On air temple island Moksha was still stood there, still presenting his conscription papers and growing rather irate, looking at the bleary eyed so-called-genius that was Akir. From the sneer on his face everything he could see offended him. The leaking roof, the dingy lighting, the tired, broken down soldiers. None of it was good enough.
"General Moksha I don't care what you wave in front of my face, I'm already in scientific service." Akir answered slowly, laboriously. "Can I have a chair please." He croaked, reaching a hand to the nearest seat, which happened to contain Hiro. He staggered to the chair as Hiro left it and sat down with a heavy thump. "And it would seem I'm not up to travelling right now anyway."
"You can't do this." Nagant declared, on instinct he touched a hand to his swords, sitting in their scabbards on the war table.
"You might want to take that hand away." Moksha chided, pointing to the dao's hilt. "You've been away from your duties a while Captain so I'll forgive your lack of diplomacy." He said an air of politeness so false it came straight back around to being insulting. "But threatening a superior officer is a hang-able offence…."
"General Iroh gave me full discretion over my mission, you can't just order me off of it." Akir protested weakly. He didn't even raise his head all the way to look at the big fat blustering general.
Moksha looked at him, slighted. He twitched one of his bushy white eyebrows and sneered at the small, weak string of a man. "This order comes from president Reiko himself, you can either come with me or you can be stripped of all rank, titles and finances and formally exiled from any United Republic Territory. Including the ground you're standing on."
"Military men." Nehal huffed. "It's just not good enough for you lot until we've got no choice but to lock step and get in line." There was a tense pause in the room for a moment. Even the admin staff paused in their paperwork and looked up at her.
"I wouldn't say so." Moksha countered. "And it's a good thing I wouldn't say so, because that's a really effective airship you've got. If I really wanted you to 'lock step and get in line' I could seize the Hanapin with a standardised entry form."
Nehal sneered at him but remained silent for the time being; content to fume at him internally. Moksha spoke again. "Your medical condition is appreciated; you can work here whilst you recuperate." With that he turned on his feet and walked back out with his men, to the largest of the parked airships.
"What a fox-weasel." Nagant sighed, stood heavily over the war table as Kai-Shek might have done. He looked more like a United Forces officer should, with his hair neatly trimmed and groomed as well as a more rested appearance and a certain liveliness to his eyes.
In contrast Seiko looked as if she were just about able to keep her mantle from pulling her to the ground. Her glasses dug heavily into her broad nose which had reddened from a pronounced cold. Her glider-staff sat dejected in the corner. "Perhaps, but I'll be glad to let someone else take the lead here." She said tiredly, running a head over the five o' clock stubble on the top of her head. "Kei-Shek always made this look so easy."
"Speaking of Kei-Shek" Hiro began. "We left him behind, and twenty two men and women, so that we could get a weird bowl out of a defunct university. We owe it to them to see this through."
"That sounds an awful lot like treason, lieutenant." Seiko declared. "Nagant take Akir and Hiro, to my office, I'll be with you in a moment." She finished commandingly, very commandingly; Akir wondered why she didn't use that voice more often.
The three managed to get over their stunned silence and proceeded to the office, a few flights of stairs away on one of the upper floors. It had once been Master Tenzin's private study, a place of sanctity and meditation. When Kei-Shek moved in he filled it with his effects. Old novels, records, his officer's sabre and a few paintings. Then there were the photographs, and medals, ledgers, folders, notes, every last detail of his life just left behind as if he figured he would just walk back in here and get back to work. Seiko's stationary was her only customisation to the lived in little workspace, scrunched in unobtrusively amidst Kei-Shek's belongings.
"That little scribe's tough as nails, was she always that commanding?" Nagant asked as he helped lower Akir into a traditionally stiff air nomad chair. Kei-Shek kept them there just so guests would get out of his office quicker.
"No…she wasn't." Akir responded a tad flustered, and not just because he had gone up three flights of stairs with a weak heart. "Wouldn't mind it though."
The door opened a moment later to reveal Seiko and the rest of Akir's team. Zhu-Rong hadn't changed at all aside from finally putting on a sleeved shirt. Yana had changed into an assemblage of united forces gear, a drab melange of earthbender green and nonbender grey. She wore her paint mask as ever but she now wore the bright blue strip of silk Akir had given her as well. Her brow looked less furrowed, less pained and she stood with an easy confidence.
