AN: Hey all! Here I am with another chapter!
The good news is that there is another chapter!
The not so good news is that this was supposed to be the last chapter of this arc. But unfortunately, I got carried away and decided to split the chapter in half, mainly because it flowed better that way.
But anyway, hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review etc. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to PM me.
Another thing while I am at it, is this. I am a part of a discord group, there are tons of others there, plenty of writers, admittedly mainly PJO, but other stuff too, including a growing number of MHA writers. Feel free to pop along and say hi, I'm always happy to chat about the stuff I am writing. So if you fancy it please do to join by sticking this: discord .gg / elibrary into discord, with no spaces, or using the link on my bio.
Thanks for reading and please do leave a review, or feel free to PM, I am usually much better at answering those!
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or Avatar the Last Airbender.
( - )
(Last Time)
"Remember to stick together and don't get ahead of yourself. They've not had a chance to fully fortify their position yet, but these are still armed, trained and well-rested soldiers." Percy continued, his brow furrowed as the signal was given, and the wall started to lower.
Drawing more water from one of his water skins and forming several floating orbs, Percy narrowed his eyes.
The moon shone brightly overhead, providing the waiting force with all the light they needed to press the assault.
Ignoring the distant shouts of the Fire Nation forces as they clocked onto what was happening, Percy sent a quick prayer to Artemis for luck, before with a battle cry he led the charge.
"Let's fucking get them!"
( - )
Chapter 18
( - )
(With Percy)
The noise was deafening as men and women roared, shouted and screamed.
Blades clashed against armour and other blades.
Roaring fire rained down from above scorching flesh.
Giant rocks hurled overhead and crushed bones and caved-in skulls.
Walls and spires of stone ripped through the air and smashed against armoured legions of black and red-clad soldiers.
The heat of thousands of fighting, struggling bodies when added to the flames of their enemy, made the atmosphere stifling.
Sweat soaked his body, and steaks of blood and offal stained his flesh and armour as he weaved back and forth attacking and defending himself in equal measure.
The loamy ground underfoot had become sodden with blood, shit and piss.
It was little more than a wet mulch at this point.
A stinking quagmire of death which squelched unpleasantly underfoot as he tried to push forward, his iron-studded boot sinking deep into the filth as he desperately tried to find purchase while fighting off his attackers.
As he fought his senses were assailed by the foul smell of battle.
He could smell the breath of some of those he fought. It was sour from bile, vomit, alcohol and the remains of their dinner.
In the press of bodies around him, he could smell the stench of stale sweat from those that fought, and the unpleasant smell of shit from those whose bowels had loosened in fear.
Some of the smell, he also knew, came from the blades of those he fought which he could see from where he stood had been slathered in shit so any wounds they could caused would quickly become infected.
The boggy ground itself also reeked as the dead collapsed to the floor dead. Some voided their bowels in their death throes as they fell. Whilst others desperate screamed as they desperately tried to keep their guts in their eviscerated bellies, even as they were trampled underfoot by those still fighting. Others he saw never fell at all, as they instead stayed standing, caught in the press of bodies, their vacant eyes glazed as they flopped this way and that.
There was nothing glorious about war.
Poets always spoke of the elegance and artistry of combat.
Artists, from what he had seen, often dramatized and glorified war.
Writers often made it sound like war was a gentlemanly endeavour where one on one battles were the norm as two great warriors resplendent in shining armour engaged one another during the heart of the melee and engaged in a beautiful back-and-forth duel. They loved to describe lulls in the conflict as soldiers respectfully backed made a circle and allowed their champions to clash in glorious displays of skill and athleticism.
They always made it seem like one-on-one fights were the norm in battle, and that they lasted uninterrupted for hours at a time as the combatants threw out ever more audacious and showy moves and displays of showmanship as they engaged in a glorious dance of death.
It was all complete bullshit.
A real fight was not pretty.
There was no elegance or artistry on the battlefield.
