========= 52 - General Shu ==========
Rebels, arrogant mages, and creatures who were simply too angry at the nation of fire sometimes made unforgivable mistakes, attacking unarmed people and doing nothing to bring victory in this brutal war any closer. The military unit we encountered once belonged to such kids - they screwed up their lives, ended up in prison, and were safely rescued by me. Yeah, when was the last time we saw them? A week or two ago? I would have broken one of their faces if they had returned to their former life of "barbarism," but as it turned out, my move, namely, passing on the message to the Lotus Order, bore fruit. At one point, I asked Lotus to take these paramilitary units under their wing so that all the commanders and commanders-in-chief would start managing them properly. Of course, I had to ask more formally, with a strategic approach, but the result is clear to see: the rebels became part of the army under the leadership of a high-ranking commander, even Roach, the crystal mage, joined the unit and, as I understood, developed his tricks quite well, learning to kill faster... it's not for me to judge him. But the problem is that the unit we encountered was fleeing the battlefield.
Looking at the men gathered by the river, greedily devouring supplies bought in the nearest village and trembling with fear as they tried to catch their breath after running, suffering from burns that Katara was now treating, I pulled my old acquaintance, Roach, out of the crowd and made him tell me the situation as it really was. It turned out that the soldiers were not exactly deserters, but rather that the entire regiment, along with their commander, had been defeated. Many had been captured and put in stocks, others burned alive, and the culprit was a certain General Shu, a powerful commander with a vast army.
What they wanted in the surrounding territories, which, logically, had long been captured, was unclear to anyone, but that was the reality of the situation: at the time of the Hundred Years' War, there was not only Zhao with his three daughters, who were tormenting the Avatar, but also a multitude of trained battle mages, whose camps stretched as far as the eye could see. In open battle, even the army of the land could not stand against them.
Looking at the horizon, in the direction from which the small detachment had fled, I saw clouds as black as pitch, streaked with lightning, and the rumble could be heard even here. It was going to rain, which meant that I could say with certainty: I was out of luck and doomed. If such a detachment was nearby, what should we do?
Choose:
1 - The best battle - the one that didn't happen (You can successfully avoid the battle and continue on your way. Be careful, because you are being hunted, so escape options will appear at every opportunity - you will encounter as many enemies as you can defeat. All your further training until you reach the North Pole will be interrupted. All your flights will be tracked, and later you will face a difficult choice)
2 - Only here and now (You already know that you will be extremely unlucky, but only here and now will you encounter the power of the General. Fight and win, but be careful - success depends solely on your combat skills and leadership abilities. Be careful, deaths on your side are inevitable...)
What was to be expected.
A man who pissed everyone off will be hunted until he is killed - I knew what I was getting myself into and was ready for an eternal hunt for my person. More precisely, I was ready to fight back, which was the second option, but to fight against the General's army? Wait a minute, this isn't an admiral accustomed to battles on ships and quick landings, this is the elite of the infantry army, with numerous units, tanks, cavalry, archers and God knows what else. One thing is good... Anubis specified that the General would be in the front ranks. The problem was that if something like this had happened, it meant I was unlucky, and the General's level of strength was unknown. And guaranteed death... in fact, those words could be interpreted in different ways. There were people in the squad who were unlikely to even make it to tomorrow without Katara's help. What if we build a fortress? It was hard to believe that I wouldn't be able to save everyone, although in any case I looked at it from a mercenary point of view: the lives of a couple of soldiers or allowing some General to run rampant? I've driven Zhao crazy for less.
"Let's stop them.
Shrugging my shoulders, I forced both my old acquaintance and Aang and Sokka to open their eyes. Of course, they didn't forget to point out to me a couple of times that there was a difference in numbers, about nine hundred men at least. And Ty Lee whispered quietly that there was a settlement nearby that would definitely suffer if I decided to leave.
"Come on, do you think they'll send the entire army after a couple of escaped soldiers? At most, a small detachment of soldiers, maybe not even elite ones." What's strange is why the General would want to get involved in this. A sporting interest, or maybe some whims that won't let him let even a couple of refugees go? Or maybe... he wants to personally capture the rebels I saved back in the day? Sure, he can easily threaten them, dangle my prisoners in front of my nose, and then I won't have anywhere to run, I'll be stuck right where I am. A boring cliché, or, as a military commander would say, an excellent plan. Besides, if you have to choose between fighting and running forever, it's obvious that the older brother couldn't let his younger brothers be hurt.
