Flying through the air in this hot air balloon as her boyfriend called it, was simply amazing.
Ty Lee found she couldn't keep her head from swivelling around and around as they floated thousands of feet above the ocean. Her stomach fluttered with nerves. She hadn't been afraid of going high for a long time now, not when she could simply jump higher than most buildings. But this was entirely new, she was so high in the air even a battle ship would look like an ant-fly from up here, and there were no supports to latch onto and slide her way down if she fell out.
She was not a bender, she had no way of slowing her fall without structures.
It was scary and exhilarating all at once.
Though much of the fear was waylaid by her boyfriend having the ability to summon Buzzy whenever he pleased, and she was big enough for them both to ride on if needed, not to mention he could pretty much fly himself with his fire bending. So if the balloon did go down or she fell he would save her.
It made her tingle a bit with happiness to think like that. Leaning over the 'basket' as Zan called it, though it looked more like a small boot, Ty Lee eyed the sparkling ocean far beneath them. It was so beautiful with the way the sun reflected off of it, making the ocean look like a never ending field of glittering sapphire gems.
It was still a bit weird to her, to have a boyfriend. Especially Zan. Even more so he'd picked her over Azula, apparently vastly preferred her to Azula. It honestly didn't make sense to Ty Lee. Sure, Azula was sadistic, manipulative and flat out a mean person with little care for others. But that also didn't change the fact that she was the most beautiful, smartest and strongest girl in the whole world! She was the heiress of the royal family after all, and the royal family were existences that towered above everybody else.
Even Zuko, the 'failure' of the family, was a master swordsman by the time he was twelve, an extremely skilled martial artist and a more capable fire bender than most soldiers twice his age at the time.
Zan was a lot like the royal family. He honestly was larger than life. The more he revealed about himself, the more she felt like the little Avatar boy should count his blessings that he wasn't interested in hurting him at all. She wasn't either, but she'd had Azula breathing down her neck and couldn't deny her orders at the time.
She turned away from the ocean to look at her boyfriend. Ty Lee found herself smiling in amusement when she found him pushing himself up into the air with press ups, then clapping his hands before coming down and catching himself and repeating. He was a legitimate training maniac. Since she'd met him just over two weeks ago, whenever he didn't have something that needed to be done, he was training himself into the ground. And when they rose high into the air, and Ty Lee noticed her body feeling heavier and sluggish, because of the 'thinner air' while up high as he explained, Zan had decided it was a good way to work on conditioning his body, and his breathing, though why his breathing she didn't know.
'Has it only been a little over two weeks?' she found herself wondering, her eyes fondly following his muscular form as he pushed himself to the limits with his training.
It felt like she'd known him so much longer than that. And to be honest, she didn't really see what he saw in her. He was so amazing..and all she had going for her were her martial arts skills and big boobs really. She didn't even have a claim to her family's noble status any more since she ran away.
He was offering her the world, more than that even. But, all she could offer was herself. Azula was a better fit for him than her. Her stomach churned uneasily and her heart throbbed at the thought of him with the girl that terrorized her life since she was little, the main reason behind why she ran away to a circus in one of the colonies in the Earth Kingdom. Even Mai was a better fit for him. Either of them could understand his potential better than she could, they were way smarter than her, they could understand the vastness of the abilities he gained from that spirit dragon better than she ever could.
A pair of fingers grabbed her nose between their knuckles and jiggled her head up and down, "What's with the long look on your face?" Zan asked, crouching over her, his right hand connected to her nose.
"Why do you like doing this all the time?" she replied batting his fingers off of her nose and pouting at him. When he merely raised an eyebrow at her she sighed, slumping over a bit, "What do you see in me that made you want me over the hundreds of other girls you could have chosen from?" she asked softly.
"Well a lot more than simply a few hundred, but didn't we already go through this?" he grasped her chin and tilted her head up to look him in those molten golden eyes of his, she swallowed heavily, they were such pretty eyes, "Ty Lee is best girl, end of story."
Her face scrunched up, "You said that before, but why!?" her insecurities got the best of her, "I've got little I can offer you, I'm not as beautiful as Azula or Mai, I'm plain compared to them. I'm not as smart as them, I can't offer you anywhere near as much as Azula can. I'm not as strong as Azula! I'm nowhere near as good as Azula, so why would you want me."
Zan blinked and reared back as if struck at her sudden outburst, and she didn't blame him, she'd just full on blown up and let everything pour outburst.
