CONTENT WARNING:
This chapter contains mugging, robbery, stabbing, and a bit of body horror.

Chapter 1

Lately, Azula had been spending most of her evenings at the Blazin' Moo-Sow, the shadiest night club in the Fire Nation's capital. It wasn't because she was into the club scene, spirits no. Everything about this seedy place was beneath her - and that's exactly why it was the perfect place to hide-out. None of her pursuers would ever think to look for her here.

The club was crawling with a wide variety of low-lives. Murderers, bandits, slavers, gangsters, it was a true haven for the worst the Fire Nation had to offer. Luckily, that was another benefit - everyone here knew not to ask too many questions.

Typically, Azula would enter the club as it opened for the night, find a seat in the back corner where she could avoid detection, and watched. She observed the various patrons, some who she recognized through wanted posters, and observe how they spent their night. Some people would have shady meetings in the corner. Others would get lethally drunk or high.

If only I was a bounty hunter, she sometimes thought. She had no doubt she could take down anyone here with ease, and given the size of some of these bounties, she'd be able to finally kiss her days of sleeping outside goodbye. But no - she wouldn't stoop to something so beneath her. She may have been the disgraced princess, but she still had her pride.

She would wait in her spot until the club was about to close. From there, Azula would slip out the back-alleyway entrance, and find somewhere she could rest until the next evening. Then she would repeat the cycle.

It was a pathetic way to live, quite frankly. She constantly had to remind herself that it was a temporary arrangement, somewhere to lay-low until she figured out what her next move would be.

The club was particularly crowded that night. It was nearly impossible to move without brushing shoulders with someone. Some famous singer from the Earth Kingdom was supposed to perform tonight - she guessed that was what drew the crowd. It made the club more unbearable than usual.

She sat in her corner, trying to think, but everything was just too loud. A part of her considered burning the club down as punishment for the sheer inconvenience was causing her - but she resisted. The whole point of this was to not draw attention to herself, and torching a notorious night club in a glorious blue fire was guaranteed to lead Zuko right to her.

Still, the noise was starting to give her a headache. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to be calm right now. She needed to be ca...

...it was then that a drunk man bumping into her chair. He yelped, as he spilled the entirety of his beverage on her.

"Watch where you goin'!" he slurred. He loomed over her, and Azula could smell the alcohol on his breath. She calmly looked into his eyes, and formed a blue ember in her fist. She should turn this drunken vagrant into ash for the disrespect. Did he know who she was?

No, of course he didn't. The former princess extinguished her flame. Instead, she stood up, and with a quick jab to the chest, she knocked the drunken-man off balance, sending him tumbling to the floor.

"Watch where you're going," she mocked, before leaving the corner. She just had to find somewhere else to be tonight. She pushed her way through the crowd, brushing shoulders with strangers at every step.

Suddenly, the crowd went silent, before erupting into cheers. That singer must have come on stage, or so she guessed. Azula couldn't see anything - being too short to get a good look.

And that's when the song began. With the singer's first note, a hush fell over the crowd. Azula felt her blood go cold. She sounds like mom! She clenched her fists. Wasn't she done with those awful visions? Is that what this was? Her breathing became erratic, her heart started to beat faster.

She turned around, trying to get past the crowd. Various people yelled at her as she pushed passed them, but she didn't care. She knew she had to get out of there. She got past the crowd, and ran to the alleyway entrance, slamming the door behind her.

Even out here, she could faintly hear the crowd and music through the walls. Her migraine was even heavier now.

"Agni!" she cursed, kicking the door behind her. No, she wasn't going to let these visions get the better of her. She couldn't, not again. She took a couple of deep breaths, before starting her walk out of the alley.

"Gimme your money," A low, raspy voice said from behind her. She stopped, and peaked behind her. Leaning near the door was a skinny, balding man. Various scars covered his face and body, and the whites of his eyes were a sickly yellow. Even though she was still drenched in alcohol, she could smell the booze coming from him.

He was just drunken, amateur thief, nobody worth her time. She turned around and made her exit from the alley.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you!" He barked at her. Azula rolled her eyes, and kept walking, "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

Suddenly, she heard the sound of feet moving - quickly running towards her. Before she could turn around and react, she felt a sharp pain pierce the back of her shoulders. Azula gasped. A hand grabbed her wrist.

Azula was whipped around, and felt something being pulled out of her shoulder. As she tried to yank her wrist free, his other arm jabbed at her side - and Azula felt another sharp, piercing pain.

That's when she looked down and saw the knife, it's blade in her flesh. Azula's golden eyes widened. With another push, the man pinned her to the wall.

