March 30th
Kyoshi Island
1012 hours
After another bumpy fifteen-hour ride on the rolling deck of the Navy's venerable Landing Ship, Tank, Bedford wanted little more than to crawl into his mattress in Keum Village and go to sleep. But the Avatar was back on the island and needed to be informed about the planning for Ba Sing Se expedition, among several other lesser matters.
Bedford settled for coffee. Fortunately, the Navy brew made for a far better drink than the cheap Army-issue instant powder. With a steaming mug in hand and his traveling bag over one shoulder, he stepped down the slippery landing ramp and set his feet right back onto Kyoshi's land.
Carwell also held his own cup as he stood on the sand, waiting for Bedford to catch up. There would be no rest for him either; the Kyoshi Warriors were waiting for him to lead small-unit maneuver training down in the forests.
"You know what the best cup of Joe I've ever had was?" he asked as Bedford came up alongside.
"Was it that cat shit at Camp John Hay?" guessed Bedford.
"Not quite. Though I enjoyed that one, at least until someone told me what I was drinking," chuckled Carwell. "No, the best one was when I was with the OSS in Germany, December '44. My team was somewhere south of Wittlich. The temperature was about ten below, and we were cold, wet, and feeling pretty down on our luck. We couldn't receive any supply drops because the weather had been terrible for more than three weeks, so we essentially had to ration our rations.
"We were camped out in the forest, shivering and cursing our luck. And then a German supply convoy just ran straight into us. Ten Volksgrenadier, a horse, and a cart. That was the moment where I felt closest to God."
"Close to God? How the hell could you feel like that?"
"Them being there was an act of providence. Turns out, a stiff wind had knocked down some trees and blocked the main road, so they had to take a detour. It was like God sending Abraham a sacrificial goat when Isaac was on the altar.
"Don't get me wrong, I took no pleasure in doing it. But I'll admit to you that after five days of eating crumbs, I was almost past caring. We had no choice, anyway. So we ambushed them, stripped them of every foodstuff we could scavenge, and rigged the spot with explosives to make it look like they'd taken a wayward mortar hit. Then we got right out of the area as quick as humanly possible. That night, I had some tough German hardtack, a can of bland pork, and a mug of chicory coffee. Dinner at the Waldorf couldn't possibly have been better."
A hasty beat of footfalls announced the arrival of Fox Company's runner, a young private who was sweating slightly in the cool air. He drew up short on the beach, fumbling with the piece of paper he had been ordered to deliver.
"Good morning, Colonel Bedford, Colonel Carwell, sir."
"Is it?" Bedford let the question hang in the air for just a moment. After all, an officer only pissed and moaned to someone of equivalent rank. Anyone else, and it was either bad leadership or bad manners. "You have a message for me?"
"Yes, Colonel, sir. It's from Captain Ryan. " The runner unfolded a rough scrap torn from an old requisition order. "He says that the Avatar is currently engaged in bending practice in the pass between North Beach and Keum Village."
"Then I'll meet them there," said Bedford. "You're dismissed, Private. Pete, I'll see you around."
1024 hours
The pass through the valley was still a scar on the otherwise pristine island, a distinct reminder that there was a war still yet to be fought. The clearing job after the battle to make the place passable again had no time for subtleties. Instead, the engineers' bulldozers had simply plowed gaps through the man-made landslide, pushing aside rock, corpses, and trees without much discrimination.
Some further work had been undertaken to level the ground and make the valley walls slightly more stable, but no regard was given to cosmetics. Stripped bare, the hardened dirt had been churned up by the deep tracks of the bulldozers and dissolved into an ocean of mud when the weather warmed and the rains came.
As a stopgap measure, Ralston had a long line of planks laid, wide enough for two men to walk abreast, bridging the valley floor until there were time and resources to attempt a restoration. Appeasing those spirits the locals believed in could come later.
Bedford felt the duckboards creak underfoot as he made his way north. They were rejected lumber, deemed unsuitable to build houses with by the populace. He sincerely hoped they wouldn't fail. He only had one clean uniform left and no time to launder.
The improvised training area was close to the beach, a rough circle around seventy feet in diameter. The thigh-deep mud somehow had completely dried into a layer of hard-packed dirt, and Bedford spent a little too much time wondering how it had been done. Then he remembered that the young girl who traveled with the Avatar was a waterbender.
At the moment, there was a pantomime going on inside the circle. Or, at least it seemed that way to Bedford, who was still too far to make out their words. Curious, he squinted at the scene unfolding before him.
He recognized the Avatar immediately, orange robes distinctive against the dull brown landscape. Aang stood beside an enormous limestone boulder the size of a jeep, somehow dragged in from the demolished cliff back up the valley, and yet that wasn't the odd part.
The Avatar was getting chewed out by a disheveled midget in a strange headband, an accusatory finger being waved in turns at his face and at the boulder. By them, the waterbender girl stood, a look of concern on her face as she argued with the other two. Further along the path was her brother, knees drawn up on the duckboards, watching on sourly as he worked at a gleaming machete with a whetstone.
