The Legend of Percy: Book 1 - Finding Purpose

16. The Big Combustible Drill (This Fight Seems a Little More Serious)

The distant sounds of clanging against metal reverberated around the entire landscape. Azula needed a mere glance to see that it was the futile attempts to stop the drill causing it. Pfft, rocks, they're just throwing rocks at it. That's effective. Boulders were raining down from the top of the walls of the city.

The drill was nearing the outer wall. Azula probably could've gotten the machine well within the bounds of Ba Sing Se by now if she hadn't slowed to deal with Percy. She couldn't exactly question that decision now. Not when she was standing right behind him.

He still sat there, mumbling something akin to an apology to the man with no hand, repeatedly. So weak.

She shook her head. The voices that were crashing down on her subsided, but only slightly. Azula wasn't nearly as thankful for that as she might've otherwise been. Her knew relative peace of mind was only causing her more problems. All that built up fatigue was dragging her to the ground.

"Are you just going to sit there? Or are you going to face me? Savage." Desperately trying to remain awake, she needed to keep moving, get her adrenaline pumping. He just sighed again.

Apparently, his medical attention for the man had ended, or he'd decided to finally pay her the attention she deserved, because he stood and turned towards her. Azula saw a swirling storm of emotions in his eyes, but the main one was a regretful sorrow. Something so pure and honest it made her hesitate.

She risked another glance at the drill, seeing the very distant and small silhouettes of two people on top of the drill. Is that Mai?! Against the avatar? Azula hoped beyond anything that Mai could hold her own, but worried that she couldn't. Whilst he was a child, he was still the avatar. And the bending would be difficult to overcome. Worry... that's... odd.

Percy managed to drag her attention back to him, granted it didn't take too much effort from him. "What do you want Azula?" His focus though, seemed to be elsewhere. In the limited time she'd known him, he'd not exactly been the most focused individual, but this seemed rather excessive. She saw he appeared to be glancing at the same thing Azula was. So is this a distracti-

"Did you come here to stare at me? Princess?"

Oh, I don't like how he said that. It was cocky, and questioning, and everything that just didn't help her at the moment. She became blinded by her need to prove this savage wrong. He questions whether I'm a Princess? Let's prove to him why I'm born to rule.

Azula was getting rather angry, and Percy's smirk throughout her rage wasn't helping in the slightest. She quickly got into a firebending form, before unleashing a scorching torrent of fire at the boy. The same boy who'd just spent the last however many minutes fighting and being burnt.

What she wasn't expecting, was for him to roll to his right and be up on his feet before she could even blink. Her fire flying harmlessly past him, dissipating into the hot desert air.

She got into a rhythm. One she wasn't used to, but felt very comfortable in. Azula wasn't exactly hitting Percy with any fire, but fighting him felt natural. The princess hadn't ever felt like this when fighting someone before. She'd always decimated them, dominating them beyond reproach. This wasn't that. Her and Percy moved fluidly around each other, evading blasts of fire and talons of water from each of them respectively.

Her hair was beginning to fall in front of her eyes. Lo and Li's voices were pushed to the back of her mind. She didn't particularly care about the perfection of her hair at the moment.

She flipped over some water that came at her legs, landing delicately. She came at him with her fire daggers and he didn't react. At first, she was surprised at why he wasn't moving, before he crouched, letting her fly at him and pushed up.