Avatar: The Last Airbender Created By: Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko
Avatar: The Last Airbender Owned By: Nickelodeon, a subsidiary of Viacom
All original content and characters © Acastus



Chapter XIV – The Universe of Battle

The crowd registered its displeasure at the storyteller's admission of Prince Iroh's treachery with boos and catcalls. Gao nodded his head soberly a few times at the audience's response and motioned with his outstretched arms for quiet.

"Yes, friends, it is true," he continued as the disturbance subsided, "That night the catapults and trebuchet of Chieng Shiung turned the grassy downs of Nomura into a sea of fire, and very few lived to tell the tale of the Crown Prince's deceit."

Zuko, transfixed against his will by the storyteller's art, now stole a glance at his uncle. Though he knew his uncle had had a successful military career before his infamous failure, Zuko had always thought of him as soft. Unexpected pride had swelled within Zuko's heart at the recounting of this tale, and the banished Prince felt the intense desire to question his uncle about it, but his hopes quickly faltered.

The retired general looked silently down at his hands, his face an impassive mask. Iroh could feel his nephew's eyes, but he refused to meet them. Locked away deep in the recesses of his own mind, he heard the catcalls of the audience as if from a distance. Or were they the screams of burning men? It was hard to tell. In his mind's eye he saw the hills afire, and rank upon rank of advancing Fire Nation soldiers. He couldn't remember much of his recent history with any clarity, but his memories of those days seemed sharper and clearer than even what he felt at this moment.

Shame washed over him like a cold river, painful and yet strangely comforting. It was not the first time he had felt it, and would not be the last. He had done many deeds he now knew to be dishonorable, and this was but one. It had taken him almost a lifetime to realize that the source of his shame was often not the acts themselves, but the realization that he had believed himself right when performing them, and the years he spent not only unrepentant of those acts, but remembering them with pride.

Not even the death of Xian and all the horrors that Iroh knew were yet to come from the aging storyteller had taught him the truth of his shame at Nomura. Although these memories remained clear, it was not these that welled up now to greet him. Instead, he shut his eyes and winced almost imperceptibly as he pushed the image of his son from his mind. No, he thought, now is not the time to remember you, my son, as I should. That loss is too great, and for your young cousin's sake I cannot risk discovery in this place. Forgive me, my son, that you had to die for me to learn the value of life will ever be my greatest shame.

"Yes!" came a now all too familiar booming voice, "That Iroh! What a bastard, haha! I daresay he will roast in hell for that one!"

Iroh grimaced at the voice, as he had done many times that night, but this time for a different reason.

"Even I leave my opponent's alive after I have skinned them!" Then, turning to his right and looking past Iroh and Zuko continued, "Isn't that right, Chen Ho?"

Chen looked up at his tormentor from where he sat in a wine soaked stupor twirling his mustache and replied thickly, "Oh yes, you're well known for your mercy, Trimazu. Everyone knows you eat what you skin. You don't get a figure like yours eating tofu."

Trimazu laughed genuinely and replied, "Well spoken, my friend," then continuing in his conspiratorial tone, "Trust me when I advise you to be in your cups when next we negotiate. I guarantee you'll do better than you ever have before!"

A contemptuous snort was Chen's only reply.

Gao then addressed the master of the house, saying, "Indeed, my lord, what you have said is true, though what I have described here was just one small skirmish. A complete catalog of the Fire Nation's crimes that summer would surely fill Wan Shi Tong's library past the brim! Unfortunately, Master Trimazu, the night speeds by, and I'm afraid I can offer your noble guests only those events that deal directly with the matters at hand."

"And well you do it, my friend!" exclaimed the merchant merrily, slapping his knee, "Please continue," he commanded, waving one of his heavily jeweled hands, "It sounds as if Deng the Hammer has Nikon in a bad way, and I'd hear more of that!"

