War of the Plans

Like most things in the treehouse base of the Freedom Fighters, dinner was a largely vertical affair.

The main table was set up every night in the large communal platform just outside Jet's hut. It was a small table, scavenged from the nearby town when the group was still fairly small. As the number of Freedom Fighters, and the children in their care, grew, there was talk of getting more tables, or of letting people eat on the floor around the one they already had.

Jet, of course, found an alternate solution that would let everyone feel included. More platforms, large enough to accommodate a few friends, depending on the size of the kids, were constructed above and around the table, turning it into a kind of stadium. The Freedom Fighters sat and ate at the center. Everyone else could watch them and listen to their talk, cheering when appropriate. There was a little extra room at the table now, which allowed the Freedom Fighters to sometimes bring guests to sit with them, or, more often than not, to recline as they ate instead of sitting properly.

Hibachi and Sparkrocks had claimed a small platform just a few tiers above the main table. Word was that Jet would be giving a show tonight.

Sparkrocks popped a roast acorn into her mouth and gave a small sound of approval. She was one of the kids in charge of soaking acorns in vats of collected water to remove the bitter ickyness, so she always enjoyed them once they were cooked up. "I bet Jet ambushed another convoy today. He's gonna tell us how great all the Freedom Fighters fought. Maybe one of them brought home a helmet I can have."

Hibachi shook his oversized sleeves free of his hand and plucked a bit of fish off his plate. He hissed at the heat, and carefully placed it in his mouth. "Ooh," he cooed as he chewed, "do you think they got more of those jelly candies? Those were great!"

"If they got any food, they probably would have brought it to us, first," Sparkrocks said. "Maybe they didn't hit any convoys, after all. I didn't see anyone bringing supplies back."

Hibachi considered that, but his line of thought was interrupted when he noticed one of his sleeves flopping into his applesauce. "Agh, messy!" He shoved the tails of both sleeves into his mouth, sucking them clean, and then noticed the disgusted look Sparkrocks was giving him. He slowly pulled his sleeves out of his mouth, and pushed them up. "Longshot was in and out of Jet's place, and then a while later Sneers brought The Duke in to talk. I betcha they're looking for something, like, maybe some buried treasure or something."

"Maybe," Sparkrocks drew out as she thought, "they were looking for the Avatar."

Hibachi threw an acorn at her. "No! The Avatar left, and the Freedom Fighters don't take no quitters!"

Sparkrocks was about to stand up and give her partner his acorn back, in a most uncomfortable manner, when she noticed a silence falling upon the whole assembly. "Hey," she whispered, "Jet is starting."

Both kids scooted over to their platform's edge and, sure enough, the leader of the Freedom Fighters was stepping up onto the central table. That was the last reason why the Freedom Fighters preferred to keep their table uncluttered, at its center.

The table was Jet's stage, and he worked a crowd like no other.

"I never remember Jet the same way twice. He was our leader, and we trusted him. Did he betray that trust? Sometimes I think he did, sometimes I wonder if I was too hard on him. He helped make us into Freedom Fighters, but was that for our benefit, or his, and does it matter either way?

"I will question my thoughts on Jet until the day I am no more."

Jet stood on the table, looking up at all the kids eating their dinner around him. He'd been feigning a relaxed attitude all night, but his mind had been working furiously. It wasn't just for the plan they'd need over the next few days, but also for this speech. It might be the most important rally of the Freedom Fighters' careers. He had to make sure everyone was on board for the last big push. None of his plans would work out if they weren't all in this together.

That's what being a Freedom Fighter was all about.

"Everyone!"

Everyone hushed at Jet's call.

"Everyone, tonight is very special! We've all worked hard, fought the Fire Nation with everything we have. We've beaten their soldiers, stolen their food, and harassed anything they tried to bring into our forest. We haven't let them relax for one moment! Not one moment while they take our land, our homes, our families away from us!

"Well, tonight we can finally sleep easy for the first time. Everyone, we have won!"

There were gasps. Even the Freedom Fighters seated at his feet were confused by his words. On the platforms above him, chattering broke out, and amongst the younger children, cheers. The victory shouts carried to some of the older kids, but didn't quite take over.

