As Zuko and Mai discussed their options, the outskirts of the fire nation were burning to the ground. The aged, pristine forest in which Aang and Co. had thwarted the rebel Jet’s terrorism against an Earth Kingdom settlement had become immolated, the flames spreading so quickly that in a few moments the sight of the conflagration would be visible to anyone in the surrounding geography who happened to glance in the forest’s direction. The wall of flame seemed to malevolently wall off the previously-threatened earth kingdom settlement, denying its inhabitants escape in either direction.

And then, the flames stood still. The smoke seemed to die down, making the fire harder to see from a distance. The fire itself did not extinguish; the forest town was still encircled by a noose of hungry flame. While the town had been heavily flooded during Aang, Katara and co’s encounter with Jet, the state of peace that existed since the defeat of Ozai and Azula had allowed for a speedy reconstruction. The town had grown quite populous with Earth Kingdom citizens who grew tired of city life, but were not inured to living in a desert or port town. As Azula stepped out of the burning foliage into the town, she was glad for this. Amongst the crowd she could glimpse potbellied diplomats and doughy housewives, fearfully clutching the arms and shoulders of pudgy, spoiled children. The last town she had hit had been closer to the desert, its inhabitants largely miners and explorers. When she and her followers had scoured the town for crops and virtually anything else edible, they found barely enough sustenance to qualify as a successful raid. However much Azula delighted in seeing an entire town’s population cower in fear and flee before her might, if she wasn’t able to find a way to get any fatter from the venture, it was a self-indulgent waste of time as far as she was concerned.

The sight of Azula stepping through the archway into town added to the surrealism of static ring of burning trees; unless the lone, armored girl approaching the frightened populace was fantastically strong, she should not have been able to step so surely and so quickly, as she appeared almost too fat to stand, let alone march. While the sight invited puzzlement, the approaching figure also very much radiated malicious intent. The town watch, a dozen soldiers led by a trio of earthbenders, stepped forward in warning to the invader. When she raised a hand and began a bending gesture, the guards quickly sent a flurry of arrows punctuated by a hail of razor-sharp rocks manipulated by the bending guardsmen. Without breaking stride, a gout of blue flame leapt from the porcine girl’s lips, filling the cone of space directly in front of her with roaring flame that was not only stopping the arrows by setting their shafts aflame but incinerating everything that had been directed towards her; not even the rock remained when the fiery breath dissipated.

The captain of the guard, having once seen a truly powerful firebender during his tour of duty in the Earth Kingdom military, shouted to the nearby townspeople to flee towards the southern walls as quickly as possible, then ordered his men to fall back, confident a direct encounter would be the end of them.
By the time the town scattered, Azula had reached the settlement’s main plaza, where the soldiers had launched their assault from. Putting a hand to the generous sac of fat that had replaced her chin, she clicked her tongue. “I need to widen my breastplate again…though that was effective…if not completely dignified.” Unbeknownst to the town guard, the deadly-hot fire breath she had produced had in fact been an unintentional belch. The tightness of her otherwise perfectly-sized armor around her midriff did not help with the frequency of these outbursts, though if she concentrated she could typically avoid sending forth a gout of fiery death from her lips (or, if she wasn’t careful, her hindquarters).

These unintentional bouts of firebending were a testament to the effectiveness of her newfound calorie-bending. She could use her own body’s caloric reserves to amplify her bending powers, even going so far as to manipulating the metabolic processes in her body. Her body’s muscles were still those of her fit and lean physique, unused to carrying extra weight. By burning up calories at a faster rate however, she found she could renew her body’s endurance. Her muscles were constantly refreshed and regenerated, though simply standing now burnt calories as if she was engaged in a brisk run. Azula was confident she could create a fireball strong enough to breach the nigh-impenetrable outer wall of Ba Sing Se, but doing so would likely leech two hundred pounds of body fat from her frame in a matter of seconds. Such power was intoxicating but short lived…unless she had a very, very large supply of calories.
That was why Azula had begun to ravage town after town, port after port. She would shed a few pounds crushing any resistance and spreading fear and confusion amongst the populace, much as she had done today with her forest fire (control of which had already whisked away ten pounds of precious softness from her body, but did little to alleviate her painfully tight armor) then take back her investment in force by stripping the settlement of any and all edible materials, cooking cattle into steaks where they stood and pouring entire bags of sugar down her gullet one after the other, too consumed by her new bending style to ever feel anything close to contentment with how much she had eaten. By the time she was through she’d be several pounds heavier than when she began, sometimes managing to swell by nearly one hundred pounds. Getting to her ideal weight was harder than this would indicate, however. She’d often lose twenty pounds simply traveling from place to place as it took more and more energy to keep her body mobile. Even with this caviat, Azula’s natural cunning had allowed to her balloon to over 500 pounds using these tactics. The fugitive princess knew she needed to be much, much heftier to ensure a clean victory against the combined forces of the Fire nation military, her traitorous family and friends, and the Avatar, bolstered by his gaggle of followers.

The idea of growing so large troubled Azula not one whit; it was simple fact that her beauty was unparalleled. If she chose to drape herself in a few extra thousand pounds, every ounce would amplify her regal beauty.
Where things stood now, her rear end doubled Katara’s in width, supported by thighs that put tree trunks to shame (Azula knew this well, as she often found herself having to squeeze her majestic legs between two closely situated trees just to have a way to move through the forest). Before today’s attack, Azula noticed she could now grab a thick handful of fat from her ankles, of all places. Of course, it wasn’t surprising considering the pace at which the rest of her “beauty” had been developing. If it were not for the extra energy she was expending bracing her muscles, her breasts would leave her Azula nearly unable to walk in their own right. They rested in her armor, jutting forward with her stomach, the rigid lining of her crimson chestplate keeping them from simply resting against her gut, instead pressing them together and keeping them relatively supported, sculpting a cleavage line that likely outstripped a foot in length. Her arms had thickened past what even the most well-muscled earthbender could ever hope to achieve, creating delicate wings of hanging flab whenever she raised her arms. Her elbows had disappeared into delicate creases several days ago, lagging behind the disappearance of her knees. Her stomach had widened, then drooped, unwilling to completely overthrow dominance of her hips in terms of width, choosing instead to sprout generous lovehandles then venture outward, never achieving the jut and heft of Toph’s midsection in favor of a thick, flawless curtain of jelly that hung like an apron over her upper thighs. Her footfalls often cracked the delicate tile of the bakeries and restaurants she raided. Azula had come to love the sound of her heavy footfalls; to her, the bassy crashing rhythm spoke of power.

Despite her generous bulk, Azula had appeared at every invasion fully armored, clad in a deep burgundy and gold one-piece suit of that covered the entirety of her truly massive rear end and even managed to gently wrap around her stomach with an extra extension of the plating that was separate from the “skirt” portion protecting her hips and upper thighs. Underneath this she wore massive crimson-dyed silk garments that covered her arms and legs completely, sewn from the entirety of a looted bolt of cloth. Her armor was custom-made, a series of interlocking metal strips and hexagons bound together by tiny catches. Using a special tool that “unlocked” an armor segment through an almost imperceptible slot on its face, she could undo an offending portion of her armor and reconnect tit with wider angles, allowing space for yet more armor strips. The end result was protective gear that cradled her body perfectly, growing bigger and bigger with her body. She had held a fire nation metalworker’s family hostage, denying him sleep and food for over 24 hours until she was sure she had enough armor-tiles to make twenty normal breastplates. Azula had taken the liberty of shaping hand and shin guards out of the tiles as well. It was this armor in which Azula now stood, ready to overtake a particularly prosperous mark.