Azula Amongst the Stars

Chapter 2

Azula now holding on to her sore shoulder now traversing slowly and steadily down the corridor bracing herself with one arm against the wall as turbulence shifted her. Now she had a better chance to study her surroundings and saw that the circular hallway was a dull gray with very high ceilings almost as if it was meant for people much larger than herself to travel through, the walls here padded yet had exposed wiring and piping running along their lengths, the dim red light made things darker than they where. White lights flashed on and off as a loud shrill alarm screeched through the air causing Azula to wince every time it came on, the floors and walls had strange symbols written in bold yellow and what looked like arrows pointing towards other hallways and circular doors that seemed to be locked.
She continued to ask herself what this place was and who constructed it while attempting to ascertain the function of some of the machinery displayed in the halls. Her train of thought was interrupted when she heard heavy footsteps approaching from one of the branching hallways before her and coming fast. Azula quickly backed away and hid behind another corridor as whoever they were ran past in a hurry. She only caught a quick glance at the two people who ran by but from what she saw they could barely be called that. One was almost three heads taller than any human should be with his bodily proportions being exaggerated to a point where it was almost comical while the other was much shorter but had a second pair of arms beneath his first pair.
They quickly disappeared down the corridor and away from Azula's sight. She grabbed her head and wondered if what she saw was correct and tried to make sense of it. She has had hallucinations of people before but nothing like this, they were far too strange and vivid to be an illusion. She needed a place to hide because there are bound to be more of them running around and with this alarm going off they were clearly in a state of emergency. Azula didn't get very far as she heard voices ahead of her then the sound of doors opening behind her. She was trapped.
She looked around her for anything that could hide her and saw a large panel against one of the walls with a wide door. She quickly ran to it grabbing ahold of the handle and pulled it open revealing some kind of chute. Luckily it was large enough to fit someone of her size, just barely.
With so little time to speculate its use she crawled in allowing gravity to take her down this dark corridor where she plummeted hitting various twists and turns making her let out involuntary cries with her wrapping her arms around her body to brace for more impacts until it finally emptied out in a large open area. She landed hard once more but this time on something softer. The first thing she noticed was the putrid smell around her that was so vile she came close to gagging. She pushed her cloak out of her face and saw that she was surrounded by mounds of trash.
Not where she would have liked to be but at least she was out of danger. Once she gathers her senses after covering her mouth and nose with her cloak she calms herself down and noticed an elevated catwalk at the opposite end of the rather large room and began to wade her way through the mounds of garbage as if it were a thick marsh that threatened to swallow her up while taking caution to not step on anything potentially dangerous along with coating her legs in questionable substances and its rotting stench clinging to her. She had to use her cloak to filter out the stench when she breathed. She couldn't help but think of how rotten her luck has become as of late; once she was feared and people would prostrate themselves at her presence, now she's wading through knee deep piles of trash on a strange ship from the sky.
"Truly I was born lucky." She said bitterly before tripping face first into a torn bag of trash. She takes a moment to recover from the unexpected impact and brushes what looked like some sort of discarded fruit peel from her hair trying to maintain her composure and dignity.
She finally reached the catwalk wanting nothing more than to escape this disgusting garbage heap, but it was far out of reach for her to jump to it but this was not an issue for her as she took on a firebending stance, as best she could in this unstable terrain, and gathered enough strength to propel her high enough to land on it. She produced a torrent of blue flames from her hands shooting her high enough to grab ahold of the catwalks edge and pull herself up.
She felt strange, she knew she had put enough energy in that blast to send her flying higher than she should have been and land on the catwalk on her feet however she had just barely managed to generate enough lift to grab hold of the railing. Not only that she felt her inner fire slowly die down, almost like it did on the day of black sun when she was without her bending.
She hated to admit it but perhaps the illusion of her mother was right and she was reaching the limit of how much exhaustion her body could tolerate and the putrid smell of this room was not helping. She needed to find some way off of this ship fast. From what little she saw of the crew they didn't seem human in the slightest, that alone made things dangerous for her.
She followed the length of the cat walk to what looked like a metal door. As she reached to open it the door split open on its own revealing another corridor, the sudden movement made her jump back and take an offensive stance but no one was there. The door slid closed.
