I OWN NOTHING!
After the viewing for the first part of this new world was over, a wave of concern washed over certain individuals. Chief among them were Katara, Zuko, Iroh, and Ty Lee. As a healer, Katara knows just what kind of damage one's mental health can suffer due to a variety of circumstances. And in Azula's case, she is a true victim of circumstance. Born into a noble family during a time of war and forced to grow up groomed into a vicious killing machine. She never really did get the chance to be a child at any point in her life. In a way, she really isn't so different from Katara herself. They were both forced to grow up well before their time because of that war.
Ty Lee was worried for her friend, knowing how the events that led up to her eventual imprisonment had helped cause Azula's descent into madness. She often blamed herself for what happened, thinking that if she and Mai had stayed by her side in her greatest time of need then things might have played out differently. But what could she do? Azula was about to kill Mai with her Lightningbending in a fit of rage! It was either block her chi or let Mai die and allow Azula to live with the grief of having killed one of her closest friends for the rest of her life! In the end, Ty Lee didn't regret her choice. She only regrets that she couldn't help her friend when she needed it the most.
Zuko sat in his seat pondering the events he'd just witnessed. Deep down he always knew that Azula wasn't truly evil. Or at least this version of his sister that they're watching isn't entirely evil and is trying to turn her life around. And to be fair, Azula hadn't always had the best influences in her life when they were growing up. What with people like Azulon and Ozai having the most influence over how she was raised. Still, it didn't make Zuko feel any less guilty about what he saw happen to her in the last viewing.
And then there's Iroh himself. He always knew deep down that there was always a part of Azula that was good. Uncorrupted by the influence of Ozai and Azulon. But perhaps the reason she turned out the way she did is partially his own fault as well as Ursa's. They didn't treat Azula with as much love and care as they should have, and unintentionally played favorites with Zuko.
"Hey, has anyone noticed that Zex seems to be conspicuously absent?" Sokka asked.
Everyone started looking around as they noticed that there was no sign of the looney Editor. Nor his usually calm, cool and collected friend. And that drew some concerns from some of the more paranoid members of the group.
"You know, you're right. Where'd he go?" Bolin asked.
"Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen Imperius around either." Mako said.
"AH-HAHAHAHA! I AM HERE, IN A BIZARRE POSITION!" Imperius shouted as he popped up out of nowhere.
This had the desired effect of scaring the metaphorical crap out of everyone and caused Azula and Zuko along with Aang and Katara to pull a Scooby-Doo moment. With Zuko and Aang as Shaggy, and Azula and Katara as Scooby. Once they calmed down a little, Zuko put his sister down who just stared in shock at the editor.
"Um, yeah, what's that about? And why are you in such a hurry?" Azula asked.
"Hi! Azula, come with me a sec." Imperius said as he gestured to a room with a glowing door.
"Uh, sure. Okay." Azula relented.
Grief of a Princess: A Sovereign's Plan!
Everyone grew confused by the title. At least by part of it.
"What does it mean by sovereign? Who even is this sovereign?" Sokka asked.
A note appeared in Sokka's lap which opened up and said 'All will be explained soon.', much to the Water Tribe swordsman's ire and everyone else's amusement.
"Oh yeah. Real mature of you." Sokka said blandly.
The Digital World: a world parallel to the material world. It was created when technology began to advance further and faster than ever before. More specifically, computer technology and a little thing called the internet. Data kept advancing further and further, evolving as it were, until one day it formed an entire world all its own! And the creatures that inhabit this world of living, viable computer data? They called themselves Digital Monsters, or Digimon for short.
"Wait, digital MONSTERS?!" cried Ikki.
Now, Digimon themselves are pleasant creatures to be around, depending on the mon in question, but they've all got this shared weakness: whenever they meet, they'll more often than not fight each other to grow stronger.