Drawing nearer, the ill-tempered conversation grew more distinct to Bedford's ears. The midget seemed to have the shrill voice of an adolescent girl, poorly-hidden frustration filling her tone.
"...there's no evading it, Twinkletoes! There's no way around it, no creative solution! Either you face it head on, or you can forget about earthbending!"
"I'm trying!" Aang's face was flushed with exertion.
She laughed, derisively, mirthlessly. "Even I can see that you're not trying hard enough."
"Aang." Katara laid a hand on his shoulder. "You've been at it all morning. You can start again tomorrow. Come on, we can still work on waterbending. There's a creek just past the village."
"Yeah, Twinkletoes. Go splash around with Madam Sweetness if it makes you feel better. Tomorrow will be harder, take my word for it." The girl brought her foot down to the right, settling into a rigid stance. She thrust her arms apart, and the earth vibrated with power. The massive boulder split straight in two, flying apart in a cloud of dust. One of the halves sailed past Bedford, missing him by a scant twenty feet, and slammed into the side of a hill.
Katara, who had been shepherding Aang back towards the path, stopped and wheeled about to face the other girl. "Hey, who're you calling—?"
Bedford put a finger up. "Avatar? A moment of your time?"
"Colonel." The Avatar looked relieved at the distraction. "You're back. Can you walk with us?"
"Who's this?" demanded the earthbender, shaking dirt from her hands and wiping them on the sides of her green robe.
"That's Colonel Bedford, Toph ," Sokka piped up. Finally finished with sharpening his weapon, he'd materialized beside the irate bender. "He's in charge of the soldiers on this island. Colonel, this is Toph Beifong, Aang's earthbending instructor."
"I was wondering who I almost hit with that slab." The blank, unmoving eyes settled on a point somewhere off to Bedford's right. "Dontcha worry. I was in control the whole time."
"Pleased to meet you, Miss Beifong." Bedford shrugged. "And no, I wasn't really worried about that rock."
"Hmm. And you're telling the truth, too. Have you ever seen earthbending before?"
"I can't say that I have, Miss Beifong."
"When most people experience earthbending for the first time, their heart really gets pumping. There's something about seeing the solid ground you're walking on just start flying around that gets 'em. You're not one of those people." She shrugged. There was a hint of disappointment in her voice, as if she had wanted to give Bedford a fright.
Who was this strange kid who purported to read minds and listen to heartbeats? He was almost inclined to believe that this was a childish trick from the young Avatar. But her bending belied that thought.
Her interest diminished, Toph walked off without another word. Bedford soon did the same, quickening his pace to join the Avatar and the waterbender on the wooden walkway.
"Out of curiosity, Avatar, where does your earthbending master hail from?" he asked, as soon as he was alongside.
"Gaoling." It was Katara who spoke, as Aang still looked perturbed from the altercation. "She was the champion of a regional earthbending tournament."
"A junior division, perhaps?"
"No," Katara replied, somewhat begrudgingly. "She beat several grown men, all powerful benders, to win the belt." Bedford scanned her face for any sign of amusement, but she appeared to be dead serious. "You know, I wish she was a fraud, too. Maybe that would give us a good excuse to dump her in the middle of nowhere."
"I don't believe that would help our cause."
"It'd help my nerves, that's for sure." Her hand twitched instinctively towards the pouch of water at her hip. "If that little twerp throws one more side comment at me, I swear I'll—!"
Eager to change the subject, Aang cut across her threat. "Colonel, what did you want to talk about?"
"It concerns our diplomatic mission to Ba Sing Se come the summer. Is there any way I could join your travelling party?"
"You have all those airplanes that you were talking to us about..." Katara's expression momentarily changed from anger to confusion, "...and you want to fly on our bison?" She hastily placed a reassuring hand on Aang's shoulder. "No offense to Appa, of course."
"Yeah," agreed Aang. "Can't you get there much faster than we can? Shouldn't you* be the one offering us a ride?"
"There are two reasons. Firstly, there's nowhere to land a plane in their city."
"I know that Ba Sing Se must be pretty crowded, but an airplane can't be much larger than Appa, right? There must be a place big enough to fit one."
"How do I explain this..." Bedford sighed. "Let's say I wanted to borrow your glider. How would I be able to fly with it?"
"Well, you'd need to find a high spot to jump from. Since I can get the air currents moving under my glider, I can fly from a standing start, but anyone else would need to pick up a lot of speed in a really short time. If I were you, I'd go up to that hill where they have that shrine to Kyoshi and jump off the side."
"Now, imagine if I were not a man, but a twenty-five thousand-pound hunk of steel with wings stretching for fifty feet in both directions. It would be inconvenient to be throwing an object like that from the side of a cliff every time you want to launch one, yes?"