She approached the door again, this time slowly and like before it slid open. Azula thought that this was strange, normally doors don't open and close by themselves, but given her location and being surrounded by possible monsters, doors opening and closing by themselves seemed to be the least strange thing around here.
She quickly walked through it and jogged down the corridor that was still bathed in red light and sirens going off. Now turbulence rocked her side to side a little and she could feel the direction shifting in the vessel. Azula begins to feel it may be too late to escape this ship now.
As she continued down the corridor she exited an intersection of hallways but pulled herself back once she noticed several figures standing in the hall to her left. Wanting a clearer understanding of who or what is on this ship she peeks over the corridor and her eyes widened when she saw them.
She counted three of them, one large one with his back turned to her and two smaller creatures before it. The larger one stood maybe a foot taller than her on long digitigrade legs that ended in clawed digits, it had four long and equally skinny arms growing out of a narrow torso. She couldn't see its head as long white hair surrounded where the head should be and dressed in ragged clothing that seemed to indicate it was some kind of engineer. The other two were short creatures that if Azula didn't know better would have thought they were children but their skin was unnaturally pale with striped patterns and their heads were oddly shaped like hammers with eyes set way too far apart on stalks.
The larger one towered over the smaller two exuding a menacing aura as it shouted strange words and snarls at them in a language Azula could not make sense of and from its erratic body language and how it moved its many arms quickly along with how the smaller creatures winced and recoiled with almost every word she could tell it was a superior scolding it's subordinates. The larger creature shouted a command at one and shoved a rectangular device in its hands causing it to run down the opposite end of the hall while the larger one hissed another command at the second one pointing down another hall where it began running towards its supposed station.
The larger creature grumbled to itself before turning towards Azula's direction revealing a narrow serpent-like head covered in white scales and four small narrow eyes. The thick white hair she thought was some kind of scarf was actually hair growing out of its neck and shoulders. It began marching towards her unaware Azula was there and focused on whatever task it set its mind too.
Azula debated whether or not she could take this creature on in a fight as she had faced more threatening enemies before but a run in with this creature now would spell disaster for Azula especially seeing it display an aggressive commanding nature towards that pair of other creatures. She had too little information on what she would be facing and instead opted to retreat back the way she came.
In her observation she failed to notice a door slide open behind her. She only took a few steps back before bumping into something that wasn't there earlier, hard enough that she almost fell backwards. When she looked at it she saw the backside of a towering figure standing before her that resembled a giant insect standing hunched over on two legs, long arms dangling from its torso. It turned around and cocked its round head down at her, seeming to only notice her when she walked into it.
She was locked in place staring at this inhuman creature, transfixed on its large compound eyes that gave no indication of its motive, antenna flicking back and forth as mandibles around what she could only assume is its mouth twitched creating a steady clicking noise. It stood as still as she did, only staring at her, occasionally twitching its head in a different position in a moment that felt like hours.
For a moment she thought about speaking to it as if it were a person however words seemed to escape Azula at the moment, instead she slowly began taking a few steps backwards away from it making sure to not create any sudden moves that would startle it but completely forgot of the four armed creature that walked past behind her with it turning to her in surprise and shouting out a series or words she could not understand. The multi armed creatures' sudden outburst caught Azula by surprise and in an instant the larger bug man lunged at her, pincer-like hands outstretched.
Azula darted back quickly and fired a bolt of fire on instinct at the bug man's torso hoping to incinerate the creature however the blast of fire was nowhere near big enough to do the damage she was hoping and instead collided with the creature's carapace scorching it lightly but managed to ward it back.
The multi armed one came at her from behind grappling her and attempting to subdue her. She tried to wrestle herself free from its grasp but its four arms clung tightly to her and it had superior strength. The bug man quickly brushed off the damage she had done and stood back up to its full height and made an attempt to grab her legs. With both feet Azula kicked forward sending yet another weakened blast at the creature, her fire having lost its signature blue coloration now. The Bug man hissed and backed away in pain. The blast had knocked back the multi armed one throwing him off balance and just as it steadied itself Azula let out another blast with her feet catching it off balance again and sending them both falling backwards. With the fall making it loosen its grip she rolled out of its grasp however two of its four arms still clung onto her cloak and attempted to yank her back down as it tried to stand. Azula peeled the cloak off and threw it over its head, disorienting it further and delivered a kick to the side of its head for good measure.