The storyteller bowed low and turning back to the audience began, "While Prince Iroh waged war at Nomura and won himself great glory, far to the east the winds of change had begun to blow as the stage was set for the first, great reversal of fortune during the Summer of Terror…"


Nikon ducked the moment he heard the telltale rush of air that immediately preceded a boulder strike. An instant after he closed the upper hatch the stone struck the top of the tank and shattered into a cloud of dust and rock shards. Nikon grimaced as the insides of the machine rang like some enormous bell with the impact. It was the third time they'd been hit.

He opened one eye as the ringing diminished. Beneath and in front of him on his right the tank driver was frantically working the controls and yelling, "Come on! Come on! Damn you!" as he struggled desperately to keep them moving. The gunner on his left was rapid firing volley after volley of fiery blasts, while the gunner on his right was praying. He clearly had something to pray for, since the last boulder strike had caused the armor on his side of the machine to buckle. His firing port was not obstructed, but it was bent grotesquely inwards such that he would need to lean back upon the platform on which Nikon stood in order to have enough room to fire. In the back of the cockpit the rear gunner sat with his back against the engine compartment bulkhead where he'd died at least an hour before. Pale and with a trickle of dried blood from his mouth he looked merely asleep.

Placing his foot on the praying man's shoulder Nikon admonished, 'Hey, no time for that."

The soldier jerked at the touch, turned and looked up at him. He had an impossibly young face, caked with dust and streaked with tears.

"If you stop firing, it gives them more opportunity to hit your side again," he continued above the fractious noise of the engine, "Don't make it any easier!"

The gunner nodded once and turned back to his firing port. Nikon reached up and grabbed the handle of the inner hatch. He thrust upward with a mighty heave. For a moment the hatch did not move, then slowly and with considerable protest it began to lift. A moment later dirt and rock fell into the cockpit as the hatch swung open, adding to the existing pile at Nikon's feet. With a final clang the hatch came to a rest in its open position, knocking several larger stones and more dust off the top and down the armored siding.

Iroh's friend stood up and surveyed the scene as he quickly excavated the now severely damaged vent that carried his voice commands down to the driver and gunners. The battlefield was cloaked in a haze of dust and smoke. His entire brigade, or that part of it that had not broken down or been destroyed, was engaged in close combat with Nifong's vaunted cavalry. The field was littered with Earth Kingdom dead as well as the occasional shell of a destroyed Fire Nation machine.

He watched as several tanks fired simultaneously at a farm house more than a mile away on the crest of a nearby ridge. Flames leapt to the heavens as the structure was engulfed in fire. To his right he could see no more than a thousand feet due to the smoke and dust of combat.

The battle had raged with varying intensity for days. All semblance of order and identifiable front lines had broken down the day before when Chieng had arrived. The enemy had tried in vain to stop her arrival, but had paid for the attempt with many lives. Nikon's armor had broken dozens of cavalry charges and killed many earthbenders, but each time they had returned.

Chieng had come with a column of the monstrous tank trains that held him in such awe when he had first seen them disembark on the beaches of Gela. Massive blocks of steel and iron powered by engines mightier than the earth, he had been momentarily as terrified of them as no doubt the Earth Kingdom peasants were of his tanks. Only when he learned of the time and energy it took to build and maintain them did he understand why they weren't themselves the primary offensive weapon of the new army.

She had spoken harshly upon seeing him in the main square of Cam'ron the day before. This in itself was nothing new. The difference this time was that the truth of her words hurt as badly as those of Xian's.

Amidst the heat and blood drenched insanity of battle, the memory of his encounter with the blunt engineer flashed across his mind with startling clarity. What had once been a beautiful, if simple, fountain plaza had been turned into a junk yard of mangled, smoking tanks and equipment. The dead and dying lined the square under the awnings of buildings where carts full of produce had been only a week before. The smell of the battlefield was pleasant in comparison, since there at least the wind and the dust covered up the smell of the mutilated carcasses and the heaps of burnt machinery. One side of the plaza was completely blocked with parked and partially unloaded tank trains.

Nikon had dismounted from his tank which had lost both treads to earthbending attacks and approached her. He was filthy, his face weary and heavily lined with cares.

