Chapter 05 - Prepare for the Main Quest
Double update to maintain the story pacing. Enjoy!
Also, added back a few missing things from the stories, such as the the line breaks that was indicated by the astrix signs.
I also added back a few lines back into the story while reviewing the line breaks turns out FFN removes some of the lines from my odt files. Like WTF...
I will try to find fill in the missing parts if possible, please quote the paragraph you find the flow of the story was a bit weird, so that I can check and see if i need to upload some hot fixes.
(Less than sign)(Greater than sign) Is used by the [System] talking telepathically at Xin Wo
"" Is used when People are talking out loud
Empty space simply meant Xin Wo or whoever's POV was thinking or communicating via their thoughts
ooOoo
(Less than sign)[Waterbending (Fake)] and the other subsequent related skills are artificial bending skills. At its lowest level, it only serves as a perception illusion that allows you to display bending abilities that you otherwise have no natural affinity to. In its current early stages, it serves more as a visual effect than a probable way of attacking and defending yourself. The equipment granted with these fake bending skills are just ways to help easier to actualize the illusion when you can't control the elements themselves naturally without physical contact.(Greater than sign)
So it's just a set of useless skills?
(Less than sign)Well, if you play your cards right, you can fool others into thinking that you are the Avatar. If not, you can incorporate it into battles to make things more advantageous to you.(Greater than sign)
Sure... I will figure that out once I am done with the [Quest (Main): [It's Never Too Soon to Start the Story]. But first, dinner with Kya.
(Less than sign)You mean dinner with Kya and her kids...(Greater than sign)
Don't ruin this for me... Wait, what's with the smoke over at Wolf Cove? I thought the attack starts tomorrow, I rolled one day, right?
(Less than sign)Technically the quest will begin in one or less days. Factoring your intervention with the story, it's not surprising that some established history might have been altered by you and me.(Greater than sign)
Well, shouldn't I at least get a notification that the attack has begun? What if I fail the quest because I trained in the cave overnight?
(Less than sign)Well, the [System] isn't obligated to tell you anything other than the provided quest information. Also, if you do just stay in the cave for the night, you would've got Route 01 (True End), which will still let you get your rewards. But then...(Greater than sign)
I know, Kya's death, can't let that happen, she doesn't deserve this. Her husband sounds like a wife-neglecting piece of shit who just left her to take care of their kids. When she passed, he left his kids to fight an unwinnable battle. Also apparently, now he's a cheating piece of shit, who left his wife alone at home to take care of their kids, coming back for breakfast whenever he's free. I seriously don't want Kya to be with him after I save her.
I quickly ran back to the large settlement, but the main gate that Sui and Shui were guarding was now unattended. Ignoring the icky feeling that was creeping up from my stomach, I passed through the entrance and sprinted back to Kya's igloo. But just as I was about to turn the corner, and run into the igloo, my PER missed Katara who was running towards me, leading to both of us falling to our butts as we crashed into each other.
While Katara fell on the floor and was struggling to get up from the pain, with my improved AGI, I was already using the momentum that pushed me back to perform a back roll, before jumping back forward to rush into the igloo, just like how I had practiced earlier today in the dark caves.
"Kya! Are you here?" I shouted as the blue curtain I had just burst through still fluttering behind me from the force that I had just exerted. Hearing no response, and looking around at the food and plates that were all stepped over and destroyed, with bits of broken plates scattered around the floor. Either Kya was having a food fight in her home, or she tried to fend off her intruder with her dinner that she had painstakingly prepared for her family and I. Realizing that staying in here any longer wouldn't help with the situation, I rushed back out to chase after Katara, as it seemed like she ran out of the igloo right before we ran into each other.
With Katara's small stature, I quickly spotted her and caught up to her with my bigger strides. It made it easier to spot her out of the chaotic crowd as she was waddling wherever she was trying to head to.
"Katara! Stop!" I cried out, but my cries were unheard of by her. Damn it... It's not great that we were separated by a panicked crowd that was running away from the danger en masse, and the small group of warriors heading to where I presume the enemy's invasion force originated from.
Knowing that it would be a matter of time before I lost sight of Katara and the chance to catch up to her, I decided to pick up a horn that I happened to find lying on the floor. Ignoring the potential to contract some transmutable disease out of it, I stuck my mouth and blew on it as hard as I could, drawing the attention of the people around me, even Katara slowed down in her tracks to look over in my direction to see what was wrong.