Having made my decision and announced it to the fleeing squad, I stunned everyone with the news that we were going to fight. But only so that no one would have any unnecessary doubts:
"You, you, and you over there, dig a trench to divert the river. The five of you, prepare wolf pits along the strip of trees, but without spikes at the bottom," my stern and loud voice attracted everyone's attention, and seeing that I had mentioned everyone, they opened their eyes wide in surprise.
"Excuse me, what are you trying to do?" one of the soldiers asked in a trembling voice.
"We're going to build a line of defence, what else? Do you think you can run away from anyone without a proper trap? Why are you all standing there frozen? Get down on the ground and start casting spells, or you'll be shovelling sand. You have to be able to hold back the enemy in order to retreat properly!" Glancing at each other and realising that this was only necessary to delay the enemy, they actually began to jump to their feet and quickly carry out the orders. "How good is military discipline!" he shouted louder, and now they're ready to dig canyons for you. And I didn't stand around doing nothing, I started building a fortress out of stones and sand.
"Um, Dagoth..." Sokka began, swallowing hard. "Are you sure we can do this?" Trust me, I know that to fight large troops, you need to know how to command, it's not something you can just wing...
"Listen, did you know... - climbing onto the finished wall of the castle, I grinned broadly," - Chin the Conqueror fought against armies that outnumbered his own by an order of magnitude. So imagine that we don't have fifty warriors, some of whom are crippled, but five hundred, each of whom knows exactly what to do.
"Um... aren't you exaggerating a little?
"A little. But it's called raising morale," and winking at him, infecting him with my smile, I found something for him to do, loading a slingshot with stones: a well-aimed pebble was a very unpleasant weapon, as I well knew. And Sokka was a pretty good and accurate thrower, able to hit anyone with his boomerang, so I honestly didn't understand why he wasn't developing in that direction. To hit an enemy at a distance where magic is ineffective? To throw arrows and spears? With a little practice, he would have made an excellent support soldier.
As a result, under my leadership, the clearing half a kilometre from the village was transformed into a new, better fortress in this world. Maybe I was exaggerating a little again, but that's how it felt. Soon, rain began to fall, signalling the end of our preparations.
We sat down behind the walls and waited.
Badaz*
A bolt of lightning somewhere in the distance lit up the dark space. And with it, a large detachment galloping through the forest on agile and huge dinosaur-like creatures. And sensing the approaching people, I suddenly realised something: the fact that the General had decided to hunt down the refugees and had now fallen into a trap, the fact that I had met them and helped them escape, was not luck at all. By becoming his target... I was extremely unlucky.
He had four open chakras.
***
Tyg-dyn* Tygy-dyn* Tygy-dyn*
The powerful paws of tall, elongated lizards left deep claw marks on the wet ground; the riders were dressed entirely in cloth garments that were completely soaked by the rain. Here and there, flashes of lightning illuminated the detachment, revealing at least a hundred soldiers. Seeing the strange commotion on the horizon, at the edge of the forest, they crouched down on their beasts and pulled on the reins, accelerating sharply.
"Spread out," ordered the General's elderly voice, and in the next moment, long-tailed monitor lizards began to jump out into the clearing. "Hm?
It was immediately clear that this was a trap. Not because of the strange fortification in the way, which had appeared out of nowhere and was made entirely of crystals and stone, but because of the deep pits filled with thick mud, into which some soldiers fell, getting stuck like in a swamp, and because of the frozen river with sharp ice stakes sticking out of it, resembling standard fortifications against cavalry. In the blink of an eye, a hail of stones poured down from the fortress, which was picked up by a strange wind and crashed down on their heads, and stones began to rise from the ground, preventing them from moving forward.
Powerful whirlwinds simply broke the formation, and the rain strangely froze and encased the soldiers who had come close.
"Water, stones, wind... there you are, Avatar," the man stopped his "horse" and, glancing at the wall, quickly found the now famous Sand Mage... no, Avatar. His face was on all the posters; he was the one who had driven his dearest and best student, Zhao, mad. And as you can see, he was a smart man who reduced the size of the squad in an instant, even though they had long since developed countermeasures to all the usual traps of the Earth soldiers. He could be considered invincible," - But not on my watch.
