Author's Note: This takes place after the season 2 finale, but before the Day of the Black Sun. Zuko is still in the Fire Nation at the time.

Azula pointed two fingers at the gaunt horde before her, and a stream of fire shot out, killing five of them. The others rapidly responded, opening up with their fleshborer guns. Azula jumped and twisted to avoid the deadly streams of living ammunition flying at her. One stray shot hit a Fire Nation soldier further up the path, and he screamed as he was eaten alive by the deadly bugs.

"Damn," thought Azula, "That doesn't leave me with much. It's just me and fifteen soldiers facing hundreds of these things. It's time to go." She shouted, "Retreat, everybody out. Fall back to the defensive positions at the rim." The soldiers launched a final stream of fire at the gaunts, killing a few, before turning and fleeing up the path to the entrenched positions at the top of the volcano. Azula was at the head of them. They had been attempting to hold about halfway up the path. A group of soldiers stationed further up helped them, raining fire on the pursuing gaunts and killing the ones in the lead. The small party managed to reach the entrenched soldiers and armored tanks further up the volcano that housed the Fire Nation's capital city. Two of the tanks rolled forward to cover their escape. Fleshborer fire uselessly bounced off of them as they blasted the gaunts with flame. Dozens died to the fire or were simply crushed beneath the armored vehicles. Acting as one, the gaunts suddenly turned and retreated back down to the lower volcano path, stopping once they had gotten out of the range of the Firebenders.

"Are you alright princess?" asked the captain of the entrenched soldiers after Azula's party had made it to safety.

"Fine," she snapped, "Now get these men into your fortifications, I must speak with my father at once.

He bowed. "Of course, princess." And hurried off to do her bidding.

Azula sighed as she walked towards the palace. Only a month ago, she reflected, the Fire Nation had seemed invincible, with her personal conquest of Ba Sing Se and the apparent death of the Avatar (she had her doubts about that, but had far bigger problems at the moment). Then, these… these things had rained down from the sky. There were thousands of them. Millions. They had rapidly lost all contact with their colonies and conquests in the Earth Kingdom, although that was because the ones with wings had simply eaten the messenger hawks almost as soon as they left, so no one knew what was going on over there or if any forces were still holding out. Soon after, several islands had been silenced as well, and soon the swarm was on the very capital itself. They had taken the outer defenses and the harbor, but the Fire Nation still held the upper volcano and the main part of the capital city inside of it. Any and all able-bodied civilians had been conscripted into the defense force, as had all law enforcement officers. They had mustered some 5,000 regular troops, with an addition 13,000 militia (what the conscripts were called), and 150 armored vehicles to defend their capital. They faced what seemed an innumerable horde, although they did know a bit more about them now. For one thing, the bigger creatures seemed to be some types of leader. If they were killed, the smaller ones would lose all of their normal eerie cohesion and scatter until another large creature came along. Killing them seemed to be the key to victory. Unfortunately, they were two-story armored killing machines, so this was easier said than done.

Azula and her original 40 soldiers had been sent on a mission to take out a particularly large specimen that that participated in the attack on the harbor. She had succeeded, melting its head with a bolt of lightning, but at the price of 2/3 of her squad. These were drawn from the best soldiers they had available, and were certainly not replaceable. They needed every man they could get. After the large creature was killed the swarm around it had wavered and scattered, but then another monstrosity (albeit a good deal smaller than the dead one) had shown up and rallied them. Dozens of the smaller creatures had died to a massive coordinated fire blast from Azula and her squad, but the large beast had charged them, killing a dozen Fire Nation soldiers by itself, and forcing the rest to fall back to the volcano. From what Azula could see, the remaining large creatures were having difficulty keeping all the smaller ones in range of whatever strange ability they used to control them. There weren't many of them left as the Fire Nation defenders had targeted them throughout the battle as ordered, but it still didn't look good. All they had to do was get the thousands of smaller creatures to charge the defenses and they would undoubtedly be overwhelmed. She moved a little faster towards the palace at that thought. She had to get her father to turn over the armored units to her. She knew the smaller creatures couldn't hurt them, only the larger ones. Her plan was to remove them from the defensive perimeter and have them launch a rapid assault at the creatures gathering at the base of the volcano. They needed to take out the enough bigger creatures to make the swarm lose all coherence. Then they could retake the rest of the island and mop up any remaining small creatures. It would be simple enough to kill them without the larger ones to guide them, Azula knew. It was a risky plan, though. She had seen what the large creatures could do to tanks if they got close enough, their claws ripping through armor like wet paper. Really, it only had a slim chance of working. On the other hand, if they were to sit there and attempt to hold out, sheer numbers would overwhelm them and they would all die. A slim chance was better than none. Azula broke into a run.