"Everyone, calm down! The warriors are handling the situation properly, as long as everyone evacuates in an orderly fashion, no one has to worry about getting hurt! And Katara, wait over there for me, I will be coming over soon, I have some questions to ask you!" I shouted at the crowd who had their attention on me, after I had tossed the horn away.
Shoving the people who were earlier blocking my way forward, I quickly got next to Katara, and kneeled to her eye level, questioning her, "Do you know what happened to your mother? Where is she, Katara?"
Katara shook her head with tears in her eyes and replied, "Mom told me to go find dad, saying that he will handle it. She was at home, didn't you see her when you went inside?"
Sigh... Whoever had Kya must have taken her away quickly from the scene after she told Katara to find help. Her captor is at least smart enough to fall back with the target instead of risking being overwhelmed himself. Based on the show, Kya was captured because she claimed to know where the last waterbender was from the Southern Water Tribe. Unless even that part was changed because of me.
"Katara, you can go tell your dad about the situation, but there's not much your dad can do by the time you tell him if no one knows where your mom went. So I will go track down your mother, while you get help." I tried to calm Katara down and tell her to continue with her task, before heading off myself to track Kya down.
Without any leads, I guess my only option is to head over to the invasion area and hope to catch a glimpse of a lead for me to follow.
Damn it. By the time I got to where the warriors were, the Southern Raiders had already begun their retreat and left the area. I tried to ask the warriors if any of them spotted Kya, but most of them claimed that she died, even though they couldn't point to a body that I could at least recover from.
Once Katara finally caught up with me and found her dad for help, he introduced himself as Hakoda.
I scrunched up my face and was baffled when I was introduced to Hakoda, who was Katara and Sokka's dad. I can't believe Kya's shitty husband and Hakoda the polar bear doggo slayer were the same person.
Controlling my disgust towards the piece of human trash to the best of my abilities, I filled him in that Kya is in danger and had disappeared from her home, then I asked Hakoda, hoping to see if he knew what to do in this situation. But all I got back from him was, "We won the battle and got to fight another day. They will leave us alone now that they got what they came for."
What the hell? This neglectful piece of shit just gave up on his wife and accepted the situation as is? I got to give it to him for at least acting like he cared about Kya when he ran back home with Katara to do a cursory check to see that his wife was indeed gone without a trace, instead of rejecting outright to save the children's mother to fulfill their whims.
I really want to beat the shit out of Hakoda for his actions, honestly not sure what Kya liked about this guy. But I know now isn't the time, especially with the children around. Without any leads about Kya's whereabouts, and Hakoda ordering everyone to go back to their daily lives, I am left with waiting for [It's Never Too Soon to Start the Story] to end with Route 01 (True End). Can I not avert Kya's fate even with my powers? Will Katara and Sokka hate me for delaying Katara from reaching for their father sooner for help? Should I have trained some more, or leave the Southern Water Tribe as soon as possible? I really can't stand Hakoda and his bullshit logic...
"Hey, Xin Wo, over here!" Sui called me over while I was still wallowing in my thoughts.
"Hey, what do you want?" I asked in return dejectedly.
Sui first looked around to make sure no one was watching over us, before he whispered to me, "Did you see the invasion fleet earlier?"
"What?"
"Did you see..." Sui repeated.
"I heard you the first time, of course I had, from the looks of it, you guys were outnumbered, yet you beat the Southern Raiders to retreat. Great defensive guys." I remarked sarcastically, still feeling glum about losing Kya.
"That's the point. Their numbers had pretty much remained the same while we kept losing our forces from injuries and the ongoing attrition. As much as I don't want to admit it, the enemies not only outnumber us, they are also better than us in terms of training and skills." Sui reasoned.
"Your point?"
"This is all just a show, we did these defensive battles for a long time now, and to be honest, we would've been wiped out long ago if not for some sort of deal with the enemies. At least that's what I think." Sui continued with the information and his reasoning, which brought me to my attention.
"Deal?"
"Yeah, I know that you are an outsider, but did you know that Hakoda's grandfather had led this settlement? So did Hakoda's father? While it is currently ruled by a friend of Hakoda's father, his health isn't doing too well right now after getting stabbed in the stomach and setting his insides on fire by the Southern Raiders during our most recent defensive siege." Sui explained.
"Are you suggesting...?"