He sighed, before smirking and placed a hand gently on her head, using it to pull her forward and touch her head to his chest, he was icky and slick with sweat from his training, but she didn't mind, "Let me say this first of all. I don't care what anybody else thinks, but as far as beauty goes, to me you're the most beautiful girl this entire world has to offer," he responded softly, stroking her hair with the hand on her head, "What do you mean you can't offer me anything? You yourself are more than enough, you're worth is far beyond that of even the title of Fire Lord. Who cares if you're not the smartest, trust me, I'm not either. And if being strong is the problem, well you can just get stronger can't you?"
Her heart thumped rapidly in her chest, and warmth spread through her at his words, "Getting stronger isn't that simple for most." Ty Lee whispered back, hands fisting into his sleeveless shirt. Chi Blocking was an ancient art that had been studied and hoarded by her family for centuries. She'd long since mastered the use of it, the only way to make it better was her own physical conditioning. She'd been forced to spar with Azula a lot as a child, so she'd learned and trained in all the known forms of Sozin Style she could find, despite not being a fire bender. It helped her understand and predict how a fire bender would attack in a fight. Though, it used to be called Imperial Style, it was the only surviving fire bending style in this day and age.
There used to be many many more, Ty Lee had learned all about the old styles of fire bending in school. But, they were done away with during the start of the hundred year war, all of their most offensive techniques being brought together into one full out fire bending style designed for war.
There were weapons, but they would just get in the way of her chi blocking and make her weaker in the end.
"Not for most, but do you think I wouldn't help you get stronger if you wanted?" he tilted her head up so she could see him grinning down at her, he brought up his other and the air shimmered around it as a small light green crystal sphere appeared in his palm, within the small crystal sphere, was a small bird, a Sparrowkeet. She recognised it quickly, it had landed on the edge of the basket of the hot air balloon, and after Zan had fed it, he had been able to tame it.
Ty Lee was wondering why he was showing it to her, before he pressed it against her breast. His hand glowed, and something rushed through Ty Lee. It was her chi, surging through her, up to her breast, culminating where the sphere was pressed against her. And then it was just gone from Zan's hand and Ty Lee felt intimately as Zan's own chi, wild, chaotic, overwhelming strong...yet comfortably warm. She could feel the Sparrowkeet right down to her very soul, feel a connection threading between her chi and Zan's.
..And she felt a decent bit stronger to. Her chi had grown quite a bit, and she felt a much light. It wasn't an incredibly massive amount really, but it was large enough for her to notice right away thanks to the fact that she was well aware of her own body's abilities thanks to the type of training she went through to master chi blocking growing up. And even more than that..she just knew instinctively that she could summon the Sparrowkeet from inside her, the same way Zan did with Mong and Simba before.
"What...did you do?" she asked, suddenly panting very deeply as the rush of it all left her body and she felt really exhausted all of a sudden.
"A little experiment," Zan responded, the hand on her head trailing down to stroke her cheek, "I wanted to prove to you how I felt about you. My ability to tame beasts is linked to my soul itself. So if I connect it to your soul, that means our souls are linked right?"
..Eh? Ty Lee blinked as she comprehend his words. There souls were linked!? "D-doesn't that sound like marriage?!" she sputtered. "No, more than that even!" her face felt really warm and her fingers were all jittery, her breathing becoming shaky.
"Not quite, I can take it out whenever you want really," he shrugged, "But as long as you don't want it to, we're connected at the very soul. That's how serious I am about you. Azula, Mai? I don't give a shit about them. I'll say it again, Ty Lee is best girl, I'll fight anyone to prove that point."
..That was enough for her. "You big idiot you didn't need to go that far to prove your point!" despite her words though, Ty Lee wrapped her arms around him tightly, hugging him with all newly increased strength, "..But thank you."
Nobody had ever treasured her like this. It made her feel like the only girl in world. She never wanted to let go of this feeling. As long as she had this, she didn't really need anything else.
It had occurred to me back when I fought Azula. If it was Ty Lee in my place that were hit with those flames, she would be dead. While it was advantageous that I had the body of a video game character and my enemies didn't, it also meant my allies didn't have one either.
Except for my tamed beasts. Because they were linked to my very soul, and the system itself through my soul was linked to them as well. While they didn't gain as big a benefit of being a game character like myself, they did receive it partially. They gained bodies that were close to say, Npc game followers. The closest that comes to mind being say, the followers from Skyrim, like Lydia.