However, try as they might, very few Digimon can reach the level of power possessed by the higher-ups of their world. A group of Digimon known as the Digimon Sovereign. In fact, the quadrant of one of these Sovereigns is where we find ourselves now. The realm of a Digimon known as Baihumon.
Befitting its name, Baihumon is an enormous white tiger with blue stripes. It has four eyes that look through a mask with pointing ends at the sides. It wears spiked collars on the back legs and tufted tail. Like its fellow Sovereigns, its body is encircled by DigiCores. The characters on its vambraces read "White Tiger".
"Holy crap, and I thought Appa was big!" gasped Toph.
"Meh. I've seen bigger creatures." Zuko shrugged with Aang nodding in agreement.
"Oh yeah? Like what?" Sokka asked.
"Try a pair of giant dragons that taught me and Aang true Firebending." Zuko replied.
"Or maybe the giant Lion-Turtle that taught me how to Energybend." Aang added.
Hearing that caused Sokka to shut up faster than he's ever shut up before. He just silently turned back to look at the screen while Zuko and Aang shared a silent fist bump.
Lately, Baihumon has noticed an increase in Digimon that were breaching the dimensional barrier to the human world. Whether they did this in search of a human partner, or to try and take over the human world, or simply to cause trouble in the form of mischievous pranks, the feline Sovereign could clearly see that it was getting out of hand. And there was a group of humans calling themselves Hypnos who were starting to get involved. But whether this was to protect their fellow humans or just outright destroy Digimon, he doesn't know.
But Baihumon doesn't want to take any chances.
"Sounds like Azula." Zuko said.
"Or like Kuvira." Lin said as well.
He knows that one of his fellow Sovereigns, Zhuquaiomon, is in charge of that particular area of the Digital World and has made it into a world of survival of the fittest. A world where, when a Digimon defeats another Digimon they absorb the loser's data in order to grow stronger. And he truly does not approve of that. Neither do the other Sovereigns, Azulongmon, Ebonwumon, and Fanglongmon, come to think of it. So after a heated debate and an incident where a Digimon absorbed too much power at once and ended up dark digivolving into SkullGreymon, Zhuquaiomon agreed to a compromise. If a Digimon defeats another in battle, rather than absorbing all of the loser's data they'll simply absorb a small portion of the loser's data. The rest of it would go to the Primary Village and reform into a Digi-Egg, where it would wait to be reborn once again.
"Reborn? Like The Avatar?" Katara asked.
"Maybe but I'm certain that may not be the case." Iroh said as he watched the screen.
But back on the topic of the humans of Hypnos, Baihumon couldn't let them meddle like this anymore. But he can't directly interfere. So he'll need a champion to become a member of the Digidestined and save both the human and Digi-World. And after viewing multiple worlds, he's found just the human for the job.
Azula's POV.
I walked around the marketplace of Ba-Sing-Se as I tried to keep myself hidden among the masses. Not like it matters since that blind Earthbender, Toph, can literally sense where I am. Either way, I don't want anyone to see my face, so I wore a hooded cloak today with the hood up. The hood thankfully cast a shadow that hides my face from the nose up.
Uncle Iroh thought it might be good for me to have some time to myself and clear my mind, so he gave me a few days off from work. I'm actually kind of glad that he did.
"Yeah especially after that guy tried to murder ya." Bolin stated.
"It is a necessary to take time and reflect on things right?" Asami asked as she looked back on her life up to her confessing.
There's something important that I need to do.
Reaching a stall that was selling baskets, I decided to browse. I'm going to need one if I'm going to lug around all of the stuff that I intend to bring with me. A pretty basic looking one catches my eye. It's large, sturdy, and seems like it will hold everything I need for what I have planned for today.
"If it's for a romantic picnic, might I suggest this lavender one?" the shopkeeper suggested as he showed me another basket.
"There's nothing romantic about this occasion. However, it's still something very important." I said as I turned down his offer.
Iroh raises a brow. Is she doing what he thinks she is doing?