The bug man attempted to rush her once more but as soon as she took another fighting stance it froze knowing another blast of fire would come if it continued further. The multi armed one began to stir, pulling the tattered cloak off its head.
One of the creature's arms reached for its side and pulled out a device that almost looked like a hand held cannon and pointed it at her. Its muzzle flashed with a bright red blast that zipped past her head and fired two more blasts, one she was able to dodge out of the way while the other grazed her shoulder burning through her skin sending a burning sensation shooting up her arm. Now registering this device as a weapon Azula took on a defensive stance and threw a quick jab sending a bolt of fire from her fingertips that collided with the multi armed creature's hand causing it to screech out in pain and drop the weapon.
She then sprinted off away from the two creatures as fast as she could. There went her plan to go unnoticed and not engage whatever they were. She just had to run now and hope for the best. What still bothered her was that her firebending seemed to just keep getting weaker. Every blast she produced was meant to be an inferno but they kept coming out as just small sparks that only a child novice would be able to produce, and the worst part was she could feel her inner fire growing colder and colder with each passing moment.
The sound of the two creatures giving chase could be heard behind her. She didn't look back, she could only focus on getting out of there and away from them but with each corridor she ran down or turned the creatures kept pace. Behind her the multi limbed creature had recovered its weapon as blasts of crimson fire flew past her with several coming close to striking her.
In her escape she came across a large door at the end of the aisle that slid open as soon as she was close enough. She didn't think of where it could lead and just went through it.
Once through she found herself dodging out of the way of large components of machinery and almost running into several more of those smaller creatures that jumped out of the way as she rushed past. She saw an open corridor and ran to it out of the confined space but as she entered it a vehicle of some sort almost collided with her. The shock of the sudden appearance of it made her stumble and fall to her side as it stopped inches away from her. The occupant of the vehicle, a large green reptilian man poked his head out of the window and started shouting a string of more words she could not understand while shaking a clawed fist in annoyance. Azula was even more confused now at the site of this new creature and a small vehicle.
Just how many creatures were in this ship?
She would soon find the answer to her question when she looked around, finding that she was in a massive open space where dozens of strange vehicles were parked in various places along with various forms of machinery and surrounding them all where more strange creatures of all shapes and sizes surrounded her dressed in strange baggy uniforms. Each one was unique and equally stranger than the next, some stood taller or shorter than any human could possibly achieve in height, some had multiple limbs, others multiple eyes, some were human in shape but on closer inspection had proportions or features that were far from human, those that didn't have a human shape had strange abstract appearances or resembled strange surreal versions of animals Azula knew. The worst thing was now they were all staring at her, some in confusion others didn't pay too much attention while the rest saw her as she saw them, completely alien.
This was all starting to become too much for her now, she knew absolutely nothing of what anything in this place was and nothing to plan around, nothing she could control and she began to panic.
The multi armed creature pushed past a few of the other creatures shouting and pointing at her. Several of the other creatures around her quickly moved to capture her.
"GET AWAY!" she shouted, throwing an arch of flames at the closest group causing all of them to jump back in surprise.
She leapt back up to her feet taking on the fiercest stance she knew and sent another blast of orange flames at the feet of a few causing one to stumble back and fall all the while shouting at them to keep their distance frantically turning around making sure none of them snuck up on her.
As her eyes darted around keeping track of all the creatures she failed to notice a silver dart strike her shoulder and send an electric charge running throughout her body causing it to involuntary shake and convulse making her scream before falling on her back, her body becoming numb and twitching involuntarily. As she lay there paralyzed and forced to stair to her right she saw a pair of armored boots walk up to her. Her eyes trailed up seeing that the person was very humanoid in shape and proportion and covered head to toe in dark faceted armor plating with a helmet that was a metallic red.
The figure crouched down as if they were sizing up prey caught in a trap, a weapon like that of the multi armed creatures was in their hand. Their head cocked to the side a bit with the dark reflective visor of its expressionless helmet staring directly into her wide golden eyes. The figure stood back up deciding it was satisfied with its observation before raising a booted foot and quickly hammering it down on Azula. She was knocked unconscious instantly.
