Back again! So…scarless Zuko, huh? Plus Edward being a little shit and going anywhere he wants without having to dealing with the usual BS he gets himself in but then again he has a lot more on the line this time around not that he didn't before but he is on his own now…
Please note that I'm not planning on having ships in this fic or if I am, it's not going to be the focus. It might be mentioned but right now it isn't going to happen. There's a war going on people! :P Much more important things to worry about!
Everyone seems to be headed towards the Fire Nation, with a few notable exceptions which will be addressed soon. I hope everyone is enjoying this kind of meta Season 3. I'm planning on things like the invasion (with some significant twists of course) and perhaps the Sun Warriors but there will be some differences as well of course.
Well, let's get on with it.
Edward wasn't expecting the soldiers to be so nice to him. Yes, he was playing the stupid kid who was patriotic enough to let himself be caught by the enemy but still he wasn't expecting the Fire Nation soldiers to be so…similar to the ones back at Central. He'd never been in an all-out war, but most of the enemies he had faced had subordinates who wouldn't hesitate to kill him even if they ended up on the same side later on. Mustang might have had more experience with this or even Hawkeye and Hughes but no one had ever talked about the Ishval Conflict, not even mentioning out loud; just shared looks and subtle gestures that were lingering effects of being on the battlefield constantly.
The thing was, as bad as that was, this was a full scale world war. There already was a mass genocide that was successfully completed and his friend, or if he wanted to be technical he could Aang his absorbed past life but even that wasn't completely correct, was the last person of his entire race to survive but was ultimately killed. It didn't seem like the Fire Nation was going to stop with the airbenders either.
The issue was that even with all of this running through his mind, he couldn't call the men he was now talking to and playing pranks with as evil. Evil was the homunculi or their leader and most likely the Fire Lord. These were just citizens who had grown up learning a certain viewpoint on history and were just doing their job and he couldn't hate them for it. Certain members of the Fire Nation's army? Sure no problems. These guys who were only six or seven years his senior? He just couldn't.
So, with this in mind Edward (now with the name of Hiro since it was stupid to keep the same name for different identities as well as the fact that name Ling reminded him of home) asked the soldiers to teach him some firebending. He had told them that he was from a family where he lived with his mother and younger brother and that his father had left years ago to join the military but had never heard from him again. Besides his father, he was the only one who bended in the family and had learned the basics from an old firebender in his village before he set out on his own to both find his father and help out the cause. Edward then emphasized that he had found out his father was dead so there was no point in anyone helping him find the man and that the waterbenders had gotten him soon after he found that out. He'd been overpowered and since no one knew he was there in the first place, he was stuck without rescue in the North Pole until the people who had him on the boat were taking him to some unspecified location.
His new companions felt bad for young Hiro and decided to teach the kid some moves so no bender could catch him off guard again. They were already suspect about his missing limbs but Ed brushed them off and said the accident he was in during a kid that caused the burns to the back of head also had to do with why he lost two of his limbs. They dropped it after that.
He knew out to manipulate fire, create a simple fireball and launch it, create fire streams, and that was about it. Starting from that basic point, the group taught Edward some offensive and defensive moves like how to effectively block and dissipate a direct attack by a firebender (in case he ran into thieves on his way home), create fire whips, fire daggers, fire lashes, and a shield of fire. In any case, Edward felt ready to effectively render Colonel Mustang useless in his next fight by only using the man's element against him.
The journey itself to the Fire Nation would take three to four weeks since they weren't heading to the capitol and Edward assured his soldier buddies that he would be able to reach his home without much issue. Whenever he wasn't joking around with the familiar comradery of military guys who were honestly less mature than the usual person, he was working on his breathing techniques or meditation. He found that he had to be more in control of his emotion for firebending, similarly to waterbending but with less of tranquility but with his will to harness something that was used to doing its own thing and not be controlled.
When he wasn't doing either of those things, he was trying to figure out how to snap his fingers and create a flame so that he could see the stupid look on the Colonel's face when he finally got to battle him with his new skills since he would be expecting alchemy.
All in all, things were going good. The past Avatars weren't as mad that he was learning the elements out of order since he did understand the spiritual side to the bending well since he had always done well with theory and the concept of 'all is one, one is all' technically applied to his situation. Plus, what he was doing wasn't technically breaking the rules, I mean, he wasn't mastering the elements out of order per say. Just taking bits and pieces and learning them. He would still completely master them in order...plus he could say that since he had to figure out all of this within the confines of the summer, he needed some leeway. He already located his waterbending master (and just needed to get back to the guy before he had a heart attack or something since he had to have thought that his pupil had been captured) and now needed to find a proper firebending master.
Well, first he had to get to the Fire Nation. Half a week left...
It was an interesting set of weeks for the ragtag group of benders (and boomerang guy). They had taken Appa and separating from the siblings' father promising to meet the day before the invasion at the chosen point that Hakoda and Sokka had agreed upon.
Sokka had freaked out at seeing the new scar-less look of Zuko but then burst out laughing when he realized that the firebender only had one eyebrow. Zuko then, while staring at him with a deadpan expression, set one of Sokka's eyebrows on fire. They now matched.
From there, they took an out of the way route to get to the Fire Nation because while they could blend in pretty well, Appa was sort of a give-away. They'd helped save a fishing village from the Fire Nation army by Katara disguising herself as a spirit; Sokka had learned sword fighting and gained a new ally in his master, Master Piandao. While he was a Fire Nation citizen, he agrees with the Gaang's morals and volunteered to help where he could. It was pure luck that they'd managed to meet him at all since he'd had to stay behind in the Fire Nation rather than go to a summons by some of his old friends.
From there, they'd travelled more and Toph began to refine her metalbending skills even further. The group had almost gotten in trouble in a village they'd stayed at for a while. Toph had been scamming scammers using her earthbending and Sokka was all for it while Katara was completely against it. Zuko wisely stayed out of the argument. After Katara had finally decided to go along with Toph for one last scheme, they'd been captured and they'd escaped by the sweat on their brow, literally in Katara's case. After that they'd beat a hasty retreat.
The worst thing to happen was Katara forcefully being taught bloodbending under the next full moon by a Southern Water Tribe waterbender who had been captured by the Fire Nation when she was a young woman and developed the form as a means of escape and lived in the Fire Nation ever since, collecting victims and torturing them. They'd accidentally stumbled onto the situation and Katara came out stronger for it and found out more of what happened to her tribe and what happened to the waterbenders. She just wished that the form wasn't so despicable.
Now it was only a week away from the invasion and they were tired but still trained so they'd be ready. They owed that much to Aang.
So, yes: I'm speeding up season 3 but there is reason for that. We already know, for the most part, what happens in season 3 except for Zuko being with the Gaang and Ozai's plans for the Water Tribe which are going to be showing up next chapter. Also, the comet is going to have some interesting things going on since Amestris isn't done with Edward yet. We still have the homunculi and Father's plans. Since he's down a sacrifice, Father is going to need a new one and things are gonna get interesting I can promise you that!
