Fluke
It's hard to know who it is that you can rely on until you're neck deep in shit with them. When it's their life and/or those of the people around them on the line, somebody is prone to show their nature: if they're survivors, like Riu, Aden, myself, or if they're selfless, people like Miro and Reek, and perhaps to an extent too, Danev. You could trust these people, at least to the extent that you knew what to expect of them. Somebody selfless, you could rely on to put others before themselves, to be courageous, to step in the way of danger for the sake of others if it came to it. The survivors, you could rely on to look out after themselves, and you could make sense of their actions, ensure that their interests would align with yours.
You could trust these people.
Then there were others–those like Gunji, who I'd made the mistake of giving the benefit of the doubt. He wasn't concerned with the safety of others, nor with his own. When it came down to it, he was terrified, he froze, he was, in simple terms, a coward.
"Gunji! Hard brakes!" Gan screamed, our tank about to collide with one in front of us, run off its trail and directly into ours on account of an earthbender's boulder taken to the starboard hull.
The brakes would not come in time. We collided into the tank in front of us, and collided hard. I lurched forward, just barely held in place by my turret seat's straps. We came to a near total halt, grinding forward at an agonizing rate as a just as agonizing screech emanated from before us, our tank still pushing against theirs.
It was hard to know which of us was the easier target, but the Earth Kingdom hardly had that same difficulty deciding.
The hull of the tank in front of us had already been breached, leaving the crew exposed to the firebomb that was thrown within, torching the crew inside.
They were a lost cause. Gan steered the tank to try and take us off of its route, now drifting lifelessly as we pushed it saide to try and get away. It was only now that the hard brakes kicked in, Gunji's doing.
"Damnit, Gunji!" Gan screamed. "Brakes!"
"You told me to put them on!"
Gan didn't bother arguing, only yelling, "Fluke!" to signal it was my time to unfuck Gunji's mistake.
I finished firing a blast of fire at an earthbender, tall and bearded with green eyes, who'd been creating a small earthquake originating from himself that had been swiftly creeping towards our position. Thankfully, it stopped in its tracks as he fell to the ground, a smoking crater in his chest that left his right arm hanging onto his torso only by a thread. Another notch on my helm. Four now.
I abandoned my post once he was confirmed dead, unstrapping myself swiftly to hop down to Gunji's level, raising the brake as he still seemed unaware of the demands of the situation.
I noticed too that the fire of the coal engine was dying low, and so quickly opened the hatch before adding flame of my own and closing it again. The process was nearly interrupted by another collision on our left side, one I met to address now, calling to Gan as I crawled back into my turret seat, "Brake's up!"
And sure enough, the brakes up, the aim of our newest attacker thrown off by a non-fatal fireblast of mine, and additional fire fed to our engine, we were moving, right back into the hell of everything.
It'd all gone exactly as anticipated, meaning terribly for us. We'd drawn the Earth Kingdom's ambushers out of hiding, only too effectively. We were dead in the center of what couldn't have been less than three-hundred combatants, archers, infantrymen, and benders alike. Those of us in the 42nd armored who'd remained, dispatched for the sole purpose of clearing them out, should have had the advantage. We had speed, we had armor, we had quite literal firepower, but they had the earth themselves.
A spike from the earth rose from the ground, penetrating the hull of another tank from the 3rd platoon from beneath, pinning them in place, sealing the fate of those who hadn't been lucky enough to be killed by the initial attack.
"Where the fuck are our reinforcements?!"
The other platoons should have been here minutes ago. That'd been the whole point of the signal flares we'd been equipped with. The whole point of not traveling as lone patrols. All the good that'd done.
I turned my turret, spotting a pair of soldiers, one infantryman and one archer. I let out a stream of fire, consuming the former, unable to sustain it to consume the one after, but it wouldn't matter. He was going nowhere. Five, I thought to myself, his face flashing before my vision, a child compared to the last, maybe only a year or two older than myself. At most. It didn't matter, he was an enemy with us in our scopes, and it was him or us.
