Half an hour later, I lay resting against a tree trunk, using my arms as cushions while Ty Lee lay on my chest, just enjoying the close physical contact between us. Nothing even sexual going on beyond a few light pets and kisses.
"So...where exactly will we go from here?" My new, very beautiful girlfriend asked me, "I didn't exactly have time to grab my stuff from the tank train when you grabbed me and shot off, so I'll need to get new clothes, but I don't have any money to my name."
"Don't worry, as far as money goes I've got a decent amount that will last a while, both in earth nation currency and fire nation," I replied, "As for where we're going, well I've not fully decided. I've got three places I want to go to get things done, but right now only two of them will work out."
When I had acquired Beast Taming, an idea came to mind. What if..I went to the spirit world, and sought out Vaatu? If I could convince Vaatu to submit to me, I may be able to turn him into a tamed beast and get him out of his prison. Now, that wouldn't be very likely in normal circumstances, but a things are right now, Vaatu has no hope of escaping his prison without help, grand convergence or not. Because of his power and ego, Vaatu may just agree thinking that whatever power I use to get him out, he'll be able to break free of since it's just a humans power and not say, Raava's.
It was a loose idea I just wanted to try out. But here's the problem. With Vaatu under my control, I could very easily order him to merge with me, since Beast Taming gave me absolute control over anything that submitted to me that first time. I had confirmed with the game system that even Vaatu wouldn't be able to resist my orders. And as mentioned, I could then easily order him to merge with me and use the spirit portal beams that connect the worlds to fuse us together permanently, becoming the dark avatar, only unlike that troll Unalaq, I would be the one in full control.
But here's the problem. Wan could barely survive merging with the incredibly weakened version of Raava. And Vaatu is far, far more powerful. If I tried to merge with him, my soul wouldn't be strong enough, and I would die. The game system was again, very helpful in confirming that.
That meant, to fuse with Vaatu, I had to find a way to make my own soul strong enough to handle the merging. According to the game system once again, not long ago I had unlocked a few other worlds, and one of them it said, would give me a way to strengthen my soul should I go there very easily.
My plan was to get further with Ty Lee, and then ask her to come along with me. And right now, it would be the plan. I'd ask Ty Lee to come with me right now. If it weren't for the fact that...the system is now glitched because of Azula.
So the option of going to Wan Shi Tong and asking him to take me to the spirit world, since I know he is capable of doing so, he did take that professor from Ba Sing Se after all, is out of the question.
That meant, there were only two options I wanted to try for right now.
"I want to tame a beast called a Sea Serpent, they're big and strong and you can find them at the serpents pass on the way to Ba Sing Se, that's one option, we could travel to Ba Sing Se and check it out if you want," I continued, explaining, "Or, we could head to New Ozai and from there get a boat back to the Fire Nation."
"Well, I understand the first one after you showed me you taming your new pet," Ty Lee hummed, propping herself up on my chest to look me in the eye, "But why would you want to go to the Fire Nation? We're probably gonna have bounty posters soon after what we did, granted they'll take a little bit to circulate."
I grinned at her, "How would you like to meet a pair of dragons?" I asked.
Her chocolate brown eyes widened, "I thought General Iroh killed the last dragon?" she asked.
"Nope, he lied," I lifted my hand and stroked her hair, it silky smooth to the touch, "He found the last dragons, but never killed them. Instead, he learned a special type of fire bending from them. That's where I want to go, so I can learn more about fire bending from them."
"Hmm, both sound fun, I mean, how many people from the Fire Nation can say they got into Ba Sing Se?" she mused, It was interesting how she didn't even question how we'd get in, just believed me we would get in. But then again, she could probably infiltrate the place herself with how amazingly strong and talented she is, "But then, it's practically a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet a dragon."
"Hard decision right?" I grinned at her. I honestly was having a hard time in picking myself.
"Where exactly are the dragons in the Fire Nation?"she asked.
With a thought, I summoned a map I'd stolen from the governor of New Ozai, "Right here." I said, pointing to the picture of an island made out to be entirely of rocky mountain areas, to the north of the Fire Nation.
"Hey, isn't this the place where the ruins of the old sun warrior city used is?" Ty Lee asked as she studied the map, "Yeah, I'm sure of it, we learned about it in history class back at the royal academy for girls."
"That it is," I answered, "There's actually a tribe of sun warriors that live there with the two dragon fire bending masters, Ran and Shaw."
"Really!" Ty Lee clapped her hands excitedly, "Then let's go there! Just think about it, not only will we have the once of a lifetime opportunity to meet dragons, but we'll even get to see a tribe of sun warriors. They've thought to have went extinct thousands of years ago! And on top of all that, it isn't far from Ember Island, we can totally hit up the beach together."
I raised an eyebrow, "You realise if I go to the beach with you, I'm gonna end up spending most of my time beating the crap out of all the guys that try to flirt with you?" I question drily. After all, she was completely hounded by guys when she went there with Azula, Mai and Zuko. And the assholes that hung around there didn't care about hitting on a girl that was already taken, as was shown by the guys trying to flirt with Mai even with Zuko right next to her.
