The White Flame (An Avatar Story) Book 2: Warfare

by Aegis Whiteflame

The Rats and the Hornets are gone, but the streets of Citadel never change. Only its players. The Fire Nation Siege of Ba Sing Se intensifies with every passing day, and the survivors of Citadel's latest turf war, now drafted into the Fire Nation, are on death row to see the worst of what war has to offer.

3. Change and Consistency

Captain Zar'un

I'd seen his head roll.

I'd ordered his death myself, and seen him killed nearly a year ago.

Gyani was dead.

So how is he, after a year, still such a pain in my ass?

My hands anxiously passed from one letter to another, those at the top of the pile the more recent, the communique only directed towards the once Lee Shuni, now known as monk Gyani. None were returned, providing the slightest assurance at the very least that Gyani wasn't still alive somewhere, a decapitated corpse with his head tucked beneath one arm, returning correspondence with the other.

Gyani's death had hardly stopped this man, this insignificant shopkeep from writing to him though. Why? I asked as I went through ten letters, twenty, fifty, more… Who was this damned traitor to you? And finally, some shadow of an answer presented itself to me when I reached the first page in the pile that was written by a different hand. I couldn't not recognize it. Not after months being spent going everything the man had ever written, every report, every official document, every complaint report, everything.

It was his calligraphy. Beyond any doubt. The only thing that set it out from the other writings of his that I'd read over the years was that this was signed with his real name rather than the disguise he'd taken on when in my garrison's ranks as 'Lee Shuni.'

By the look of the pile, my hands scrolling through them as my eyes scanned the headers dozens at a time, there was years worth of correspondence here. Nearly a decade.

How long had this been going on?

How long had I not known about any of this?

"Did you know about this?" I shot at Sergent Zarrow, his only misfortune being that he was in the same room as me at that moment in time.

"What?" he asked in what I immediately took as feigning ignorance.

"Did you know that one of your men was sending letters outside of the walls?!" Gyani, or, at the time, Lee Shuni had been part of his platoon of the Citadel garrison. The man had been his responsibility, his failure, and his reason for demotion.

"We've had…many soldiers send messages outside of the inner district, sir. Some have distant relations on the other side, whores, friends-"

"So you're saying this went through us?! That you let this through?!"

"No, sir! We would have caught this instantly." He seemed rather confident in that.

"How can you be so sure?!" I asked even though a part of me must have been aware enough to know that he was right. For spirits' sake, the man had used 'Gyani' in complete opposition to what he was known as in these walls. He would have been caught in an instant, and the sergeant in front of me made that clear.

"We would have," he assured me. "This didn't go through us."

"So how?"

Zarrow gave me a look that showed he understood how stupid of a question it was while I was still too exasperated to realize. "Could've been anything," he said. "Had it smuggled out, delivered it by hand when out on patrol, we can't know for sure."

Damnit. I sighed. It was as if with every passing moment of learning more about Gyani, I was realizing just how deep the rabbithole went, just how much I'd missed, just how much had been going on right under my damned nose.

"How can you not know for sure?" I pressed. "He was your private, in your platoon!"

"I know, sir."

"It was one thing when he acted alone, but to know he was working with an Earth Kingdom collaborationist?" Granted, there was no proof of that, not yet. We knew that Gyani had collaborated with the Earth Kingdom, but that hardly earned him the title of "collaborationist" any more than it did for the Rats that'd been used as weapons against us. One way or another though, they'd been associated, and it did beg the question of just how long the Dai Li had a presence here. Had they really snuck in with the sages, or had they been here longer? Back when Gyani was in my own city's garrison?

And what does any of this have to do with the supposed 'person' he was trying to protect out in the slums?

"I can put people on this," Zarrow spoke up. "I can dig up old leads, return to Gyani, get this sorted out."

And pick up where he'd started…

I considered it. It was clear he was trying to address my clear concerns, but behind that too were personal reasons. His curiosity had been peaked as well. He wanted to know where this rabbit hole led, perhaps even as much as I did. I was half-tempted to say 'yes,' to put him and every other resource I had available to me immediately on getting to the bottom of this and figuring out what the hell was going on.

But there was more. Infiltrators, loose ends that I couldn't leave unattended.

And who knows where those threads may lead?

It was a flimsy lead, but one never knew. There was always the possibility that finding the Dai Li agents in this city could get us something we didn't have before. Something about Mishi, something about Gyani.

I shook my head. "No," I said. "Keep on the Dai Li. Continue looking for them."

"We don't know if they're still in the city."

Is he really that eager to find out more about Gyani, to take that back on his plate yet again? He was committed, I have him that much. Maybe once he found those agents, working alongside me on this Gyani business would get him back in my good graces enough to make him a lieutenant once again. Maybe. But first things came first. "Then find out," I said. And if perhaps he needed the additional incentive, I added, "They might know more about our tradesman and how this all connects."

He sucked up his complaints, and nodded. "I'll make it my priority."

"I know you will," I answered back. He was more deserving of the rank 'lieutenant' than those who currently did hold it within these walls. With any luck, he would give me the opportunity to give it back to him. "I'm giving you access to outer wall logs, inner city reports, anything you need to continue your investigation."

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

He saluted, and I returned it just long enough to give off the appearance of formality before my eyes turned back to all that he'd recovered, the Air Nomad paraphernalia, the Earth Kingdom souvenirs, and the letters. The letters.

"Send Zhorou in for me," I called out to Zarrow before he could close the door behind him.

Soon enough, my ward came in, a curious look on his face as to what this had all been about, something about Zarrow's expression likely giving something away. The boy was observant. In his position, he had to be. And it would pay off eventually too. Were he a few years older, he surely would have been a lieutenant in one of Eemusan's newly formed companies, but as it was, the boy was not yet of military age, and so he would have to wait for the next campaign. If even there ends up being one. That was optimistic however. More likely than not, the boy would be sent to Ba Sing Se as this siege would go on to last for months if not years more.