"Yes, while I don't have any proof, I bet I am not the only one who spotted this peculiarity and tried to dig into the truth behind this. Hakoda's family aren't what I would consider to be the best candidates to rule Wolf Cove, but their competitors just so happened to be incapacitated or dead, leading to Hakoda's family taking over as the chief of the tribe. Many others like me just like the competitors more often than not happened to be silenced during the raids, either being killed, maimed, kidnapped, etc. They were made as examples more than one time already, it's especially apparent for those who lived long enough to remember it." Sui finally presented his theory to me after building his case.
Pausing a little bit to let me sink in the information, Sui continued to explain to me more about the polar bear dog situation by adding that Hakoda decided to use them as food, believing that the tribe didn't need more competition in taking away our dwindling food supply at the time. To help convince the tribe, Hakoda took his boomerang knife and slit the throat of his personal polar bear dog, Sigpum, whom he had as a boy since he was 5 to lead us by example.
While I am not currently in the best-unbiased mindset, it did feel weird that in the original show, Hakoda thought it was a good idea to take away all the able-bodied men to fight a losing battle, leaving the Southern Water Tribe defenseless. However, I decided to try asking around to verify the information that was presented to me.
"Don't! I know that look, I lost a close friend of mine to that. She made the same look when I shared with her about my theory. When she wanted to dig deeper by asking around, she was never seen from the village again, and we never found her body." Sui held on to my right shoulder as he warned me about it.
"I appreciate your concerns, but I was just thinking about if I can try to help Wolf Cove by using the 40 coins I had to help with the relief effort." I comforted him with a white lie while shrugging off Sui.
"Thank you for your generosity, but forget about it, this is the biggest settlement in the Southern Water Tribe, the other tribes still use bartering in their local economy. There is a reason why we barely trade with the other tribes, they are far away, have no money, and so few people live in them, it's a wonder they can still survive. The other villages reported that the Southern Raiders only attacked them maybe once in a full moon." Sui said.
Hearing enough from him after he shot down my plan to escape to other tribes if his conspiracy was too much for me. I walked away, as I pulled up the [Quest (Main): [It's Never Too Soon to Start the Story] window to see if there were any updates.
(Less than sign)Opening [Quest:
Main Quest:
[It's Never Too Soon to Start the Story] – It's currently 5 years before Aang emerges from the iceberg. And it is your choice to choose how you would like the events to play out.
Success Conditions:
Route 01 (True End):
Keep the timeline pretty much the same, Kya will die and Katara and Sokka will grow up without their parents, living with Kanna.
Route 05 (Secret End):
You had uncovered the secret that Wolf Cove isn't as peaceful as it seems on the surface. The other Southern Water Tribes are also doing much worse than expected. Maybe try investigating some more to attain this route.
Failure Condition:
Route 03 (Bad End):
Route 03 (Bad End):
Surrender and join the Fire Nation navy as a rescued citizen.
Route 04 (Bad End):
Fight with the Southern Water Tribe in a full defensive battle, escalating the situation and leading to the destruction of Wolf Cove, death of Katara and Sokka.
Success Rewards:
Route 01 will lead to (Plus sign)20 to all stats, [Fast Track Ticket] x3, and a [CP coupon (500 CP)] that is worth 500 CP.
Route 05 will lead to previous rewards (Plus sign) hidden rewards.
Failure Penalties:
Locking faction alignment to Fire Nation until future decisions. The Avatar world ends with Aang enslaved or dead. The user ends with early death.(Greater than sign)
Well, Route 02 (Happy End) disappeared, not sure if I should be sad that Katara and Sokka's family life won't be the same, or that they won't be living with Hakoda in a "happy" family.
But it's great to see I made some progress with Route 05 (Secret End) after listening to Sui. I guess I should check Kya's igloo before deciding which route I should finish on with the quest, seeing that Sui warned me against digging deeper with how suspicious Hakoda was acting.
Welp, I guess Sokka won't be liking me anytime soon, but in my defense, Sokka had it coming and he deserved it.
This happened soon after I finished looking into the messy igloo this time more closely, and luckily, I was able to find a small trail of jerky that at first seemed too far apart from one another to mean anything. However, when I tried to follow a piece of jerky that somehow got hidden under a pile of snow outside of the igloo. It didn't take me long to piece together that it was an intentional trail left by someone, presumably Kya, as clues to hopefully inform people where they were.