"Wait, your airplanes weigh twenty-five thousand pounds?" Katara marvelled. "How can something that heavy even get off the ground in the first place?"
"The engines. The aircraft in question has two of them, each capable of generating the same amount of power as a thousand horses."
"Llama-horses?" asked Aang.
"Ostrich-horses?" asked Katara.
"No, just horses. No hybrids, no mixed-breeds."
"Whoah, Colonel," Aang said, "your world sure is weird."
"As I was saying, Avatar, " Bedford cleared his throat. "To achieve the same effect as leaping off the cliff, we put the airplane on one end of a paved road. It must be completely straight, flat, and around two-thirds of a mile long. The engines are started, and the plane accelerates to around a hundred-twenty miles an hour. At that point, enough air is moving underneath the wings to support flight.
"Of course, something travelling at that speed cannot simply stop on a whim. Your bison can move in a directly vertical path, or even hang in place. We haven't quite figured out how to replicate that artificially. To put an airplane down on the ground, it needs to descend from the sky gradually and touch down on similarly flat ground. It takes a third of a mile of road for an aircraft to slow down in a safe manner. Ba Sing Se has no such facilities. There's plenty of flat land within the walls, but none of has provision to support both takeoff and landing."
"Can't you have the airplane fly you over the place?" Aang suggested. "Then, when you're right over Ba Sing Se, you can jump out. Us airbenders always had our gliders. Don't you guys have some way to slow down a person who's falling from the sky?"
"We considered that possibility. The technology exists. In fact, I'm trained to use that specific piece of equipment. Theoretically, I could land right in front of the king's palace, but that just brings us to my second reason.
"Put yourself in the shoes of an Earth Kingdom soldier, a member of the royal guard. You're an elite fighter, probably a veteran of many battles, since the king wouldn't entrust his safety to kids right out of basic training. You've spent years fighting the Fire Nation, the most advanced country in the world, whose imagination for strange and devious inventions of war is notorious. You know that they can create great machines which can deal death.
"One day, a massive, silvery shadow swoops over the palace. It looks like a huge bird, except it rumbles and growls unnaturally. Then you see a single figure falling down from it, floating to the ground under a white canopy like a leaf in the wind. I may be wearing the same color as you, but everything else is absolutely foreign. You don't recognize my uniform, my weaponry, my helmet, or any of the other gear I'm carrying. For all you know, this is probably more Fire Nation witchcraft. When I hit the ground, what do you do?"
"I, uh..." Aang scratched at his bare head, "...would try to find out who you are, exactly?"
"Aang," Katara chided. "Any earthbender worth his rocks would try to kill Colonel Bedford before he got a chance to talk."
"See? She gets it." Bedford nodded in approval. "On the other hand, if I were travelling with you, I'd be an accredited companion of the Avatar, so to speak. I'd stand a better chance of being listened to."
"All right, I understand now." Aang stopped in his tracks, and Bedford noticed the low swish of running water. They had arrived at the creek. "Just let me talk to Sokka about this, okay?"
"Thank you for your consideration, Avatar. Now, I should leave you before I interrupt more of your bending practice. A good day to you."
Han Tui. Earth Kingdom
1338 hours
The wind blustering in from the north was hot and stinging, sweeping over the rocky land in a suffocating blanket of heat. Even spring's arrival would bring no respite for the regimental garrison stationed there; the climate here was far more similar to the Si Wong Desert, twenty miles to the north, than the more temperate areas by the coast.
Azula watched on as the soldiers labored and perspired in the afternoon sun, so antlike in their procession. Some, supervised by Li and Lo, were pushing carts of coal up the ramp of their tank train's locomotive, enough fuel for the long journey ahead, while others passed along boxes of food and jugs of water from hand to hand.
Though the men almost certainly would've preferred to do the work unhindered, their unit commander had given the order for full uniform in anticipation for this royal visit. The result was a whole assortment of men encased in red cloaks and full battle armor, polished and shined to a gleam, barely able to hold themselves in proper order as they toiled wearily in the dry, dusty field.
The regimental commander's office was little cooler than what lay outside, but at least it provided shade while they waited. Azula had dismissed the man who occupied it, and he had left to seek shelter against the sun elsewhere, leaving her, Ty Lee, and Mai to their own devices.
"We can trace the Avatar's movements down to a week ago," said Azula, finally turning away from the window. She pointed to the large map pinned to the wall, hanging over the officer's desk. "Omashu, Chin, and most recently Gaoling. But now the trail runs cold. It's a physical impossibility to keep up with a flying bison when we're firmly rooted to the ground. War Minister Qin's little airship project can't be completed quickly enough."
"Imagine that," Ty Lee mused from her perch, hanging by her feet from the top of the commander's shelves. Her eyes were contemplative. "Wouldn't you just love it? Soaring through the air, with your nose in the clouds? It's just like being an airbender without a glider. Except an airbender without a glider would just drop out of the sky like a rock, right...?"