Raising his fingers to the sky, he saw with his own eyes how amazed the powerful Architect was, capable of raising fortresses with a wave of his hand. After all, even if they didn't have an explosion mage, any dynamite for a siege, or even the notorious fortresses, any simple fire mage who knew certain secrets could become an excellent siege weapon.
His fingers sparkled, and in the blink of an eye, he channeled the energy through his body and heart, then released the accumulated charge from his other hand. Instead of fire, a flash of extremely powerful electricity came out, which became too unpredictable due to the rain and very humid atmosphere.
Bzz!
The fortress, soaked to the bone, was engulfed by a powerful chain lightning discharge, striking several targets at once.
Among them was the Sand Mage.
========== 53 - Degradation ==========
To become so famous that your strongest move is used against you right away... well, what can I say, I was like that myself: I threw bombs at my enemies, striking everyone with a shock wave of shrapnel; I hit them with stones in their weak spots and did everything possible to ensure that if the enemy got up, it would be with broken bones; I won't even mention the traps and electronics - this battle was supposed to be the same. I came up with a plan, positioned my troops, gave Avatar and the team a hand, and seemed to have completely distracted the approaching enemy unit, but then I got a surprise. What did I know about mages capable of using lightning? That they send it in a straight line and stand there waving their hands before doing so — easy to dodge, or I'll build fortresses with built-in protection against them — or so I thought, knowing that only a few people are capable of such things! I could only guess that this magic became completely unpredictable in the rain. No, no, slight unpredictability could still be circumvented somehow, by the movement of qi or the direction of the mage's hand, but like THAT?!
The chi accumulated in the General passed through his body and gathered in his fingers. It was magnificent, a true beauty of execution and the purest magic of fire, unclouded by aggression or any emotions; it was cold-blooded chi. The mage deliberately disrupted the balance of his magic, dividing it into different components, yin and yang, or positive and negative charges, to put it in normal terms, and then, rapidly reuniting them, he redirected the resulting charge into the air. All this happened at simply gigantic speeds, and only the fact that we had the same number of open chakras allowed me to see this wonderful process.
Bzzz-bzy-dzzy*
But then an indescribable cacophony ensued. The lightning did not fly straight, but distorted and branched into many branches, like a tree growing in an unpredictable trajectory. It was like a tangled spindle moving as it pleased — it was impossible to see or feel where even a single branch would go, and the strike came almost instantly. The soldiers, soaked to the skin, were struck and passed the shock to everyone nearby: I only managed to catch a glimpse of one such deadly flash; unfortunately, I was holding iron fans in my hands, which first attracted the shocks to themselves and then to my neck, saturating my exquisite beads. The moment when I lost consciousness somehow slipped from my memory, and I felt myself just sitting by the wall, drooling on the already wet floor. Could I feel my body? Who could tell? Everything inside was jumbled up, and the flow of qi was unstable. Only voices flashed here and there, flickering before my eyes.
***
"It can't be. His hands and neck are completely burned... I've never seen burns like this," Katara stood there looking lost, opening and closing her mouth at the sight of the guy who had collapsed on the spot. There he had been standing, covering everyone's backs, and now, like the five people who had been standing next to him in a row, he was lying on the ground, convulsing. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Katara gathered raindrops around her hands and was about to run over to heal him, but Tai Lee was much faster. She rushed over like the wind, sat down sharply near the body, and immediately began tapping it with her fingers.
"His chi flow is completely unstable..." the gymnast said, biting her lip, her eyes wet from the rain. "Dagoth said that your healing magic affects chi, which means that all of this will be useless now."
Neither heal the body nor restore the damaged skin, that was the conclusion Katara had drawn from Dagoth's lectures on healing magic. What water does is true, it is a surgeon's tool, but no tool can help if the internal organs are literally spinning like crazy and cannot stay in place: that was exactly how the qi was behaving, and all because of one unfortunate fact.
"The qi points on his hands and neck are destroyed..." Tai Li whispered in a strained voice. Touching his body and trying to force the flow back into order, she realised that the energy was simply dissipating in some places. "Dagot, can you hear me? Hold on."