When she awoke Azula had a splitting headache and was lying on the floor of a dimly lit small room. She slowly sat up wincing at the pain in her head and the soreness of the bruise on the side of her head, her body was stiff still feeling the effects of the shock that numbed her body. She remembered everything she saw; the colossal ship that came from the sky and the vast array of creatures she ran into. It must have been some hunger induced dream. It had to be, every thought she had of the matter pointed to it, but then she looked at her wrists realizing her movement with them was limited and saw they were bound by metal cuffs. She looked at the room around her and saw a bed sticking out of one of the walls and some kind of strange sink on the back wall. The entrance was covered in a series of jagged and oddly shaped bars that crisscrossed and bent at odd angles. She was all too familiar with prison cells to know that this was one.
She stood up and cautiously approached the entrance to the cell and on closer inspection she saw a blue light emanating between her and the bars that gave everything beyond it a blue tinge. She reached out with a foot and gently tapped at the entrance, finding there was indeed a barrier of some kind that flashed whenever she made contact with it, just like the barrier that separated her and the Avatar.
Her captures must have deemed this necessary to keep her from firebending against the bars. It didn't stop her from trying though, not out of a need to escape but to test the limits of it and like before it completely negated her weak flames.
She shot her fists forward again trying to summon a torrent of blue flames but yet again they came out as a weak sputter of orange sparks. She didn't understand why her firebending was so weak. Ever since she set foot on this vessel her bending was losing its intensity and she felt a coldness within herself as her inner fire struggled to stay burning.
Whatever this place was it was sapping her of her strength and leaving her at the mercy of the monsters on board. She needed to come up with a plan, that's what she had been lacking before and because of that she ended up here.
She paced about in the cell going over everything she knows so far; she's stuck on an unknown ship from an unknown location crawling with inhuman creatures, they all had been in a state of emergency when she entered, perhaps she could use that to her advantage, and this vessel was most likely returning to wherever it is it came from. They didn't kill her at least so perhaps they are merciful, or they may want to torture her for information. Then again what information would be useful to them if she can't even understand what they are saying and it would be wise to assume the same for them. She could try to plead with them, lie and make them think she is some poor unfortunate soul that just got lost, but then she runs into the same dilemma of the language barrier.
She sighed in frustration taking a seat on the cold hard bed. She had far little information to work with so the best she could do now was to simply wait for them to come to her. She did not have to wait long as the sound of a metal door sliding open echoed down the hall followed by several sets of footsteps. Azula sat up straight, shoulders back and chin up attempting to look as dignified as possible, she may be at their mercy but she wouldn't allow herself to appear weak to them.
The footsteps stopped at her cell door where a woman who wore a scuffed up uniform in what looked like a casual manner stood erect, eyeing her with a blank discernable expression and flanked by two others. What surprised Azula is that unlike the various other occupants of this vessel she looked remarkably human accept for her tangerine skin, black eyes with luminous cyan irises, and short curled horns that grew out of the sides of her head, one of which had a broken tip, above her pointed ears that poke out of her long ebony hair.
Beside her stood the armored person with the red helmet that had incapacitated her with a clawed hand resting on their holstered weapon and the other appeared to be a tall lanky lizard man covered in yellow scales and dressed in a more casual attire.
The lizard man eyed her with what Azula could only describe as a fascinated expression as his attention shifted from her to a strange rectangular device he held. Just like the other creatures he spoke to the human looking woman in a language Azula couldn't understand.
The woman said something in the same language with the armored one keeping silent, taking a more rigid stance as if expecting an attack. The lizard man reached for what Azula assumed to be the lock to the door on the wall out of view and the luminous barrier disappeared. The lizard man tossed a small device through the bars before turning the barrier back on.
Azula looked at the device at her feet with curiosity. It is small enough to be held with just her fingertips. The lizard man motioned for her to pick it up and pointed to the side of his head revealing a similar device resting in what looked like an ear hole, and he motioned her to place it in her own ear.
Reluctantly she obliges not really understanding but decided that the device didn't seem to pose any threat.
Once the device was firmly in her ear the lizard man spoke again however the strange words he spoke with before were replaced with words she could understand.