"Evidence processing," I said in reference to the scattered items across my desk. "The Lee Shuni file."

He looked up at me, intrigued. "I thought that was closed," he said.

"Shelved," I corrected. "Unshelved now. Just get it done."

He nodded, and set about the items one at a time, throwing the robes and blanket over his shoulder, sticking the Earth Kingdom patches in his pocket alongside the Air Nation necklace, fitting the inventory files under his armpit, and reaching for the letters."

I stopped him. "I'll be keeping those," I said so as to ward him off.

He did not question it. He only nodded, and turned to leave with that which he'd been allowed to keep, that which I didn't intend to spend the next hours of my life going through one at a damned time.

I couldn't decide where to start, and so I just let my eyes fall onto the paper that was right in front of me, on top of the scattered pile.

Gyani,

I want to apologize for my last letter. I realize that I have gotten ahead of myself in believing I knew what was best, but it's as you always say–nothing happens without a reason. Even so, try as I might, I cannot see the reasoning behind why he would become a Hornet. They robbed my home the other day, made him a part of it as a form of initiation I believe. He did as they bid.

He's not like he was when he was younger. He's more afraid. We always hoped he would find safety with the Rats and, one day perhaps, out of this city, but it seems we might have to wait a while longer for that to happen, if ever it does.

And, once again, I doubt. I apologize. Hornet or otherwise, it is as you say–Aegis is the best hope that we have left. You always were more sure than I, even in death. I pray that you have found peace wherever you are, and I swear to you that I will keep the hope alive.

–Mishi

I damn near dropped the paper, finding the life drawn from my body as though paralyzed by a shirshu's venom.

The one I was looking for a year ago, this was him. It had to be, and now, I had more than ever I did before. I had a name–Aegis. It left only one question remaining though, who, and where the hell is he?

Fluke

We were taught about the warlord Toz "the Strong" or "The Cruel" depending on who was asked. That was the subject that made up that afternoon of classroom time as opposed to the usual grind of physical torment that we'd been subjected to for weeks now. They were teaching us of the Fire Nation's history or, as they put it, "our nation's history."

His conquests across the Fire Islands had been more successful than those of any preceding him. His regime was a strict one, firm and uncompromising in the best of times as well as the worst of times. His demands for tributes never wavered, but just so, neither did his assurances of protection. His regimed surpassed all others on the archipelago whose map'd been drilled into my head over these last weeks.

Of course, it hadn't lasted forever. He'd extended his reach too far, and, over time, dissent had arisen within his territory. So there seemed to blend history and mythology as what came next spoke of spirits of vengeance. When met with a village that'd refused to pay the demanded tribute, the warlord Toz abducted the village's children and turned them into warriors to fight in his name. It was here that, according to our instructor, fact blended into fiction, and it was claimed that vengeful spirits known as the Kemurikage began to haunt Toz and his host, resulting in their eventual downfall.

Centuries later, it now seemed little more than a tall tale to force disobedient children into submission. A few of the younger recruits seemed to take the stories to heart while the older ones would joke about it and create more rumors about them so as to scare the younger recruits.

While I'd found the subject of ancient history interesting, my interest, more than anything, had been on the map they'd shown us of the Fire Nation. "Our Nation." So too had a map of the known world been shown and what never ceased to surprise me was the simple matter of just how small the Fire Nation was. Just a series of islands that began only a few hundred miles off of the Earth Kingdom coast, and they had somehow managed to take over nearly all of the known world.

And it's begun with men like Toz. When the instructor spoke of him, I could not help but see Riu, adorned in archaic arms and armor, unflinching, resolute, capable of cruelty just as much as inspiring loyalty. The more the instructor described the chaos of the times before the Islands had finally been unified under the first Fire Loyal, the topic of a future class, the more it occurred to me that the so-called 'ancient history' they described was no different from that which I and all other children in this class had faced on a day to day basis just outside of these inner walls.

Savage killers with no sense of loyalty beyond power for themselves, and they'd formed the most powerful nation on the Earth, and now were regarded as necessary evils that'd helped to create order from disorder. A sliver of me wondered if us equally untamed children would go to the front and win their war, there might be a similar hope for us after all was said and done.

It was a foolish hope, but still, I couldn't help but wonder if there could be a chance for something better remotely close to 'normal' once this was all said and done. I knew, of course, that the odds were against me and it was far more likely that I would be killed wherever I was sent to earn my keep, but if there was even some remote chance that I could have a real life after it all, then was it possible that all that'd happened could very well have been for the best?

It was a horrible thought, and I discarded it nearly as quickly as I'd come up with it, though it rested at the back of my mind.

It'd been my own fault for having an interest in my subject as I'd done a poor job of hiding it during the class, being so bold as to ask questions and display interest, inadvertently drawing the eyes of Luhing and Gan who seemed none to appreciate the fact that I was grasping these concepts quicker than they could hope to.

The same went for the arithmetic class we'd been in immediately before, myself able to run circles around the others of the class, these very same concepts of long division taught to me years ago when my life in the slums had been something very different, marked instead by some degree of peace and stability rather than getting people hurt through the words I spoke from one day to the next in order to make a living.

It became rather clear in no time that the others didn't take well to me being singled out as the one who understood the concept better than any of the others. Some like Gunji were indifferent and even willing enough to accept some minor help from time to time while the Rats in particular seemed not to take well to a Hornet such as myself showing them up by simply knowing that which they didn't.

While they had every chance in physical training to supersede me, doing so more often than not, the clear edge within these rooms fell to me, and it was my own mistake for making that known whether it was in linguistics, the social studies, or arithmetic.