They got all the benefits of the health bar and energy bar systems, and the rapid recovery ability that came with it. But here was the only real problem. My Beast Tamer skill only worked on beings that fell under the non-human, beast-like category. It would work on spirits I had confirmed with the system, which was what made me believe my plan for Vaatu was possible, but it couldn't work on humans
But then a thought occurred to me. What if, just what if I connected the Beast Tamer skill itself to a human through a tamed beast, rather than trying to tame the human? Quite frankly, I wasn't sure it would work at all, but when I saw the heartbroken expression she was making when she was questioning her own worth, I felt that it was worth a try. So, I tried it out. And somehow, it worked. I'm betting that it's the system itself at work. The interface might be toggled off, but I know it's still there, I can feel it. I'm still the gamer.
"This is really neat!" Ty Lee was all smiles now a few minutes later, the tamed Sparrowkeet, still unnamed as of now resting on her forearm as she tickled it under its beak, "Who's a good boy huh?" she fussed over it gently.
I felt myself smiling as I watched her. It wasn't just about wanting her any more. At some point, she'd gone from my favourite Avatar waifu, to a real person and seeing her happy, made me happy in a way.
God what a sap I've become. In my past life, I was the type of guy who stopped dating altogether because it was easier to just pay a call girl and fuck her then go on my way. I hated being in a relationship before, I hated the fact that these annoying chicks could have a say in my life and I couldn't just go constantly at my own pace because of them. Like, if I wanted some me time, but they wanted to go on a date and I refused to go, I was a bad, uncaring boyfriend and blah blah blah. I'd never cared about a relationship in that life, all I'd cared about in regards to girls was fucking them and then moving on.
It could be the game has suppressed those lazily selfish characteristics of mine enough. Or it could be that I just like Ty Lee that much that it supersedes all the problems I had with girls getting in the way of my peace and quiet when it came to relationships. But honestly, I'm not complaining. The system has done really well by me as far as I'm concerned.
Still, as I watched Ty Lee, I could feel a connection with her. It was hard to describe. It was kind of like a sixth sense. Or explaining the colour purple to someone who has been blind from birth. It was something I couldn't truly put into words. But I could feel Ty Lee through the connection I'd made with her with the Sparrowkeet, just the same as I could feel the sparrowkeet itself or Mong, Simba and Buzzy.
Buzzy was totally named by Ty Lee by the way.
I could tell where she was even with my eyes closed, feel her with my back turned, and had a feel for her general physical condition. And what I could feel made me very happy. Because, I could feel the same kind of pseudo connection to the system within her now as well.
Now, thank to this, she had the benefits of a partial video game characters body and would be much harder to kill and would recover much quicker from injuries as well.
"Oh look!" Ty Lee's excited squeal brought me out of my thoughts. I looked over to see her with the green feathered sparrowkeet on her shoulder and looking down over the basket of the hot air balloon. "It's the Gates of Azulon, we're not far from the Fire Nation main land now."
I looked over the basket myself and peered down the massive, massive drop below us. Yet, I didn't even find myself swallowing back fear or feeling any nerves in my stomach at all despite the fact that in my last life I was terribly afraid of heights. The system really was a great buddy in that regard. Sasuga System!
And Ty Lee was right. There, towering hundreds of feet up from platforms in the ocean was a massive statue of Fire Lord Azulon, placed right in the centre between two islands on the way into the Fire Nation seas.
It was really well crafted, I have to admit. And the gold trimming on it was beautifully done. 'I wonder if I can steal it and stuff it in my inventory?' I wondered, a massive grin spreading across my face. I could just imagine the sheer bafflement and terror everyone stationed near it would go through if it just suddenly disappeared.
And dropping the statue of Azulon on Ozai might be an even funnier choice of action than dropping the corpse of the sand shark on him. It sure would be a really ironic way for him to die as well considering just how he got his current position as Fire Lord.
The image of Ozai shouting, 'Daddy no!' as a giant statue of Azulon falls on him and crushes him to death in my head is almost enough to make me burst into hysterics.
I shook my head and kept my laughter contained. The possible cruel and humiliating deaths Ozai can go through are for later, right now, my eyes settled on the direction of north. 'Only a few hours more.' my fingers twitched excitedly. Only a few hours more until I reach the Sun Warriors ancient ruins, and have the chance to meet with Ran and Shaw and learn the true ways of fire bending.
Anyway, again, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.