Instead, it was brutal, violent and bloody as the two sides attempted to kill each other as quickly and efficiently as possible.
There were no flashy moves, no limits on barbarism, and no hardlines that fighters wouldn't cross in their attempts to come out of the fight alive.
They backstabbed the enemy, ganged up on each other, gouged at eyes and hacked downed men to death. They also when for groins, eyes, armpits, and anywhere not covered by armour.
Those that were injured in the fight; if they were lucky were either pulled to safety by allies. If they were unlucky, they were murdered by the enemy, or just trampled underfoot by the oblivious fighters around them.
There was no mercy.
The few who surrendered were often hacked to death without a second thought.
He hated it.
Yet, here he was, in a foreign land. surrounded by strangers fighting, and fighting and killing for people who he had never met.
It was all so stupid and pointless.
His armour was battered – the breastplate had been shattered by an errant axe blow - his undershirt was burnt and barely holding itself together.
He had long since lost his helmet in the chaos of battle after a large rock - hurled by one of his own allies – stuck him, dazing him, even as it crumbled the rim of the helmet, bruised his skull, and limited his vision. The impact had sent him staggering at the time and had left him open to the axe blow that had cracked his breastplate and sent him falling onto his arse into the bloody swamp below.
Fortunately, before the axe-wielding Fire Nation soldier could follow up and finish him he was swept away by the chaos of battle, giving Percy just enough time to recover and regain his footing, even as the maelstrom of fighting around him continued unabated.
Pulling his own two-handed axe from his back, and holding it with just one hand, he quickly started laying waste to those around him.
His sword had broken quite early on, which had left him relying on his limited supply of water to fend off the enemy.
Which, if they had been on the offensive would not have been a major issue. Only unfortunately, by that point, they had been forced on the defensive as the Fire Nation recovered from their initial strike and quickly started reinforcing their positions.
Within minutes of the attack starting, the Fire Nation had returned fire, literally. As they had actually started raining fire, arrows and steel bolts down on them, even as the Earth Kingdom forces dismantled the Fire Nation's half-formed palisade wall and decimated their earth ramparts – he still wasn't sure how they had managed to create earthen defences so quickly.
They had lost their forward momentum and were now stuck in what felt like a bloody stalemate.
Swinging his axe around, Percy carved through a sword-wielding Fire Nation soldier with brutal ease, and then buried his axe in another soldier's shoulder, crushing his pauldron and the bone underneath it.
Ripping his axe free, Percy shifted his watery arm into a long whip and lashed out with it, staggering several other soldiers as he left vicious, bloody rents in their armour and catching one – who had lost his helmet at some point – across the face, bisecting his skull.
Grimacing, Percy was forced to withdraw his whip and instead form it into a shield to fend off several large blasts of fire that crashed into his position, evaporating some of his water, even the dispersed fire scattered onto the ground around him.
He was being specifically targeted. Which was annoying, as in terms of benders it seemed the Fire Nation had more than them.
The commander of the garrison, he knew, had spared as many earthbenders as he had been able to for the sortie. But he'd also had to keep some back to maintain the defences around the city should the worse happen, and to keep order. This was unfortunate as the number of benders they had in the city garrison was already limited, as a lot of the benders from Omashu had volunteered to fight on the frontlines or had been conscripted into one of the Earth Kingdom's twenty-two legions.
In the end, they'd had just over two score earthbenders amongst their number, with twenty times that number in normal soldiers and militia conscripts.
In contrast, the Fire Nation seemed to have a similar number, if not more. And at present all these benders were deftly staying out of the melee and instead sending volley after volley of fire down on the attackers, alongside their crossbowmen and archers, even as their steel-clad infantry pushed forward with phalanxes of spearmen and walls of shield-wielding axe and swordsmen.
It was frustrating.
After all, things had started off well as they had charged forward in a large wedge with him running point and shattered the first line of defence. Within the first few minutes of conflict, they had weathered the Fire Nation's defences and had shredded most of the half-built palisade wall and started cannibalising the earthen ramparts for their own purposes.