"How in Agni's name was Zuko of all people able to track the Avatar's party so closely?" Azula continued, cutting off Ty Lee's ramblings. She was well used to doing so.
Mai scoffed, leaning against the doorway. "I think you're underestimating him," she said, drawing the blade of a throwing knife across the leather strop wound across her knuckles. Satisfied with the finely-honed edge, she slipped it back into the folds of her robes and selected another for similar treatment. "He can be very determined if he sets his mind to something."
"Oh, like his firebending practice? Azula shot back. "I remember him, years ago, being dead set on making Grandfather proud when he returned from campaign. He was training every day for hours, came in at night all sweaty and covered in soot. Unfortunately, his recital was a significant embarrassment for all involved, especially for Father. No. In his recent hunting of the Avatar, he got lucky, nothing more. And with all that luck, he still failed."
"Mai's only defending Zuko because she still likes him!" Ty Lee teased, giggling.
With a contemptuous roll of her eyes, Mai returned to her task.
Azula glanced up at the map again. "What the Avatar is trying to do is quite obvious. As he's already visited the North Pole and hangs around with that waterbending peasant, we can assume that earthbending is the next element in the cycle. He's looking for a master. He tried that senile old coot in Omashu, but he couldn't bring him along, So he continued on. His party is moving east along the Tei Khay range, where the lands are more sympathetic to his cause. Once he reaches the coast of the Eastern Sea, he'll turn north towards Ba Sing Se."
"Why not head directly northeast?" wondered Ty Lee, contorting to get a better angle on the map. "It'd be faster."
"He won't want to cross the Si Wong. Even on a bison, it would still take two or three separate hops to reach the other side, and stopping in the desert would leave him in danger from all kinds of creatures. Going around would only be an additional week of travel."
"What if he already found a master?" Mai countered. "Why would he still need to head for Ba Sing Se?"
"Fire follows Earth. If there are any of those loathsome traitors to our nation who'd be willing to give the Avatar pointers in firebending are still out there, they'd have most likely made their way to Ba Sing Se already. Safe behind those walls, the Avatar could train with all four elements until he masters all of them. If he's not stopped, we will have a severe problem on our hands."
"Please tell me you have a plan," Ty Lee said. She dropped down from the shelves, landing gracefully on the concrete floor.
"I was getting there, Ty Lee." Azula sighed in exasperation. "We can't overtake the Avatar. The tank train can't store enough coal to reach Ba Sing Se without refueling, and the further we move in that direction, the less support we can reasonably expect. The army have been unable to suppress the populace's appetite for rebellion yet, and the only Fire Nation facilities to the east are minor outposts. We can't rely on them for resupply.
"What we will do is to head back west at full speed. It should take us a little over two weeks to reach the mouth of the Su Oku River, where we will rejoin with the royal barge. From there, we'll set sail for Ba Sing Se."
"And how will we get to the Avatar if he's behind a giant wall?" Mai asked.
"I'll find a way." Azula began composing a mental letter, to be sent once they were back in range of messenger hawk correspondence. Though the airship project may still have been incomplete, perhaps there was another tool in the arsenal to help crack open the problem at hand. "As a matter of fact, before we left the Fire Nation, I remember Qin informing the council about a new weapon that was nearing completion. Something about a mobile drilling device..."
Kyoshi Island
1617 hours
"So Colonel Bedford really does want to come along for the ride, huh?"
"Are you okay with it?" Aang asked.
"If you think it's right, then I don't suppose I have a problem either." Sokka turned his attention back to the tray of rice balls sitting on his lap. "I don't really know much about the guy, but he doesn't seen like he'll give us trouble, and we could always do with some extra muscle. Can Appa take another passenger?"
"Yeah, no problems there. Air bison are pretty strong. Monk Gyatso once took our whole class of novitiates to Omashu on his bison, Jianren. I mean, we were a lot smaller back then, and didn't have many earthly belongings, but still..."
Sokka shoved the rest of his rice ball into his mouth, chewing down loudly. With his free hand, he reached around for his satchel and drew out his map, shaking it open. He studied it intently for a few moments. "It's a couple of weeks to Ba Sing Se from here, if we don't get sidetracked. Which, of course, we will. I don't suppose Bedford will have any tolerance for all the wacky stuff that we always get dragged into? He seems like the serious type."
"Now that I'm thinking about it, it'll be pretty weird having someone so...old, I suppose. It's been us three for so long, and Toph isn't exactly grown-up, either. Do you think he'll even take us seriously?"
"Old?" Sokka snorted. "Aang, you're three times his age and his only ticket home. He'd better stay in line."
Three quick taps sounded at the door. "Coming!" Aang called, scrambling over to answer the knocks.
He slid back the door of the hut, expecting to find Katara or Toph, but was instead was greeted by the sight of one of Bedford's men. A young private stood outside, his chest puffed out as authoritatively as possible. "Good afternoon, Avatar, sir."