It was in leaving on the way to our evening meal that I made the mistake of not checking my corners, grabbed immediately the moment I stepped foot outside, last to leave because I had made the idiotic mistake of sticking around to ask my instructor if there was any evidence that actually spoke if the Kemurikage having really existed.

The answer had been vague, not that it mattered anymore as a pair of arms wrapped around either one of my wrists, and one covered my mouth, ensuring my protests would not be heard. The hallway was empty but for my assaulters, identifiable as Gan to my right and Luhing to my left.

Struggling did me no good. Their grip on me was tight and unforgiving, my legs the only appendages of mine that were free. I tried with little avail to kick who it was that was holding me from behind and bite at their hand, and though their grip loosened once or twice, it was only ever enough for me to voice the most curt of screams before my mouth was covered again, now in conjunction with a blade put to my neck. They've got a knife? How?

"Try that shit again and I'll cut your throat." I recognized the voice. What the hell is he doing here? This isn't his company. Confusion aside, the warning was enough of a wake up call to make me realize that, at this very moment, struggling was not in my best interest. Match took that as his chance to let go, and present himself to me. I would have expected a cocky grin across his face, but instead there was a look of unbridled rage that didn't seem to have shifted since last he'd tried to kill me on the Grain street a little under a month ago.

"Should've watched your back better, Fluke. You knew you couldn't hide forever."

"Don't you got somewhere else to be?" I grumbled trying to put on as much a ruse of bravery as possible given the circumstances. "122nd will be missing you."

"I took an early lunch," he grinned. "And besides, this won't take long."

He made no effort to hide the knife that he brandished. He intended to use it, that much was clear in his eyes. My heart leapt, and my gaze darted between Gan and Luhing to either side of me, wondering if I might pick up on the slightest sense of hesitation from them. I saw none, but the fact remained that their only purpose here seemed thus far to hold me still. It didn't change that they all seemed here with the same intent, but it did at least say something about the extent to which they were willing to get involved. Match was the chief concern. Stall him, I thought instantly. Make him waste time. Get the others distracted, run!

"You know somebody's gonna come and see," I said, trying to keep my voice steady in spite of my fear, failing on some small part with that. "Hear at least."

Match looked around with a more than apparent lack of care. "Don't see anyone around. Doubt they'd care anyway." He flipped the knife in his hand, and it was fight or flight instincts that had me try to break loose of Gan and Luhing, but it'd been premature. Their attention was still on me, and so their grips tightened. Damnit!

"You rather I make it slow for you, dipshit?"

Throw him off. You need to buy time. "You already tried that shit on the street and you saw how it went for you!" I snarled, looking down at his side where Chote had cut him during that bloodbath, saving me in the process. "You saw how well it went for you!"

"'Cept you don't got any Hornet fuck buddies of yours to save your ass this time."

"Oh, and you have yours? That shit supposed to be fair?!"

"Fair!?" Match spit out. "Let's talk about fair! Reek saves your sorry ass, you come to our den, saying you want to put this shit to rest, then you fucks kill Miro in the middle of the night. That is so…," his voice caught in his breath, exasperated. "Fucking fair!" He still believed that'd been us. He didn't know what Reek had told me. What had really happened.

"That's not what happened!" I said. "It wasn't us!"

"Bullshit!" Gan spit out.

He was one to talk. "You weren't there!" I turned to glare at him. He hadn't been. He was one of the many Rats who'd been fortunate, or, from a certain point of view, unfortunate enough to survive the turf war and be handed over by us to the Fire Nation instead.

"But I was," Match spoke up. "We take you in, you learn where we are, and that night, Miro winds up dead."

"That was Janick!" I exclaimed. "Reek told me. He saw. Janick killed Miro in the middle of the night!"

"You're full of shit!"

"Why would we kill MIro!?" I asked back. "Why not kill all of you then while you slept? It would've been just as easy as last time when we hit the Den!" That elicited some hesitation from Luhing and Gan. I wasn't sure if it was on account of them not knowing that the Hornets had in fact successfully hit the Den, or that they were perhaps starting to see some merit in my argument.

I noticed their grips grow looser. I considered taking the moment to run, but Match still had a knife to my throat, and I wasn't about to risk running right into it. I was getting somewhere with this. I just had to keep talking.

"And why would Janick kill Miro?!"

"You tell me!" I looked up at him. The more time he spent questioning himself, the less time he spent deliberating whether or not the proper time to slice my throat had finally come. "You about to tell me they had the perfect little relationship?"

That seemed to strike a cord with Match, who punched me across the face, my head going flying into Luhing, who shoved me back upright, and retorted, "They were fucking, dumbass!"

It took a small moment to regain my composure, but not long enough that I lost my chance to speak. "And Riu and Queenbee weren't?" And he'd had her killed just as quick. None of that meant shit on the streets, not as far as survival was concerned.

Another punch, this one harder than the last, and straight to my gut, delivered from Gan this time who turned his weight to get all the better an angle on me. Clearly they didn't take very well to the comparison I'd made.

Match's eyes were locked on me, the knife to my throat only digging deeper and deeper before the point of cutting me could be reached. "Janick's nothing like fucking Riu."

"They're exactly the same," I spat back. I wasn't going to be able to talk him down, but that by no means I couldn't talk my way out of this. Talking my way out of situations such as these was a skill I'd acquired in my years on the street. Sometimes, that meant talking somebody down and convincing them that they were wrong, which, given the stubbornness of street kids, very rarely happened. Then, there was getting somebody angry enough that they slipped up. I could have tried that were I alone with Match, but the presence of the other two would keep him grounded, leaving me one other choice, to buy time, and so I didn't stop. "Both were self-serving fucks who would do anything, including getting their own people killed, if it meant getting their way." Except that was a lie. When presented with the choice between swallowing their pride and giving up the life of their closest companion, it'd been Riu who'd chosen to save Danev's life, and Janick who hadn't hesitated for a moment to take Miro's. That didn't need to be said. Not yet at least. They were still reacting to what I'd just said. I would wait until they were back on their feet to make that last point. I needed to take advantage of every second they were caught off guard and not waste a single one by acting too quickly.