Paying the man for the basket, I took it with me as I continued my stroll down the market. There's still much that I need to find and I intend to get it all before sundown. After all, I have to visit someone who I should have visited a long time ago.
Someone I haven't seen since my uncle was a general in the war…
As I continued to walk through the marketplace, I thought that I'd take a look at a stall that was selling musical instruments. There were some that were quite different from the ones that I'm used to. Instruments such as guitars, assorted drums from different cultures, even something called a saxophone. Whatever that is. But as I was browsing, I heard a sound that I was all too familiar with due to my own past. The sound of a child crying.
Turning around, I saw a little girl, no older than four, crying her eyes out over a scraped knee. Now back during the war, if I had such an encounter when I was totally heartless I would have called the child a brat and told them to suck it up like Ozai had always done to me when I was young and learning how to be a Firebender. Especially after my first instructor had literally broken my jaw and knocked out three of my baby teeth before they were anywhere near ready to come out! I don't remember much after that incident, except that it was one of the few instances where Fire Lord Azulon had actually sided with my mother when she metaphorically, and almost literally, ripped Ozai a new one.
Mostly though, I remember lots of pain! In my jaw! Blood, saliva and teeth, but mostly blood, everywhere!
The whole audience gasped and recoiled back as an image of Azula during, and after, that incident was shown on the screen.
"OH MY GODS!" exclaimed Lin.
"No four year old should EVER have to go through something like that!"
Iroh took a deep breath in as fire then came out of his nose. Zuko flinched as he saw him do that. Looks like Iroh is going to beat the crap out of Ozai when he gets back isn't he?
Okay, back on topic before I lose what little I had for breakfast today.
I calmly walked to the little girl and her mother, who was trying to soothe her, and spoke in what I hoped was a soothing voice.
"Hey, what's wrong sweetie?" I asked and saw a little blood on a rock in the road. "Did that big, mean rock hurt you? Huh?"
The little girl was still crying, but now she was looking at me with big, teary doe eyes and a quivering pouty lip from trying to hold in her sobs. The little girl nodded her head slightly and held up her arms to me.
"It did? Oh, come here. I'll hold you."
"When did she become so nice?" Toph asked shocked.
"Most likely from spending time with her Uncle." Aang said as he stared at the screen in shock.
I picked her up and placed her on my hip as I looked at the scrape on the little girl's knee. It was a pretty big scrape for a child of this little girl's age, and it looked to be bleeding a lot. I shuddered at the memory of my own experience even though it was worse than this one, but forced down those feelings of possible hemophobia down and focused on calming down the child while her mother had started cleaning the wound with water from a canteen she had been carrying.
"Goodness, that's such a big scrape for a little girl like you! Landing on that rock and hurting yourself must have been really scary, huh?" I said, keeping the child's attention on me.
She whimpered and nodded again as she buried her face in my shoulder.
"But you've had bumps and scrapes before, right?" I asked, attempting to keep the child's attention on me.
"Mm-hm…" the little girl nodded into my shirt.
"And they all healed right up, right? You were brave for your Mother, weren't you?" I inquired.
The little girl nodded into my shoulder.
"You're a big girl, right?" I asked again.
The little girl sniffled and nodded as she removed her face from my shoulder.
"Okay, sweetie. Your boo-boo's all better now." the little girl's mother said gently.
The little girl looked down in surprise to see that her mother was right. Her knee had been cleaned up and bandaged to prevent infection. And she hadn't even noticed! She looked back up to me as I smiled at her, the shadows of my hood receding enough to show a pair of kindly golden yellow eyes. She smiled back…
"OWCH!"
Iroh smiled, he remembered when he did that when he was in Ba Sing Se with Zuko.
And proceeded to yank on a stray lock of my hair that peeked out from my hood. I just smiled and rubbed my head where my hair had been yanked as the little girl giggled, no longer feeling hurt or scared. Her mother took her back from my arms and picked up her own basket before walking away as her daughter waved goodbye to me.