"Can I help you?"
"Colonel Bedford would like to speak with you, sir. You and the rest of your group. He's inviting you to his command post for a discussion."
"What's there to talk about?" piped up Sokka from the other side of the hut.
The courier unfolded the note in his hand. "A few days ago, the Avatar asked Colonel Bedford about his plan to..." his eyes widened as he read through the rest of the message.
"Are you okay?" Aang asked. For a few moments, the man seemed lost for words. "Is there something wrong?"
He shook his head. "Nothing to worry about, sir. It's just that I'm only a company runner. I'd say that delivering messages like these is a little above my pay grade." He cleared his throat, looking back down at the slip of paper. "Anyway, Colonel Bedford would like to brief you in on his plans to defeat the Fire Nation. "
1633 hours
The current situation would be a common occurrence in combat, Carwell had told them. To their front, still hidden from sight, were an unknown number of hostiles camped out in the woods. No reinforcements could be expected to help deal with them. Suki's squad was on its own.
Her task as squad leader was to find out how many enemies lay ahead and how they had arrayed themselves. If there were only a few of them up ahead and they hadn't dug into a solid defensive position, she could engage. If she did, her warriors were expected to eliminate the opposing force as quickly and efficiently as possible.
If there were too many enemies in the woods, she would have to covertly slip her squad past them and evade, going the long way around to Shen Town for the debriefing. She was required to note down the enemy's dispositions accurately and justify her decision to Carwell.
Twelve Kyoshi Warriors crouched in the shadows of the forest, facing were divided into three loosely-spaced clusters of four each. In front of them was the path which wound east to Shen, and deeper into the trees was the enemy encampment.
"Heads up, girls," Suki murmured, lying on her belly in the prickly underbrush. "I saw nine of them. Two sentries on the other side of the path, then seven gathered maybe a hundred feet further that way. We'll provide for up to four more guys. I say we can take them."
"That's nice," said Rena with another glance down at her rifle. It was locked and loaded, as it had been since the start of the exercise. "What's the plan?"
"The sentries have got to go. Rena, stay with me. Miya and Akiko will be together as well. Us four are going to cross the path and take them out quietly. Once the sentries are gone, Sae's team will move up to where they were and fire in support. The rest of us'll make the assault right into their camp. We go left, Koharu's team goes right.
Suki waited for a question, but there were none. She nodded confidently and signalled with a snap of her arm. "Let's do this."
Rena, Akiko, and Miya emerged from the bush, and Suki jumped up. A few quick steps and she was at full stride, darting across the rocky path. Her feet touched the ground with practiced grace, a gliding spirit under the canopy. One thing Carwell couldn't teach her was stealth. That quality already ran deep in every Kyoshi Warrior's blood.
Under the branches of an oak, she paused, making sure that the others were right behind her. They stood there tautly, watching their surroundings in case there were unaccounted enemies lurking around. None in sight.
Suki pointed at the two standing figures, no more than twenty feet away. The enemy sentries, symbolized by straw practice dummies tied to wooden posts. Even if they had been flesh and bone, the warriors' approach was still too quiet to be noticed.
Her finger carved a curving shape in the air, a signal acknowledged by a thumbs-up from the other three. They'd strike the watchmen from the treetops, a standard move all of them had practiced many times. While riskier than a ground-based approach, attacking from above would provide them the maximum amount of surprise.
Fingers gripping tightly to the trunk, Suki began to climb. Her shoes dug into the bark, supporting her weight, and she shimmied up the tree, careful to keep its bulk between her and the her target. Hand over hand she pulled herself higher, until her head poked through the canopy. The bright sunlight glared at her eyes, and she squinted for a moment, before she reached back down through the leaves to help Rena up.
"Ready?" she whispered.
Rena grinned brightly. "You betcha."
Suki tensed for a second, feeling the branches creak slightly underfoot as she gathered up force. Taking one more deep breath, she sprang.
The rushing air stung at her face as her jump reached the the top of its arc, and she started to plummet back towards the earth. There was always that moment of doubt during freefall, a dragging feeling in the gut that no amount of training could dissipate. Her legs flailed in midair, desperate for solid ground.
Then she hit the opposing tree. Instantly, she grabbed on, both hands circling the trunk. She was sliding downwards, gloves protecting her skin from the rough bark as she used the surface to slow her fall. She touched down softly, barely an arm's length behind her target.
Suki flicked open one of her razor-edged fans, drove off her left knee, and lashed out with one powerful strike. The scarecrow's head sailed off into the woods, leaving behind a straw-stuffed tunic hanging forlornly from its stake.
The soft thud beside Suki told her that Rena had also landed. She glanced over to where the other sentry had been stationed, and found another brutal decapitation, made more gruesome by the additional vertical slash which had split its torso in half. Akiko sheathed her sword and winked, before reaching for her rifle.