The initial strike had sent the Fire Nation reeling and dozens of soldiers had been cut down as they tried to recover.
But then things had swiftly turned against them as an explosion of blue fire struck one of their flanks, scattering their forces and incinerating half a dozen soldiers in an instant. After that, more fire had begun raining down from above as the firebenders started getting into their rhythm. The onslaught of fire had then forced the defenders to raise shields and defends themselves.
After that, the Fire Nation had then swiftly recovered showing their training and professionalism as they formed up into units and started pushing forwards. Forcing them back even as firebenders and their long-range forces supported them by raining down death on the attackers, all while their iron-clad infantry lines and engines of war forced them back one step at a time.
Added to their counterattack were also the flaming boulders that started falling amongst their number, striking with unerring accuracy and brutal strength and speed.
He hadn't seen any catapults or trebuchets, nor had the garrison's scouts reported any. But they must have surely had them as dozens of large flaming oil-soaked rocks, some as big as a full-grown man crashed into the lines, breaking up their shield wall, and forcing many of their earthbenders onto the defensive as they had to fend off and deflect the now constantly falling boulders.
Upon seeing this turnaround, he had tried to rally the troops as best as he could by lashing out with volley water of javelins which had skewed dozens of men.
Which he had done to create more space for him to start going on the offensive, as he then started trying to start to pick off their long-range troops.
Unfortunately, that plan had swiftly fallen through as every time his water went over the frontline it was evaporated by fireblasts, or strangely just destabilised when it got too far away from him.
It was frustrating to see his efforts foiled, not that it mattered as he'd soon been forced to stop as the tide of battle continued to turn and he was once again dragged back into the vicious melee.
Adding to the ongoing chaos, were the reports he was getting from the flanks.
An elite firebender that could wield blue fire and lightning was tearing through the forces on the righthand side sending panicked men and women fleeing into the rest of the force, causing further confusion and chaos.
On their other flank meanwhile, there was a blade-wielding assassin of some sort and a marital artist that were specifically targeting earthbenders and sowing panic amongst their number, even as the Fire Nation soldiers on that side pushed forward and started folding the left flank in on itself.
Their only position that was still advancing at this point, was the centre and even that wasn't all that beneficial right now, as with the left flank folding in on itself and the right flank in chaos, they were in danger of being completely encircled.
The battle had only been joined for half an hour, and already things were falling apart.
The Fire Nation forces were more numerous than their reports had suggested, and they were better trained than the hodgepodge of city guards, mercenaries and conscripted militia that made up their force.
Added to that, the Fire Nation had artillery backing them up, more benders, and apparently some heavy hitters that were far beyond the skill level of the average soldier.
Growling in frustration, Percy slammed his axe into another man his enhanced strength driving it completely through his shield and breastplate, caving in his chest with an explosion of gore and hurling him back into the man behind him.
As he fought, he was aware of arrows and boulders flying over his head in the other direction as the Earth Kingdom's long-range support continued trying to harry the enemy by unloosing their projectiles over the heads of the melee and into the Fire Nation's bunched up units.
It wasn't enough, unfortunately.
The Earth Kingdom defenders were too green to stand up to the hardened Fire Nation veterans.
He could already sense the morale of the army failing.
Right now, although they were in a difficult position and on the back foot. They were still holding their own. They were losing men but were at least making the Fire Nation pay dearly for every man they cut down.
But even as he watched, he could see the tides were shifting.
If something big didn't happen soon they would be routed and then the fight would turn into a complete slaughter.
Tuning out the screams of the dying, and the sound of clashing blades and roaring fire, Percy held back a snarl as felt the haft of his axe break when he struck another soldier too hard.
Taking a step back, his foot sank several inches into the boggy ground. he dragged the remainder of the water from his bandolier and looked around.
There was fighting on all sides.
Their shield wall had all but collapsed as had the Fire Nation's phalanxes, and now both sides were locked in a deadly scrum as they hacked and slashed at anything that wore different colours to them.
