around them suddenly jerks with a shudder, the dragon above them letting out a fearsome roar, engaged in its own battle. Azula curses as she briefly loses balance and Cinder recovers in a flash, closing the distance, slashing at her with a sword made of black glass. Azula blocks in time with her forearm, and although the impact is jarring, Weiss's Aura holds steady.
"How did you do it?!" Cinder is practically foaming at the mouth, spitting at her. "I spent years, years—"
"It's because you're just not good enough," Azula superheats the air around them, and a single blow with her other arm allows her to shatter the glass sword. "You were never good enough."
She kicks Cinder again, sending her skidding backwards.
"You're a failure," Azula says. "A disappointment to every single person in your life."
Another kick.
"No one will care when you die."
Cinder shoots to her feet. She screams and launches a huge plume of fire at Azula, bigger than any before, comparable to attacks made under the influence of Sozin's comet, and Azula is actually unable to completely disperse it. But Weiss comes in with a glyph, shielding her from the last bits of fire, and she emerges once more unscathed.
"Look at what you stooped yourself to, just to get a little bit of power," Azula says. "Working in the shadows like a coward, unwilling to face anyone directly unless you're confident you can win, trying to cling onto your foolish sense of pride. Not caring who you kill in the process, even if they're people who have nothing to do with you. No matter how powerful you become it won't change the fact that not only are you actually weak, deep down, you're also a disgusting and pathetic person."
"It is my destiny !"
Something seems to have snapped in Cinder's mind. She slams her palm into the ground and the entire floor turns red, and glass shards start shooting out of it. Azula rolls to the side and glyphs light up the wall in front of her, and she leaps onto them and makes it to the second floor of the tower.
Cinder bursts through the floor, sending molten metal flying everywhere. She shoots more glass at Azula. Azula ducks behind a support column, hearing the glass embedding into the concrete.
"Did you steal that power, too," Azula laughs, "when you stole that body?"
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
The column explodes, but Azula has already secretly moved out from behind it. Taking advantage of the fact that Cinder is injured and can only see out of one eye, she uses Weiss's glyph to maneuver behind the woman and strikes Cinder in the back with a pillar of white-blue fire.
Cinder stumbles before, but she doesn't fall, she whips around faster than Azula expected, arm slashing through the air, sending an arc of flame that Azula can't dodge. Azula grunts as the attack sends her flying and her back hits the wall, and she rolls to the side when Cinder's fist crashes into the wall beside her head, narrowly avoiding being cratered.
"I'll kill you," Cinder says, repeats. Her single orange eye is filled with madness, but it doesn't unnerve Azula, who can see through it perfectly to the person inside, Azula feels the blood dripping from Cinder's gashed forehead onto hers, sizzling hot, as Cinder continues, "Slowly, excruciatingly. A quick death would be too merciful for you."
"I only said the truth," Azula says. She forms a dagger of white-blue fire and stabs it towards Cinder's torso. And then, when Cinder is forced to let her go, and they have a bit of space, she adds, mockingly, "Your Highness."
Azula ascends to the third floor using her flame as propulsion. It might be a testament to how much she's shocked Cinder that it takes her a good minute before she follows. The tower rumbles again, and Azula knows it probably won't be long before the whole thing crumbles to pieces and falls apart.
"Even your mother hated you and couldn't love you, because you were a monster," Azula says. "And your father, whose feet you slaved at your whole life like a dog, could never be bothered to give you a single real chance. You were a mistake. You should have never been born. Destiny? Don't make me laugh. Look at where you are, and look at where your brother is, and see your destiny."
Because there is no better person Azula knows than herself. Because the truth is Cinder Fall, Azula came to the realization back in that field of endless fog, is just another version of herself, another Azula from a different world, similar to the one that she had come from, but older and more twisted and more broken, a person she could've become.
It's in the little mannerisms, the way she talks, the way she looks at people. It's in how much she has reminded Azula of herself time and time again. It's in the obsession with fire and destiny, and the determination to do whatever it takes, no matter how wrong or twisted, it's in her arrogance and cockiness and reckless confidence in her own strength, it's in her cleverness and the ingenuity of a plan that Azula probably would have thought up herself if it was her trying to destroy a kingdom and a city, and it's in her inability to bend just like Azula herself before she learned she could. But Azula knows, too, how fragile it all actually is, how a single block pulled out at the correct angle can bring the whole tower down, shattering like glass.
She sees Cinder's cracking apart expression, and there is no satisfaction to be had here, even if she is pushing all the correct buttons. She feels Weiss's sorrow and pity and regret as she vents out all her own deepest insecurities and pains. Then, an unexpected thing, Cinder, throwing her head back, one hand pulling at her hair and holding it out of her face as she cackles.
"Oh, I get it now," Cinder purrs. She takes one staggering step towards Azula, exhales a breath out of her mouth full of sparks. "You figured out who I am. You realized my original name. And now you think you can what, manipulate me? You think I'll lose my mind, just like that?"
"But you're wrong, and you're foolish, and you're the one who's going to die," Cinder laughs. "After all, I don't need to look at where my brother is to see my destiny. He's dead. I already killed him, years ago."
Azula stops.
"You…?"
Zuko?
Azula doesn't see the blast of air and is knocked off her feet. Cinder is the one who kicks her savagely this time, in the ribs, sending her skidding back a few feet.
"I blasted him apart with my lightning," Cinder says. "There was not enough of him left to burn let alone bury. How that water peasant cried and cried."
Azula twists her legs and hooks her feet around Cinder's ankle when Cinder gets close again, pulling her sharply to the floor. Cinder goes down hard, but her hand closes around Azula's knee in the process and freezes it to the floor in a block of ice. Despite herself, the panic is instinctive, and Azula jerks her knee out with a harried movement instead of trying to melt it with her bending. She jumps back, putting distance between her and Cinder, her heart skipping a fast beat.
"How ironic. You're scared of ice, are you? Had a traumatic experience with a water peasant of your own?" Cinder mocks as she climbs to her feet. She launches a pure beam of freezing energy at Azula and Azula bends a wall of fire to block it but the beam simply pierces through the wall of fire and slams into a support column behind her, turning it into a frozen block. "Let me guess who you are!"
(…go!) Azula doesn't need Weiss's urging before leaping onto Weiss's staircase of glyphs and ascending another floor.
"Haha, you coward!" Cinder's voice is triumphant with craze. "Just try to run if you can!"
She killed Zuko, Azula repeats, a little numbly, a little disbelieving. There is the smell of smoke filling the air as the bottom floors, likely from all the fighting they have done, have caught on fire and are burning out of control. Why is she so bothered? Is she actually sad at the idea that Zuko is dead even if it's not her Zuko? As if she really cares about Zuzu's welfare, as if it's anything to brag about… Of course it's easy to kill Zuko, she could have killed Zuko if she really wanted to anytime, he's singleminded and easy to rile up and above all else he's soft. All you have to do is take advantage of that fact.
Maybe it's because she actually killed him, and still, Cinder somehow ended up here, still, she couldn't get what she wanted, still she is alone, her plans on the cusp of failure, her brother dead on top of that, she did it all for nothing.
I blasted him apart with my lightning. I'll show you lightning. The emotional turmoil and raw anger inside her settles for a second, and Azula feels perfectly calm. Weiss, too, is silent, acquiescing. The cold-blooded fire comes to Azula as she rips her poles apart, and as Cinder flies up towards her, she strikes at her with a flash of electric blue lightning.