Before I knew it, I started to follow the short trail before finding some footprints that were undisturbed, heading north. Soon, I was in front of the settlement's white walls, with the footprints ending there. But it was obvious to continue by scaling up the wall when I found feet-sized footholds scattered on the white icy wall made by melting the ice. It was a simple deduction that the firebender who kidnapped Kya must have gotten out of the tribe by scaling the walls.
Just as I was about to follow in the same footholds, a boyish yell was heard from behind me, "Stop! You had gone on far enough!" I turned around to see Katara and Sokka, with Sokka pointing his boomerang knife at me, while Katara looked at her older brother with a face of confusion.
"Sokka, we are supposed to tail someone sneakily, not shouting out loud that we are here!" Katara complained.
"Quite Katara! And you had gone on far enough outsider!" Sokka retorted back.
"It's Xin Wo. Sokka, am I right? Your mother had introduced you to me before."
"Shut up! I can see that you seem to be following some leads, but dad had ordered us to resume our lives." Sokka demanded me as he closed in on me.
"Yeah, I don't care about that, as you had said I am an outsider. Also, I am here saving your mom, I don't care if you guys want to come with me or not, just don't get in the way, or else." I tried to hold in my annoyance for this shit wasting the precious time to save Kya from peril.
"Sokka, let's go. Mom is in danger and she needs our help more than anything." Katara tried to convince Sokka to change his mind while trying to head to my side.
"No, dad said we are to continue with our lives. And if her disappearance means that our home will be safe, then she is expendable." Sokka retorted as he held on to Katara's arm, not letting her go.
"What?! Let go Sokka, mom got in trouble because of me, and what did you mean "expendable", she's our mom!" Katara cried out in worry, feeling like this person wasn't his brother at all. As the siblings were struggling amongst themselves, I clocked Sokka right in the jaw, sending him flying backwards.
"Don't you dare call your mom expendable you little shit. She's the one who gave life to you and carried you for 9 months." I shouted before grabbing onto Katara's wrist, the two had wasted enough of my time and the later I got to Kya, the more danger she would be in.
Pulling Katara by her wrist, I quickly scaled the wall by jumping on the footholds. Looking out from the top of the wall, I can see black smoke barely visible from the horizon. Taking out my [Binoculars, I was able to see three Southern Raiders frigates sailing in a V formation, heading north.
I should be able to catch up to them if I get on my boat. "Katara, you have to trust me on this, but..."
"Just do what you had to do. I haven't seen Mom being that happy for a long time, and she has become that way since you came back home with her in the morning." Katara simply said, putting her full trust in the only person she can now count on to save her mom.
"Yeah, well I am talking about something else. Just trust me that I mean you guys no harm. Other than Sokka, or maybe your dad."
"Sokka had it coming, he really shouldn't hold everything dad had said in that high of a regard any..." I didn't really bother to listen more of what Katara was saying I only shouted "Hang on!" before pulling Katata with me and falling off the wall.
"AHHHHHH!" Katara shouted right into my ears, maybe I should've clarified that I was asking her to jump off with me. Soon after, I ignited twin jets of fire under my feet, dampening our fall.
"Sorry that I haven't explained to you in more detail, but you have seen nothing yet."
Before Katara could start shouting expletives at me for being reckless, I ran to the shore that had skid marks in the shape of a small boat and pulled out my metal skiff boat from my [Inventory-]. At that moment, her jaw simply fell slack at how a boat magically appeared out of thin air.
"Ask me for details on the way, let's go." I ignored her stupor form, as I yanked her arm and pulled her into my metal skiff boat.
"Don't you dare ruin the flooring." That was the last thing I said before I started up the [Fire Nation Flash-Steamer Engine (Experimental)] with the flames from my hands, setting course to the three Fire Nation Cruisers, chasing them in a hot pursuit.
"Uhh... Mr. Xin... Uhhh... you can boat bend? I've thought you can only bend 4 elements..." Katara tried to wrap her mind around the 2 great secrets that I had just displayed in front of her.
"Haha, very funny Katara, also you can just call me Xin Wo."
"Who are you? How did you get the boat? Why go save my mother? Should I be worried for my life?" She bombarded me with rapid questions.
"It's too late to ask if you should be worried about your life Katara. I am just an explorer from the Fire Nation, I don't agree with how they do things, but I sure like to enjoy myself with some adventure from time to time with my trusty boat. I got my boat with my unique set of skills, and I like your mother for being such a kind soul, it will be a sad day for the world to lose such a wonderful woman to such mindless acts of violence."