All sense of organisation was gone.
Instead, there was just the madness of battle.
As blats of fire continued to rain down around him along with more flaming boulders, and steel bolts and arrows.
Looking around he could see men going down in sprays of blood as projectiles found their marks.
Some of those who were killed were probably hit by friendly fire.
He held back a grimace at that thought.
War often made monsters of them all.
Occasionally, there was a hot stopping scream of pain as someone was unlucky enough to get hit by fire, their flesh sizzling and hair and clothing aflame as they flinched back, only to be cut down in their moment of distraction.
It was horrible.
Thrusting the broken axe haft through the slit in a man's helmet. He then turned and shifted his watery arm into a blade, even as he cut down another man from behind, his solidified blade of water slicing up and under the rim of his helmet and into the back of his neck.
He could feel his head pounding.
His heart was beating so fast it felt like it was vibrating his bones.
His palm was sweaty, and he could feel dried sticky blood encrusting his face.
They would not be winning this fight.
Something had to change.
Something big had to happen.
He had to do something.
He was the one that had suggested the sortie and had led the attack.
He'd been the one that had pushed Bummi and the garrison commander to sally forth and break the siege before the Fire Nation became entrenched and the city was left to die of disease and starvation.
He had to do something big.
He had to do something to boost his side's morale and shatter the enemies.
There was still time to turn things around.
The battle wasn't so far gone that victory was out of sight.
If he didn't do something soon though, they would be routed, hundreds would be killed or captured, and the city would be doomed.
If he didn't do something the frontline would break, and the enemy would sweep over the backlines and slaughter them.
Suki would be in danger.
Suki could die.
He had to do something.
Clenching his hands into fists, he could feel his veins bulge and his gut clench.
He had to do something.
He could feel the earth beneath his feet shifting.
It was constantly vibrating, every grain of sand, every molecule that made it up, it was all vibrating.
The world was in constant motion too. He could feel it spinning on its axis at a thousand miles an hour, even as it orbited the sun at over sixty-seven thousand miles per hour.
He could almost feel the earth beneath him spin on its axis.
He could sense the push and pull of the tides.
He could feel the moonlight shining down upon him and covering everything around him in a silvery glow, with the occasional flash of red, orange and blue from the fighting firebenders ruining the atmosphere.
He took a deep breath and pulled.
For a moment all was still.
For a single solitary moment, it felt like he was in a void.
The bloody slurry at his feet froze.
The air across the battlefield became heavy as the moisture in it suddenly condensed.
The bedrock far beneath him cracked, as for a single solitary everything stopped moving.
At some point in time, he had closed his eyes.
He didn't remember doing it.
Opening his eyes, saw a wild-eyed Fire Nation soldier bearing down on him, almost as if he were in slow motion, a pole axe held tightly in his white-knuckled hands as he started to bring it down on his unarmed skull. If it hit it would cleave his skull in two.
He didn't feel scared though.
Instead, his body felt electrified, almost like he had been struck with lighting, again.
Every cell in his body seemed to be bursting with barely restrained energy.
His eyes were burning.
And his gut felt like it had a ball of molten lead in it.
It felt like he had just downed a vat of battery acid.
It was like his insides were trying to tear themselves apart.
The flesh on his skin felt tight and alien, almost like he had a fleshy mask stretched over his actual face.
He exhaled.
His breath misted in front of him.
He could see the individual ice crystals forming within it.
It felt like something was inside him, and was begging, no screaming and clawing to get out.
Gritting his teeth, he just pushed everything outward and towards the Fire Nation lines in front of him.
Looking up he was just in time to meet the terrified eyes of his would-be killer.
A moment later the man's body was turned into an explosion of bloody mist, bone and shrapnel as a barely visible wave of force erupted from Percy and passed through him.
The wave of force didn't stop there though.
As stood there, the boggy ground below him frozen solid in an instant, trapping everyone around him in its icy grip, even as the moisture in the air itself also froze coating everyone in the vicinity in frost.