That was fine. Jet didn't need cheers yet, and hadn't expected them.

"Today, the Freedom Fighters risked themselves to bring back the best of news. Longshot and Smellerbee protected our home from the spies of the Fire Nation, and when they told me about the scouts they humiliated and defeated, I knew something was going on."

Cheers rose up for the quiet boy and the armored girl, and both waved back with smiles on their faces. Jet was glad they were enjoying this, as they were good soldiers- hardworking and loyal- and times had been tough lately. They deserved some happiness.

When the applause died down, Jet continued. "The Duke snuck into the town of Gaipan, all by himself. Surrounded by the evil of the Fire Nation, he searched out the answers that no one else could have found. For that, for trying to find out what horrible things they want to do to us next, the Fire Nation tried to silence The Duke! They sent three of their swordsman to put an end to him, but if there's one thing the Fire Nation is too stupid to ever understand, it's about good people."

Jet theatrically hoisted a fist into the air. "We can always count on each other! Sneers and Pipsqueak helped The Duke show those people that Freedom Fighters fear no sword!"

Once again, applause and shouts of approval rang out from above. Pipsqueak happily caught the lychee nuts that were playfully tossed to him, while The Duke waved from his seat.

That was odd. Usually, The Duke ate up this kind of attention like Jet himself. Perhaps he was nervous about the coming battles. He had good reason to be, but Jet would make sure that he did everything in his power to make sure everyone came out okay.

"And do you know what The Duke learned, in that blight on our forest?" Negative calls sounded. "My friends, he learned that we have won our piece of the war. The Fire Nation is leaving! The whole town is emptying, and the land is once again ours!"

There was a hush, a void that smothered every noise. Then the group erupted. Jet had been careful to keep this news to himself until now; only The Duke had known what was coming. Even the other Freedom Fighters were shocked, and theirs became the noisiest jubilation.

Jet didn't wait for the sounds to die before he continued. "The Fire Nation is emptying Gaipan! All that will be left are a group of soldiers who are going to make one more cowardly attack before they go. They think they can burn this forest down, that if they can't have it then no one can!"

Everyone was listening again. Time for the big finish.

"But we are the forest! Are we going to let the Fire Nation burn us? Have we ever let the Fire Nation burn us? No!" Jet wasn't alone when he shouted that last word; everyone else had joined him. "We just have to win one more battle, and then the war is over. And we have never lost a battle!"

The noise that followed could probably be heard miles away.

Up on their platform, Hibachi and Sparkrocks cheered with the rest of the kids, their dinner forgotten. The former might have been calling out Longshot's name with disproportionate frequency, but his enthusiasm was no less for his single-mindedness.

After dinner, The Duke came to Jet in his hut. Some of the Freedom Fighters liked to decorate their homes with trophies, and a lot of the kids tended to accumulate interesting stones, sticks that looked like swords, and other makeshift toys, but Jet's hut was surprisingly boring. He avoided decorations and mostly kept things purely functional, but he had two oddities in his setup. He slept on a real bed with a mattress of hay and curtains that hung from the ceiling. Next to the bed was a short cut of a tree trunk that functioned as a table. No one could have known, but it exactly matched the basic setup of the bedroom Jet had back when he was growing up with his family. His father had made the bed and nightstand himself. The only difference was that this bed was hanging, instead of resting on the floor, but Jet slept more peacefully when he wasn't connected to the Earth.

Jet smiled at The Duke. "What's up?" he asked in as welcoming and friendly a manner as he could muster.

The Duke shrugged. "I'm just a little worried, I guess. You sounded so serious about us winning, but it looked like a lot of Firebenders were coming after us, and that bald Oni guy looked tough."

Jet leaned forward and patted the smallest Freedom Fighter on his helmet. "I understand. It's good to worry, because it keeps our minds sharp. I worry all the time, and it helps me think of everything I need to when I make my plans."

"Do you have a plan to save the forest?"

"I do." Jet picked up his long grass stem from his table, and casually bit down on it. "We don't have the dam to store water anymore, but whoever this Commander Oni is, he's got the typical Fire Nation arrogance. They'll wait until all the townspeople are gone before they try to light us up, and we'll watch them and attack them before they can really get anywhere with the idea. Maybe take out that Oni if he leaves himself vulnerable, or we can scare his soldiers into not setting foot into the forest."