"M?" For a second, the man's eyes twitched and he could barely make out the face of the girl sitting in front of him. But only a rattle came out of his throat, followed by saliva dripping onto the floor.
"Hey, hey... you're not going to die, are you?" Sokka whispered hoarsely as he watched. The next moment, he heard another crack of electricity. Turning towards the General and realising that he was charging up another bolt of lightning, albeit slightly slower this time, he clenched the slingshot in his hands and frowned fiercely. "You want to hit me again? I won't let you!"
With a sharp swing and a step forward, he hurled the stone he had been preparing for some time in an arc — it flew slowly compared to the lightning, like a turtle, but General Shu was in no hurry. Noticing that his soldiers had stopped freezing, the tornado abruptly stopped, and only the fleeing rebels were throwing stones, he began to think that the Avatar was finished. And there was nothing to be afraid of - only a sand mage could throw projectiles over a distance of more than a hundred metres, as was well known. The rest did not think about such things as ballistics, the weight of the projectile, and air resistance. He thought so until a tiny pebble hit him in the head, so insignificant, but it broke his forehead and knocked him off his feet. He had to quickly release the lightning bolt into the open air, where it dissipated. "What the...?" Wiping his forehead and looking at his palm, where blood mixed with raindrops, he frowned in confusion.
The next moment, a veritable flood rushed down the wall.
"I'll hold them off!" Katara announced, creating a disc of water between her hands. All she had to do was spin it, and it flew in a perfect trajectory at several soldiers, quickly knocking them off their lizards and causing them a lot of trouble. Hitting fast targets with such a projectile turned out to be easier than with a simple water sphere.
"Don't hurt anyone, but strike hard," Aang exhaled at that moment, his heart pounding with fear for his "older brother's" life. Bringing his hands together and creating a compressed sphere of air between them, as Dagoth had taught him, the projectile flew towards the nearest group of soldiers and hit the ground with precision. It didn't seem to hit anyone, but the shockwave knocked even the heavy lizards and their riders off their feet.
Aang did not know the normal combat techniques of his school — he dodged and pushed without thinking about learning anything new. But, learning from Dagoth's experience and remembering what other Masters had taught him, except for Gyatso, he began to use his power more wisely: why push one person when you can push everyone at once?
Everyone was giving it their all... while the Sand Mage simply watched everything and quietly thought about how to signal to close the trap.
***
"Roach, I would like to ask you to do one important thing," said Dagoth, standing with an innocent smile, leaning over the boys who were examining some crystal. "Agree that running away from enemies on the ground when you can hide inside it is a bit of a silly idea.
"Hmm... Well... I guess so," Roach scratched the back of his head and looked around. Building a large fortress when you could go underground and wait it out seemed strange. It was understandable why they hadn't done that when fleeing from their pursuers. They had no strength, no food, and the wounded needed to be taken to at least some kind of settlement to find a healer. And digging tunnels is a much more costly undertaking than it might seem at first glance. "But I understand why it's not done. You want to fight back, not run away. Besides, it's impossible to attack effectively underground — mages can't sense what's around or above them, heh.
"I wouldn't say that," Dagoth smiled, stumping the young man. "But the fact is, placing earth mages under your enemies' feet would be a smart move. But I want you to do it. Don't turn pale so quickly, it's just in case we can't wipe them out with our usual attacks in a couple of seconds. When you get up, find the General you were running from and take him out. But don't kill him, understand?
"Why can't you do it yourself?" At that moment, a smile curved on Dagoth's face. For a second, the young man felt as if he were trapped in some kind of cage, as if he were being manipulated. But the feeling dissipated on its own thanks to the warm expression on their commander's face.
"Because I sense anger in you. You want revenge," he said, patting the boy on the shoulder, almost making him cry. "This is your chance..."
Roach was filled with desire and went underground. The face of the man watching him hardened like a serpent.
Everything was going according to plan.
***
Consciousness returned to my body in strange jerks. It felt like I was being woken up by a small child poking me with his fingers to annoy me and get my attention. It was funny that after each touch, certain points were blocked, and the frenzied streams of energy inside my body calmed down, as if someone was working on the tram tracks, directing the cars along the correct route. Perhaps due to my brain's low activity, it was a crazy analogy, but the effect was effective: I began to open my eyes and become aware of what was happening around me, as if I shouldn't have been out of it.