At the same time, the earth seemed to shake as a localised earthquake, far beyond anything he had felt before, struck the area downing trees, crumbling walls and knocking all who hadn't been trapped in ice onto the ground.
Holding steady, Percy barely noticed any of this, as he instead watched the wave of force continue along its path pulping anyone it struck as it spread out through the centre of the Fire Nation lines.
Men and women explored like sacks of blood.
Their armour might as well be made of paper for all the good it seemed to do them.
His legs felt weak as staggered forward a step, but he didn't pay attention to that.
Instead, he just watched in shock as the wave of pure force tore through the front lines of the Fire Nation army. The wave turned everyone within fifty feet of him into bloody mist, before then eviscerating the bodies of those within a hundred feet of him, and finally sending those within a hundred and fifty feet of rag dolling through the air; even as it shattered the remains of the palisade wall blew the earth rampart to pieces, and levelled scores of trees. Before finally dispersing as little more than a very strong gust that continued rolling through the surrounding forest.
Catching himself before he fell onto one knee, Percy looked up and took in what he had just done.
The area directly in front of him was a gouged-out field of broken limbs and bloody piles of flesh.
A bloody scar in the land hundred feet long, and fifty feet wide.
Looking around, he could see a sea of red mist covering the area directly in front of him.
The entire Fire Nation centre was gone, and its backline was in shambles as dazed and injured archers and firebenders struggled to recover.
Letting out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding he relaxed his hand and unconsciously unfroze the filth beneath him freeing his fellow soldiers from its icy embrace.
For a few seconds, there was silence across the battlefield as those around him, on both sides, looked at him in awe and terror.
The Fire Nation forces on both flanks were slow to recover as the captains and officers who would normally beat their soldiers into line, struggled to comprehend what had just happened to a whole chunk of their army.
A good quarter of their invasion force, hundreds of men, had just ceased to exist.
His own forces were similarly slow to respond as Earth Kingdom soldiers stood next to Fire Nation soldiers.
Both sides were momentarily in complete shock about what had just happened.
The silence only lasted a few seconds though, before it was broken by the screams and cries of the injured and dying.
The sounds of torment shattered the moment, and almost at once, the fighting restarted as with a roar the Earth Kingdom soldiers fell upon the dazed Fire Nation soldiers and slaughtered them.
In his periphery, he could hear the Fire Nation officers shouting and howling as they quickly started reforming their lines and adapting to the disaster. The Fire Nation's defensive arc had been completely split in two revealing their new flanks to the vengeful Earth Kingdom army.
In Fire Nation's backlines those still capable of standing, slowly struggled to their feet, even as the remainder of their reserves, nearly a hundred men, started streaming in from behind them; including a hulking, tanned dark-haired man in ornate Fire Nation armour.
The man had piercing forest-green eyes.
At the man's back three other smaller men in equalling ornate armour.
Judging by their armour and the way the reinforcements crowded around them, these men were probably high-ranking officers. Possibly even the commander of the invading force, and his elite guard.
Pushing himself to his feet, Percy ignored his exhaustion and picked up a fallen poleaxe from the ground in front of him.
Testing its weight, he then pointed it at the slowly recovering Fire Nation army.
"Charge!" Percy roared his feet digging into the ground as he once again led the way.
Behind him, the battered remnants of his force let out a tired cheer and followed his lead, as he quickly ate up the distance between him and the enemy, the bloody mist around him clinging to his form like a second skin as he bulled through it and rushed the Fire Nation's backlines.
As he led the way, his own backline took the initiative as officers gave orders and boulders and arrows started hurtling overhead and into the beleaguered Fire Nation army cutting down a swathe of men as the officers struggled to reorganise them.
In the centre, the large green-eyed officer let loose a snarl as he saw Percy, his form cloaked in the blood of loyal Fire Nation soldiers storming towards him.