Looking behind us now, an earthbender picking a rock from the ground to hurl it our way. A blast from my end and his aim was thrown off, missing horribly. He was out of range, no longer a threat.
"Ahead of us!" Gan called, turning my attention there to yet another earthbender, not satisfied to hurl a rock, but instead manifesting a wall from the earth itself, pulling it up to meet us dead in the eye, and straight in our tracks, too close to avoid, too strong to just plow through. Not without help.
I didn't know what it would accomplish, if maybe I could blast through, but I figured it was still better than nothing. We were on a collision course that would have disabled us in an instant if we hit. It was accept that, or try…anything.
I shot ahead, aimed at the wall, not knowing in the slightest if it would pay off, but reached forward with both my hands to spout out flame as Gan tried to slow us down, but would be unable to. Flame still pouring out of my hands, I shut my eyes, regretting that I hadn't again fastened my restraints, preparing for the impact that would come.
And come it did, but only with a fraction of the force that I'd expected. We hit, and broke though. I shut my eyes quickly lest the dust and smoke from outside work there way past the slit of my helm. The only senses available to me for that moment of impact was the crashing and crumbling of stone around us accompanied by a "Holy shit," in disbelief from Gan. When I opened my sight next, however, a far more welcome sight awaited us–that of dozens of other tanks, all Fire Nation, rumbling across the battlefield towards the Earth Kingdom antagonists.
"'Bout fucking time!" Gan said with an unmistakable relief at the sight of reinforcements. They'd taken the Earth Kingdom here by surprise, that was for sure. Why aren't there more of them?
It was about four platoons worth of friendly tanks on approach, and I took it that the others simply hadn't responded yet, but hell, it was a start. All the same, it was no reason to let our guard down. Not when we were still in the thick of it.
The earthbender who'd tried to block our path still had us in his sights, and was not about to let our escape go uncontested. With the bit of wall that still stood after we'd plowed through it, he broke it into medium-sized boulders and proceeded to throw them our way, one at a time and not lacking for ammo. I had only turned in time to see the first one thrown our way, speeding towards us at a horrifying rate.
"Hard left!" I yelled at Gan, just in time for the first to impact the earth just barely to our right, dirt and pebbles pounding against our starboard side.
I would have thought that we'd be able to get out of range quickly enough, but the man was not giving up. I watched long enough to see the earth transform beneath his feet, rising below him as though he was trying to erect himself on a pedestal, but it wasn't that. Far from it, as I soon realized when that bit of earth began speeding towards us, it was a vessel of his own, and not lacking for speed.
"He's on us!" I yelled.
"Well fucking kill him then!"
I was a good shot when it came to firebending. Not as good as others in my class like Mykezia was or Torai had been before being swallowed whole by the Earth, but I could manage well enough. Moving targets on the other hand, and moving targets like this, it was another matter entirely.
To our rear and right, I had rights on the earthbender as he approached on a direct route. There was no time to focus on anything else but for the man on approach, and so we passed by our fair assortment of battling Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation, too focused on one another to bother with us, or at least figuring we were already "handled."
I fired a blast of fire at our approacher, the shot going wide as he effortlessly altered his direction. He fired a shot of his own now, one that on account of my order for "Right!" luckily landed only beside us. He was quick on a followup though, this one going straight into our path, and hitting the rear of our vessel, eliciting a pained grunt from both Gan and I and a whimper from Gunji who with every second was proving himself little better than dead weight.
It was time for my shot again, which I let out, directly on target, destined to hit. Only it didn't. The earthbender raised a rock from his arsenal, absorbing the blast. The rock exploded on impact, though left him unharmed, emerging from a cloud of dust and now with his grand finale, a boulder large enough to crush us entirely, and we were directly in its route.