"Sorry, who are you?" Akir asked, pointing to a water tribe man with a lantern jaw and thickly muscled arms that strained against the cloth of his dark blue leather jacket.
"Don't you recognise me?" He said with an amused voice. "It's Narada, I just shaved now that we're back in civilisation…..such as it is."
"Yes, yes it's very fetching." Seiko said as she shut the door and settled uncertainly into her office chair. "As Hiro said we've….we've lost a lot of people getting this far." Seiko paused a moment. "But I've studied that bowl, all those texts you bought back from Xulin, there's a real chance we're going to discover something that could not just bring the day back but make sure the world never has to fear the spirits again. We aren't giving that up."
"You heard Moksha!" Akir sat up in protest. Then winced, then sat back into his chair. "If we defy his orders we'll be exiled, stripped of our assets, I'll be excommunicated, the United Forces might never stop hunting us."
"I'll do it." Nehal said a breath later. "Home was always in the sky anyway." She sounded uncertain, but she didn't change her mind.
"I do this for my home, whether I go back or not." Zhu-Rong interjected, there was the beginnings of a small smile.
"I'm a criminal, world's most wanted is just a promotion." Said Narada, chuckling. "Besides you guys could do with a healer, now more than ever."
Yana smiled and looked at him with her big blue eyes, they were squashed at the corners by her cheeks as if what was left of her mouth was smiling. I wouldn't mind seeing the world. She signed.
"What about you Mari." Akir asked from his chair. "I wouldn't feel safe going into battle without you there."
Mari looked at them, pensively for a moment. Without her warpaint, to disguise every twist of her face it was clear she was pensive, conflicted as she hesitated, stuttering and stammering to speak and shifting from one foot to another as if ready to bolt out the door at any minute "If I leave…what about Comet, she'll never get her money, I can't do that to her." She finally said, every word slipping out of her with a fine lacing of shame. "I'm sorry."
Akir stood uncertainly off of his chair and managed to cross the room and laid hands to her, at first for emphasis, then for support. "You remember what I told you, two to three years before the whole human race is extinct. You come with me and you're giving her more than money, you're giving her a lifetime. A lifetime in the sun." He said, through teeth clenched in pain. "Will you stay with us."
Mari thought for a moment and then another. "Fine, I'll do it. Better not make me regret this." She said, apprehensively.
"Then we're set." Nagant said, sitting up from his chair. "Akir, we have a day, Narada and Doctor Burza can see to healing you up as best they can, Mari and Yana can start commandeering supplies for the expedition. Hiro and Nehal should do what they can to temporarily disable Moksha's airships. Everyone else get ready to go."
"No wonder your people lasted so long." Seiko commented, somewhat impressed. "Nagant and I will run interference with Moksha, let's go."
The temple grounds were the busiest they had ever been. The earthbenders in Nagant's group had built little stone huts for themselves on one section of the island and Moksha's men had begun assembling prefab shelters for more troops.
The Hanapin wasn't much smaller than the pair of heavy-attack gunships Moksha and his men came in but the FI-87 gunships were covered in thick armour plating with cannon emplacements on the flanks and fat, angular gondolas with only the tiniest slits of viewports.
"Okay, navy boy, let's see what you can do." Nehal teased as they approached the pair of firebenders guarding the airships.
"May we be of help sir?" One of the guards declared, rather less helpfully than one might expect. He was still fresh faced, and healthy in gear as tidy as the day it was made. The privileges of serving a general.
"I'm just checking your spare parts against the stuff we have in storage, you know, to help unit cohesion and such." Hiro answered in his best memory of what an authoritative Lieutenant should sound like.
"But why is the freelancer here?" The other firebender asked.
Nehal was incensed, and only some of it was an act. "Private would you like to name the model of my airship. CC-130, FI-12, VCA-8? Perhaps even a WTAF-22" She rattled off.
"Um…no Ma'am, it dosen't look like any airship I've ever seen." He answered, confused.
"Do you want to know why that is!?" Nehal yelled, loud enough that half the base was looking at them now. "Because I built it, from the ground up, that's why I'm here! Now question me again and I'll have you as my galley boy!" She demanded. If the Private had moved out of the way any faster he would likely have taken flight himself.
The airship crews were either in their bunks or more likely trading contraband with Nagant's men leaving the airship unattended.
"Did you really build the Hanapin all by yourself?" Hiro asked with an almost reverential air as they clambered up the ramp at the back of the airship. The cargo bay had been emptied already aside from a few stray crates.