I couldn't stop myself from feeling a little proud of myself for helping that child.
It sure felt nice not to hurt people because of a war for a change.
"At least she is acknowledging it." Ty Lee said with a smile.
Third Person POV.
A little later after that little event with the little girl, Azula continued her walk until she came across an area where four young boys seemed to be playing some sort of sport. One of the boys started out by using Earthbending to send the ball forward where one of the others used his own earthbending to create a slanted wall to redirect the ball towards the other team's goal. But it sped towards the youngest looking boy in the group who yelped and used his earthbending to swat the ball away using a blunt stalagmite.
Unfortunately, this had the undesired effect of sending the ball right through the window of one of the houses. The boys recoiled in fear and huddled together as this house belonged to the biggest, meanest, most violent man in the whole neighborhood.
"Hey, you damn brats! You'll pay for that!" a man yelled in a rather deep and raspy sounding voice.
Azula instinctively got in front of the kids to try and shield them, all while giving them a reassuring smile as they shivered in fear.
"No it isn't." Iroh said as his eyes widened confusing everyone.
"You know, my uncle tells me that it's always better to take responsibility for one's actions and restore honor…" she started to say.
Only to be cut off as the wall to the building was torn down by a behemoth of a man! He was easily eight feet tall, maybe taller, and built like a brick wall with bulging muscles! His bald head, dirty shirt, and fat lips with a single tooth sticking out from the lower lip made him look ugly as hell, but also a lot more scary with how angry he is right now.
"I'm gonna grind all your bones into dust!" he yelled in rage.
Needless to say, Azula wasn't so willing to face him anymore, especially since she can't use her firebending still. And not for lack of trying, mind you.
He facepalmed but he gave out a laugh. Ah how children can make that much trouble on accident in the exact same fashion he will never know.
"...But this isn't one of those times. Run for your lives, boys!" she exclaimed.
And like that, they all took off like wolfbats out of hell, with Azula's hood cartoonishly staying behind for a moment before it sped off after her.
"How did her hood do that?" Mai asked baffled.
As she ran at full speed, it was surprising that her hood didn't fly off her head, especially after her cloak had found its way back to her. Still not sure how that cartoonish event happened, but she really doesn't care at the moment. She rounded a corner of an alley and ran in before stopping to catch her breath. After a minute or so, she set down her basket and took a look to make sure she wasn't being followed. Seeing nobody running after her, Azula let out a sigh of relief.
"Jeez, what the actual hell did that guy do to get so tall and muscular? He was a freaking giant!" she grumbled under her breath as she grabbed her basket and walked off.
"A lot of Protein!" A voice yelled out in the distance.
"Who was that?" Bolin asked wide eyed.
"I don't think we should know." Mako said as he kept his attention on the screen.
Sunset…
After a long day of gathering supplies, the time was finally upon Azula. She made her way to the outskirts of Ba-Sing-Se and knelt under a tree on a hill that overlooks the city. Taking out several fruits, a few sticks of incense which she used a match to light, and some scented oil. All of these items were arranged around a small grave which had been dug by Iroh many years ago.
The grave belonging to Azula's older cousin, Lu-Ten.
"She's visiting our cousin?" Zuko said shocked.
Iroh gained a sad smile. Of course she would go there.
Taking one final item out of her basket, Azula smiled sadly as she placed it among the other items that she had brought with her. It was a painting of Lu-Ten when he was still alive. One of the only items she'd kept with her during the war to remind her of her cousin.
"It's been awhile, cousin." Azula said as she gently placed the painting on the tombstone. "I'm so sorry I didn't visit you sooner. You must be so disappointed in me right now… And you have every right to be disappointed…"
She frowned and closed her eyes as she began to reflect on all of the horrors that she has caused all for the sake of power and winning Ozai's approval. She doesn't even consider the man to be her father anymore. And really, after everything he's put Azula's family through, why would she?
