SMST: The Ethereal Path of the Avatar! – By DS Wynne
Disclaimer: "SM", "R1/2", "ST" and other properties belong to their respective owners.
Note: This is a multi-genre story.
Part 13
After a day's travel, the Avatar Aang and his friends decides to camp for a quick minute. This allowed Ranma a chance to examine the moves that King Bumi—a powerful "earth-bender"…and Aang's "kooky" friend—used during his fight.
Or so it seems…
"Hey guys!" Sokka says, as he and Goku comes back from fishing at a nearby river. "We got food-!"
"Shhhh!" Katara says, as she places a finger on her lips. "Ranma is trying to do earth-bending."
"How long has Pops been at it?" Goku says, as he strings up his catch on a nearby tree branch.
"Ranma been trying to do some bending for an hour now," Usagi says.
"I've been trying to tell him that you can't do more than one type of bending," Aang says. "Only the Avatar can."
"Well, just you wait," says Ranma, as he began to form mudra hand gestures.
"You think you can do, Pops?" Goku says.
"All I know is that I can use the jutsu methodology to 'prime' the effect," Ranma says.
"And that would be…ninjutsu?" Usagi asks.
"Yep. From what my old friend Ukyo once told me, ninjutsu is a spiritual-based effect, genjutsu is mental-based effect, and taijutsu is a physical-based effect. All I need to do is focus on what I want to do, thanks to the mudra hand gestures as the focus, and I should be good to go."
"Why even bother to learn bending at all, Ranma?" Usagi says. "I mean, you and I know 'Elemental Magic'."
"You guys know magic?" Sokka says.
"Sure, to varying degrees."
"Then why do I have to go out looking for food, then? Can't you wish for…something for us to EAT?"
"Reason why I'm trying to learn bending is the same reason why we don't use elemental magic," Ranma says.
"And that is…?"
"For some reason, elemental magic is virtually non-existent. Most likely, the energy levels in this world is too low for Usagi and I to have access."
"Then…how are you able to use 'airbending'?"
"From what I can see, bending uses 'chakra', which is the synthesis of physical, mental and spiritual energy. When I was coming up in the world, I was only familiar with notions of physical and some notions of spiritual energy. However, in my experience, it all comes down to how to access and be one with this synthesized energy."
Ranma pauses for a moment.
"It's hard to believe that the world can always surprise you, if you are willing to push the envelope or something."
"So, you have any success, Pops?" Goku asked.
"Well…let's find out," Ranma says, as he formed a few mudra hand gestures.
WHOOM!
Ranma then duplicated some of the kata forms that he had seen King Bumi had performed.
"Ah-HA!" Ranma says, as he stomped the ground.
A large, stone boulder juts out of the ground, though it did so right underneath Ranma.
THOOM!
"Ulp!" Ranma says, as he sails away…
"Ranma!" Usagi yells, as she runs after her husband.
"Pops!" Goku yells, as he ran after his foster mother.
"That was…something," Katara says.
"Told him," Aang says, as he pets Momo the Flying Lemur.
"So, who wants fish?" Sokka says, as he turns to his companions.
"Let's go to town and purchase some ingredients and stuff from town," Katara says, as she gets up from her rock…
Later…
"Ranma, Ranma!" Aang says, as he and Sokka slow down.
Ranma, Usagi and Goku all look up to from whatever they were doing.
"Whoa, slow down," Ranma says.
"Where were you guys?" Usagi says.
"And where is Katara, Aang?" Goku asked.
"Well, we were going to town to get some stuff for dinner, when we ran into a boy," Aang says.
"Apparently, Katara likes him or something," Sokka says.
"No, she doesn't," Aang protested. "She…she just wanted to help him, that's all."
"Yeah, right-"
"Guys, keep focused," says Ranma.
"So, what happened next?" Usagi says.
"Well, it turned out that this boy—named Haru—is an earth-bender," Aang says.
"Oh, like King Bumi?" Goku asked.
"Like Bumi."
"He comes a town that is controlled by the Fire Nation, and they have outlawed earth-bending," Sokka says.
"Guys, they take earth-benders from their homes!" Aang says. "They took Haru away when the Fire Benders found out about him."
"So how is Katara involved?" Usagi asks.
"She…she wanted to find Haru, so we…kind of pretended that she was an earth-bender, too."
"Let me guess: she's captured, right?" Ranma asks.
"Yes."
"Pops, are we going to go after Katara?" Goku asked.
"Of course we are."
"Then if we're going to go after her, we need to hurry," Sokka says. "She's supposed to be taken away by ship."
"Not a problem," Ranma says, as he turns towards Usagi. "Usagi?"
"We can track Katara with the help of a spell I know," Usagi says, as she goes over to Katara's pack.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Sokka says.
"I will perform a spell known as 'Object Read'," Usagi says, as she placed Katara's blue parka on her lap. "I'll be able to zero on her location."
"Then we do not have any time to lose," Aang says, as he turns to Appa, who was lounging about. "Appa, you're ready to go, boy?"
"RRROORRRLLL!" says the flying bison.
"I wish I wasn't standing so close to Appa like that," Sokka says, as he shook the moisture from his hair…
Later that afternoon, Aang and the gang fly towards the water and out into the sea. While flying low, Usagi casts an invisible field around everyone.
"Do…you think Katara will be okay?" Aang asked. "I wished that she…wasn't so determine to find Haru…"
Goku placed a hand on his friend.