"Did you see Prince Iroh, Chieng?" he had begun without preamble, "What have you heard about Nomura? Is he alive?"

Chieng had turned from where she was supervising several men welding plate armor and looked at him in stony silence.

"He seemed well enough to me when I last saw him, Commander," she finally replied, surveying him coldly, "which is more than I can say for you."

"What the hell do you mean by that?" he'd replied in uncharacteristic anger, "I'm alive!"

Instead of immediately replying she signaled for two of her black clad technicians to come over. Ignoring Nikon she instructed them to install new treads on the young commoner's tank. Behind them he saw half a dozen intact machines lined up for refueling.

Finally she turned to him and remarked, "That's not what your eyes and your face tell me. The shadow of death hangs over you for what you've done here. Pride, rather out of place for a commoner, has lead directly to this disaster. Forget about Iroh, get back in your tank and deal with the situation you've created, you jackass."

She turned and left without waiting for a response, but in truth none was forthcoming. He had been struck dumb. He opened his mouth to scream with the helpless rage he felt welling up within him, but nothing emerged.

This moment of melancholy was shattered as a noise in front of him refocused his attention on the present. The screams of two Fire Nation soldiers in front of them were cut short as Nikon's tank ran them over.

Crouching back down into the well he yelled at the driver, "Damn it, Jin! Those were our men! Watch where the hell we're going for heaven's sake!" Nikon thundered furiously down at the driver.

"I'm sorry, sir!" came the panicked reply, "I'm trying to keep us moving and…," his reply was interrupted as the machine bottomed out over a some irregularity in the ground surface, the source of which Nikon did not want to contemplate. Nikon braced himself on the metal railing to prevent himself from falling over into the cockpit as the driver continued, "I think… I think the steering column's been damaged! I can't…"

Jin was interrupted by the left hand gunner who, transfixed by something outside, exclaimed, "Commander, look!"

Nikon emerged again from the hatch and looked left. Several hundred feet away two of his tanks raced eastward along the embankment of a nearby dry creek. Three ostrich horses and their riders bore down on them, but the first was engulfed in flame by a blast from the lead tank and then all three were simply run over.

Confused, Nikon failed to see what the gunner was talking about until a moment later when half a dozen ostrich cavalry swooped in on the lead tank's right side. Through earthbending they held aloft between them, three riders on each side, a cone shaped rock nearly six feet long and three feet at the base.

Nikon yelled into the severely damaged communication vent, "Left turn sixty degrees! Now! Gunners to forward positions!" Protesting, the left tread sputtered, allowing the tank to turn fitfully to the left as its forward momentum slowed to a crawl.

"Fire!" he screamed as the green clad cavalrymen came into their direct line of sight. Nikon himself breathed deeply and rapid fired half a dozen fire blasts. Beneath him the gunners followed his example and the air itself seemed to explode in flame, but it was too late.

Before the whips of fire could travel the distance between them, Nifong's men thrust the massive stone dagger into the side of the tank. The cavalrymen pulled quickly away and with a series of simultaneous, identical gestures exploded the stone projectile inside the machine. The upper hatch blew off, allowing a shower of stone shards and a shell of expanding gas and dust to escape. Smoke followed quickly as the tank's left tread slowed, turning the tank leftward. The machine lurched in slow motion over the embankment and into the dry creek where it exploded with a plume of fire.

The machine behind them then fired on the cavalrymen, who were hit with the blasts from that tank and Nikon's at once. The Earth Kingdom soldiers and their mounts were engulfed in fire instantly. Most fell off their ostrich horses and writhed in the dust as they burned alive inside their heavy armor, but two remained in the saddle as their mounts, afire from head to foot, bucked wildly.

The rear tank fired two more blasts, hitting two cavalrymen who tried to race by, then swung quickly to avoid the impact of a large stone boulder that fell from the sky. The boulder buried itself in the soft ground, inflicting no damage on the Fire Nation machine.