Suki turned to look back across the path and waved. The other eight warriors broke cover in a sprint, more concerned now with speed rather than secrecy. Four of them swerved off to the right, while the rest crossed the path directly.
Carwell had likened maneuvers like these to a scorpion. Sae's team was the sting in the tail, keeping the enemy trapped and unable to fight back, while Suki and Koharu led the pincers, coming in from both sides to strike.
Suki tore through the brush, all pretensions of stealth abandoned as the first shots rang out to the right. The whip-crack of rifles mixed with the discordant rattle of submachine gun fire, sweeping the target area to cover her team's flanking run. They were advancing roughly abreast of each other, with at least six feet of distance between runners so that a single enemy blast of fire couldn't hit more than one of them at a time.
The figures of two enemies appeared ahead, visible amidst the greenery. Still moving, Suki snapped her M3 up to her shoulder, locked the iron sights on target, and tugged back on the trigger. Three rounds blasted out of the muzzle, and the practice dummy shuddered from the impacts. Rena took responsibility for the other one, pulling up short to let off two quick rounds that sent straw and bits of cloth flying into the air.
Suki peeked around the side of a tree and lined up a second burst. Another straw man sagged to the ground, wooden stake and all. She had only just been issued the weapon, but she already felt more at union with it than with any rifle.
The hail of bullets from Sae and her three warriors was beginning to slack off, taking a few seconds to die out completely. The pincers were about to enter the target area, and if the supporting team continued trying to smother the enemy with more covering fire, they would run the risk of hitting friendlies. In the meanwhile, they would sit tight, waiting for Suki to either call for help or signal the all-clear.
Now came the entry into the encampment itself. They needed to swing to the right like a door on a hinge. Closest to the objective, Suki had the least distance to cover, and simply pivoted on her heel, bringing her submachine gun around to bear. The others made the turn one after another, careful to maintain their line and spacing.
It wasn't much of a camp. A few tattered bedrolls had been thrown about, surrounding a pile of boughs stacked in a crude approximation of a campfire. The remains of three more enemies lay at the center, cut to pieces by the intense fire of the covering team.
A single unharmed dummy was perched at the rear, and Miya and Akiko shredded it with three shots. The pole supporting it cracked in two, and the target sank out of sight.
"Clear!" Suki called out, concluding a quick survey of their surroundings. She shifted left and right, scanning every possible angle, but there were no more enemies to be seen in their sector.
The branches to the right of the encampment rustled, and Koharu appeared. Her three warriors were close behind, heads up in search of targets, but they soon came to the same conclusion.
"Clear!"
"All clear! Sae, move up!" Suki ordered, loudly enough to be heard from the rear. She snapped the dust cover of her M3 to closed position. To Koharu, she added, "How many did you get?"
"Two. The bushes were really clumped up thickly on the right, though, so we had to do a more thorough sweep of our flank before we hooked to the left. You?"
"Three down our side, and one when we entered the camp. Sae got three of them here. Add the two watchmen, and that makes eleven of them in total."
Suki turned to look back south, and discovered that Sae's covering team weren't the only people coming towards the target area. The familiar lanky frame of Colonel Carwell crashed through the undergrowth behind the four warriors, intently jotting down notes on a clipboard as he dodged brambles and rocks.
Carwell was dressed for the occasion. Over his uniform, he had taken to wearing a puffy vest dyed in a ridiculously vivid shade of orange as a precautionary measure, to ensure the warriors could recognize him during live-fire maneuvers. To bolster the desired effect, he had also wrapped lengths of red fabric around his right arm and the brim of his helmet.
"So you chose to engage," he observed to Suki, adjusting his ludicrous apparel, which had hiked up awkwardly towards during his walk. Apparently, it was some sort of flotation device used by their navy. Without proper high-visibility clothing available, he had been forced to make do with what was available.
"Yes, Colonel. I scouted the enemy positions and decided that we could fight them, so I ordered for one fireteam to lay down covering fire while the other two made runs down the flank. We wiped out all eleven members of the enemy squad."
Carwell made another notation. "That was the right decision to make. I'm pleased to say that your assault was executed well. The elimination of the two sentries was...unorthodox, but it worked. Sae and her people showed good accuracy and fire discipline, and the two maneuver elements moved systematically, but also with speed."
"Thank you," replied Suki.
"That said, I hope you understand that this was an easy scenario. You had the numbers, the element of surprise, and the firepower. You also had the opportunity to commence the assault from a concealed position relatively close to the objective. In the future, you may not have all of these factors on your side.
"Take, for example, your decision to hold Sae's team in a stationary position. It's a perfectly valid tactic, but only for a situation such as this. If you were making the run over a further distance, you'd soon outstrip their capability to cover your advance, and that would leave you exposed. Remember what I said?"
"Yes, Colonel." Suki thought for a second, digging into her memory to recall Carwell's lessons and diagrams. "If we're forced to make a rush over a long stretch, the advancing teams must keep alternating roles between firing and maneuvering. When one team moves towards a covered position, the others fire in support until they get there. Then that team returns the favor, allowing the squad to keep pushing forward under a protective curtain of lead."
