This was written for my Avatar Writing Meme on LJ for beckyh2112, with the prompt of "wicked girls saving ourselves".

Wicked Girls

There was a lot to be gained from being best friends with the Fire Nation princess. Respect for one thing--because virtually no one would dare cross Azula, and the few that did quickly learned better. There was also the fact that if nothing else, Azula was never boring. Be it chasing her brother or the Avatar across the world, or getting into a much-too-serious volleyball tournament, the Fire Nation Princess rarely just sat around.

Mai's parents had encouraged her to befriend Princess Azula from when they first discovered their daughter would be enrolling in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls at the same time as her. Every day when she came home, her parents in addition to the typical "how was your day" questions, she also got "how was the Princess" and various inquiries on what the Firelord's granddaughter may have mentioned or not during art class, and what she preferred to draw.

Mai, who was always obedient, did as her parents asked. She said "hello" to Azula everyday, but didn't say anything more because her parents said to be careful not to annoy the Princess. She was polite and always answered the Princess's questions whenever the occasion occurred that the girl actually wanted to ask her anything.

However, Azula was more interested in other girls whom at first Mai thought she knew because their parents worked or lived in the palace. However, Mai soon discovered that the girls Princess Azula hung out with were not only high ranking nobles, but also firebenders, and it was because of this that she had long resigned herself to not ever accomplishing the task her parents desperately wanted of becoming close to the Fire Nation Princess. Mai couldn't firebend, not matter how much she tried or copied the moves of the other girls in class. Firebending seemed to be the thing Princess Azula was most interested in (or at least, the activity she looked least bored doing), and the girls who could do it also were the only ones she seemed to want to talk to.

This miserable repetitive process of trying to do the impossible continued until Ty Lee, energetic and hyper came up to her one day, insisting that she loved Mai's hair and asking if they wanted to be friends. Mai didn't care either way, so Ty Lee ended up always being around her at school.

It was because of this, when the girls were playing at recess, that the Princess finally took notice of them. Ty Lee came up with a fantastical idea to play that involved something with fighting monsters to rescue a baby dragon or something (even at that time, Mai was not sure exactly what the plot was, but didn't have anything better to do). They ended up running around the playground, up and over various parts of jungle gyms, just missing other girls who were jump roping or participating in similar more boring activities, pretending to fight bad guys by doing elaborate kicks or throwing sticks and rocks or pretending to firebend. Mai was actually beginning to enjoy herself, trying to keep up with Ty Lee and pretending various other villains were popping up and shouting to warn Ty Lee--who listened to her and played along by dodging evil attacks by them. But the girls were so caught up in this game that they didn't realize until too late that they were heading straight into Princess Azula and her friends' firebending practice in the corner of the playground.

Firebending was not allowed by students on school grounds outside of the special classes that taught it, but no one was going to challenge the Fire Nation Princess if she wanted to practice outside of class. Nor would they punish her friends who firebended with her.

Ty Lee was about to do a backflip and kick, when she saw the other angry-looking curly-haired girl in a firebending stance in front of her and suddenly froze in her handstand position. Mai unfortunately was too caught up in the game to notice Ty Lee had stopped and accidentally ran into her friend, and forced her to topple over onto the angry firebender girl she'd tried to avoid.

The girls who'd been practicing firebending laughed, except Azula. Others on the playground turned to see the commotion and then also began to poke fun and giggle at the sloppy dogpile of girls.

"What morons!" One of the other girls next to Princess Azula giggled.

"What were they even trying to do?" Another asked with a mocking grin.

"Get off me you pathetic dimwits!" The angry girl beneath Ty Lee demanded with a push.

"Sorry! It was an accident," Ty Lee immediately apologized as she moved while Mai nodded in agreement.

"Well I'd hope some untalented brats like yourselves didn't do it on purpose!" The girl snarled as she stood up, brushing dirt off her school uniform.

"You tell them Cho!" Another one of the firebending girls encouraged her.