It left his grasp, was trained right on us, and there would be no evading it. Not at this distance. Even if wwe did, he would be right on top of us, ready to crush us with that moving earthen platform of his. There was only one way, and it involved blinding him.
We couldn't break. His next shot would take us unless we did something drastic.
"Hard U-turn!" I yelled at Gan.
"What?!"
"Do it!"
There was no time to argue, and I felt a surge of both relief and fear when I felt the tank turn. Gan was trusting me, meaning that if this failed, our deaths would be on my hands. I turned my turret accordingly, the boulder in sight and quickly approaching, the bender fast behind it, and I let out a burst of fire. Not a single blast, but a continuous streak of fire that made contact with the boulder, violating its integrity until just a few yards in front of us, it collapsed in on itself and broke into a cloud of dust and earthen shards bits that contacted against the front of our tank, even through my gunner's window, but I didn't stop. I forced the stream of fire to continue, piercing through the cloud of smoke and dust until the earthbender and his platform were in sight, just feet away and the fire made contact.
The earth gave way beneath his feet as he lost his strength, hurling his charred corpse forward as though catapulted, onto the hull of our tank and directly over, falling down to the other side, as I noticed upon turning my turret to see, dead.
Only then did I let the stream of fire from my fingers die off, realizing that he was dead, and we were, somehow, still alive. Six.
The spearhead of armored reinforcements had cut through the unexpecting Earth Kingdom soldiers like a warm knife through butter. At least at first. The element of surprise was good for that much at least, catching them off guard and sending them running. It wouldn;t last though. Not for long at least, but it was good to see them brought down a peg. If only for a moment. But we did have the initiative. We did have the opening. All we needed was to seize upon it. I readed myself for a counteroffensive that wouldn't come, however, as indicated by the red plume of smoke that rose from within our own attackings ranks.
A retreat flare?
"Thank fucking spirits," Gan sighed. "Give us some more heat, Fluke. Let's get the fuck out of here."
We're retreating? Right when it's us who get even something close to an upper hand?
"Fluke!"
"Right!" I snapped back into it, taking advantage of the pause in the fighting to head back down to the main deck and send another burst of fire into the steamer, getting us moving rather quickly enough, but fighting another shovelful of coal or two wouldn't hurt. Hell, Gunji certainly wasn't about to start lending a hand.
What did I expect? I was forced to ask myself as I climbed back into my seat. Was he just going to get the hang of it all at once, become a soldier? He should have done so back in bootcamp. The rest of us had? Why had he emerged as the exception? Why hadn't he learned? Why still now? And if he hasn't by now, then when?
I forced myself not to pay attention to him, but instead on the column of tanks that now gathered alongside us, about five platoons worth in strength. I was done believing that the others had yet to arrive. These were the others.
I would learn later as I carved three new marks on my helmet that we'd done our job, and done it well. We'd somehow managed to inflict more casualties on the Earth Kingdom in that engagement than they had on us, but the sense of victory would be quickly nulled as we learned that the losses we'd sustained to our armored unit as a whole had been a steep price.
The 62nd armored brigade had now lost half of its original manpower, which would explain why less reinforcements had come to our aid than anticipated. We'd now lost far beyond the ⅔ necessary to request reinforcements, but none would be coming, at least not anytime soon. We would be used to depletion, or until those of us who were left could neatly fit inside the 240th. Until then, we were an instrument to be used until too dulled to be of further use, and worn down we were, just waiting for our next assignment, and our next close call if we would get that lucky again.
I could see the look Gan afforded me as I'd finished with my helmet, looking again to Gunji after, and I knew what he was saying. 'No more.'
He'd had enough.
I would just barely manage to talk Gan out of flat out killing him, but I was hardly any more comfortable with the compromise I'd been forced to propose.