"Well me and my co-pilot." She said offhandedly, then her face scrunched up in realisation and she prepared for the inevitable question.
"I didn't realise you had a co-pilot?" Hiro asked as they walked the narrow corridors. They hadn't seen a crewman yet and the ship was in good enough order that it was unlikely someone would have to come fix anything for a while.
"We were a part of the salvage group for this captain up north, we looted a load of gems from a dead noble's estate and we used the money to rent a workshop in the Fire Nation, built her in a year."
"So what happened?" Hiro asked, they were in the engine room now, a small room, soundproofed and full of fragile machinery. It was perfect for sabotage.
"You saw the scars, I used to be a Royal Airbender. A group of bounty hunters found me at the Northern Air Temple. "I was able to escape. Hange wasn't." She huffed for a minute and took a deep breath then stood up straight, as if lighter. "I don't think I ever shared that with anyone."
Hiro noticed something, the engine's primary fuel compression manifold. With that disabled even a skilled engineer would have to wait a while whilst the backups could restore pressure. "So….do you want another Co-Pilot, must get awful stressful keeping a ship going all by yourself." He answered, standing rather close to her. Not that she objected.
"Are you sure you can keep up." She whispered with heavy lidded eyes.
There was a low pitched wine as Hiro yanked the airship's manifold loose. He presented the component as a trophy between the two of them. "Well I know they can't." He answered with a mischievous grin. The two of them laughed a moment and then Nehal pounced.
Moksha was walking the grounds of the Air Temple, apparently the light mist of rain didn't bother him. Soldiers and civilians alike moved out of his way as he passed, as if repulsed by some sort of aura of sheer authority, alternatively they may have been avoiding the rainwater he diverted away from himself with a subtle application of waterbending. His, long, soft featured face was heavily wrinkled and his hair was bright white. If it weren't for the war a man his age would probably have retired by now and settled down to a little chalet in the Republic Mountains. The mountains that now crawled with spirits.
He turned towards one of the airships as Nagant was crossing the square towards him. "General!" He exclaimed, perhaps a bit too eagerly as he jogged towards him. He blanched slightly as he walked through the bubble of spray that Moksha had around him until he was face to face with the fatter, older man. "I wanted to apologise for my outburst in the Command Room." He said earnestly.
Moksha looked puzzled for a moment and then answered. "Not at all, as I said you've been away for a long while. Walk with me Captain."
"Absolutely." Nagant turned and kept a pace with him as they walked, thankfully away from the airships. Over Moksha's shoulders he could see Hiro and Nehal walking out of the Airship. Hiro had a streak of cherry red half over his lips. And his jaw. And his neck.
"I requested your records from central command. You were a ward of the state you came from nothing." Moksha said sharply.
"Well sir I try to…." The general interrupted whatever Moksha had to say.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of. I know the Officer's Corp can seem a bit…discriminating but I respect someone with your drive." Moksha said. "A member of the Blue Spirits, a Captain, aged twenty-two, and you managed to keep your group alive for fourteen years in one of the most dangerous territories in the world."
"Well some of them." Nagant said looking, at the tent city that had popped up around the barracks. "There's a lot of people who didn't make it this far, sir."
"What I'm trying to say is you're an exceptional officer and I believe that Central Command could do with your experience as an advisor." Moksha elaborated. "No more field rations, a nice comfy office in the Eastern Air Temple, and a fairly heathy salary."
"What about my people."
"They'll be relocated to the Air Temple Commons. It's not exactly luxury but its warm and its dry and its safe."
"I'll have to think about it." Nagant answered, he had meant it as a lie but surely enough he was thinking about it.
"So Doctor, what were my injuries?" Akir asked, sat on the hard metal operating table. He was dressed in the bottom half of his spare set of robes and a white t-shirt.
"About thirty five percent of your heart tissue had died, as a result of CPR you had two broken ribs, you have some muscular bruising, you had first degree burns in your lungs and your eardrums were burst." Doctor Burza replied clinically. "We were able to stabilise your condition and repair your hearing but you'll have to cope with acute angina whilst your body heals as well as a certain shortness of breath."
"I hadn't realised it was so severe." Akir commented, offhand. "Thanks, both of you."
"Well we might have to do some running about Doctor." Narada observed, what can do to get Akir battle ready, right now."