When the time seemed right, I opened my mouth to speak, but not a word came down before something changed. There were footsteps down the hall, and the knife went down right before two Fire Nation soldiers who clearly weren't recruits, but actually meant to be here, turned the corner.

Their helmets were on, marking them as common rank and file infantrymen rather than firebenders, and so the looks of curiosity on their faces could be seen as they eyed this small gathering. Where perhaps there should have been concern at seeing three recruits about to kill another, there was only some form of amusement as once chuckled and asked, "Not interrupting anything are we?"

"No, sir!" Match turned and stood at attention, clearly knowing how to play this game better than I did while both Gan and Luhing also let go to give salutes of their own.

"Good then," the other soldier said. "Now get to the mess or the next time I'll see you it'll be the blunt of my spear."

The other soldier chuckled, clearly amused by his comrade's threat, even asking whimsically as they moved along, "'the blunt of my spear,' really?"

"Shit like that's the only thing they understand. Fucking slummers."

Their voice faded in the distance, and I took my chance, moving past Gan and Luhing who just looked at me, apparently somewhat lost aboard their own trains of thoughts dwelling on a number of topics including but not limited to whether they could still get away with killing me here as well as everything I'd said about Janick and Miro. They looked at Match, whose word they seemed hingent on. The older Rat only looked at me though, and gave me a look that told me I'd gotten lucky, and I'd best be going now lest that luck turn around on me.

I took the expression at literal face value, and turned to leave, my heart still pounding, knowing that if they did get the chance again, I wouldn't be as lucky.

Danev

It felt good, all things considered, to be back out in the fresh air again. It certainly beat the stuffy conditions of a quarter of a thousand sweaty and unwashed slum-born recruits sitting in the same classroom being taught of things we knew little to nothing about.

I supposed that was the point, only that none of us seemed to be able to find it in us to care as well.

It was a bitter irony that the regular torment of our drill instructor Yuzeh's torment of us now felt more familiar and more welcome to being made to feel like an idiot when placed in front of instructors who seemed ill-capable of understanding that the majority of us had never touched a book until a few weeks ago. So, by comparison, this was definitely an upgrade, even if it was an endurance wall around the circumference of the wall in a full kit's worth of weight on us.

"Why are you slowing?!" Drill sergeant Yuzeh barked as he caught up next to us in only his standard fatigues, by no means as burdened as were. "Did I give you permission to slow down?!"

"No, drill sergeant, sir!" myself and the other recruits around me answered, barely able to spare the breath to do so.

"Will the enemy give you permission to slow down?!"

"No, drill sergeant, sir!" we answered again.

"Then pick up the pace! We don't have all day!"

"Yes, drill sergeant, sir!"

He was done with us, for the moment, speeding up to harass a group of other recruits ahead of us. Nobody was trying to overtake one another, far too focused on just staying on their feet for the hour we'd already been running than trying to come in first; that was the furthest thing from anybody's mind.

The only bright side of it all was that it was still morning, and none of us had yet eaten, meaning we only had to deal with the burning sun, the exhaustion, and the weight on our backs rather than add nausea to the mix.

We weren't given actual Fire Nation armor quite yet, using instead training sets meant to mimic the weight and feel of them, as well as a full kit we were forced to carry on our backs. Though the weight was meant to give the impression of us carrying food, medical equipment, munitions, and other miscellaneous supplies, I was half positive the bags had just been loaded with bricks if the weight and sound of them colliding against each other inside right to my back was any indicator.

Yuzeh watched us like a hawk as we ran, waiting for the slightest slip up whether it was one of us slowing down to get a quick breather, or making a mistake as foolish as stopping to help a fellow recruit. Though we carried full canteens of water on the sides of our bags, we'd been forbidden from drinking from them, being told we needed to know what it meant to resist temptation when it meant life or death.

At one point or another, Murao had taken a poor step, and the weight on his back had thrown his balance, causing him to stumble to the ground. Mano, as though to compensate his comrade for the time that the assistance had gone the other way, slowed to help and I moved to assist until Yuzeh's voice roared, "Do not slow down! Do not help that man!"

Murao would eventually regain his footing and catch up to us, though perhaps not as soon as he would have with our support. Still, the drill sergeant's point was clear. If we slowed, we died, whether that was because we'd stumbled, or stopped to help somebody who had. I understood the sentiment. It was no different than that which dominated the slums of Citadel–look after yourself first and foremost. You stop, you hesitate, you show sympathy, even for those at your side, you put yourself and your comrades at risk.

I didn't quite know what to make of it.

On one hand, there was something familiar about it that I felt as though I could readily understand. It was the same guiding principle that'd gotten me through my entire life in the slums–to look after myself, to not get slowed down by others, but on the other hand too, it was a contradiction, at least in the way we were being told of it here. We were told that to stop, to hesitate, to show consideration for our comrades could mean our own deaths, but at the same time too, we were taught that we were cogs in a machine that served something the greater whole–The Fire Nation.

We were told that we ourselves could not afford to fail as the machine would be put at a risk of grinding to a stop, but at the same time, to neglect the impending failure of those around us. I tried to think of it from a pragmatic stance and a sense of what was worse–losing one to their own mistake, or losing multiple because they'd tried to fix that mistake and help the one?