He smiled at The Duke with one part calm, two parts arrogance born of confidence. "I promise, I won't let them hurt any of us."

Once The Duke was on his way to bed, Jet stepped out and went to see Sneers. His hut was even sparser than Jet's, but the fact that half the floor was missing, letting Sneers sleep in the smooth crook of the supporting branch, and half the ceiling, leaving only Sneers' makeshift bed protected from the rain, gave it a much more exotic appearance. The young man looked up as Jet entered. "Need something?"

Jet pulled his straw from his mouth. "Let's make sure we have an eye on that town, all right? Get as many people out in the forest as we can and have them watching that town from every angle. Without the dam, we're on the edge of a knife here."

"Will do," Sneers said with his rough voice. "G'night."

That night, Oni started a group of soldiers working on a construction project. They evicted people from several carefully chosen buildings, telling them to seek shelter with friends or sleep in the streets. The soldiers toiled within the buildings; careful to cover the windows and leave the roof and all exterior walls intact, yet nothing inside was preserved. Walls, stairs, floors, furniture; everything was broken down and either turned into raw materials or discarded.

Oni made sure he stayed up to personally oversee the work, that first night. If his troops couldn't sleep, Oni wasn't going to, either. He visited all the construction sites. The soldiers themselves made sure they never looked on his cold expression or caught his fierce eyes.

"I hope I'm not letting things get too complex for you, eh?" Plenty of widened little eyes looked back at him. The Old Man had to suppress a chuckle at how carried away he was getting.

Then a little girl, the same one who had first spotted the lone stone they were visiting, raised a hand. "You keep talking like maybe the Freedom Fighters are sometimes kind of bad, but they're fighting the bad men, aren't they? The Fire Nation wants to burn the forest and the people's homes."

The Old Man nodded, and gazed up into the sky above. He squinted in the bright sunlight, before hastily looking down at the ground. After he had gathered his thoughts, he spoke again. "Real war is a lot different than the games you play. Killing the bad guys is good, right?"

All the little heads nodded.

"Now, who here actually likes to hurt people? Likes to make people cry, or hurt them so that they can't play and have fun anymore?"

One little hand in the back raised, accompanied by a cheeky grin, but one look at the Old Man's serious face cast a shadow over the fun, and the hand and grin both disappeared from sight.

"Sometimes, the bad guys aren't as bad as you're told they are. Sometimes, they're fighting because they think they're the good guys. And when two people who both think they're good wind up fighting each other, only good people wind up getting hurt. The only bad people are the ones who enjoy hurting each other."

"Like Commander Oni!" the same little girl from before said, pleased with herself.

The Old Man smiled. "Yes, Oni was a horrible person, and deserved to get hurt. When it came to people like him, we probably needed people like Jet. But the Freedom Fighters were beginning to learn that Jet wasn't always right. If he could make mistakes, turn even the Avatar against him, then what was he turning the Freedom Fighters into?

"Can you imagine how hard it must be not to trust someone you treated like a parent? Not to be able to trust your best friend?"

Little eyes widened.

The Old Man sighed. "The worst part about war, though, is that the bad guys do most of the winning, when it really matters.

"So! The time had come for the Fire Nation to win and for the Freedom Fighters to go out in a blaze of glory! Both armies- one big, one little- got ready to go to war one last time..."

The morning was anything but still and quiet. The sun was barely up, and any movement in the brush was hidden, but there was plenty of noise. Of course, birdcalls were very common for mornings in such a large forest, but knowledgeable locals would have been surprised at the variety this day. Certainly, it was the completely wrong season for the mating call of the plumed pinkbird, and there weren't supposed to be any turtleducks in the whole province.

Jet listened to the faux-natural symphony, and turned to his Freedom Fighters with a smirk. "The Fire Nation is on the move."

"Where?" Smellerbee asked as she made one last check of her knives.

Jet listened for confirmation, then quickly nodded. "The riverbed path. They're heading deeper into the forest with a large cart of barrels."

That caught The Duke's attention. "What kind of barrels?"

