This post contains mature, sensitive content, mostly related to severe bullying.
Nobody in the Burning Legion really knew what to do with the psychotic cackling echoing from within the tavern of Asbec. A little under an hour before, their general had singled out Private Gemrick — again — and ordered her new blindfolded bodyguard to carry him into the watering hole. She’d then rounded up a few of the village’s elders and Lieutenant Pepsiman and retired into it herself, and since then, the only thing anyone had heard was a nearly endless manic laughter.
As the T-800, Lieutenant John Connor, and his new friend Ki returned to the unit, then, they were heralded not by a greeting from Azula herself, but by whispers and gossip about what sort of psychological torture the poor, young private must’ve been being subjected to. It seemed that the young general herself was just too busy to offer any sort of platitudes about the success of his first command.
Azula herself would’ve agreed with that sentiment. She never found herself in the business of doling out words of affirmation so freely; why would she affirm anyone for simply completing the expectations that had been set upon them? Why would she offer any sort of reward for the bare fucking minimum? No — that wasn’t befitting of a leader that accomplished any sort of actual results. If her soldiers knew they could get away with, and even be lauded for, doing next to nothing — doing just the baseline of what was expected of them — then that’s exactly what they would do. She didn’t need that. She needed them to surpass the lower rungs if they were going to reach the destiny she knew they were capable of.
At this point, she figured they should be fucking happy they weren’t dealing with what this pathetic flea Gemrick was dealing with.
He knelt before her, stripped of his jacket and shirt, tears already welling up around his eyelids. She leaned back in the uncomfortable tavern chair, eyeing him with a devilish smirk. “Could you repeat that for me, Gemrick?” she chuckled as she waved a hand and directed Pepsiman to move closer.
“I—it’s okay, ma’am,” Gemrick sputtered, and instantly, Azula shot forward, leaning onto her knees.
“Excuse me?” she spat.
Stheno stepped forward from behind her superior’s chair. “The general asked you to repeat yourself, Private.”
Gemrick’s eyes traveled up and landed on Stheno, easily the most physically impressive presence in the room. He shrank at the sight, even more than he shrank before Azula.
He felt small, and the fire princess could see it. It thrilled her. More than anything, she loved
this feeling — being able to look at someone and see just how miniscule they felt. To feel their insignificance radiating off of them… it was enrapturing, and it became all the more tantalizing if she could say, without any doubt, that she’d been the cause. She loved nothing more than destroying a spirit — even more than obliterating someone from life itself. Death was so instant, so final, but she could breathe in the fumes of Gemrick’s patheticness for days.
Finally, the worm spoke. “It’s… it’s a little hot, General,” he muttered.
Azula had to stifle another giggle to fake a pouting, sympathetic face. “Oh, is it?” she whined, “Is it a little hot for poor Private Gemrick?” She burst out of the chair, cackling madly. She slid onto her knees and knelt almost eye level with the soldier, trying to peek into his eyes and see the depth of his pain. He’d turned his face into his shoulder, hiding them from her, but she could see the tear running down his cheek. She reached forward and wiped it off. “Oh, no, no, no,” she cawed mournfully, “don’t cry. Lieutenant Pepsiman can refresh you, Gemrick.”
“Ma’am,” Pepsiman whirred, “the customer has not looked refreshed the last few times.”
Azula snapped her gaze toward the robot. “Spray him, you walking watering hole. Coldest setting.”
“By Shadkjah’s mighty name!” one of the elders in the corner burst out of their small huddle, slamming her walking stick into the ground. “Is this how the Miniskirt Armada runs their units? Is this how you plan on triumphing over the other soldiers, or those abominations to the north?!” The woman shook her head as fast as someone clearly approaching one-hundred could, and then glared at the young woman before her. Had the youth really strayed so far?
“
Shameful.”
Azula let her eyes fall on the elder woman. She reached out and grasped Gemrick’s bare shoulder, yanking him up off the ground and gesturing towards him.
“Listen to me, you hag,” the princess-general barked, “
my soldiers are stronger and more capable than any other force on this island of protecting you fools. Just look at Gemrick, here. He looks, for the most part, like a perfect specimen of a military man, chiseled and powerful and, based on how openly he displayed his weaknesses to me, clearly with nothing to lose.” She glanced back at Gemrick and chuckled, lifting his chin with her finger almost as if she found him adorable.
Then she turned back to the newest subject of her ire.
“It is my
job as his comman — ergh, his
general — to inform him of his weak points,” she continued. “It is my
job to keep him alive and fit and ready for battle, and if I don’t call him out on his bullshit… the enemy will.”