"I believe she is, Aang," Goku says. "We'll make sure of that."
"Okay, we're almost there," says Ranma, as he sees what appeared to be an ocean platform. From what he understood about elemental bending, it was possible to place a bender in a situation where he or she is removed from his or her "element". Putting earth-benders in the middle of a body of water would do the trick.
Ranma turns his attention to the others.
"Aang, Sokka and Goku- find Katara, and assess her condition," Ranma says. "Usagi and I are going to explore the platform."
"How come?" Sokka asked.
"I'm curious about the Fire Nation, and since we might meet more on our journey, I rather know what we're up against."
"Oh, that's easy," Sokka says. "Fire. Nation. Fire Nation."
"Cute."
And with that, the gang makes their move to sneak aboard the sea platform…
The Fire Nation was a very regimented society, with their military being more so.
As the guards around the operations area were rotating their position in a sweep, they failed to see the two people quietly sneak up on them.
"URK!" says one of the guards.
"Mmmph!" says another one.
The first guard tried to counter the move in a classic judo throw, but Ranma prevents that with a well-placed palm to the small of the back. This prevents the guard from forming a fulcrum. And then-
THOK-THOK!
"Uhhhhh…"
Ranma pulls the now unconscious guard down the corridor a bit, and tosses him into a storage closet. He then looks towards his wife.
"Come on!" Ranma yells quietly.
"Shhhh," Usagi says to the second guard, as he begins to lose consciousness, as she cuts off the blood flow to his brain with her free hand. "It will be over real soon."
With the second guard out, Usagi pulls him into the closet.
"What took you so long?" Ranma says, as he closes the closet door behind. "Now, we can go to the warden's office and do some intelligence work."
"Aw," Usagi says sarcastically. "You know how to treat a girl to a good time…"
For an hour, Usagi and Ranma comb through the documents in the warden's office.
"Take a look at this," Usagi says, as she shows the map of the Fire Nation supply routes. "According to this, there are several Fire Nation outposts through much of the lower half of the continent."
Ranma takes a look at the map.
"Hmmm…"
"We're going to be seeing more of these guys, due to this…Ba Sing Se place being the main target of their incursions."
"We'll have to stick to the low lands then and costal region, where the presence of Fire Nation troops are the least numerous."
"And what about…our ship then, Ranma?"
"Unfortunately, much of the heavy industry—if that—is in Fire Nation territory," Ranma says, as he points to a collection of islands.
"Hmmm…kind of reminds me of Japan-"
CHUNK!
Usagi and Ranma turn to see the door to the office open…
"Ahhh," says the warden (long, gray hair, long goatee and short) as he enters his office. "Those silly earth-benders still think they have hope-"
The warden suddenly turns around to see…nothing.
"Humph," the warden says, as he shook his head. "My nerves must be acting up…"
Using the Umasenken Arts, Ranma and Usagi make their escape. Eventually, they see Aang and the gang with Appa. All of them were safely hidden away underneath the platform.
"Hey!" Goku says excitedly.
Ranma gives Goku the sign to be quiet.
"Did you find what you are looking for?" Aang says.
"Yes," Usagi says. "Wait, where's Katara?"
"She had this silly notion that she should stay and help Haru and his Dad bust out of here," Sokka says. "So she's staying with the rest of the prisoners. Can you believe that?"
"Well, we're here aren't we?" Ranma says with a wiry smile.
"Oh, no," Sokka complained. "Can't we just leave quietly?"
"No we can't, Sokka," Aang says. He then looks to Ranma.
"There's coal here that we can use to help the earth-benders free themselves."
"Oh?" says Ranma, as he raises an eyebrow…
The next day…
"…And so, little girl, you should be punished," says the warden, as he prepared to burn Katara. Aang and Ranma had used air-bending to force tons of coal—unprocessed "earth"—into the holding pen for Haru and his father Tyro to use. So broken were the prisoners that they were hesitant in their actions. Mockingly, the warden was going to make an example of Katara when-
WHACK!
All eyes looked up to see the warden fall down, just as Ranma popped him on the back of the head.
"Oh, shut up," Ranma says. He then turns to the earth-benders.
"Katara told me that you earth-benders had pride. Now, PROVE it."
Haru turns to his father.
"He right, Father," Haru says. "We have to do something!"
"I see," Tyro says. He then turns to his fellow earth-benders.
"Let's take back…our freedom!" Tyro yells, just as more fire-benders swarm the area.
Ranma smiles, as he suddenly turns around to form an airball to bowl-down three fire-benders.
FWOOM!
"Hoot-cha!" Goku yells, as he used his elongation staff to knock other fire-benders down.
Katara tapped into the seas to hose away her foes.
Haru and Tyro, in unison, lift the coal, and send them towards into more Fire Nation soldiers.
Meanwhile, Usagi and Sokka were relaxing.
"Shouldn't we help or something?" Sokka asks.
"We could, but that would be a bit 'overkill'," Usagi says.
"I GUESS so…"
Later…
"Well, that was nice of Haru's mom to pack us a lunch bag," Usagi says, as Appa flies further north along the coast."
"I guess so," Katara says, as she fidgets.
"Katara, what's wrong?" Aang asks.
"I lost my mother's necklace."
"We could turn back," Ranma offered.
"No, it's okay. The main thing is that we get more training."
Ranma nods his head, as he ponders how he can perfect his understanding of elemental bending...
Tbc.