"Surely you can do better than that," Azula drawled, her tone thick with disappointment as she dusted some loose dirt off her attire.
At least he was honest about being a poor sparring partner.
The test of character was disappointing, very disappointing indeed. Even the palace guards watching them at a distance were muttering their disapproval. Xing's movements were swift but stiff, greatly lacking in the fluidity required to channel and focus his chi. His punches and kicks were half-hearted and indecisive, creating pitiful gouts of flame that wouldn't even melt a candle. She barely needed to block or avoid most of his sad attempts at an offensive. The boy was clearly holding back on some misguided attempt to not harm her.
"Are you going to bother trying?" Azula asked right before she lunged into a flurry of punches and whirling kicks, lashing out with tongues of flame. Maybe with enough pressure, she could break Xing from his reticence.
The colonel however dodged her strikes with surprising ease, his gaze never leaving the princess as he sidestepped and whirled aside just enough to avoid the attacks.
Azula allowed a small scowl to grace her features as she continued her attack, leaping to close the distance and launching a series of kicks mid-air that sent a barrage of fiery bolts raining down on Xing. He weaved through the hail of fire effortlessly, and as the princess descended with an axe kick aimed for his head, Xing opted to step back and avoid the flurry of fire punches instead of blocking and stopping the offensive momentum as standard convention dictated.
If nothing else, Xing was good at not getting hit. Was he really that bad a firebender that he had to resort to dodging? Or was the boy merely toying with her? The fact that she even considered the latter thought offended Azula.
"You are starting to annoy me, colonel," she hissed. "I'm starting to think that all the tales about your exploits are just mirages."
"They are greatly exaggerated," Xing replied with an infuriating nod, eyes just low enough to not meet hers. Did he really not care about his prestige?
"If you truly are this incompetent, maybe I should have my father rethink your promotion."
Ah. A twitch in the corner of his eye.
Azula grinned as she found his weakness. "Perhaps I should suggest another…appointment for the 11th Regiment. Another…promising noble who could use the glory, hm?"
Xing's body stiffened, and there was a flash of fury in his eyes.
Good.
"Come then, colonel. If you wish to keep your command, prove to me that you are worthy of it." She settled into a combat stance, grinning with anticipation.
"Fight me. I promise, you don't have to beat me." It wouldn't be fair to set an impossible challenge, after all.
The boy's stare blazed for a second, and she noticed how his eyes then glazed over with hostility. "As you wish, princess," he said flatly while bowing deeply. "I deeply apologize in advance for the offense I will commit." With that, he adopted a crouched, almost hunched stance.
Azula was about to laugh at the proclamation when her instincts screamed at her to leap aside. She did so just as Xing suddenly closed the distance, fists leading the way. Azula's eyes were wide as she watched the punches fill the space where her head used to be. Her mouth gaped open in further surprise as a jet of blinding white flames then burst out from them.
Before she could comprehend what she just avoided, Azula quickly rolled away as a small orb of the same fire blasted out a small crater on the ground she once occupied. Pure instincts kept her moving as Xing's leg came down and left a small smoldering crater upon contacting the ground. She made enough distance to safely stand, but had to immediately twist painfully to one side to avoid another punch aimed for her head. The burst of fire erupting from the strike caused some of the guards behind her to shout out. Whether in panic or otherwise, she was too busy to care.
Azula tried to retaliate with a fiery strike of her own, sending a knee up to his guts. Xing shifted aside as she expected, but her ensuing elbow strike was batted aside with a backhand that trailed a curtain of fire which forced the princess to wince and backpedal away.
She wanted to growl her annoyance, but Xing did not give her that luxury. Without hesitation the colonel charged through the dissipating flames, striking and kicking in a pattern that Azula was completely unfamiliar with. The speed at which he delivered his attacks - along with the recent memory of his fiery follow up - made blocking a risky prospect, so she had to desperately dance aside or deflect the blows as they came.
For all his poor posture, Xing was fast, faster than many of her mentors. He also kept close to Azula, never letting up in his offense and never giving her the space and the chance to get into the proper stance to deliver a decisive counterattack. It didn't help that he kept aiming at her neck and face with fists and knifehands, while his legs swept and whipped about in an attempt to trip and knock her over.
She tried batting aside a jab aimed for the throat, and with the same arm sent an elbow into his face. Xing responded by quickly delivering a quick jab into her now exposed side. It forced her to abort her attack and instead send the elbow down to intercept the strike, landing a sharp blow onto his wrist. But the awkward stance she was forced into put her back in the defensive again, and Xing didn't seem to register the damage that was supposed to be inflicted to his hand.
Instead, he kept his blank stare locked onto her, and Azula noticed how he never spun about or moved in any way that might break his vision. Not that the close proximity allowed him to do anything fancy to begin with. Still, the unrelenting gaze was genuinely unnerving.
Azula's final attempt at breaking Xing's momentum was a bold and desperate lunge forwards, using the palm and elbow of one arm to push aside his arms and make way for a swift punch into his throat. However Xing deftly shifted out of the attempt at deflection, and his hand grabbed tightly onto her blocking wrist to yank her towards him just as he lowered his head.
A burst of fire from her feet propelled her away from the waiting headbutt, but he still held onto her arm, and the jarring imbalance from the desperate move allowed him to shift his weight and throw her groundward. Azula's fall was arrested by strong hands grabbing her shoulders, but that only brought her face inches from his.
Azula remembered the nickname the colonel had earned in the 11th, and saw the wisps of smoke exiting his widening maw as he continued to glare death at her.
This was the end, she thought.
She wanted to cry out her denial, her defiance at the inevitable, but instead Azula found herself frozen and staring in horror as Xing opened his mouth fully…
…and an intense blast of heat washed across the left side of her face, coupled with a deafening roar. And then it was gone, leaving relieving coolness to soak across her warmed skin.
The princess and the colonel stared at each other, the former in incomprehensible shock, while the latter was starting to lose his combat daze. Colonel Xing stepped back, pulling Azula up to her feet in the process. The fury and raw violence in his eyes melted away, and he backed away further before bowing and saluting her. "I hope the demonstration is to your satisfaction, princess."
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