"I've caused so many to suffer. I hunted down my own brother and uncle like they were dogs, almost killed the Avatar by shooting him in the back with lightning, imprisoned Uncle Iroh, had Zuko branded as a traitor for a time, betrayed Mai and Ty Lee while leaving them to rot on the Boiling Rock, and to top it all off I almost killed Zuko during Sozin's Comet!"
Fresh tears began to fall from Azula's eyes as she looked down at her shaking hands. While it wouldn't be visible to anyone else, she saw things differently, especially with all of the grief that she is shouldering because of her ever growing guilt. Her hands are stained with the blood of the innocent. All of it spilled willingly by her and her alone.
"They're right… all of them are… a monster like me should have been locked away in chains and left to die alone!..." Azula said through her tears. "There's no way I can ever find redemption for all of the evil I've done! My sins are just too great!"
No longer able to speak, Azula just remained kneeling by her cousin's grave as she released all of her pent up sorrow and regret. A flood of emotions washed through her like a tsunami washing away an ancient civilization.
No one dare say a word. Many had their mouths covered as others looked down in sadness. If any one were to look behind Iroh they would see a young man standing their with a sad smile. Looking at his cousin as she wept at her sins.
'All sins can be redeemed right father?' Said a voice.
All whipped their heads to where the ghost would be but many saw nothing. Iroh gained a smile.
"Yes...if you put in the effort all sins can be redeemed." Iroh said with a smile.
Back in the Digital World…
Baihumon felt sympathy for the child he was watching over.
Her entire life she has been used as a tool by a man who's very bloodline was filled with the corruption of the tainted darkness. All started by the man known as Firelord Sozin. The very same man who led the Fire Nation in the genocide of the Air Nomads when Sozin's Comet first appeared over the skies of the Earth. Even when Ozai had made her the Firelord after crowning himself as the Phoenix King, which he had to admit was a rather creative name, Azula would have been nothing more than a puppet ruler with no real power.
The voice may have been hers, but the mind would be Ozai. He would have been the very puppeteer pulling the strings behind the curtain.
And once Azula's usefulness had run out, he would surely have disposed of her like filthy, lukewarm bathwater that no longer has use to anyone. And he'd likely have done so through the use of murder. Likely a clean one that couldn't be traced back to him. He could easily play off the part of a grieving father and nobody would be suspicious. Nobody that was loyal to him, at least.
Many growled at what Baihumon had stated. Even though they knew it was true it was still a disgusting act to have been performed.
The sovereign Digimon knew that the girl would need help in finding her path to redemption for the part she played in aiding the Fire Nation during the hundred year war, and he's certain that he knows how to do that.
Recently, the Royal Knights of the Digital World have been searching for new members to add to their ranks. The original Megidramon was never reincarnated and so the Digital Hazard has been adrift in the Digital World for some time now without a Gallantmon to carry it and prevent it from destroying the Digital World. But from what he can sense, that reincarnation will happen very soon. Then there's the matter of their second missing member, UlforceVeedramon. He was deleted in the line of duty as he saved an entire village of Digi-Eggs from being deleted by MaloMyotismon and his army of SkullGreymon.
He managed to buy enough time for the village to be evacuated and the rest of the knights to arrive in time to put an end to MaloMyotismon and his army, but at the cost of his life.
Perhaps it's time that a new Veemon rose up to fill in the vacancy among the Royal Knights. And he knows that Azula will be the perfect partner to help this Veemon achieve its full potential. Creating a small ball of light that looked like it could fit into Azula's hand, Baihumon sent it through his viewing portal to Azula's location. Once she has that Digivice, she'll be on her way to starting her journey of self-discovery, and finding her path to redemption.
Now all that needs to be done is to interview the Veemon hopefuls and find Azula's ideal partner.
Record Scratch.
"Her ideal WHAT!" Zuko yelled out.
***To Be Continued…***
I hope you enjoyed!