I was no stranger to the latter line of reasoning and had made no shortage of decisions I'd regretted for it, so when I saw a fellow recruit in my platoon, Tosa, damn near passing, deathly afraid of Yuzeh's wrath should he take a drink from his canteen, I took the opportunity that Yuzeh's eyes weren't on us to offer him a drink from my own. The look he gave me was one of clear suspicion, as though suspecting I might have taken a piss in it when he hadn't been looking, and I could hardly blame him for holding such concerns.

It'd been more than clear since coming here that there was a generally negative sentiment towards us Hornets, both Fluke and me. We were few in numbers, but had enough of a reputation behind us to render us enemies worth having, and so the feeling of it was more lonely than ever it'd been back in the slums. I'd tried asking once or twice at the Citadel medical center for updates on Aden, but the answer had always been the same–that I didn't have authorization to know. For a while now, I had allowed myself to believe that there was a very good chance Aden had died from his wounds. He'd been alive back when Oreke had shown him to me in a comatose state, but it'd been months since then, and I had a hard time believing I could hold the Fire Nation to keep to their word to keep him alive when my cooperation was no longer hingent on it.

For the time being, I could only make the assumption that Fluke and I were alone here in Citadel as remaining Hornets, destined to be the bane of every non-forgetful street rat present. All the same, Tosa was desperate enough that he accepted the canteen. I urged him to not slow down and keep on running and, as such, he spilled a good deal of the water, but kept pace all the same before handing it back with an unspoken nod of thanks.

I'd gone enough time in the slums of screwing the few over when I thought it would benefit the many, and seen it fail enough times to believe it made a difference. There was no point making any more enemies here than I already had, and though Tosa still seemed to have some doubts, perhaps concerned he'd just unwittingly indebted himself to me, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I just was done screwing others over for what I knew would be of no benefit to me.

A few others around us in our small group, including the ex-Rat Eraim, noticed the exchange with some curiosity, but said nothing.

Finally, we reached the citadel military complex once again, the same starting point we'd begun our run from, only that there were more soldiers waiting for us, lower-ranking officers by the look of them, all stood behind where Yuzeh was, who ordered us into our platoon formations.

"All of you!" he ordered. "Hold out your canteens."

We did as we were bid, and I knew already where this was going, but I'd made my choice.

"Empty them!"

We turned our canteens over.

I was hardly the only one who had perpetrated the grave sin of having an unfilled canteen. There were those who'd committed far more grievous acts than I had, caught with no water falling from their canteens, having drunk it all despite Yuzeh's direct orders.

Yuzeh did not catch them all, but he caught a good many, of which I was fortunate enough not to have been included.

The drill sergeant chose his first target. Azao.

"6429114D23! Why is your canteen empty?"

The kid had already faced Yuzeh's wrath before, one of the first as a matter of fact when he hadn't responded with the proper formality, which he did not forget now, even if his answer was rather evasive and foolhardy.

"Because I drank from it, drill sergeant, sir!"

"Did I not order you and your company not to drink from their canteens?!"

"Yes, drill sergeant, sir!"

"So why did you drink?!"

"Because I needed water to keep on running, drill sergeant, sir!"

"No! You needed to keep on running! You tricked yourself into believing you required water to do it!"

He moved onto the next, leaving behind a terrified Azao. The next recruit he singled out was Reesu.

"6429114C1! Why is your canteen empty!"

"I don't know, drill sergeant, sir!" It was a classic street kid tactic, seeing what went wrong for somebody else and doing the exact opposite, even if the alternative was just as idiotic.

"You don't know why your own canteen is empty?! Did you lose it during the run and have it returned?!"

"No, drill sergeant, sir!"

"Did you leave it at the start and come to retrieve it once you were done?!"

"No, drill sergeant, sir!"

"Did a messenger hawk snatch it from your pack as you ran and make off with it?!"

"No, drill sergeant, sir!"

"So why is your canteen empty?!"

"Because I drank from it, drill sergeant, sir!"

"Why did you drink from it?!"

"Because I was thirsty, sir!"

"No! You drank from it because you are lazy and incapable of following orders!"

There were more who received Yuzeh's wrath, him having kept in mind at least enough faces to make a proper demonstration. By the time he was done, a little over a dozen had been singled out.

"Is there anybody else who would like to confess to their misdeeds?!"

Nobody spoke up, naturally, and it was around this point that I noticed Eraim, from E-platoon, turn to look at me. He'd witnessed my exchange with Tosa, knew what I'd done, and that my canteen hadn't maintained the integrity of its contents. I wondered if he was about to speak up, rat me out for the grave sin I'd committed, but said nothing. He just turned back to face ahead, quiet as a mouse, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Those of you I called out, drop your canteens!"

They fell to the ground together with the hollow thuds of metal against stone.

"Now make the run again! I'm doing you all a favor and removing the temptation! Go!"

It was slow at first, hesitation behind the dull shuffling steps as though the recruits were still wondering if Yuzeh could possibly have meant what he'd just ordered. Judging by the time it'd taken to make the first run, they would be going for hours longer, missing lunch, and a good deal of the day

"I will not ask again!"

Their footsteps hastened, and our eyes could only helplessly follow them as they made the jog back towards the wall to begin the full circle of its perimeter. The knot in my stomach tightened, realizing just what I'd been spared of by not having been seen.

"The rest of you, whether you followed orders or escaped being caught for disobeying them, do not pat yourselves on the back! Maintain platoon formations! We will be practicing drills today with your unit commanders!

Unit commanders?

My attention went back to the neat row of 6 junior officers who stood at attention behind the drill sergeant and company captain, wondering if those were the ones he meant. 6 commanders for 5 platoons. It stood to reason such was the case.

"The soldiers behind me are all lieutenants, graduates of the Citadel Military Academy, and all better soldiers than you will ever be! They will be your platoon commanders and will guide your instruction during basic training as well as utilize you effectively to achieve victory on the battlefield. And not a mention of how we would fare on the battlefield. Only that we would be made use of.

