Hey, I hate to be one of those authors, but please leave a review. Whether you think I should go on to write a novel or you think it's a steaming pile of shit, just tell me something so I know what I can fix. I'll thank you for it either way.

I don't think the flow of my story is the best it could be, for example. You guys agree or no?

Thanks for reading!

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The months followed in a similar manner. I would wake up at dawn, get beat up by one of the soldiers, Lee, or the general until lunch. Sometimes I would meditate with the general until night and others he would decide to have me train more while he tried to shorten the mountain of paperwork on his desk.

The general never gave me many words of approval. "Good enough" said quickly and with a hint of contempt was the closest I got to a good job from him. But Lee and couple of the other soldiers that I had gotten close too never held back in telling me how impressed they were. And by word from Lee, I knew the general was at least a little more impressed than he let on.

I had mastered the army's earth bending forms in six months. And when I had customized it well enough to integrate my quirks, the general began teaching me his family's form.

It became a little more clear as to why he was so eager to take me as a student when he told me his only son was not a bender, so he needed someone to keep his family's bending form alive. It didn't bother me much though, I was learning more than I had ever dreamed.

I was nowhere near as proficient as Lee was, but I could handle some of the less talented earth bending soldiers without using my bending at all. And I was told that I picked up the water bending counter ridiculously fast, but I had no benders to test it on.

The fire bending counter proved the most difficult for me learn. There was always something for Lee to correct when I preformed an attack. It was still rough, with none of the precision that Lee had. But I was able to hold my own against the odd fire bending soldier that entered camp when the others were out fighting back fire nation occupation on the coast.

With no handy caps though, when I could use my bending and any fighting form I liked, I was a pretty potent fighter. There were three benders in the generals platoon that could beat me, all better benders than me that knew nothing but earth bending. And the only non-bender that I had never beaten was Lee, but he did struggle sometimes.

The general himself was invincible. I hardly ever landed a blow on him. Any attack I tossed at him was either stopped head on or swatted away like a fly. It felt like no matter how good I got, I could never best him. He could beat Lee, sharpened swords and all, without his bending. He sparred two of the soldiers that could beat me as a morning exercise. How he managed to stay so skilled despite spending four hours a day doing paper work was beyond me. He became my role model, the ideal warrior, unbeatable by anything less than an army.

At least, that's what I thought of him until I beat him in a bar-nothing fight.

It was a hard and long fight that left the earth around us scarred and the spectators from the village and the the platoon in awe. It hag been nearly a month since he last checked my progress with a fight. For the first time, I noticed that Yiban was sweating and his breathing was heavy because of me. Because I posed enough of a challenge to him.

By some miracle, I had managed to get within a couple of yards of him. From my position I kicked a rock out of ground and shot it towards him. A rock that would have been easy enough to dodge, but he was unyielding. He backhanded the stone rather than move out of the way in order to keep his stance, and it exploded into a cloud of dust around his head because of it.

Before the dust cleared, or he decided to give up his stance in favor of vision, I attacked. I ran through scenarios I had experienced with the earth bending counter as I approached.

The earth bending counter was simple enough in theory. Break the opponents stance, make them weaker than their element. But the difficulty came in breaking the stance of someone so much stronger and larger than you. General Yiban would not let go of the earth easily.

Luckily I did not have to rely only on an earth bending counter, I had earth bending itself.

I sent a kick that managed to land true on the inside of the generals knee. It felt like I had kicked at a tree stump, but he grunted in pain.

When I saw his counter coming, a fist that would come towards my face only as a distraction for a chunk of earth behind it, I managed to duck under it.

With my left foot right behind his right, I sent my right knee into his gut. Along with my knee, I raised pillar beneath my foot to hit harder. He stumbled back to keep his balance, and to create distance between us.

Because he was too far away to complete an earth counter grapple, I kicked hard into the air and sent a pillar of earth into the same spot that I had just kneed. I had expected him to intercept the pillar, or break it before it reached. But it landed true, and with an "oof" he was sent flying across the clearing.

The general lay on the ground for a moment, breathing deeply, and I stood still in shock. When he finally sat up I had no idea what to do, so I dropped my stance and stood at attention.

I watched his face slowly turn from the red of exertion to the red of anger. Suddenly, as if he had been holding his breath, he burst out laughing. "You see that men?! Knocked on my ass by a seventeen year old! This is what real bending is like!" The crowd erupted into applause and laughter, and I felt myself join in with them.

The general dropped a heavy hand on my shoulder with a smile he never wore on the training field. "You've beaten your master. Good job. Now all you're missing is experience."

"Thank you, Master Yiban"

"I'm jealous, actually. You've mastered two earth bending forms, you're well versed in the counters for each of the elements. All this in just, what is it now, a year and a half, two years? It took me that long to become an expert on the armies style alone."

I smiled at the compliment "I have some incredible masters."

He nodded sagely with a grin on his face "You do, you do... That's enough for today, though. It's been a while since I took a hit that hard" he rubbed lightly at his stomach.

At the generals dismissal and after pats on the back from a few people, I walked slowly to the outskirts of the little village the army built wherever they went. Once I found a suitable spot facing away from the buildings, I swept my foot across the ground and cleared away a patch of earth, revealing flat, solid stone. A layer of the stone turned into sand when I clenched my fist and I sat cross legged and closed my eyes.

The sound of stone just crumbling and giving way to my will was incredibly satisfying, so I had trouble getting rid of the smile on my face when I was supposed to be meditating.

I learned that the general did not meditate often, but I had taken to the habit. It was relaxing, and it helped me sort out what I had learned for the day. I picked apart my mistakes and always found a way to fix them faster. I felt more connected to my element when I meditated, more so than when I was actually bending it.

I heard Lee's distinct foot steps come up behind me. I didn't move until after he sat down next to me with a heavy sigh. "You're still a boy, what do you have to meditate about?"

I sighed the same way he did and mimicked his position. "That spar with the general could have gone much better than it did. Remember near the beginning, when I broke through the seven or eight stones he tossed at me? If I had ducked under them then I could have caught him in between stances. Maybe send that pillar into his gut at the beginning of the match instead of when I did."

"No no no. He was ready for that. He was expecting you to duck under, not break through. He left that gap near the ground on purpose. You didn't catch the grin on his face when you broke through instead?"

"... hm... well I guess I still have a lot learn"

He smiled lightly at me "like he said, experience. you're learning very well. Give it another six months and you'll beat us both with your hands tied."

"It might be a little longer before that happens. Maybe when the two of you go senile."

"Hey hey! You just beat the general! Being a general is the highest military ranking you can get before you become one of the five. Don't sell yourself short. That was impressive, even if some luck might have been involved"

We sat in silence for a while longer before he spoke again "the general's considering asking you to stay after you turn eighteen."

I looked over at him for the first time. I fought in a couple of battles already. When we camped near the coast, and fire nation occupied villages, I was left to protect the kitchen and medical staff with a small group of soldiers. So I wasn't really surprised by that information.

"Even though I'm not really his son?"

"You're as good as one to him by now. Don't get me wrong, he loves his family. But he can't give this position to his own son when he's a non-bender. We aren't allowed command over earth benders."

"I think... I'll wait to respond to that until he brings it up..."

He looked at me with a frown on his face for a moment "that's reasonable... you would fit right in here though. You'd rise through the ranks pretty quickly, especially because you already have a general on your side. It won't be hard to gain favor and recomendation from the others"

I smiled and nodded, but that wasn't the issue. I didn't think of it much anymore, but the army was still the reason that my village was destroyed. Even if I had forgiven the general, it was still the fault of the army, of this war.