"I'm okay with that," she smirked back at me, "Besides, it's not like I won't have to mark my own territory either you know. Have you seen yourself when you're shirtless? You'll have girls lining up to try and get a feel of these bad boys." she trailed her hand over my chest down to my abdomen just to show what she meant.
"Alright then, New Ozai it is, then we'll head over to meet the sun warriors and once we're done we can spend some time at Ember Island." I decided.
"Sounds great," Ty Lee beamed, leaning over to press a quick peck to my lips, "This'll be so fun!"
There were two routes we could go to reach our destination. We could wind around the mountain path to Gaoling and retread the path we took to follow Aang and his group of friends originally, or we could take the short cut and make a straight beeline for New Ozai by taking a short cut through the Si Wong Desert.
Ty Lee, ever the adventurous one, decided it would be more fun if we travelled through the desert since she'd never been in one before.
"Faster! Faster!" Ty Lee cheered from where she now sat atop the head my newly tamed saber tooth moose lion pet, holding onto one of his – because it turned out he was male – antlers.
His huge powerful, and now fully healed legs pounded through the sand dunes, sending glittering flakes of it flying through the air as he passed through.
Simba as I'd named him, was moving way faster through the sand than I thought he would, and we were making amazing time. That was partly because he was already massive before, so the sand didn't slow him down as much as it would Mong and his shorter legs. But there was also the fact that, Simba was actually quite a bit bigger now than he was previously.
When I tamed Simba, he was maybe around fifty five feet tall standing up. But now..he was closer to to around the sixty range. I can only assume it's because of my beast tamer skill empowering anything I tamed by one point two times.
He was an absolute mountain of muscle now, granted he already was but he's now one a bit bigger! Faster, stronger and even more durable than before. Admittedly, he'd still be easy pickings for any fire bender of my level or above just because of how big of a target he was, but people like that were outliers.
Sadly, I couldn't check his level to see just how strong he was when I tamed him, never mind now. I can only assume that since Mong was level twenty, then Simba had to be at least over level thirty.
Holding onto his fur as I relaxed on his back and stared up at the sky, I wondered, 'Can that lion turtle give bending to animals as well?' it would be amazing to be able to tame it. But even if not, if I could get it to pass fire bending on to Mong and Simba, that would be awesome. A fire bending saber tooth moose lion? People would shit their pants.
Some may call fire the most basic bitch power of all, even amongst the standard elements. But, I'm a simple guy who likes simple things. And fire is simple, alongside being simply badass awesome.
I lifted my hand into the air, flame sparking in my hand rippling back, to contort around my fist. The very basis of my signature technique. Using the principals of compressing the flame to make it stronger from the flame stream technique and the flame channelling technique to form it around the shape of my fist. But, it wasn't complete with just that. To use it as a projectile technique the way I wanted, I needed to use the flame shaping technique, to create an arm and fist within the already shaped fire, to help it keep its form and make it have some more weight to it.
With the principles of the flame stream, it was a simple compression technique at the basis that allowed me to pump more and more chi into it to make it larger without having to worry about the control. But the secondary part using the flame shaping technique was just as important, because it was used to keep the shape itself. However much chi I pumped into the attack, I needed to use a quarter of that amount of chi extra to keep that shape with the flame shaping. So if I pumped say two thousand chi points into the attack, I'd need to pump another five hundred to keep its shape. Expensive chi wise, but made up for with just how much chi I was capable of pumping into it without blowing it up in my face.
It was a very simple, very stolen technique from an entirely different world. And perhaps my most favourite fire attack I've ever seen.
I let go of the technique, letting the flame flow backwards up into my palm and form back into a pulsing sphere of flickering orange and yellow. The way it it moved in my palm, reminded me of a heart beat.
I focused on the flame, letting my chi flow out from my body into it. I could feel the flame, the heat it gave off, every pulsing movement it made as if it were a limb I'd had all along. I willed my chi into it, and the flame grew larger in my palm. I mentally commanded the flame and it floated up higher into the air and began orbiting around me like a planetary ring.
As long as it was within range of my projected chi, it seemed as if I could control it.
I zoned out.
I only zoned back in when a pair of soft arms wrapped around me, and when I came to fully, I noticed the sun that had still been in the process of dipping down below the horizon...had disappeared from view and darkness settled over the sandy dunes.
"Finally back with me huh?" Ty Lee mused.
I blinked, looking at her in confusion.
"You've been playing about with that fire ball there for hours, you didn't even notice me shouting back to you a few times," she pointed at the fire ball floating in the air by my side with a giggle, "You were totally out of it."
I swallowed, noticing that my throat was dry. Jeez, how long had I been doing that. "Sorry...I didn't even mean to do that."
"It's fine, you probably needed some rest anyway considering how little sleep you got when you were driving the tank train constantly," she waved me off, "I woulda let you keep at it, since I was having fun anyway with Simba...but we've kind of got a problem."
I sat up from my laying position on the back of my giant tamed beast and raised an eyebrow at her, "What kind of problem?"
Ty Lee shrugged helplessly, "Well...the that kind." she rose a hand and pointed behind me.