That last comment aside though, I couldn't help but wonder where these men had been before. If they were our platoon commanders, then where had they been during the last month of our training, just as much a part of the company as the rest of us?

By the looks of the other recruits around me, eyes shifting between the lieutenants and one another questioningly, the sentiment wasn't exclusive to me. At the very least though, I hadn't been foolish enough to ask, unlike Chuta, who asked after raising his hand, and not even waiting to be called upon, "Why we only hearing about 'em now?"

He was not graced with a direct answer. Instead, he looked towards one of the men in line, and asked, "Lieutenant Raza, he's in your platoon. What would you say is fitting punishment for speaking out of turn?"

"A strike across his loud mouth feels appropriate."

It was impossible not to notice just how casual the answer was given. There was no formality, no fear in his voice, the two appearing more in league rather than one being subordinate to the other, made all the more clear by the drill sergeant giving a nod to one of the soldiers present to enact that exact punishment. Chuta fell to the ground with a yelp of pain, grabbing at his mouth from where his lip and cheek bled in response to the soldier's gauntlet.

"You are only hearing about it now because you had no need to hear about it earlier, private!" Yuzeh called out. "These men have no need to go through the same basics of training as you as they already have, and have already excelled. They are your superiors, and henceforth, you will address them as such! They will run you through basic close-quarters-combat drills now!"

And so, he stepped back, and gave the floor to the lieutenants. "Ant company!" the first one called out, beginning the process by which we were split up, and sent to our own commanders.

It was there that we finally learned just what the letters in our roster numbers stood for. We'd know they were our platoons, but little what they had actually stood for. When we got to our own platoon, commanded by a lieutenant named Aozon, it was impossible not to feel a great deal of pride in being titled "Dragon." It was clear from the glances we received from the other platoons that we were the clear envy of them all, not Elephants, or Ants or Bats, but Dragons.

That pride did not last however.

The close quarters combat drills had begun in standard enough fashion. Similar weights and sizes were paired against one another, myself put head to head with others in my platoon such as Mahong, managing to take him down easily enough however, though it'd at least been a fair fight. Murao was matched against Tosa, of which Tosa was the victor, another even match. After some time though, about a quarter to an hour, it was clear that the lieutenant had begun to grow bored. The matches he chose next were not chosen from a printed sheet that clearly had roster numbers and proposed matches already laid out by some higher authority. Instead, he discarded it, and chose to handle matters personally.

"You," he said, pointing at Mano. "Who're you?"

"Mano, sir!"

"I don't give a damn about your name. What's your roster number?"

"6429114D17, sir!"

"Alright, D17, you are going to be matched with…" He held out a finger, scanning around our platoon for a suitable candidate. It was unclear if he was picking at random, but it soon became clear that it would have been better if that's what he'd been doing. Instead, he let it settle on the least fitting match, a scrawny kid named Mi, even younger than Fluke. "You," Lieutenant Aozon finished.

What the hell?

The two looked at one another, and back to the lieutenant, perhaps thinking that him being a lieutenant rather than a drill sergeant entitled them to being more vocal about their confusion.

"You're kidding, right?" Mano asked.

"I'm not. Now fight."

And that was just what it'd been for the last near hour. There'd been no training, no lessons, none of the supposed 'guidance' that Yuzeh had mentioned. Perhaps the lieutenant was trying to gauge our initial capabilities, but something about the way he was grinning to himself seemed to imply the opposite. He was trying to have a good time for himself.

Reluctantly, Mano and Mi took the center-stage, facing off against one another, ready.

The moment the signal was given, Mi acted immediately, perhaps believing that against such an opponent as Mano, his greatest strength would be to strike fast and early. It didn't work. His initiative meant nothing against Mano who quickly enough snatched the boy's arm, and pushed him to the ground with enough force to knock the air out of him.

Still, the boy rose, and went for another charge, but was summarily cut short by a quick punch across the face from Mano who was clearly holding back as he was, but still more than enough for the kid to handle.

And that ended things quick enough for the boy. He was down, coughing, close to passing out by the looks of him, still barely hanging on while Mano took a step closer, quite possibly to assist.

"Good," the lieutenant said. "Now finish the job."

Mano looked up, confused, none of the others having been asked to do the same. "What? Why? He's already down."

"Yes, and you've been given an order to finish him."

"You…you want me to kill him?"

"Spirits! I'm not some savage dirt eater like you two! Just knock him out. Show him the consequences of defeat." As though that was much better.

Mano looked back at Mi who was still on the ground, struggling for air, then back to the lieutenant, and did the deed, one final punch all it took to get the boy out of commission.

"Now get 'im out of here," the lieutenant said dismissively. "Don't need him polluting my floor."

The false matches continued, and the lieutenant put all of the energy that hadn't been spent on educating us instead on creating interesting matches that were either close enough to be exhausting for both parties, or far enough to be brutal to one's advantage, even including Mi in a match just as soon as he'd woken up from his state of unconsciousness on the claim that, "a soldier should be ready to fight at all times."

I forced myself to tune out of it, preferring much more to listen in to see if the other platoons were getting it as badly as ours. Unsurprisingly, Chuta's company, Bat, didn't seem to have the most sympathetic platoon leader either, opting to "teach" his soldiers himself by throwing them to the ground one at a time, but at the very least, it seemed in some small part informative. At Dragon, however, it was, plain-and-simple, cruelty for the lieutenant's own amusement.

It was another platoon's activity that peaked my interest, however, namely on account of a single spoken comment from elephant's platoon lieutenant, Rulaan.

"Really?" he asked with clear sarcasm. "This what they teachin' now in Jiāyuán?"