Everyone was fighting. Aang, who was supposed to signal Roach hiding underground, was only defending the fortress... Only one order was needed to end it all, but my throat hurt terribly and my hands wouldn't move at all. Katara would have been useful, but she was fighting, and no one understood that I needed help right now — as Anubis had said, they were simply not ready for this level of danger, and I couldn't rely on them now. Only Tai Lee had helped me get back on my feet, and it was thanks to her that I was able to think at all, but the girl kept poking me with her fingers.
I can only hope for myself. There was some dirt from the springs in my bag, just in case, but it was impossible to reach it. The only way to get it was with magic, but after being struck by lightning, I completely lost the ability to control my magic with my hands or feet. Just my luck, my last intact limbs were useless. So, in the world of modern magicians, I was now a cripple? A person unable to use poses and, worse, my sound chakra in my throat was almost blocked. No, no, my throat itself was intact, but almost all the qi points around it were broken. So much for the necklace, what luck.
If I were a simple earth mage, I would probably decide that my life is over and nothing makes sense anymore, and all that's left is to follow in the footsteps of the Avatar and hope with all my might that he will now protect me from failure. How glad I was that I wasn't such an idiot and wasn't ready for that approach.
"Huh?" Tai Li's eyes flew open as soon as the lumps of dirt quietly flew out of my bag. I sat there like a complete vegetable, but with sheer willpower, I controlled the surrounding elements. Particles of earth began to swirl around, sticking to my palms and throat — only Anubis knows how much willpower it took me to pull this off. But I did it.
Looking at Tai Li and remembering how I had spent a fun day with her, learning how to heal, I began to heal my wounds. The dirt literally glowed, restoring my body, mixing with my flow of chi and triggering regeneration. It felt like a cold but very soothing compress had been placed on my throat. If only I could cover myself with a blanket and breathe over some hot potatoes, it would be perfect.
"How is this possible?" Tai Lee was shocked, stopping poking me with her fingers and calling Katara over. She, too, wondering how it was possible to control magic without any movement, looked at me as if I were crazy. But she quickly came to her senses and started helping to treat me. The two magic techniques worked twice as well, and even clumsy people like us were able to heal our throats quickly enough to be able to say, albeit hoarsely:
"Aang... signal," the girls glanced at each other, blinked, and shouted to the Avatar. He quickly figured out what was going on and took out the horn he had prepared in advance. The same one from the cave. Filling his lungs with air and blowing, he spread an extremely high-pitched sound throughout the area.
"Oh, is it time? Roach jumped out of the ground and appeared in the enemy camp. His appearance could have been expected, but opposing him was extremely difficult. The angry guy took his crystals and threw them at the enemies. They were sharp and capable of injuring with a single movement, but the most dangerous thing about them was that they were made of jammonyte.
In the blink of an eye, thanks to his clever positioning, good plan, and surprise, he struck every soldier, including the General. The battle ended as quickly as it had begun. I even lifted myself off the ground, surrounding myself with grains of sand so that I could personally witness this beauty, and even though Katara and Toph wanted me to sit down, I couldn't miss this. The general realised that he had been seriously wounded, and blood was flowing profusely from the wound. The other soldiers also had cuts and stab wounds all over their bodies, and they showed no signs of stopping. Given the situation, the order was given to retreat.
The beasts galloped back into the forest, leaving their fallen allies lying on the ground. In the blink of an eye, the entire clearing was cleared.
"Excellent," everything was simple to the point of stupidity: once the enemy's bodies were hit by pieces of jammite, nothing could help them now. The plan worked like clockwork — the damn General, who would most likely have pursued me until the end of time, was now taking his last steps, and I wasn't even to blame. Did I tell Roach not to kill the General? Yes. Am I to blame for the fact that he is mad as hell and disobeyed me? Not a bit. Even Anubis told me that this guy would never be a pacifist, that he would only crave power, so it would be stupid not to use that to my advantage.
I know the value of life and understand why Afka doesn't want me to kill anyone. And I realise what a loss this is for the Fire Lord and that he will treat me badly afterwards, but will it be a loss for the spirits who could have gained knowledge from him? Yes, but I don't care. Will the Fire Lord be angry? No, if the target dies later and no one suspects me.
They're not going to come after me.