Following her finger, I turned around and looked at what she was pointing at. There was a billowing cloud of sand being kicked up by the weight and speed of Simba's charge...and scything through it and the sand dunes...was a massive brown dorsal fin.
The kind of fin you saw sticking out of the water of the ocean when there was a shark about.
"Oh..." I noted very intelligently.
"Looks like a Sand Shark, I only noticed it because the sand cloud was all poofy and calming to look at and then there was suddenly this big yucky aura in amongst it," Ty Lee explained before smiling brightly at me and patting me on the shoulder, "Chi Blocking isn't going to do me any good against something like that. So I suppose my big strong boyfriend will have to take care of it.
She pressed a quick kiss to my cheek, "Good luck!" and with that, she cartwheeled along Simba's back, right up to land back on his head, "Go Simba, run like the wind!" she cheered him on.
..Well okay then. I eyed the giant fin slicing through the sands as it followed behind us. I'd read about these in this life time, and in my old one, I'd seen Korra deal with one of these things. They were absolutely massive. Easily a good few hundred feet in size, and with a mouth large enough to bite out half of a flying warship.
Despite that though, I grinned as excitement ran through me. A perfect target to test out my new signature technique on.
I stood up, somehow easily able to keep my balance on Simba's back and taking a page from princess crazy's book I lashed out with two fingers from my right hand, unleashing a spear of flame through the air.
The flame spear shot through the air and while miniscule in comparison to the size of the fin, it right into and through it. The sand shook and like a massive submarine rising from the oceans, a gargantuan brown shark rose from the sand, leaping into the air above us, and so gigantically large its shadow dwarfed Simba at least three times over.
Its huge beady eyes locked down on Simba's form, no doubt thinking of making my new pet its next meal. It's size was absolutely awe inspiring, but the silly thing did just as I wanted it to. It gave me a full view of its body, and even better, it exposed its belly to me.
I cocked my fist back, and pulled upon my chi, directing it to my right arm. Not just some, but all of it. Flame exploded into existence and moulding and contorting around the shape of my arm, so bright the area around us was illuminated for tens of dozens of metres.
Then I punched forward and unleashed it all, "Fire Fist!" I declared, very grandly if I do say so myself. It was silly to do, but I had to do it, at least once!
The flame around my fist once again exploded, this time from my fist itself up towards the shark and going from the size of my arm, to a monstrously huge streaming fist of flame bigger than two buses stacked together.
With its immense size and being in the air, the Sand Shark had no chance to dodge. It roared in agony as my flaming attack slammed into it, carrying it even higher into the air, and my own eyes widened...when the giant flaming fist burned right through its lower belly, and moments later pierced up through its top as well, the giant flaming fist going through it and flying up through the air like a blazing comet.
I cut off the technique and fell onto my backside, balancing myself on both hands, panting deeply. I'd never used that much chi at once before and I'd actually never full out ran out of chi before either. My body felt sluggish and weak. Cold, I could only feel the barest scraps of my inner flame.
But just as quickly did I feel like did, did it disappear and I was suddenly fully energized, fully rested and completely full on chi. 'Did I level up?' I wondered as I watched the titanic corpse of the sand shark fall from the sky. It felt like I did, I was familiar with the feeling of it now, despite it only having happened a few times since I got here.
"Oh my gosh that was so awesome!" Ty Lee was suddenly hugging me from behind, eyes sparkling as she eyed the sand shark, just as it slammed into the sand kicking up a massive wave of it, "You were all like 'Fire Fist' all manly like and boom you killed it. You named it and said it out loud when using it and everything, that's so cute!" she deepened her voice when she said the name of it before giggling.
"Well, most benders have like their own favourite move right? I just made my own," I explained, attempting to justify myself, "I made it that one up myself."
"And it was very original to, must have taken you a long time to come up with punching out fire." she teased.
"Too childish?" I ventured.
"A lil bit," Ty Lee nodded, her cheek brushing against mine, "But I like that. Most benders you see are all really arrogant or the type that just grunt and brag about themselves. I like that you're having fun with it."
It didn't really embarrass me to do it to be honest, that much at least. And if she liked it, well.
"Well if you like it, I'll just keep doing it then," I replied, "Besides, if I want to make it a famous technique, calling its name a lot with help right?"
"Sure, that works I guess!" she agreed, before standing up and pulling me with her, "Now c'mon, poor Simba was all freaked out by that thing following us, take responsibility and cheer him up!"
Ah yes, because it was the seventy odd foot mountain of powerful muscle that needed to be comforted after an ordeal like this. Makes perfect sense.
I cast an eye at the huge corpse of the sand shark and sighed. Fire Fist was even more powerful than I expected, granted to be that strong it needed monstrous amounts of chi and I could only fire that once and nothing else right now, but still. Too bad I guess, taming that beast of a shark would have been awesome. Sucks that my Beast Tamer skill only works on living creatures.
Anyway, again, shameless Pa-atreon plug. I've got one, go by the same username on there, easy to find and all that jazz. Support me if you want, it'd be swell, but don't feel pressured lads and ladies, I'll be uploading my stuff outside it regardless and not keeping it all behind a paywall or anything like that.