"Can you understand me?" He asked slowly.
Azula's eyes widened in surprise, not expecting to suddenly start understanding them so soon. She wiped the shock from her face, returning it to her usual stoic expression before answering in an authoritative tone.
"Yes."
"Good. Good." The lizard man responded in a jovial manner as he began typing away at the device in hand, "I was afraid the probes we sent a couple days ago didn't gather enough data from your culture to synthesize a translatable language for you to understand. But clearly that isn't the case."
Azula furrowed her brow in confusion as she did not understand half of what he had said, "W-what? I don't understand. What is this place and who or rather what are you?"
The lizard man leans over to the woman who, "Should we really be doing this Captain? Might I remind you contact with primitive civilisations is extremely prohibited under Pendaren imperial law, registered or unregistered."
The woman turned to him but kept her luminous eyes on her prisoner as she spoke in a firm yet smooth tone, "You forget doctor, we're far from Pendaren jurisdiction, and it's just one local. The rest of her kind probably won't even believe any word she says about us."
Being fed up with their private conversation about her, Azula decides to speak up, "I would appreciate it if you didn't speak of me as if I am not here!"
She caught their attention with the lizard man quickly taking an apologetic posture, "Sorry! My bad. We don't really have a protocol for this sort of thing. We're not exactly from your world, you see."
Azula narrowed her eyes, "You are spirits then?"
The lizard man was quick to dispel this, "No. We're not spirits either."
The red helmeted warrior let out a distorted chuckle as they crossed their arms, "The primitive thinks we're gods."
The armored one seemed to be amused with this idea much to Azula's growing annoyance, especially with how they keep using the word "primitive" to describe her.
She ignored the armored one's comment in favor of focusing on more important information.
"If you are not spirits then just what are you?"
The lizard man practically jumped to answer her before any other comments could be made, "Well, we're just people. Like you...or not really like you but similar."
Azula let out an exasperated laugh at that statement, "Similar? How so? You are a walking talking lizard," she said to him, keeping a hard gaze.
"That's rude." The lizard man mumbled.
"You look down right demonic," Azula spat to the woman who only raised a brow at her.
"And you..." she turned to the armored warrior and paused, their black visor staring at her, "Well, I don't know what you look like but I'd imagine it's nothing too flattering."
The warrior let out what sounded like an animal-like snarl.
"There is nothing similar between us or any of the monsters you have on this ship! If you are truly just people, then where is it you come from if not the Earth?" She finished, lacing her voice in contempt.
The woman stepped forward closer to the cell bars, using her height advantage to tower over her and commanding posture to let Azula know who was truly in charge, "What do you know of space travel?"
Azula did not answer as she didn't know much but stubbornly wouldn't admit to it.
The captain took her silence as an answer, "Earth, is that the name of your world?" Again she didn't answer but was curious as to where this was leading towards, "What if I told you that your earth is but a tiny grain of sand in the infinite desert of space? That there are billions of earth's out there each one different to one another, many housing trillions of different types of people. This ship that we stand on has been to many of them and has hundreds of people from each one of those worlds on board."
Azula listened intently towards this information. It sounded ridiculous, all her life she was told there were only two worlds. The physical world she presides in and the spirit world, however these supposed people standing before her proved otherwise, "Say I believe you. Why do my people not know of this?"
"Space is a very big place. Not everyone gets to meet each other. Some are able to leave their worlds and meet others while some spend their entire existence without knowing. Yours simply aren't at the level where they can join us."
Azula kept a stoic mask however cracks of confusion, amazement and other emotions formed.
"Not at the level to join us." She repeated in her head. Now she suppose she knows what they meant by primitive.
She noticed she was slipping again and shook the shock off in an effort to maintain control. She cannot lose control again, especially in front of these "people."
"Who exactly is us?" She asked the captain, referring to them specifically.
"I suppose now may be a good time to introduce ourselves. My name is My'Rell, I am the captain of the SeCore...'' The captain gestured to ship around them, "and leader of the Crimson Storm."
"Crimson Storm?" Azula repeated, "Is that some sort of organization?"
"Why yes actually, however the details of which are not important now. Just know that we mean you no harm."
Azula was skeptical of that last part despite how relatively unharmed she is.