It was some combination of the informality in his voice as well as the mention of the one district in the Citadel slums that'd made me initially assume it'd been spoken by one Rat or another, but turning to get a better look showed that it was in fact none other than the platoon leader himself that'd said it. It was odd. I wouldn't have anticipated a Fire Nation lieutenant, taught in an academy such as this, to actually have any knowledge of streets in the outer ring of the city and the names that'd been applied to them.

That was the extent of which I'd been given the chance to wonder before I felt a shove against my shoulder, given by another recruit in Dragon, bidding me to pay attention.

Sure enough, lieutenant Aozon's attention was on me.

"Daydreaming, private?"

I shook my head. "No, sir."

"Good. You're up next."

As for my opponent, it was Murao, having been stuck in the ring for three rounds already, beaten each and every time, now pending a fourth's beat down. This son of a bitch, I thought, not able to help my eyes from narrowing towards Aozon as I stepped forward, wondering if he could actually be this sadistic. What's being gained? Who stands to benefit here aside from him?

Muraostruggled to rise to a stand, wiping a stream of blood from his mouth that'd been accumulated over the last three rounds, but was unable to do so. The kid could hardly stand. How the hell was he being expected to fight?

"Well?" the lieutenant asked.

I turned to look at him, feigning ignorance. "Well, what?"

"Fight him."

"He's not capable of fighting, sir."

"Then all the better for you. Show him that if he doesn't fight, he dies."

I looked back at Murao. He seemed damn near close to death as he already was. Were this a battlefield, it would already be too late for him, would've been after the first fight. So what's the point of this? Wouldn't it be far more effective to at least give him the chance when in better condition rather than beating him to a point he'd be unable to move, much less train and become better for the coming days?

"Should we wait for him to stand, sir?" I was stalling.

"I see no reason why, but if it means so much to you, give him a kick or two until he gets up."

My attention went back to the other recruit. He was fading in and out of consciousness. This was doing him no good.

"Sir, with all due respect, what's the point of this? It's not going to help him."

"Are you questioning my orders, private?"

The others of dragon platoon were dead quiet, watching me as they held their tongues. While I would have appreciated some backup, were I in their shoes, I doubted I would have spoken as well. I could so easily have just knocked the kid out and be done with it, but the moment he was back up, he'd be right back here waiting for another. The least I could do was buy him enough time to get to his feet and potentially appease the lieutenant enough for the target for the next roundup.

It seemed what I was accomplishing more, however, in my silence as I struggled for an answer was simply redirecting the lieutenant's venom towards me, certain to result in no shortage of consequences had the face-off not be interrupted by the gonging of a bell from the Citadel tower.

Midday meal.

The lieutenant glared at me, and were he Yuzeh, I had no doubt that he would have gladly forbidden me from joining in the meal, only I doubted he possessed the authority to do so. Just as well, I gathered quickly enough that he had other priorities, and other places to be. He didn't want to waste the time here with me, but he didn't want to allow me to go off on my own volition, and so said, "dismissed" as though it was his choice in the matter.

I did not take that from him though, and so breathed a sigh of relief to myself as our superior walked off to leave to whatever private officers' meal awaited him. Murao hardly had the energy in him to look up to thank me, but it was unneeded as Tosa and Mano would move in to help him up, the two of them affording me brief glances in which I could detect a shadow of approval.

It wasn't their approval I'd done it for, but all the same, I accepted it, and nodded back. By comparison, the rest of the day was a slog, though a welcome one, sneaking winks of sleep during lunch as well as during classes, easy enough to be hidden in a mass of over two-hundred others. I was hardly alone there. The exhaustion was shared, but perhaps faced by some platoons worse than others.

I would come to regret the negligence during class time, however, as it'd come back to bite me in the ass during what was, supposedly, our "free-time" for the two hours after dinner that we were given until lights out.

More often than not, it was dominated by classwork that was meant to catch us up to, as our instructors put, a fifth year level at minimum as quickly as possible. I knew how to read and write at an elementary level, and had been forced to learn basic counting and adding as well as subtracting on the streets, but grasping the concepts here, especially while half asleep, was something else. On top of that, I could hardly bring myself to care about the history of a world, much more a nation that I didn't give a shit about and sure as hell didn't give a shit about me.

Now, when I would have much preferred to have put myself to an early sleep, I was busy trying to put numbers together in a way that simply didn't make sense in my head. Then there was Fluke, who seemed to grasp it all as though it was the easiest thing in the world to him. He was on top of his bunk; I was unsure if he was already asleep, but saw no harm, at least for me, in hissing his name to try and see whether or not he was.

"Fluke," I whispered. "You up."

"Yeah," he answered.

"Mind helping me out with something for a sec?"

He didn't answer right away, but soon enough, I could see his legs dangling over the side before he lowered himself down onto the bunk next to me, curious as to what it was I was asking for assistance on.

He noticed the unfinished arithmetic in my hands quick enough, and the look he gave me was one of unhidden disappointment.

"Fuck you want from me?" I asked, not trying to be defensive, but it sure as hell came out that way anyway. "I never learned this shit."

Fluke scoffed, looking down at the sheet, quite possibly working it out in his head just from a glance as we had the conversation. "'Structors say we're not supposed to help one another," he pointed out in a way that seemed more sarcastic than actually out of caution. "Would hate to cause any issues."

"Oh stop the bullshit and help a brother out?"

In spite of Fluke's grin, I could see in his eyes that the kid was exhausted, clearly not exactly having had much an easier day than me. Regardless of that though, old habits die hard, and so he put on the exact same tradesman's look of his as he got into the stage of bartering.

"Maybe we can come to an arrangement then."

"Oh," I said, clearly joking. "Sorry, but…I'm really not into you that-"

"Oh, shut the fuck up." Regardless, he found amusement in it, smiled, and continued. "I help you out, you help me out."

"I help you out how?"

"I show you how to read, do numbers, understand history and shit, and you teach me how to fight."

"You have training for that."