Jet raised his eyebrows. "We didn't exactly come up with a birdcall code for that kind of info, but I'm guessing they're not full of dirty laundry. I bet that's their plan. They're taking blasting jelly as far into the forest as they can get it, and then they'll set off a explosion that will get a large patch of the forest burning."

Longshot's eyes narrowed beneath his hat, his mouth forming a thin line.

"Don't worry, Longshot." Jet pulled his grass stem from his lips and tossed it to the platform floor. "We're the Freedom Fighters. We got this."

Pipsqueak crossed his massive arms over his chest. "Hit 'em hard, hit 'em high?"

"Hey, it hasn't failed yet, right?"

Sneers gazed out at the forest, and said nothing.

"I wish I could go see Longshot kick Fire Nation butt," Hibachi sighed. He gripped his rounded hat through his oversized sleeves and adjusted it against the morning sun.

Sparkrocks waited until he was done, then she smacked the hat off his head and plucked its flying form from the air.

"Hey!" the boy wailed.

Sparkrocks ran laughing to the cooking pit where stacks of Fire Nation ration cakes waited, holding the hat behind her. "That's what happens to bad little boys who throw acorns at me! Come on, we have to make breakfast for all the others."

Jet could see, already, how it would all play out.

Smellerbee would be hidden near the dry riverbed, and would turn back so that the others could see her hand; signaling about fifteen soldiers, spearmen and Firebenders, standard formation, a komodo rhino to draw the cart. The element of surprise would be maintained. Dispersed through the branches of the nearby trees, the other Freedom Fighters would be hidden by the undying orange and gold leaves that smelled of warming weather, but Longshot would be kept right next to Jet, his bow drawn and an arrow ready. Jet would pat his friend's shoulder and point at the spearman steering the komodo rhino.

Longshot wouldn't even nod. Jet had seen it enough times; he would inhale, aim, and let loose his arrow. The rider would fall. The Freedom Fighters would attack.

Then they would fall into their standard tactics. Jet would swing down first, drawing attention with his challenging gaze and dual hook swords, and throw himself at the nearest group of spearmen. The rest of the soldiers would be perfectly distracted when The Duke dropped directly onto one of the Firebenders' heads, grabbing him by the helmet and either bringing him along for the rest of the trip to the ground or else riding the man and making the Firebender a danger to his fellow soldiers. Smellerbee and Sneers would dart out of the undergrowth on either side of the road, cutting off the individual enemies who would be trying to come at Jet from behind. As some of the army gathered into a group for protection against the ambushers, Pipsqueak would land heavily from the tree where he had been hiding and demonstrate why he was the Freedom Fighters' reliable backup.

Jet dashed across the oversized tree branches in his forest, lost in his planning while he led his Freedom Fighters to the scene of the ambush. Regular fake birdcalls kept him appraised of the Fire Nation cart's slow progress, so that he could head directly to the ideal ambush point. Not all of the orphans who lived in his treetop village were Freedom Fighters, but everyone helped in whatever ways they could, even if it was to hide in the forest and spy on the enemy.

Then things went completely wrong. Jet and the others were still traveling when they heard the blowing of a standard Fire Nation signal horn. Its hollow call sounded into the forest.

It was answered by the noise of multiple instances of Firebending. An orange glow quickly began shining through the thickness of the leafy foliage.

"Nuts," said Jet.

Then the trees around him burst into flames.

Jet quickly looked around to find his teammates. He spotted Smellerbee and Sneers fighting someone on the forest floor, their battleground surrounded by burning foliage, and it took Jet a second to realize that their opponents were a group of Firebenders, but not wearing the standard Firebender armor. These soldiers were wearing hardened leather vests, but that was their only concession to the need for armor. The rest of their uniforms were that black flame-resistant weaving that the Fire Nation loved, easy to move in and very prudent for Firebenders. Rags tied over their hair and mouths substituted for the infamous skull-like helmets.

Who were these guys?

Whoever they were, more were coming, as additional horn calls gave away Smellerbee and Sneers' position. Both of the Freedom Fighters danced and scampered across the battlefield, never staying still long enough to give the Firebenders a chance to hit them with a sustained blast of flame. Both at least had a better chance against unarmored opponents. Smellerbee's swords ripped right through the mesh-uniforms, and Sneers' punches and grappling took advantage of the material's softness and pliability.