"Sure, I will go with what you said for now, but how will we save my mother, we are outnumbered, and last I checked, there are three ships, we don't even know which one they took my mother in." She looked away from me, looking at the horizon, spotting the bellowing smoke that was coming from the Fire Nation Cruisers.
"Simple, we sneak onboard in the dead of night, disable their engines, and slowly fight our way till we find her."
"Yeah, as if things will be that simple."
"The frigates move by using something called a steam engine to move, and they need to burn coals to heat the water inside to make it move. So I think all we have to do is try to put out the fire for the engine to make it stop producing heat, and wet the coals so they will be stuck in the open seas. And if all else fails, we can just destroy the steam engine." I reasoned to Katata with my logic.
"Whatever you say, as long as you save mom. It seems that she trusted you a lot, so I will place my trust in you as well. At least you got dad beat in this department." Katara believed in what I had said after I had shown her the revelations prior.
"No worries, I will make sure your mom's safe, and also you, who your mother cared a lot for."
"Sure, as long as you don't beat me up like you did with Sokka, then I'm with you." Katara looked away as she marveled at the speed we are going on water, trying to distract herself from the unknown dangers that we will no doubt face ahead of us.
Kya POV
"So, are you the last waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe?" The commander of the Southern Raiders said.
...
"No answer huh? That's fine, if you are the last one, we can just kill you in a bit, if not, we can try to lure the last one here, and we also get to get rid of one more pesky Water Tribesman." The commander taunted me while I kept my eyes closed, ignoring him.
...
"Commander, before you are done with her, can the boys and I take a turn with her before you interrogate her? We did a great job with your plan, right? Plus the boys are getting restless out in the ocean, if you know what I mean?" A soldier came inside the room to request the commander.
"No, I will finish interrogating her tomorrow, then you guys have an hour and that's that." The commander replied resolutely.
The soldier blessed the commander, "Very well commander, happy interrogation." before leaving the room alone again with just us two.
Hakoda, I will keep my baby girl safe, so I wish you to in turn do the same for our children. And Xin Wo, I am sorry I wasn't able to have that dinner with you.
xxXxx
Thank you for reading the version of the fifth chapter.
You can find the same story updated in Ao3, as they have rich text format that won't get rid of my system brackets. So I am trying this new way to fix things as it is easier on my end to fix than bolding the text. Tell me if you guys are okay with this method in the comments.
I also post the story faster in Ao3 (Title and author under the same name), with it up to chapter 6. Go over there to check it out if interested.
If you enjoy what I write, and want to read ahead, come visit my Pa-page. I don't intend to paywall my stuff, but any support I get can help keep me writing instead of dealing with whatever life throws at me.
p.a.t.e.r.o.n.c.o.m/ Justtry123
The following is Xin Wo's current status.
(Less than sign)Status:
Wo, Xin
Alignment – Fire Bender (Gamer Type)
Level – 10 (8%)
HP – 20/20 (F-)
MP – 33/33 (F-)
SP – 30/30 (F-)
STR – 14 (E-)
PER – 10-(Greater than sign) 14 (E-)
END – 13-(Greater than sign) 15 (E-)
DEX – 9 (F(Plus sign))
[Gacha]
[Observe]
[Analysis-]
[Gamer Body Type]
LCK – 33-(Greater than sign) 35 (D-)
(F-(Greater than sign) E-(Greater than sign) D-(Greater than sign) C-(Greater than sign) B-(Greater than sign) A-(Greater than sign) S-(Greater than sign) SS-(Greater than sign) SSS-(Greater than sign) EX) ("(Plus sign)" and "-" can be added to denote slight changes to the level of the stats)
Unallocated Stats: 12
Skills:
[Mapping]
[Basic Survival Skills]
[Cold Weapon Mastery]
[Market]
[Territorial Claim]
[Gacha]
[Gacha]
[Observe]
[Analysis-]
[Inventory-]
[Screenshot-]
[Firebender Novice]
[Journalist Difficulty]
[Quest]
[Waterbending (Fake)]
Perks:
[Gamer Body Type]
[Navigation]
[The World is a Numbers Game]
[Permission not granted]
[Unlucky Beginnings]
Background: [Pioneer](Greater than sign)