"It's what's called bounding overwatch. That's the name of the game." Carwell chuckled, then shoved his clipboard under one arm and peeked at his wristwatch. "All in all, a good job. Report to Shen Town. I'll be holding a full debriefing in a couple of hours, once the other squads have had their turn."
Shrine Hill
1832 hours
Meditation was easy up here, in the garden outside Kyoshi's shrine. At his request, Aang's friends remained behind in Keum Village. There was nobody around to bother him, no prying eyes or muttered conversations as unnecessary distractions. At the edge of flickering circle set by the shrine's blazing torchlight, he sat alone. All that surrounded him was engulfed by the gathering darkness.
Aang's breathing began to slow down. Far below, the gentle rush of the waves against the sandy shore provided a constant swell of soothing sound, helping him center himself. His mind was clear, and his spirit was settled. Any moment now...
A new voice spoke in the darkness, low and imperative, but definitely feminine. "Avatar Aang."
He opened his eyes. The glowing blue apparition of a towering, broad-shouldered woman sat across him. On her head was an ornate headdress, and her face was covered with pale war paint. Even in lotus position she was far taller than Aang was, and he had to crane his neck to look her in the eye.
"Avatar Kyoshi, I am honored," greeted Aang. "I've come to ask your advice."
"In that, I am completely at your disposal. How can I be of assistance?"
"What do you know about the Lost Legion?
"Ah, yes." Kyoshi nodded approvingly. "Li Han. I always enjoyed talking with her. She was a far better source of wisdom than Kuruk, my immediate predecessor." Even after being dead for almost two hundred years, Aang could still sense the distaste in her tone.
"In my day, the Earth Kingdom was in a state of crisis. Scores of bandit groups roamed the countryside and the seas with near-impunity, pillaging and stripping what they pleased. They were a curse upon the land and a curse upon social order. The state's sages, the men entrusted by the crown to govern and protect the common folk, were unable to put a stop to them. At best, they were weak and vacillating, uninterested by their subjects' plight. At worst, they were tyrants and opportunists, a greater blight than the criminals themselves.
"It took me many years of my life to bring the problem to heel, and I envied Li Han all the while. After all, she controlled an entire army, while I was lucky if I had one friend to fight by my side. And then I learned her story, and that envy soon disappeared."
"What changed your mind?" asked Aang.
"Even for all the unfortunate aspects of the time I lived in, there still existed the rule of law. A system of government poorly enforced is nevertheless better than none at all. There was still a king in Ba Sing Se, recognized as the legitimate leader by all. The fields were still fertile, and most understood that obeying the law was for everyone's benefit. As long as you stayed close enough to the capital, within the protection of the Earth Army, you could live in relative peace.
"The Earth continent of Li Han's time had none of those advantages. It was in complete chaos. The blade and the rock held sway over all, and the only law was strength. As is natural in such a state of affairs, factions arose to vie for the leaderless land, bloodthirsty thugs who knew nothing except death and destruction.
"Remember this, Aang." Kyoshi fixed him with her stern eyes. "There are few more dangerous than those who believe as if power is owed to them. Those who, more than anything, crave dominion over their fellow man. Even the bandits I faced, brazen as they were, held no such pretensions.
"But the warlords who led each faction did. All were firmly convinced of their birthright to control all that surrounded them. They and their supporters fought not to bring order and peace, but for personal gain. And that is the situation Li Han found herself in.
"Of the army that helped her restore sanity, I am less informed about. I do know that they suddenly appeared at Laghima Island when she was around twenty years of age, bringing with them superior weaponry and an understanding of the art of warfare that far exceeded any contemporary knowledge. In the field, they were almost unstoppable. They possessed discipline, allowing them to remain steadfast even against benders, and their with their martial skill, they simply tore through their enemy, who were not nearly so well-drilled as they were."
"So the Lost Legion was a force for good?"
"Definitely. With Li Han's guidance, they launched a campaign against the warlords. It took two bloody years of fighting, but they eventually brought each faction to heel. When the wars were over, Zhelan of Ba Sing Se was installed as the first Earth King, one of the Avatar's only local allies during the conflict and a man reputed across the continent for his judiciousness.
"The soldiers of Rome were given one final task, to train and equip the fledgling Earth Army up to standard so that the new nation could protect itself in its nascent years. When that was finished, they sailed with Li Han back west to Laghima Island, and the men were never seen in this world again."
"But it's happened again, Kyoshi." Aang said. "There's a new Lost Legion, and they're armed with something more dangerous than just swords and shields. They can kill from miles away, and call down huge explosions from the sky, and destroy cities. Their leader says that he and his men fought in a war in their world that killed seventy million people, and that was in just six years of fighting!"
"I suspected as much. In fact, I may already have borne witness to their power firsthand."