Burza adjusted her glasses and thought for a moment. "Normally I'd recommend against anything but a protracted recovery but Narada has impressed the urgency of your mission on me." She explained. "I can formulate a chemical cocktail to promote cellular rejuvenation and pair it with Narada's healing water to rapidly repair your cardiovascular system."
"I take it there's a reason you haven't done this already." Akir said simply.
"It's a huge strain, man." Narada interjected. "You were pretty touch and go a lot of the time, we couldn't risk it."
"Narada's right." Burza commented. "The revitalisation process would be a huge strain on a normal cardiovascular system, yours is perilously close to complete collapse. If we attempt this there's a very real chance you'll die in seconds."
Akir was quiet for a longer time than he ever had been before. He was uncertain, he was afraid. Weighing his options he finally found the wherewithal to answer the doctor. "I'm no good to the mission if I can hardly walk. Do it"
Burza unlocked the cabinet she reserved for the more potent and valuable medicines and began measuring out doses for an injection.
"Soooo, what are you going to do if we actually win this?" Akir said to Narada, trying his hardest to ignore the absolutely monstrous looking needles Burza was sterilising behind the outlaw waterbender.
"I dunno. I figure a lot of records have been destroyed I could probably quit the business, work as a healer or something." He said calmly. "Seeing the Republic burn, working with Nagant and now you, I realised a long time ago what I should have done with my talents, maybe there's still time left."
"It's ready." Burza said, carrying a plate with two needles on it. "Take off your top, this is going to hurt.
Akir did as he was told and pulled off his tunic. The burns of the lightning passing over his chest had changed from angry red lines all across his chest and arms and became a set of calloused, pigmented lines scarred into his skin. Burza put a hand to his heart, feeling his bony chest for a gap in his ribs. She stuck precisely, burying the needle at the exact right depth to inject the medicine into his heart muscles. Akir tensed up and began screaming whilst Narada worked the healing water into his chest.
His heart clenched and unclenched over and over again and he could feel this horrid burning sensation in his chest as flesh regrew itself and knitted into the fibres of his body. He thrashed and gnashed and grunted, for a moment the erudite scholar was replaced with a stuck pig-bear. When he could take no more, when it felt like every vein in his body might rupture the pain relented. A surge of adrenaline and injectable painkillers flooded his system. In a mere moment the pain was gone, replaced with a warm cottony absence of sensation.
Akir barely noticed the cold steel of Burza's stethoscope checking his heart. "Your heart beat is strong and regular, breathing seems normal." She declared simply. To Akir's ears it felt like he was hearing her every word through a thousand mile tunnel.
"Why does my chest still hurt?" Akir groaned as a burning sensation crossed his arms and pectorals, just like the lightning had.
"Lightning burns, you have scarification in your muscle tissue and agraveted nerve fibres." Burza reported. "I'm afraid you'll have to contend with chronic pain and irritation for the rest of your life."
Moksha heard a scream coming through the thin walls of air-temple island as he sat down to the war table opposite Seiko.
"What was that?" He asked, sitting up sharply.
"Doctor Burza is performing an amputation, a lot Nagant's people had some nasty wounds, and some of them were infected." Seiko lied.
"Ah, I was just talking to Nagant about taking an advisory role at the Eastern Temple." Moksha's eyes narrowed. "So what have you been able to theorise from Akir's investigation."
"Well Akir specialises in Archaeology and Spiritual Studies I'm not really as qualified to interpret his findings." She said casually.
"You must have something you can tell me." Moksha protested, a tad flustered. "Look, I'm taking the guy for project Sundown but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the value of research into a spirit's vulnerabilities."
Seiko hesitated for a while. She surpressed a gasp when she realised she could heard the screaming rise in pitch to a bloodcurdling screech and then stop. Her face betrayed almost none of her concern. "The bowl is apparently from Kumari Nadu, the legendary city of the Ancients. We don't know how it controls sprits but it apparently does. If I had to guess it has something to do with Chi/Object interactions which, again, is not something I'm particularly well versed in."
"Well then, we can arrange for a full research staff to be bought in once the Earth Kingdom is defeated, and I expect that victory will be quick, and decisive."
"I did study history general." Seiko explained after a sip of tea. "Sozin anticipated a quick, and decisive victory as well, so did Chin the Conqueror, so did Admiral Kilik."
"I'm not sure I like that comparison." Moksha commented. There was a long silence whilst the General had a bite of his lunch.
