He bowed before Azulon in greeting.
"I will get straight to the point. Your studies have advanced to a point where you can only grow further in real situations" Azulon said and Akira perked up "Because of this you will be given the rank of an Admiral and join the military to earn real experience in battle. Your firebending instructor will acompany you until you have learned and mastered lightning bending. After this you will have full autonomy of your battalion"
Akira could barely hold in his excitement. He got a whole battalion to comand with full autonomy.
"I will not dissapoint you" he said and grinned.
"Good, do you have any special wishes what corps you want to join?" Azulon asked.
"I will form my own corps, a mix of the mechanical corps and the navy corps" he decided "please give me control over the factories in the north and a battalion of men on my command" he said.
"Fine, you will get a small fleet of ships and an old industrial area where we were stationed when fighting against the air normads" Azulon said "I will give you enough resources and men to handle producing military machinery. I expect results"
"Of course" Akira said grinning.
"You will leave tomorrow at surise at the harbour. Instructor Taji will show you the way" he said, dismissing him.
Akira bounced in excitement at finally having his own factories where he can produce his secret operations to build even more advanced military tech.
Submarines, air ballons, zeppelins, warships with cannons instead of those incredibly outdated katapults...and he had no intention to give them to the fire nation heheheh.
He was also excited to finally get the green light to learn lightning bending.
So after his talk he readied everything for departure.
A big elephant sized panther growled beside him annoyed by him packing his stuff.
"Quit complaning Noir, we are making a trip to the factories in the north and I am finally allowed to learn lightning bending" Akira said while stroking Noir's head which was almost as big as him.
Straight after that he lied down and slept to be well rested for tomorrow.
...
The next morning he woke up and rode Noir down to the habour that was still relatively empty because of the early morning hour.
Wearing a black military uniform with a golden dragon on his side he looked like a true admiral albeit a bit young.
He spotted his Instructor Taji on one of the boats winking to him. He just stared at all the boats that were lined up on the docks that are now under his command.
"Admiral Akira" Taji said with a light bow.
"Alright, let's begin straight away. I want to lean lightning bending straight away" Akira said excitedly. I mean come on you can't blame him. Everyone would want to shoot lightning out of his hands.
"Not so impatient young prince, you first need to instruct your fleet where they should head to" Taji said.
"Right, they should just assume standard formation and follow me to Asokoh Island to the old military habour" Akira said and dismounted Noir who followed behind him.
"Let's go!" Akira said and the personel on all his new ships immediately got busy and the ships started to move towards the north.
'So it begins' he just thought as his fleet followed his ship to an old harbour they used in the hundred year war against the air nomads.
"So let's start already. It should take about a week until we arrive" Akira said eagerly to his instructor Taji who just sighed.
"To gain control over lightning you need to forget everything I have teached you and let go of feelings like hate and anger like one usually does" Taji explained " Lightning is pure precise energy without any emotion. It requires a rare blend of inner calmness and control to seperate negative and positive energies. When those two collide lightning appears to dissolve the tension"
Akira understood the important parts about lightning bending. You charge the air around you with electricity and then let them collide setting the direction. The part about inner calmness is pretty much bullshit but you can't rely on rage or anger when bending lightning.
Anyways he never followed that part of Tajis training and followed the method of Zuko's enlightment to draw energy from determination and a sense of purpose.
The ability to help the avatar and abilities to command armies if he played his cards right.
He watched carefully as Taji performed the basic charging and releasing of electrical energy causing a giant bolt of lightning to appear over their ship.
"Let me try" Akira said and followed his movements gathering his chi and seperating it into two conflicting energies, positive and negative.
He then let them collide in front of him and a big lightning bolt lighted up the sky.
Taji just stared at him with an open mouth "Talent is so unfair...took me almost a year to get this right" he grumbled.
"Like this?" Akiro asked innocently and he saw how Tajis eyebrow twitched in annoyance.
"Yes that was perfect" his tutor said in a forced calm voice.
The next week was very boring for him but he mastered lightning bending almost perfectly.
He could now create and control lightning however he wished but it took a lot of energy even when you take his enourmous chi reserves into account.
It couldn't be helped after all chi increases until one is physically mature and he was only eight and hasn't even hit puperty yet.
"We have arrived, Asokoh island" a solider behind him said.
"This will be a shit ton of work" Akira sighed at the neglected harbour with bareley functional docks.
After a week he finally had solid ground under his feet again.
His soliders and personel lined up in front of him awaiting orders.
"Alright, this will be a lot of work. Half of you scout this island for any monsters or inhabitants that live here. Kill the monsters and imprison the inhabitants and bring them here" Akira said and dismissed half of his force that went to search the old factories "As for the rest, take off your armour, you won't be needing them. You will help the mechanical corps in repairing all the facilities"
His men immediately got to work and started to repair the old rusted docks.
"How long will the repairs take?" he asked.
"The harbour will take about half a year to fully be repaired, the factories will take around 4 months so we should be ready in around a year" his second in command said.
"Good, focus more on the factories. I want at least one building functional in half a month" he said and his commander nodded.
He had plans for the next years and he will build a force to shake Ozai's claim to the throne.