Letting loose a war cry of his own, he slammed his bare feet into the ground, and rushed forward, dragging the Fire Nation reserves along with him as he surged forward to meet Percy's charge head-on. Behind him, the three similarly armoured men joined him in his charge, water flowing across their forms as they stalked forward like apex predators, their eyes alight with the promise of violence.
"Flank the sides!" Percy shouted to some of his men, his eyes widening a fraction as he caught sight of the three enemy waterbenders.
In response, some of the men from the Earth Kingdom centre peeled off and hit the wavering Fire Nation army in the flanks, even as battle was swiftly re-joined only now the advantage had once again shifted in favour of the Earth Kingdom army.
In the distance, as he saw the dark-haired man stamp his feet and summon forth a forest of sharp rocky spires, angled right for him and his men, he was peripherally aware of an explosion of blue fire appearing from the right flank.
A cliché as it might sound.
The real fight for Omashu had just begun.
( - )
(In the Spirit World)
Without warning a sudden ripple passed through the ever-changing, ever-shifting Spirit World, dispersing the mists lay across much of the land, and sending corresponding ripples through the great lakes and ponds that dotted its landscape.
Following the ripple of force, the ground itself began to tremble. Unsteadying wandering lesser spirits, knocking trees over and causing ancient ruins that had stood for millennia to collapse.
In that single instance, all those in the Spirit World, from the lowliest spirit to the greatest, felt something irrevocably change in the lower world.
The disturbance, whatever it was, awoke some of the ancient spirits, those that had been born when the world was still newly forming, from their ages-long slumber.
One ancient spirit in particular, one of the few that had never slept, raised her head in interest. Her burning golden eyes were alight with curiosity as she felt one of her chosen ones. One of her champions in the mortal plane crying out for her aid. Smiling, her interest now piqued, she rose from her ashen throne for the first time in aeons.
She was not the only one though, as powerful spirits that had long since grown bored of humanity found their attention once again drawn in the mortal realm. One in particular, one who possessed many faces, let out a giggle of delight, even as he scuttled over to the nearest pool to find the source of the disturbance.
As the after-effects of the wave continued to radiate, vengeful, angry spirits who had long delighted in tormenting the weak, found cracks forming in their archaic prisons as seals that should never have been broken flickered as the wave of unfamiliar energy ghosted over them.
In the centre of the Spirit World, in a vast crater devoid of all life save for a single humongous tree. A creature born of chaos itself stirred from his prison in the trunk of the great trees.
His attention was once more fixed on the waking world.
For countless ages he had been imprisoned, trapped within the world tree by its equal and opposite, and for the first time in millennia it felt a stirring of hope.
Something new had appeared in the mortal realm.
Something dangerous.
Something chaotic.
No, someone had arrived.
Someone who had the potential to shatter the status quo and bring about true change in all its chaotic majesty.
( - )
AN: So not one hundred per cent on this chapter. Maybe surprisingly considering how many stories I have, this is the first proper battle I've written. So, yeah I'm not sure how well I pulled it off, hopefully, decent enough. If not, I'm sure when I have some time I can go back and make some edits, let me know your thoughts.
Additionally, there was some stuff in this chapter that I've been planning for a while. Particularly the bit with the spirit world, and Percy's first time pushing past his limits.
The next chapter will finish the battle, and have some aftermath, plus it will have some other POVs and will shed a bit more light on what happened, and add context that is probably missing at the moment. It's one of the downsides of my episodic style of writing, and the lack of visual aids.
But that's part and parcel of writing fanfics I guess.
Either way, let me know what you think.
Also, I am on discord with a load of other writers, so if you fancy popping over to ask questions or offer suggestions about this story, or any of my other ones, or to find new authors you might not have come across yet, please feel free to use the link in my bio.
Thanks for reading and if you have any suggestions or questions feel free to PM me or find me on Discord.
Also, I have an experimental new ATLA story out called Shattering Expectations which is My Hero Academia/ ATLA story set in the world of Avatar, please do check it out if it sounds like something you'd enjoy!
Catch you later.
Greed720.