"Now that I've answered your questions, perhaps you are willing to answer some of ours. First, do you have a name or should we make one up for you?"
The princess kept her gaze on them for a moment thinking up one of the various aliases she had to use in order to get around but realized these people don't know who she is so why should she hide? It would be nice to be able to go about using her own name without worrying about the attention it would bring, "Azula."
"Alright Azula, now how did you get on my ship?"
Azula doesn't answer immediately as she thought how best to answer this question, opting to tell the truth rather than lie but only giving what was necessary, "There's a lot of holes on your vessel. I just happened to fall into one."
"Is that so?" The captain didn't seem too satisfied with this answer but didn't probe further, "Third question." She motioned for the lizard man to enter the conversation.
"Hi, I'm Doctor Lectro and I would like to know..." he turned his device's screen towards her displaying an image of her firebending in the large open room filled with creatures from an elevated angle, "How did you do this?" Azula sits up from the bed looking at the unfamiliar device and the image of her swinging an arch of flames at her crew. She mentally scoffed at the stream of weak orange flames she produced, they should have been a large blast of brilliant blue. She made no indication of this to her captors.
"You mean my firebending?"
"Firebending?" Lectro repeated with a raised brow hoping she would go into further elaboration.
"Yes, firebending." Azula took some pleasure in dragging out this explanation, hoping to provoke some kind of reaction, "I generate fire using my Chi."
She then provided a demonstration holding out one of her hands and through some painstaking effort was able to summon a small flame in the palm of her hand.
The doctor's eyes widened and the corners of his mouth raised upward in delight, "Fascinating!" He lowered to look directly into the flame as if it was the first time he saw one.
My'Rell maintained an indifferent expression however she too was fascinated by this display. The armored warriors barely reacted.
"This chi, is it some sort of term for an energy source the body produces or is it a religious philosophy surrounding it? I wonder if perhaps there are some sort of glands in your hands that produce some sort of combustible substance." Lectro continued inquisitively, almost too quickly for Azula to follow.
Deciding she's had enough of being bombarded with questions she closed her hand snuffing out the flame.
"Is bending the elements not common to the worlds you come from?"
Lectro gave her a strange look, "Elements? As in more than one? Not just fire?"
That answers that question at least.
"Yes. Four to be exact. Fire, air, water and earth. The people of my world can manipulate all the elements to our whim." She said in a smug manner while crossing her legs as she sat on the bed in a dignified manner.
The armored warrior crossed their arms skeptically, "What a load of crap."
Azula's smug demeanor lessened at this person's crass comment, "Why are we wasting our time listening to some primitive little girl act tough. We should just throw her out the airlock and call it a day. Focus on who's attacking us."
"Little girl?" Azula repeated with irritation.
"Angara." My'Rell said calmly but was laced in a warning tone. A silent reprimand to the scarlet headed soldier.
The one known as Angara scoffs as they lean up against the opposite wall.
My'Rell sighed tiredly as she turned and made her way down the hallway, "I need to return to the bridge. Learn as much as you can and report back. We'll return her down to the planet's surface as soon as you're done. Angara remain here and make sure the good doctor doesn't try to get an up close view of our guests' little light show."
The sound of a door closing punctuated the finality of her orders.
Azula got a little more comfortable knowing she would be here for a while, "So...you all are aliens from different worlds and such. So what is it that you are doing on mine?"
"Well you see, the funny thing is we never really intended to come to your planet or star system in the first place. We were attacked out of the blue by someone and made an emergency jump through quantum space and arrived here entirely by accident about a week ago. To be honest we had no idea there were even habitable planets in this system."
Azula dismissed the various large words he used but latched on to the detail of an attack and her mind raced as to what could attack a ship of this size and cause it to crash, "You were being attacked? By what?"
"Pirates most likely. Just came out of nowhere, but we managed to chase them off before we lost control of one of the engines and...well you know the rest."
Pirates in space, that was something Azula didn't think she'd ever hear but now she knows that other factions seem to prowl the night sky and this ship, for as large as it is, was capable of falling victim to pirates. She shudders to think what lowly pirates might have had.
"Now about those bending abilities?" Lectro changed the subject with an expression Azula could only describe as a child being given a new toy.