"And you have your classes for this shit, but clearly we could both use some extra help."

He made an excellent point. "What?" I asked. "Getting your ass kicked in practice or something?"

"Or something," he answered, and by the sound of it, did not plan to elaborate. "So is that a deal?"

I nodded, though the note he'd ended on did little to put me at ease. "Deal," I answered. "So what's going on? Your lieutenants just as shit as ours, or-"

"Just want to hold my own," he said. "All that matters." I knew there was more to it, and perhaps considered that the way he was very clearly avoiding so much as glancing in the general direction of where the Rats were bunked had something to do with it. I did not push him though, thinking it perhaps best he rest his mind on something else for the time being, in particular, helping me.

I'd helped around the Hive more times than not in terms of logistics, managing supplies, and distributing them accordingly. I'd learned how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, but the things we were being taught here, I'd never once found myself in a position to even consider using them for a practical purpose. Whether they were exponentials or, as Fluke put them, roots, it hardly made any sense, and by the time the hour was nearly up, and I could feel the gears in my head grinding to a halt, I had to ask the other Hornet, "Where the fuck d'you learn this shit anyway.

There was some hesitation before he answered, and I understood why that was as soon as he did.

"Mishi taught me," he said, leaving a stark silence between us for the next few moments before it was interrupted by the sound of a bell that indicated lights out.

Sure enough, not 5 seconds later, the gas to the barracks stopped flowing, and out they went, all at once.

Fluke did not move immediately away from where he was sitting even as the other soldiers within the barracks crawled either up or down to their own bunks, and I was left with him to my side, having just told me that the man I had to thank was one I'd killed myself just over a month ago.

"Fluke," I started as just a whisper, not even knowing what to say after. "I-"

"We don't need to talk about it," he said. Indeed, we'd had the conversation before, and that was precisely what he seemed wanting to assure me of. "It's like you said," he continued. "He would have died either way."

"But he was your friend," I answered back. "You never should have been a part of that. I never should have tried to force you."

He did not dispute that. Not right away at least. "It's kill or be killed out there," he said eventually. "You were just trying to show me that–what it's really like out there."

"It's no different in here," I answered back, thinking on the day's events as they were, put up against a lieutenant eager to treat us as his playthings and make our lives miserable. "Even worse, if anything. Surrounded by people who hate us in here, 'xcept we don't go a way out."

"It's safe, at least."

"We have no control, Fluke."

"We have food, shelter, beds. Worth losing a bit of control, you ask me."

"They just want to use us to fight a way that isn't ours."

"Because Riu's was?"

I could not form an immediate answer to that. It'd been my war, perhaps, from the very beginning, but Fluke's on the other hand, and the others, I could hardly argue the same.

"I'm not going back there," Fluke added quietly, little more than a whisper. "You plan on going back, just…leave me out of it" There was a weakness in his voice, a fear that I hadn't heard in a while since we were back in the slums. He'd lost everything to those streets, even when he'd tried to save as much of it as he could. And he was hardly wrong in his fears of going back. Whatever was left still, odds were it would be gone too if we were to try our luck again. Whatever way we looked at it, we'd gotten lucky to have gotten out alive, and to go back, we'd be throwing that all away.

But is staying here any better?

From what I'd seen thus far, I had my doubts, but I didn't push the subject, not yet. One way or another, we couldn't stick around too long. At a certain point, the argument of the inner city and outer city would become irrelevant and it would just be a matter of certain death on the front. Then, it would hardly matter anymore. Death would become the only certainty.

Nothing more was said for a few minutes, and Fluke took the opportunity to return to his bunk.

I wondered if he'd slept any easier than I had as, try as I might've, it evaded me, wandering thoughts of our chances here as opposed to out back in the slums plagued my mind. In the slums, we'd had allies. We had the Hornets, but they were gone. New allies can be made. That wasn't the point though. The point was that things were clear out there, and we'd had allies. Here though, everybody was against Fluke and me, whether it was the other recruits, or the Fire Nation.

They just can't see that, I thought. Even when it'd been made more than clear today for the 114th. They were the enemy, and Rat, Hornet, or Independent aside, it was us against them.

They need to see that.

The phrase echoed in my mind as sleep slowly, but finally found me.

I could've sworn we were woken ahead of schedule judging by how it felt as though I'd hardly slept at all by the time the lights came on and the bell rang to wake us. I had no idea how much sleep I'd actually gotten, but I doubted that it could have been much.

After a month of this routine, we were quicker on the draw. We were out of bed, uniforms on, and standing at attention by the time the doors opened to allow our commanders in. Except, it wasn't our company commanders. It was only the colonel, Eemusan, and a man I didn't recognize by his side.

He was well groomed, and generations older than all present, the colonel not excluded. His hair was white, though well-trimmed and in a topknot that, if what little I'd learned from my social studies class indicated, was a status of renown across the Fire Nation. It complemented the scar across his eye well, but the whole image begged the question, what's going on?

Fluke, by my side, wore the exact same interested look on his face.

"Apologies for the early wake-up, privates!" the colonel announced, confirming my suspicions that it'd been earlier than normal that we'd been woken up. "But a number of you have been given special assignments!"

With that, he gave the floor to the man whose purpose we still knew nothing of.

He stepped forward, and in short order, roster numbers were listed, though not many, only five in total. The fact that they were not many, however, did little to detract from the fact that I recognized the names that were attached to them.

The first was Zihe, a soldier of the 114th, Elephant platoon. After him, was Match, his roster number finally known to me, and able to recognize as he was singled. So followed two more names I did not recognize, but lastly after the last, was one that did stand out, as it belonged to the comrade right by my side.

Fluke stepped forward upon hearing his number, and so the list came to an end, and the man made his intent clear. "My name is Jeong Jeong. I will be your instructor from now on."