Nikon looked east and saw another wall of green clad cavalry forming on the ridge where the farmhouse still burned. He ordered his tank to stop and then looked up, calmed his breathing, and shot a plume of blue fire into the sky. Instantly all the Fire Nation tanks still operating in his field of vision turned and began to race toward his position. Another bloody charge was about to begin.


Long after midnight Nikon and his column passed victorious once more through the gates of Cam'ron. Unlike the triumphal entry a week ago, this time his men were filthy, tired and demoralized. Most of his machines had survived, but they too looked haggard and beaten. The battle had finally ended when the moon had set, leaving the landscape in total darkness save for the art of the firebenders. The enemy, finally exhausted, quit the battlefield.

Upon gaining the fountain plaza, Nikon dismounted from his machine. His brigade came pouring in behind him and within minutes the square was drowned in a cacophony of engine noise, squealing metal and the curses and yelling of men. Quickly the machines were parked and preparations were made by all to succumb to the fatigue they all felt.

Nikon scanned the scene, exhausted, but curious. The plaza was alive with lights and activity. Chieng's technicians were as busy as before, though she herself was nowhere to be seen. A row of red lanterns had been hung at the end of the plaza opposite the parked tank trains. Underneath the lanterns a row of clean, black Fire Nation tanks sat in perfect order. Behind the row of tanks, two enormous fire pots burned on each side of one of the large doorways that led from the largest building on that side of the plaza. Next to each of the fire pots a guard stood watch in front of a pair of open picture windows.

After instructing his men to stand down for the night, he grabbed the nearest technician and asked where the tanks had come from.

The technician looked quickly from side to side before replying quietly, "Daimyo Tien Shin arrived a few hours ago, Commander," then pointing to the door between the fire pots he continued in a whisper, "and I think he's waiting for you."

Nikon closed his eyes as if in pain. Weariness swept over him, but he forced himself to open his eyes and walk towards the door despite his leaden feet. The windows were open on either side of the door, for even at night the summer heat was oppressive. Inside he could hear two voices. A few steps closer and he was able to identify them as Chieng and Tien Shin.

"Not as bad as it could have been," Chieng responded no doubt in answer to a question Nikon had just missed, "The plate steel held up well."

"How many confirmed kills?" came the other voice, unmistakably Tien Shin's, but anxious and strained as he had never heard it before.

The guards saluted stiffly without making eye contact as Nikon approached. He returned the salute, opened the door and walked into the building. The entry hall was wooden and unadorned. Overhead an ancient iron lantern hung from the ceiling, casting a dim light which failed utterly to dispel the gloom. The objects of his eavesdropping were in the first room on the left which was accessible through an open doorway. He halted for a moment to listen as the voices from within continued.

"No more than thirty," the engineer replied, "though I haven't received the final figures."

"Have you been to the field yourself?"

"Yes."

"What weaknesses were they able to exploit? Did you examine any of the wrecks?" he asked, his voice maintaining its intensity.

"I only saw three or four close enough to really tell," Chieng replied in a clinical tone, "but from what I could see most of them suffered from catastrophic failures of the flank or rear armor. Front and top proved impenetrable as predicted."

"And the treads?" the daimyo prompted.

"Resisted most attacks, but the plate guards made the treads difficult for them to target. The bottom line is that our tanks were generally mobile enough to avoid the overwhelming majority of earthbending attacks," Chieng paused a moment before continuing with less enthusiasm, "We lost as many as we did because we allowed the enemy to achieve enough local superiority for them to get ten attempts on each tank before we torched them."

Nikon breathed deeply then turned the corner into the room to see Tien Shin and Chieng standing by the picture window he had seen from outside. Tien Shin stood erect in his uniform, his back to Nikon. Though brighter than the hallway, this chamber had only a few fire pots to light it. Most of the illumination streamed in from the plaza. The pair stood by one of the fire pots, the flames casting weird shadows around their figures as they spoke. The daimyo paused as he considered the engineer's assessment.