"But...how?"
"I died here." Kyoshi pointed towards the shrine. "I'm not sure exactly how long ago it happened. Time is a strange entity in the Spirit World. I was very old then, and caught a bad sickness at the dawn of spring. This building used to be the village temple, and the people brought me in to try and heal me. It was too late. My time was long overdue, anyway.
"My spirit—mine own, not the one we share as the Avatar—is not drawn very often to the world of the living, but when it is, I tend to find myself here. There came a day, not very long ago, where I had a vision. I saw myself standing here on a snowy winter's day, and somehow, I instinctively understood that the people of this island were in grave danger. But all I could do was watch.
"There were three iron ships down in the bay, all bearing the flag of the Fire Nation. They began to unload troops in their hundreds, cavalry and infantry alike. They began to move towards the pass in the valley, and I knew that for all the skill of my warriors, they would be unable to stop so many. The enemy would flood into the island's interior and wreak suffering and destruction upon all who called this place home.
"Then the very thunder of the heavens crashed down upon the invaders, and they began to fall in droves. An invisible force seemed to tear through their ranks, and they were powerless to defend themselves. Some tried to firebend towards their unseen adversaries, but they were cut down all the same.
"Four winged shapes dove from the sky, rumbling and roaring, and set upon the enemy ships. Their assailment didn't even last a minute, and suddenly they had disappeared back into the clouds. Two of the iron ships exploded, and the third was split straight in half. After that, I saw no more of the battle, but I felt as if I could rest easy, that my people would be safe."
"That's Colonel Bedford's men, all right. That battle happened three months ago. He was here because he wanted to get Kyoshi Island to be their allies, but the Fire Nation tried to attack. He gathered his men, rallied the warriors, and fought them off with the weapons they brought along."
"The vision was true, then?" Kyoshi's eyebrows shot upwards. "I was half-convinced that it was some trick of the Spirit World, a bizarre dream of sorts. Stranger things happen in this realm every day."
"Nope. What you saw was completely true. The Lost Legion's back, and they call themselves the 'Allied Expeditionary Unit'."
"Please, Aang. When you see this Colonel again, please tell him that Avatar Kyoshi gives him many thanks. We are in great debt to him for the service he rendered this island."
"Bedford's the reason I came up here," replied Aang. "He's just come up with a plan to solve all my problems, and that's what I'm worried about most."
"Explain, please," Kyoshi prompted.
"He told me that he plans to use the Allied Expeditionary Unit's advanced weapons to hit the Fire Nation with several quick, devastating strikes, to overwhelm them with so many critical hits and 'bring the whole state to its knees'. He wants to send in an assassination team to kill the Fire Lord and his heir, then isolate Caldera City and capture it so he can land reinforcements right on the enemy's soil. I didn't really understand his explanation of exactly how he'll do it, but one of my friends says that his proposal makes sense, and he seems really confident that he can pull it off."
"Would you rather face the might of the enemy on your own, then?"
"All I have to do is to nod my head, and Bedford sets his gears in motion. Ozai dies, the Fire Nation stops fighting, and the Comet passes by without anything else bad happening. Doesn't it all seem a bit too easy? There has to be a catch to all this. What if... " Aang stumbled over his words a little, trying to clear his thoughts. "What if they're a greater destructive force than even the Fire Nation?"
"Then you must make certain that their force is directed properly, for a good cause. Their arrival means your destiny has changed, Aang. You were once supposed to face the Fire Lord and take his regime down, but perhaps that is no longer the case. You are no less important, but now you are a facilitator, an overseer, as Li Han was.
"It is your responsibility to ensure that this Allied Expeditionary Unit does not cross the line, that no matter how powerful or dangerous they and their weapons are, they will not upset the balance of this world any further while attempting to restore it. Can you do that?"
"I'll try."
For the first time, Kyoshi smiled, a small, reassuring gesture. "Perhaps this development was for the better. I know how sacred life is to you and your culture."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Be honest with yourself, Aang. If you had continued down your previous path and mastered all the elements, and you were face-to-face with Ozai, tell me this: what would you need to do to stop him? There would've been no creative way around the problem, no different angle. And if at that point in time you sought my advice, I would have counseled you to end him, permanently. But now, at least you still can remain true to your duties as both an airbender and the Avatar. Think about that."
Kyoshi bowed her head politely to him, and her image began to fade. Soon the blue glow was gone altogether, and surrounded in the deep blackness, Aang was alone once more.
Author's Notes:
I was feeling a bit uninspired over the past few months, so I signed on as a beta reader to get my creativity flowing and to help improve my own writing. It worked, and it helped me crank out my longest chapter so far. If you're wondering, I'm currently doing some spit-and-polish work for pinheadh78 (pinhead on Ao3) and his fic Pearl in WWII, available on both FFN and AO3. I highly recommend it if you like Steven Universe, kickass fight scenes, and/or WWII history.