She watched as the woman’s face started to grow pale, and oh — there it was again. Goosebumps on her wrists, a tingle at the nape of her neck, the hairs on her head electrifying ever so slightly as she watched this bitch shrink before her very eyes.
“But the enemy,” she nodded, inching closer to the elderly woman and away from Gemrick, “the enemy will call him on his bullshit by disintegrating him. Or mutilating him, or flaying him alive, or any number of more horrifying outcomes than my mean words. But I know, I know! I have certainly heard this sob story before. Be
nice, Azula, be
kind. You’ll get farther that way.”
She scoffed. “Well, I’m not
nice and I’m not
kind,” she scowled, “and I won’t be changing that for insects like you.”
Silence hung over the room for a few moments. The elderly woman had withered and almost vanished into the shadows, overcome by what she’d just seen. Stheno and Pepsiman, too, stayed quiet. They’d gathered by now that they were riding toward parts unknown with a verifiable sadist, and as Azula stood in the middle of the dimly lit tavern, they saw a glimpse of what lied behind the girlish exterior. Blue flames from lanterns she’d lit flickered on her face, and in the sapphire light, she looked, ironically, very cold.
She turned back toward Gemrick. “Do you feel lucky that you’re still alive, Private?” she asked, slinking back towards him, “…because you should.” She started to laugh again as the doors to the bar burst open, and her other Lieutenant hurried in, his robot and feline friend on his heels.
“What’s going on here, General?” Connor asked, and Azula looked past the private to see him.
“Oh, nothing, Connor,” she giggled, “just some special trai—”
WHAP.
THUMP.
Stheno slid off the bar, where she’d taken a seat, and rushed to Azula’s side. The fire princess lay, crumpled on the floor of the tavern, nose completely wrecked out of alignment. A glance up toward the heavily breathing, sweating, bloody knuckled Private Gemrick served as a quick warning before the mercenary leapt into action, reaching up and wrapping her fingers around the soldier’s throat. She lifted him into the air, moving to slam him into a nearby table and end his worthless life for good, when Azula rose to her feet.
“Stop, Stheno,” she shouted, holding up a hand. Blood trickled from her clearly very busted nose, and she was forced to steady herself, but everyone in the room saw an expression on Azula’s face they didn’t quite recognize.
They’d seen her happy. Moments ago, of course — when she’d been thriving, a giant amongst ants. Stheno had seen her impressed, on their first meeting, and throughout the few days that had passed since her reassignment. This wasn’t either of those. It was almost — perhaps — the face of someone who’d just had a breakthrough.
Or maybe just a psychotic break.
“Connor,” she chortled, “punch Stheno.”
“What?” the lieutenant asked, “I couldn’t—”
“I couldn’t allow him to, ma’am—”
“Stheno, you’ll take it, and that’s an order,” Azula locked eyes with the woman. “Yours is an order too, Connor. Go.” She waved him over, clutching her nose with one hand and letting the other fall to her hip, as… much to both of their chagrins… John Connor punched Stheno. “Good,” Azula grinned. “Stheno, punch Gemrick!”
The mercenary obliged, smacking Gemrick right in the nose; the soldier staggered back, blood leaking from his nostrils, and then let his eyes roll up to meet his general’s.
“Feels good,” she grinned, showing her teeth, “doesn’t it?”
Gemrick blinked, then glanced down at his bloody fist. “This did,” he nodded, smiling tentatively.
“Well, that’s part of it, is it not?” Azula burst into a wicked cackle again, pushing some hair out of her face and staggering forward. She reached out to Stheno, who caught her woozy self and held the fire princess until she could force herself aloft again. For a few moments, she just chuckled, almost giggling in her bodyguard’s grip.
“Connor,” she started at last. “Gather the troops. No one leaves this village without a broken nose, and without breaking one.”
Connor blinked for a moment, then turned with a nod and obliged.
“Ma’am,” Pepsiman droned, sidling up near his general, “I’m not sure all the customers will find being punched in the face incredibly refreshing. Perhaps some ice cold glasses of Pepsi instead?”
Azula swung around and launched her fist into Pepsiman’s beady little mechanical eyes. The bot stumbled backwards, plopping down in a chair and whirring, alarmed.
“Missed his nose,” Stheno snarked.
The fire princess glanced back toward the merc, a little slack-shouldered.
“Does he even have a nose?” the teenage terror asked. Stheno shrugged. “Eh,” the young tyrant sighed, “That one was more just for fun.”
Asbec’s citizens fell asleep that night to the low rumble of noses crunching, and the rowdy shouts of soldiers finally getting to release an overflowing aggressive energy they’d been holding in for days.
Azula was in paradise.