He pulled the blade out from her side, and placed it under her neck, "What's a pretty lady like you doing in a dangerous place like this," he taunted, tilting her chin up with the blade.

Azula raised her leg, and kicked him in the stomach as hard as she could. He let go of her, and flew into the opposite wall. Azula touched her hand to her side, where she felt a warm liquid gushing out, oozeing onto her fingers. She felt the same warm liquid streaming down her back. The smell of iron pierced the air.

Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. She looked to her assailant, as he pushed his way back up. He smirked at her.

"Come on, now, don't be like that," he sneered, "Let's have some fun." He twirled the knife in his hand. Azula watched as blood, her blood, dripped from the silver blade.

She locked eyes with the man and smiled. I'm going to enjoy this.

She watched the triumphant glint in his eyes turn into terror, as she incased the alleyway in a brilliant inferno.

Blue fire glowed as it tore through the narrow alley-way. Azula stood at the alley's edge, clutching her injured side. She felt as the warm liquid pool over her fingers, and watched the silhouette of her assailant struggle to overcome the deadly blaze. She listened as the man's screams pierced her fire's roar. She knew she had to get out of here - she'd made too much of a scene, it was only a matter of time until the authorities came.

Still, she wanted to watch this man burn - she deserved that much.

Soon the screaming stopped, and she watched as his body fell: a pathetic end to a wasted life. Azula didn't have much time to gloat, however, as she had her own life to think about now.

She stumbled from the entrance to the street, blood dripping behind her as she walked. She was losing blood too quickly, she couldn't keep this up much longer.

There was no choice - she'd have to close the wound herself. She leaned against a nearby streetlight in order to support her weight. A shaky breath escaped her, and as she created small fires on her fingertips, she noticed how much her hand was trembling. Was she scared of dying? Or maybe she was scared of the pain she was about to inflict on herself.

Ironically enough, it had been Iroh who taught her how to cauterize a wound, when he'd returned home from Ba Sing Se after his failed attempt to conquer the city. She was ten.

"I pray you never have to use this technique," he'd told her, "but if things go wrong in battle, it may just save your life." She rolled her eyes at her uncle, and smiled.

"Is that why cousin Lu Ten died?" she asked as sweetly and innocently as she could, "Because he couldn't fix his wounds?"

She watched as her uncle's face twitch, as he fought hard to keep his calm composure. She had prided herself on knowing exactly what buttons to press to get under her tranquil uncle's skin.

He simply smiled at her, and responded with a simple "No."

At the time, she saw it as another useless lesson from her uncle. While it was a handy technique, it was never something she'd ever have to use on herself.

Or so she had thought.

She brought the small flames to the wound on her side and held back a scream as the fire singed her skin. It was the most pain she'd ever felt in her life. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she ignored it. She had to focus on the task at hand. The smell of her burned fleshed made it's way to her nostrils - she wanted to puke.

Her hand pulled away, more shakey than before. A couple of tears betrayed her, falling down her cheeks. She took another sharp breath and pulled her hand away.

One down, one to go...

She turned her attention to her shoulder, finding it more painful than the last. A loud yelp escaped her lips this time, and she felt her vision getting hazy. She stumbled to the ground, the pain becoming too much.

Her vision was getting blurrier by the second - she knew she couldn't remain conscious much longer. She had to get to somewhere safe, it was the only way she was going to survive the rest of the night. But she was the disgraced princess of the Fire Nation - where could she possibly go that would be safe. She had to think, quickly.

The nearest hospital was on the other side of town, so there was no way she'd make it there in time. Besides, the moment they figured out who she was, they'd turn her into Zuko, where she'd be promptly sent back to the nuthouse. There had to be somewhere else she could go.

Ty Lee's home isn't too far from here.

She shook her head - no, that was ridiculous. Ty Lee was a traitor...no. After everything the acrobat had put her through, she was worse than a traitor. Azula had trusted the acrobat more than anyone else in the world. She had trusted Ty Lee with her life, more than she had trusted anyone else, and was thanked with treachery and a broken heart. Besides, Ty Lee was a Kyoshi Warrior now, there was no guarantee she'd even be home.

Azula took another steady step, and once again fell to the ground. Then again, she didn't really have another option.

She stood up, taking another deep breath. Time to pay Ty Lee a visit.

Author's Note: This is something I have been working on over the past couple of weeks. I haven't written fanfiction in years - most of my writing has been screenplays, lately. However, I realized that I wasn't writing for myself anymore, so I decided to remedy that by getting back to my roots. So far, it's the most I've enjoyed writing in a while. There are three more chapters of this already written, which will probably be posted within the week.

Anyways, thank you for reading this! It's exciting to post fanfiction again, so I really appreciate it!