Pipsqueak and The Duke joined the fray, guarding the others' backs. Pipsqueak was being his typically effective self, and even when one of the strange Firebenders set his log-club ablaze, he just shoved the burning end into the face of his current opponent, twisted and threw it at a second, then picked up a third and began using the man as a human club. The Duke was taking full advantage of his size, swinging his staff low to trip the Firebenders while staying down and out of immediate sight.

Longshot, of course, was covering everyone from the treetops, and so far no one had discovered the source of the arrows.

Jet was just about to come to the others' aid when he spotted a new group of Fire Nation soldiers arriving. These were all swordsmen, wearing their proper armored uniforms, except for one man. He wore a commander's armor, and his head was completely free of hair.

Oni. The Duke had told Jet all about him.

Jet stepped backwards off the branch he was standing on, swung his hook swords to catch the wood right where the blades curved, and let gravity turn his momentum into a slingshot fall aimed right at the Fire Nation commander.

Just before he landed, Jet threw his legs out, kicking a swordsman in the head on either side of him and taking them out of the fight. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Jet was swinging his swords down and inward straight at Oni himself, but if the man was surprised by the attack, he didn't show it. Oni immediately took a stabilizing stance and brought his armored gauntlets up to catch Jet's blades, then swung his arms down and outward in a mimicry of what Jet had just done to slap the Freedom Fighter's arms away.

Jet stumbled back, and saw Oni prepare a fist for what looked very much like a Firebending move. He wouldn't have time to dodge this one-

Then Jet's view was blocked by a swordsman with his blade held high above his head, and Jet knew he would be all right. He got his hook swords up in time to catch the attack, and was all set to slide his blades so that the hooks would catch on his enemy's weapon and pull it out of his hands, when-

Fire blossomed behind the swordsman, and he fell to the ground screaming. Oni was still there, his expression dark. "No one gets between me and an opponent," he growled at his other guards.

Jet didn't stay to see what their response would be. He was already moving to dodge the next blast of flame. "Your mistake," Oni said, his tone conversational even as he pressed his attacks, "was never altering your tactics. Just because the previous commander lacked the imagination to really exploit your routines, didn't mean that you shouldn't keep things varied."

Jet didn't need advice on how to lead his friends. He spun around an arc of fire that came from Oni's latest kick, and just swung one of his swords at the Fire Nation man's head, at the same time tucking his other arm and sword in preparation for a follow-up attack.

Oni again deflected the blow with an armored forearm. He didn't even let the cutting edge of the blade directly impact the armor, instead angling his defensive blow to change the direction of the sword's momentum. "We know the general area of the forest where your base is, and my special Firebender Scouts know how to move through a forest as secretly as your own people." He tried to duck low to sweep a kick at Jet's legs, but the Freedom Fighter leader jumped up, his leap taking him into a spin that brought the hooks of his swords swinging at Oni's back as he flew over his enemy.

Unfortunately, the man's armor was good stuff. The blades scratched along the surface, doing no more than scoring it. Jet landed and spun to face his enemy, just as Oni rose up again and turned to look at Jet.

The Firebender smirked. "When we heard the chirping 'birds,' we kept an eye out on the treetops, where your people so like to spring ambushes from. How do you like being on the receiving end of a trap, hm?"

Jet was tired of the man's talking. He launched into a sustained attack on Oni, alternating between his left and right swords in order to keep the assault quick and constant, but it didn't matter. None of his blows got through the commander's defense, and even in armor the movement didn't seem to tire the Firebender at all. As they moved across the forest floor, Oni steered the fight towards one of the burning trees, and just when Jet thought he saw an opening in the man's defense, the commander leaped backwards to land a few feet within the flames of the blaze. Jet stepped back from the heat of it, but Oni, apparently a Firebender, didn't mind being at the edge of the inferno.

Safe where he stood, Oni pointed up at the sky. "Have you seen the best part yet?"

Jet looked up, where the fires had not yet climbed, and through the ever-living leaves of the canopy, saw odd trails of smoke crossing the clear sky. Then, a large fireball flew across the view, heading in the same direction as the other trails.