"Of course not, we wouldn't!" Ty Lee insisted.

"I think they need to learn some proper respect...!" One of the girls suggested with a grin.

"I think you're right." Cho smirked and moved into a firebending stance.

"But!" Ty Lee protested in fear and backed up, but Mai was simply frozen and couldn't move.

"And I think that you are the unskilled moron Cho." Princess Azula suddenly announced in a bored tone.

"What?" Cho turned around quickly to face the Princess. "But…Princess, they…"

"You were the one in a stance so weak that you could be so easily knocked over. Not to mention your firebending skill at its best is rather sad, really nothing compared to mine. And the fact that you didn't move out of the way after that girl had already stopped makes you pretty stupid. And wasn't your father or grandfather one of the youngest ever to have inherited the title of Dragon? Kind of pathetic you obviously didn't inherit his skill."

"But... Princess Azula...!" Cho pleaded, face turning read in embarrassment.

"It wasn't totally Cho's fault Princess," One of the other girls defended.

"Yeah, they shouldn't have been running around stupidly and bothering us in the first place!" Another claimed desperately.

But Princess Azula seemed completely unmoved, and just continued. "Now that I think about it, all of you have pretty weak firebending. You're not that disciplined, and don't seem to really want to work on it. And those of you that are sort of good are pretty bad at everything else. Meanwhile, I was watching these two while they were playing just now, and they obviously have more skills than you guys. And they're not even firebenders! And yet their jumping and flipping was way cooler than anything you guys have done the entire time I've hung out with you." Princess Azula informed with crossed arms and started to walk over to Mai and Ty Lee.

"Wow, thanks Princess, that's very nice of you to say." Ty Lee smiled gratefully.

"It's true. You seem really good at flipping and that acrobatic stuff." Princess Azula complimented the girl.

"Really? You think so?" She asked excitedly. "Thank you so much Princess!"

"Yeah I do. And you can call me Azula." She informed the other, leading to a gasp from her former friends who obviously had never received that privilege.

"Wow! Thanks, does that mean you'd want to be friends?" Ty Lee asked excitedly, neither afraid nor intimidated by speaking to the Fire Nation Princess.

"Uh, sure. Why not?" Azula answered, at first obviously put off by the strange question, but quickly recovering enough to smile at the other girl.

"That's wonderful!" Ty Lee exclaimed happily and threw her arms around the other girl. "I'm sure we'll be great friends!"

"Ty Lee!" Mai shouted worriedly as the other girls once again gasped and quickly muttered to each other at Ty Lee's obvious lack of social grace and etiquette.

"Yes, I'm sure we will too," Azula replied with less enthusiasm and broke the hug, though less annoyed than most expected. She then turned to Mai, whose heart nearly stopped at the direct stare alone. "The way you were hiding those rocks and sticks and stuff in your sleeves and hair and uniform was really cool too. I mean I couldn't tell when you picked half of them up until you were already throwing them! Your dodging and speed was pretty impressive too, although I have to guess on the dodging, since I couldn't really see what you were trying to avoid all the time. Unless it was real people," Azula laughed.

"Thank you Princess Azula," Mai responded, not sure of what to say now that the Firelord's granddaughter was actually talking to her.

"Didn't you hear what I said to—what's your name again?" Azula turned to Ty Lee.

"Oh, it's Ty Lee!" The girl reminded happily.

"Yes, that's right." Azula nodded and turned back to Mai. "What I said to Ty Lee was for you too. Call me Azula."

"Um…okay…" Mai agreed shyly.

"Good, now that that's settled…Would you mind if I played with you guys too? I mean, it looks like a lot more fun than hanging out with those girls." Azula asked loudly, throwing her hand in the direction of her former friends who were mostly now just shifting their feet, unsure of what to do.

"Of course! We'd love to have you play with us Azula! Right Mai?" Ty Lee answered excitedly, turning to her friend.