"Perhaps not, but the truth is better painful than fatal." She retorted.
"The Fire Nation is too busy holding its Capitol, the Foggy Swamp has no standing army and Zaofu is an independent polity, all we have to do to wipe out the Earth Kingdom is decimate Omashu. One V-Bomb could do that."
"And tell me General, how many did we lose over Ba Sing Se, even before the bomb dropped? How many would we lose fighting Omashu? How many would we lose if they ally with Zaofu? How many would we lose if Unalaq attacks us whilst we're weakened? How many would be left when the night is finally over?" Seiko said, slowly and evenly like a gust wearing down a mountain. The typists and administrative staff all around them stopped for a moment to gear what the general might say back.
Moksha was perhaps less amused. Indeed if he had sprung from his chair and cut the table in half with a water whip it might not have surprised anyone. "I think you're overestimating things." He finally said in a voice that was all too calm about the prospect of war. "Omashu's defences are formidable but they don't compare to the might of our airforce. A quick bombing run will remind Zaofu, Unalaq and everyone else that we are a power to be taken seriously."
Zhu-Rong was on lookout, looking out the frosted glass of the store room door.
Mari did the heavy lifting, carrying crates as large as she was over her shoulder and ferrying them to the Hannapin. Yana, meanwhile had taken charge of the inventory. Whaling trips were a protracted affair and managing resources were of vital importance. She sorted the things that would keep from the things that wouldn't, the bizzare things you could hodgepodge together in a pinch and the few sweet things they could spare for treats and then ordered Mari to carry it.
Mari came back from her tenth trip, having sweat through her hard wearing tunic. She sat down a moment on one of the sturdier looking boxes. "I'm definitely getting older."
"All things considered I would say you look quite presentable." Zhu-Rhong comented, turning from his look out for a moment.
"Wow, Zhu, you sure know how to treat a lady."
Yana didn't bother to attempt communication with either of the two, and they had come to the uneasy arrangement of largely ignoring her unless she made a command. Eventually they had no need of her after she had identified everything of importance and she slipped out.
The Temple grounds had become crowded with little Earthen tents to hold all of her people. Step by step she walked through the narrow, dirty footpaths in between them until she found Lang and his mother.
"Yana!" He yelled, and ran over to her with the wobbling, awkward gait of a young child.
We didn't get the chance to thank that Lotus that saved us, or the Colonel and his men Said, Lang's mother, Mir.
He's still sick but he'll get better soon, that's why I'm here. Yana answered.
Mir signed a reply Whatever you need we'll help
Yana shook her head. No, he's going to get better on his own, that's why I'm here She said before she kneeled down to Lang's level. I'm going to be gone for a while, no one to listen out for you but your ma. I'll be on a really long hunt but I promise you, when I come back I'm going to bring you the best presents I find!
How long will you be gone Lang asked.
Yana signed back I don't know, but I promise you will see me again soon She touched her hand to the place where her lips were supposed to be and then taped her fingers to his forehead, their version of a kiss.
By the time Yana had returned Mari and Zhu-Rong had finished loading up on supplies. "I saw you with that little boy, I didn't realise you had a child to look after." Mari said as they walked the last crates over.
He's not mine…. I just helped him with sign language…. Yana quickly scribbled in a little notebook for her to read.
"Well I'm just Comet's Aunt but I'm still all the mother she has." Mari answered. "It's not easy, walking that line, trying to be like their parents without trying to replace them."
Yana just nodded understandingly.
"Is everything in place?" Nagant asked to the assembled group in the temple greenhouse, naturally unused in a world with so little sunlight. It had been covered over with tarps and used as a crude alcohol distillery by some of the base personel, and today it would be used as their last rendezvous.
"We've got provisions for two months, your girl Yana must have been one hell of a sailor." Mari said warmly. Yana cocked her head proudly.
"I'm fit for travel, Narada's got me covered for medication." Akir reported. He was standing free and easily but when he though no one was watching Seiko could still noticed pained twitches on his face every now and again.
"I've gotten the bowl and the research materials aboard." Seiko said, she squeezed Akir's hand tightly and smiled softly, perhaps sadly.
"The airships aren't going anywhere." Nehal commented.
"Then you're ready to go, good luck." Nagant said gently, like he wanted to go with them.
"You mean 'are we ready' don't you." Akir asked cautiously.
"No. Seiko and I have to remain here, to organise our people." He explained.