With a clenching of his stomach, Jet realized that the fireballs were being shot in the same general direction of the Freedom Fighters' base. He looked back at Oni in alarm.

The Firebender smiled amidst the flames, his eyes dark in comparison to the light all around him. "We can't precisely target your home, of course, but how long before the forest in that direction goes up in fire completely? You were good, protecting your home from all the scouts sent to find you, but you could only be so effective with your lack of manpower. The Fire Nation has resources to…" He winked. "Burn."

Jet's leadership instincts told him exactly what to do.

He began running like crazy. "Freedom Fighters retreat! Get out of here! Run! Disengage!"

Those Firebender Scouts might know their woodcraft, but the Freedom Fighters were still more at home in this particular forest. They all produced Bang Pellets from hidden pouches and flung them at the ground. It was one thing being used to staring into fire without flinching, but any alert human being will flinch at the sudden appearance of extra sight and sound.

When the Firebender Scouts recovered their sight, the Freedom Fighters had disappeared without a trace.

Mostlywithout a trace.

Commander Oni began signaling his troops in pursuit.

The Freedom Fighters didn't stop running until the lights of the fires were far behind them. They climbed a gnarly tree and spoke behind the cover of the canopy.

"What's the deal?" Smellerbee spat. "Freedom Fighters don't run!"

Longshot looked at her, eyes wide, but didn't make any motion. Jet outright glared at her. "They do," he said, "when they're about to die!"

Pipsqueak wasn't looking at anyone. He was working at one of the thicker offshoots of the massive branch they were all standing on, loosening it so that he could tear it off for a new club. Yet, as always, his voice resonated so that everyone could hear. "Aw, come on, Jet. We weren't doing that bad. Sure, they were more of them than us, and lots of stuff was on fire, but we've handled that before. Heck, we saved the Avatar in a fix just like this."

Jet whirled to face the larger Freedom Fighter. His jaw was working like he wished he had something to chew on. "First of all, that was about twenty guys, with only one Firebender, and we had help from a couple of the Benders we were saving. This was about thirty Firebenders, with more on the way, and if that Oni guy wasn't a Master, then I'm a Waterbender. Second, it doesn't matter if we could have won. They're shooting long-range fireballs, from a catapult or something, deep enough into the forest to be a danger to the base. If they haven't already had a direct hit, then that piece of the forest is still going up right about now."

Everyone, even Pipsqueak, was now staring at him. The Duke was the first to speak. He sniffled and in a low voice asked, "So what does that mean, Jet?"

"It means we lost. For good," said Sneers. He was as still as the tree they all stood on.

Jet nodded. "It's over. The only thing we can do for now is get to the treehouses and try to save as many people as we can. The Fire Nation is burning this forest, and all we can do is get everyone out of here. Longshot, Smellerbee, you go back to base. Start the retreat. Try to make for the east river; we've had dry weather lately, so it will be shallow enough for you to walk in, and that will help protect you as the forest goes up. The rest of us will go back and draw off the Firebenders. We'll peel off as we can and meet up with you somewhere along the river."

He ran a hand through his hair. "Don't wait for us. Once you're on the way, don't stop. If we catch up, we'll figure things out from there. If not…" He looked Smellerbee in the eyes, and then Longshot. A smirk brought a little life back to his face. "Well, people aren't thinking of anything good when they trail off while speaking like that."

"Jet," whispered The Duke. "I don't want to be homeless again. It's hard."

The first Freedom Fighter at his side was Pipsqueak. "Don't worry," he intoned, pushing a smile onto his face. "While we're all here, we can make wherever we go like a home. You know, like, people are more important, even if you're living out in the rain? I think I heard that somewhere."

"What Pip's trying to say," Jet broke in, crouching next to The Duke and putting an arm around him, "is that it won't be hard with all of us to take care of each other. And I promise I'll get us all out of this, no matter what it takes. Remember, we're the Freedom Fighters."

Smellerbee, Longshot, and Sneers all nodded.

"Okay." Jet stood up, and drew his hook swords. "Let's get back into action, Freedom Fighters."

TO BE CONTINUED