"Yes, it'd be an honor Prince—I mean Azula." Mai bowed.

"Then let's play," Azula grinned.

With Azula, they could really pretend they were fighting dragons, and Mai and Ty Lee got exceptionally good at being able to dodge flames. Azula encouraged them both to take combat training classes at the school, and before long they were by far the most physically talented and powerful girls in the entire school. When the three of them teamed up in any sport or gym activity, there was no one who could beat them. Partly because Azula was always encouraging them to work on various things that they always seemed to end up being naturally good at. Ty Lee became exceptional at gymnatistics, while Mai was quite adept to fighting with various weapons—especially those small enough to conceal in her school uniform or everyday clothes. Of course, they never forgot (nor would Azula let them) that no matter how agile or strong they got, Azula was still the only one who could firebend.

Having Azula as a friend was a strange expierience. Although there was not much Mai could relate it to, being an only child and having very few friends other than the Princess and Ty Lee. But Azula was sometimes like a coach--always pushing and encouraging them to do better and more difficult things. She was undoubtedly their leader, the one who came up with ideas and decided what they did. Which games they would play, and plan and scheme and Ty Lee and Mai would follow. Whether they'd be just playing at the palace, or bossing the other kids around on the playground. Mai's parents were happy their daughter was so close to the Princess. Mai was happy that Azula made things exciting.

Once Azula had decided that Ty Lee and Mai would be her friends, she didn't really talk much to any of the other girls at the school. Azula would taunt the other kids, and look to her two friends for confirmation. Ty Lee liked Azula and always was happy to agree to whatever was said. Mai thought this was strange, because Ty Lee was pretty sensitive to being called names or made fun of. But Ty Lee had different reasons. Ty Lee liked Azula, and felt safe to be herself with her. Though she was rarely ever shy, Ty Lee enjoyed how Azula made them the center of attention and was more apt to take risks and do what she wanted. Azula encouraged her, and was really the first one to ever make Ty Lee feel special, that she was needed and had a part in something. And that was worth sometimes being mean or cruel to other girls. Which only increased when her father was named Firelord and she had even more pull around the school.

But any of the guilt Ty Lee or Mai may have felt about becoming basically the sometimes-bullies of the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, quickly dissapated with how good it felt to get revenge on those other firebending girls, and ones who had been cruel to them before. And so the three of them went on comfortably like that for several years, until graduation. And though it was a bit sad knowing they would be going down separate paths, both Ty Lee and Mai were secretly a bit relieved. For as much as they liked Azula, being around her was sometimes rather frightening--it's not easy spending so much time around someone you could never say "no" to. Azula would be going on to work on some private Royal studies, especially with her brother's banishment and her appearing to be now next in line to the throne. But after several weeks of Mai being back to her dull quiet life among her family, and Ty Lee having to deal with being hidden among her sisters, they were both before long missing their friend. To cope, Ty Lee ran off to the circus to once more be the center of attention, and Mai started openly complaining about her boredom to anyone who would listen. The girls had been changed from being around Azula.

Which is why once Azula had convinced them to join her again those few years later, they fell right back into their well-working routine. Although Ty Lee missed the cheers and applause of her audience, it was fun to be able to do moves she'd never be able to in the circus. There was something really exciting and fun about combat and fighting once again, and doing routines she hadn't practiced over and over before. Mai was happy to be doing anything other than hang around with her family and deal with her baby brother. And both girls had to admit they enjoyed being feared and respected once again--be it by Fire Nation nobles, soldiers, and Earth Kingdom citizens. No one would cross the three of them, unless they were an enemy. And having enemies is what kept this all from being boring.

All this power and excitement all came just at the prince of being loyal to Princess Azula. She had made them into who they were, powerful and dangerous warriors. With more respect and adventure than they ever would have achieved on their own. Together, they were virtually unstoppable.

But if they ever disagreed or backed out on her, they'd have no one else to save them.

Reviews welcome!