Once we exited the damned ship, we went through the roads of the fire capital, and damn. It was an experience.

Obviously, we were locked up like animals. Unknown to everyone, locks could be opened easily by any of us since Azula and I made sure of that, but people really treated us like some kind of exotic animals.

Pointing fingers, whispering to each other, and even loudly talking about us...

Honestly, it was kind of a mixed-up reception. 

It was like the fire nation people didn't know what to feel.

They had the grand Avatar, savior of the world locked up in a cage with metal locks all around his body.

That meant their nation would keep flourishing since their only enemy was defeated, but also their legendary savior would meet his end.

Hmm, it must be kind of weird to see such a legendary (almost godly) figure locked up like this.

I wasn't affected much, but the team avatar, especially Aang, looked pretty down from it.

Anyways, we're about to do some terrorism and shit in like an hour so they have bigger troubles to think about.

''...''

'Sigh, we have a few more hours before we get to the exciting part of the plan. I guess you can self-reflect and think about shit in silence.'

I think giving them a good talk right now would be better, but they're smart kids, I'm sure they will be fine even if I leave them to their thoughts.

Let's think about positive things... How about the faces of the nobles?

Ahhh, I can't wait to see their faces when Azula flips the shit and we get into action.

I remember a few nobles that looked down on my father and backhandedly insult us. I don't really give enough shit to make trouble for them, but since we are already jumping into this shit, I don't mind looking deep into their eyes as they realize the inevitable haha.

-----------

[I kept saying 'sometime later' and things similar because I have no idea how long it would take to reach the fire capital lol.]

-------------------------

Soon, we were led out of our cages.

Seeing those firebenders so cheery felt kinda weird to me, how would they feel if they knew we could break out of these shackles any time we wanted? 

Our hands are very tightly locked up in several places and our legs have very small room to walk which is barely enough to separate them. It's annoying, but I've already put up with this shit for a while, it wouldn't do be right to give up now just because it's annoying.

We walked a short while as Azula led us from the front with a proud smirk on her face that even I can't tell if it was genuine or not.

Oh, by the way, I already changed my face. I know we will betray the nation and stuff, but we have been in the city for like half an hour by now, during that half an hour, somebody would have surely recognized my real face and worried my dad. We can't have that now, can we?

Our death walk didn't last long as we finally reached the Fire Palace.

Until now, everywhere was filled to the brim with firebender soldiers since they knew we would be coming, but here, it's even more perverted. 

Tons of soldiers were standing in line. They didn't even glance at us, they were only looking ahead, yet they were fully alert. 

'So this is the real power of the Fire nation huh?'

Fire nation has been the leading power in the world due to many things. 

Immense technological superiority, Sozin's comet, or other stuff helped of course, but these people are the main reason. To be precise, firebending itself is the main reason.

I'm not saying this just to brag, but firebending is just superior. That's a fact.

I know all bending styles have their ups and downs, their advantages and disadvantages, but overall, it's very clear that firebending is the superior bending style.

All other benders control the nature of their style, firebenders create it.

Not only that, becoming an expert firebender is much much much easier than any other bending style.

That 'anger fuels your power' shit is mostly correct for the fire nation and our people have been taking advantage of it for centuries.

Of course, it's possible to become much more powerful if you control your emotions, just like Jeong Jeong or Iroh or any other actual elite firebender.

But, the fire nation doesn't need 10 masters because it can do much better with 1000 experts. 

This anger fuels your power bullshit works only for the fire nation and they use it so damn well. It's very hard for those people to reach master firebender status but an expert bender is still considered the bottom line of an elite bender. Even if you added all the other nation's expert benders, their numbers couldn't match the expert firebenders this nation has. Although I have to admit, fire nation master firebenders aren't that ahead when it comes to numbers if I were to compare to the other nations. Actually, we can only match up to their master firebenders in numbers only because many expert firebenders sacrificed their lives to bring down the enemy master benders.

I never thought of it that way, but isn't this also a way for the royal family and nobles to control the nation? Most of the master firebenders are from the nobles, and even among them, most of them serve directly to the royal family.

Thanks to not using that 'anger fuels your power' stuff, the royal family has always been ahead in terms of personal power, compared to the commoners who probably can't ever reach to a master level thanks to using their anger as their fuel since the start of their training.

''Eyes ahead, prisoner.'' a cold voice filled with poison called out to me as he realized that I didn't look scared or nervous. 

A glance at his eyes already told me that he was suspicious of me. Yeah, I guess I should have acted a little bit scared. It should be weird how someone who's most likely going to be executed looked so aloof and calm. 

Yeah, they will probably lock up Aang in a very tight and specialised prison since they don't want him to reincarnate again, but the rest of us are going to have a serious case of headlessness since they will be separated from our bodies very soon. 

Ugh, not talking for so long is getting to me.

I put some effort into my acting and voila, here I was, shaking slightly as if trying to look brave but scared shitless on the inside. 

I also got another look at him to see some of his secrets since this is already getting boring.

His status told me that he was not only a master firebender, but also a royal guard. A royal guard. This used to be a big deal to me, huh?

Man, this feels kinda nostalgic, I remember the time when I used to look up to these guys. I have come a long way since then, didn't I?

He seemed satisfied with my acting and turned his head away, but I could still feel how alert he was, as expected of a royal guard. 

Soon, we finally arrived and met the infamous Fire King Ozai.

--------------

Patre0n/Lowkeygoodstuff for more of the good stuff hehe