The next morning I awoke to someone shoving me in the back. Opening my eyes, I turned my head and saw a fully armored Zuko glaring down at me with the sun illuminating his outline from behind.
"What?" I asked groggily. I decided it wouldn't be too wise to unleash any anger on him now.
"Why did you sleep on the floor?" he asked in an irritated tone.
Sitting up, I wiped my eyes through the long sleeves of his pajamas. Squinting my eyes, I looked up at him as he stood over me.
"Uh…I didn't want to invade your bed," I said making up something. Truthfully, I didn't really care if I invaded it.
"That's not true," Zuko said catching my bluff.
Sighing, I said, "Fine. The truth is you invaded my personal space, so I got away and slept down here. I think you were asleep when you did it."
"Did what?" Zuko asked. I think he knew what I was talking about though.
"You pulled me into you and wrapped your arms around me," I replied.
"You know, I was awake when I did that," Zuko said. "But then you had to go and move, so I just let you."
She stared at him quizzically. He had done it on purpose? That jerk.
"Why did you do that?" I half shouted jumping to my feet.
Still looking down, he said, "Because I wanted to."
I growled and clenched my fists while my eyes turned to their fierce golden color. I ordered, "Never do it again! I contemplated killing you in your sleep because of it!"
"Why didn't you?" he asked smirking.
Glaring daggers, I replied, "Because it's a part of changing myself. I don't want to kill unless completely necessary anymore."
"Well, just in case, give me any weapons you have with you now," he said, holding his hand out.
Sighing, I pulled senbon needles out of my hair and went to my clothing pulling them out of pockets, my shoes and anywhere else you could think of. Zuko looked like I was crazy, but it was simply a means of surprising the enemy. They didn't expect me to have over twenty senbon hidden all over me, not just in my holster.
I was about to bend down to grab my pillow when Zuko snatched my wrist. Turning back toward him, I lifted my other hand to pry his off of my wrist, which was covered by the sleeves of this shirt. Then his other hand snatched my free wrist, which he brought together with my other wrist so he could hold both of them together with one hand.
"What are you doing?" I asked him with a panicked tone. His golden eyes looked down into my blue ones as I looked up at him.
Zuko's free hand lifted and he cupped my cheek in that hand, his thumb stroking my cheek bone the entire time. I couldn't believe it. If he forced me to do anything I would kill him. Weapons only help, because I can kill without them. I turned my head away from his hand, but he grabbed my chin and forced me to look up at him.
"You know, Mikomi," Zuko near whispered to me. "That I want to enjoy your being here."
"Wow, Zuko, I didn't even know you were on such a lowly level," I hissed as I squirmed.
Glaring at me, he lowered his face closer to mine. Panicking, I tried to free my wrists but the more I moved them, the more pain I felt. Placing his hand on the back of my head, he kept my gaze on him as he lowered closer and closer. He released my other hand, but still had a grip on my chin. Placing my hands on his chest, I attempted to push away, but I've always been extremely weak physically, so I put one of my nails at the vital point in his neck again.
"I may not have my senbon, but I've taken drugs to make my nails hard as hard as steel, so I could still kill you," I said.
The arrogant Prince glared at me and released my chin. I backed against the wall and massaged my wrists and my face, while he stared at me.
"Don't ever touch me again," I hissed dangerously. "I may accidentally forget about changing myself and kill you."
Zuko's fists began glowing as smoke began spilling slowly from his mouth. Next thing I knew, he had a hand wrapped around my throat holding me off the ground and against the wall. I need to use both of my hands to hold on to his so I wouldn't die. I scratched at his hand again but he wouldn't budge and I couldn't focus. My eyes were at his eye level so he could stare into my blue orbs. Luckly, I had a strong abdomen so I flung my legs up to grab his throat between my ankles.
Finally, he dropped me as I gasped for air. He turned and stormed out of the room which was great for me. I finally got some peace.
After I had changed back into my cleaned clothes I heard a knock at the door. In walked Zuko's kind uncle wearing a warm smile and holding a warm cup of tea.
"Hello," he said warmly. I responded by sitting up on my bed and brushing away my black ponytail as I nodded.
"What was your name?" he asked, the grin never leaving his face. It was hard to believe that this guy was even related to Zuko. He was so calm and peaceful. The man handed me the cup of tea and sat down on the bed next to me before I could answer.
"Mikomi," I replied. The tea was very good. I had always loved tea because of its soothing qualities.
"So, Mikomi. I believe that if you were taught, you would be one of the best firebenders alive," he said suddenly. My eyes lifted from my tea and stared into his. Was this guy nuts? He could obviously see from my expression that I was confused.
"As a martial artist, you have a lot of control over your spiritual energy," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if you could create lightning by the time we arrived at the North Pole."
After that was said, Iroh trained me in secret from that day on. I excelled beyond even his expectations. It still confused me as to why he would want to train a traitorous firebender, but I took his lessons with gratitude. He was correct in his assumptions about my skills. By the time we got to the North Pole, I could create lightning and redirect it even better than his niece Azula, as he told me and instead of the fire being red and orange, the fire I bended was blue. Zuko had made attempts to use my body, but my threats became worse as I became more skilled in the martial arts, training my mind and body daily. So I fought him off the entire time, which made him pretty sulky.
I had grown into more of a young woman as I noticed breasts beginning to protrude from my tight black top as it got tighter. I began wearing smoky, black eye shadow around my eyes and my high ponytail now reached my waist.
The waterbenders were surprised to see me arrive at the North Pole. I took out over twenty of the firebender's ships using lightning, as the waterbenders watched me in awe. As it was, lightning used up a decent amount of energy so I settled on being a one girl tempest and took care of the people in front of me. I didn't care what Aang said now. These people were in danger and I'm good at killing a lot of people in a small expanse of time. Using senbon needles, which are small and thin like toothpicks but longer and sharper, I hit a point in the neck that instantly kills a person. I can hit that point which is as big as the tip of my needle from one hundred meters away. The needles are hidden all over my body. In my hair, in my belt, on the holster strapped to my thigh and even in my shoes, so I drew them between my fingers and flung them at multiple Fire Nation soldiers at once, and watched them drop like flies, the waterbenders stared at me in what looked like fear, but they should've been glad I was on their side.
I moved so fast that the soldiers couldn't even see me and in within ten minutes I had taken out over fifty of them. The tanks on the other hand were difficult for me to handle, because I was a hand to hand and weapons specialist. I saw Katara waterbending better than I ever had. Rushing over to her, I said, "Take out the tanks for me and I'll deal with the soldiers for you."
She smiled and nodded, as soldiers surrounded us. I disappeared from their sight in a flash of speed stabbing a needle in their necks as I passed them. Within seconds, I had reappeared next to Katara who looked at me like she had never met me before.
"During war, this is how it must be done," I said. She took out the tanks with some waterbending, as Aang fought as well.
By the end, we were successful. Zhao was dead and we recovered Aang who was kidnapped by Zuko. I was now a master at firebending and Aang had a teacher, but first he needed to learn earthbending. As a team, we went on a journey again for a teacher for Aang after I was reunited with all of my equipment that was left behind after being kidnapped by Zuko. I hugged my spear for a long time as Sokka stared at me like I was a lunatic. On the way we met some annoying hippies that tried to tell me, it's not about the destination, but the journey. Their leader was a little slow on discovering that I was a firebender. After about 20 fireballs shot, he came to the conclusion that I was indeed a firebender. That's why I never associate with nomads. Most of them aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.