"If we stop here for a few days I can conduct further analysis," Chieng offered.

Tien Shin shook his head in a decisive gesture, "No, this mess has cost us much of the lead we'd developed in these first two months. We must push eastward again without delay. If Nifong wishes to engage the organized might of the entire Fire Nation forces in this –"

The daimyo stopped speaking as he detected another presence in the room. He turned and faced Nikon, who saluted bitterly.

The heat and noise of the plaza streamed in from the window, but to Nikon it felt as cold and silent as a tomb. Tien Shin regarded his subordinate with dead, dark, unblinking eyes.

"Leave us," he commanded the engineer without breaking eye contact with Nikon.

Chieng complied silently, leaving through the door Nikon had just used to enter. A trace of sympathy marked her face as she passed the young commoner, but he did not notice. A few moments later she exited the front door and she soon disappeared completely from view into the maze of tanks and equipment in the square.

Finally, Tien Shin approached Iroh's friend. He stopped a few paces from Nikon and without a word or change in expression slapped him soundly across the face. The blow stung, but Nikon accepted it. Xian and Chieng had already shamed him for his hubris, now he knew he must face his tormentor for the same offense.

"You deserve to be relieved for what you've done. You know that, don't you?" the daimyo began in a low voice.

"Answer me!" he commanded when it became clear Nikon was unable or unwilling to respond.

"Yes, my lord," Nikon responded in a bitter acknowledgement of the truth, "I do."

"And if I were in command, not that soft hearted imbecile Xian, you would be, you miserable peasant!" thundered Tien Shin suddenly, his eyes seething with anger.

"Don't you see what you've done here?" Tien Shin asked, his voice breaking, "Let me help you! Not only did you lose almost a quarter of your tanks and hundreds of loyal Fire Nation soldiers who deserved better, but you gave him four whole days to probe for weaknesses in our new weaponry! That's what you've done!"

"Yes, my lord," countered Nikon stubbornly, "but for all the bad mistakes I've made to get us here, we were victorious. All Nifong has to show for his effort is a couple thousand dead earthbenders."

"So what? How do you know he didn't learn something worth that sacrifice? He's been waiting for an opportunity like this – right from the start!"

Tien Shin snorted derisively as Nikon dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Oh, Great Spirits," the tall man remarked with an edge of frustration in his voice, "I'll wager Xian never even mentioned this as a consequence, did he? I heard all he talked about was putting his beloved Iroh in danger."

Nikon, fear surging again within him, raised his head and asked, "Have you any news from Nomura, my lord?"

A sharp smile spread across the daimyo's face as he replied in the deadly conversational tone to which Nikon was most accustomed, "It seems Prince Iroh has more leadership potential than his cousin. The outcome in Nomura is still in doubt, but he and his men are apparently fighting well."

"The truth is you are damned lucky," Tien Shin continued in disgust, "I'd bet a thousand gold that Iroh is going to smash that pocket and that the Fire Lord's propaganda machine is going to make you a spirits be damned hero for this tactical disaster."

The smile disappeared completely from Tien Shin's face as he pointed an accusatory finger at Nikon, "And for what reason, exactly, did you put us all in jeopardy?" He paused, waiting for a reply he knew would not come, "So you could beat me to Cam'ron?" he supplied with mock incredulity.

"Petty, costly, unforgivably stupid," he spat, and then concluded in a tone of utter disdain, "and exactly what everyone expected from a low life piece of gutter trash like you."

Tien Shin stepped forward and put his face right up to Nikon's and with his deadly smile returning once more, spoke in a low, threatening voice, "If you make another "mistake" like this again, Orlando, I will have you arrested and executed. Neither Xian nor Iroh will be able to protect you. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, my lord. I understand."

"Excellent, Commander. I advise you to learn from your mistakes and pray for General Xian's health. If either fails your life won't be worth more than the time it will take me to find you. Dismissed."

Nikon, numb from exhaustion and shame, left the building as the first streaks of sunlight stained the eastern sky.