Narada's face dipped before he approached his old leader. Then moved in for a kiss, Nagant was like putty in his hands and nearly swooned as Narada dipped him. "Been waiting years for that, sir." He said, uncertainly for the first time.
Nagant's face was stuck in a blush, with a big dumbstruck smile and eyes wider than eyes normally ever went. "Y-yeah, you too Narada." He finally managed.
Seiko just gave Akir a peck on the cheek and dipped her head. Yana scowled at that slightly but did not act on it instead she bowed to Nagant and spun around to leave.
"Well, I guess we should go." Narada said, a tad flustered. "Moksha's probably going to be looking for at least one of us."
"Don't take any chances." Nagant commanded, though his voice had softened a bit.
The expedition headed out into the dark and the rain, it was just a short few paces to the back of the Hanapin.
"Akir, wait." Seiko demanded. "I need to tell you something."
"Seiko we have to go right now." He answered.
"The bowl, It's looked wrong since it got here and I figured it out, the reason the bowl hurts to touch, the reason it can control spirits…." Seiko said desperately. "It's because the bowl is a spirit, bound and twisted up and broken but the bowl is a spirit, whoever or whatever did this….they're dangerous Akir."
Akir took a moment of frightened silence and then answered with that cavalier swagger of his. "Well let's hope they're on our side."
Akir joined the group and ran across the temple grounds to the Hannapin. Then they saw it, the bubble coming out of the rain. Moksha.
"Oh damn, move it everyone." Akir commanded, they broke into a run and Nehal blew herself ahead of them, carrying Hiro in her arms towards the cockpit of the Hanapin.
"Stop them!" Moksha yelled. He drew up the ambient water into a mighty tendril and prepared to slam them off their feet. Instead Narada blocked it, diffusing it into a cone of mist around himself. Moksha repeated his barrages, pinning him in place as he held off the attack.
"Get to the airship, I'll hold him off!" Narada commanded as another arm of water wallowed into him. The group nodded and retreated into the depths of the ship.
The engines were spinning up and Narada was no closer to reaching the cargo bay.
Yana stopped the ramp closing and threw Akir his cable gauntlet as they lifted off. At the last moment, as Moksha and his men drew in on Narada Akir lassoed the man at the waist and yanked him into the air, to everyone's surprise, including his.
"Well, I'd say that makes us even." Akir commented dryly as he helped Narada stand. He was sopping wet from the spray, until he drew it off of himself in one smooth motion.
"After them!" Moksha yelled. Without his conscious effort to keep the rain off him he was soaked clean through, his long, proud mane of white hair now clung to his scalp and shoulders like a drowned rat and he was forever wiping rainwater out of his eyes. "Scramble the airships, you chase them till they've got nothing left and then you bring them to me!" He yelled, screaming across the temple courtyard. The crews ran aboard their airships….and then sat there.
"It's no use sir." An air fleet lieutenant explained. "We can't maintain fuel pressure, the engines won't start."
"Sabotage, then." He stomped over to Nagant and Seiko who emerged from the greenhouse with their hands raised. "You!" Moksha bellowed as he stormed up to Nagant. On instinct the rainwater pooled on the ground seemed to follow after him, as if pulled to his presence. The rain did the same, soaking him more. "You could have been an advisor, you blasted idiot, safe and sound out of the wilderness." He yelled, spitting across the arms reach distance between him and Nagant. He noticed Nagant was without his swords.
"I shall have to settle for just being a hero." He responded archly.
"A traitor more like!" Moksha seeted. "When I'm done with you…."
"You'll allow me to lead my people, to make sure they don't take any rash actions." Nagant said, he nodded to the angry crowd of his men and the bright flames of their firebenders lighting up all sorts of stubbornly snarling warriors, bender and non-bender alike. They did not outnumber the base personnel, who were largely ambivalent to the whole affair, but they did possess a healthy advantage over Moksha's contingent. For a moment the septuagenarian general looked as if he was going to seriously consider a battle against a force twice his own size, then he huffed again.
"Fine, but you will lead them without rank or payment, I formally issue you a dishonourable discharge." The General seethed. "And you, Seiko, I am going to charge you with civilian treason in a time of war." He said, almost genially. "Guards, take her to the holding cells." Seiko did not resist.
"I did all of this for the best." Seiko yelled. "As I said General, things are better painful than fatal" she proclaimed as they marched her away.