So, when Gan was done carving the 'II' on the side of the tank, we found Gunji where we knew he would be, in the rear of the tank, asleep. The kid had failed to learn when he should have, months ago back in training before it'd come to this point. He'd had every chance since then to learn, but still he hadn't. He clearly seemed to believe that all he needed to do was duck his head down and wait for things to be over. He believed that no matter what happened, death or survival, it would make no difference, as long as he didn't need to face reality.
His thinking was in error.
We would correct that error.
He woke up to the sound of Gan clanging his helmet clenched in his fists against the side of the tank.
His eyes opened and greeted us, innocent and unsuspecting.
He wasn't even given a moment to speak before Gan's helmet collided with his head and knocked him to the floor of the tank.
Gunji believed he could shut his eyes and forget about everything, that he could spare himself the pain, but he was wrong. The rest of us were fighting to make it from one second to the next. Why should he get a free ride? Why should he be allowed to ignore it all, to let his death, if it did come, be quick and ignorant? He couldn't escape from this. Not from the Earth Kingdom, and not from us.
And so we told him just that, and when Gan was finished with what was likely to be a first round of many, I approached, clutching a steam pipe that'd broken off from our tank during their fighting, and told myself this was what needed to be done, that this was to his own benefit.
It became harder and harder to believe that though as the blood began to flow.
Danev
We'd have been naive to think that we'd seen the last of the Earth Kingdom following their last bombardment, almost a week ago. The Earth Kingdom had played their hand and done to us what bombs from the sky could only do so well–they'd made us aware of their existence, they'd made us fear.
We were sitting in a hole in the ground that was almost certain to be our graves, and since we'd been the infantry battalion to be spared the most amongst the others, we were here to stay. We would not be rotated out for fear we would leave our perimeter undermanned, and so this station was ours until death or until enough of us died that we would be the skeleton crew.
As we weren't going anywhere, few options were afforded us but to learn to live with it. So we tried, though our attention was almost always on when we would be hit next. We attempted to distract our minds however we could. We would never end up distributing the prize money for the lottery pool on how and from where we would first be attacked. It seemed in bad taste to do so now, and I doubted that many of us were exactly eager to remind ourselves of it.
Instead, strangely enough, a few of us found ourselves thinking again of home-Citadel. What had originally been a desire to escape from there now had been replaced by one to escape back, or at least let our minds escape there. The present was a reality that'd somehow created in us a longing for simpler times that we knew there was no running back to. So instead, there was just what we could put together of the past here-small signs erected along our trench lines that read the names of streets from back home.
The rows of trench lines that slowly drew closer to no man's land took the names of the streets that ringed around Citadel's perimeter while those that bisected them and cut straight through, leading eventually to the siege camp's interior, took the names of the main roads: The Liangzhe for the Grain Road, Jiāyuán for the Homeland, etc.
It was one thing that those of us in the 114th and 122nd could agree on, having hailed from the same hometown. The 54th wasn't particularly pleased with the arrangement, and had tried for a few days to battle our naming conventions with one more befitting their origins, but unlike us, their unit was comprised of soldiers from a number of different towns and villages, and so would reach no consensus, allowing us Citadel-born to enforce our will.
And seeing as how there were no reinforcements coming in to replace us, our word was law.
It was not home, and the relative solace it'd once offered, at least compared to now, but it was something.
Much as we talked about days gone though, none of us were so disillusioned to think they'd been good times. We all knew what was at the core of things-our base desire. We wanted to get the hell out of here.
Instead though, we were confined to the Wàihuán trench line, waiting for whatever would happen next. We were all anticipating something to happen though not quite on the same page what, and so it was hardly a wonder when an attack flare shot up from our own trench line, and a warning horn blared, though that's not to say it didn't still scare the lot of us out of our skins.
"Up!" lieutenant Aozon ordered. "Up all of you! Man your guns!"
We'd drilled for this. We knew what to do, and so found our hand cannons where we'd set them down on the trench wall to our rear. It didn't matter whose belonged to whom although some occasionally did become possessive over such things. Not now though. The combination of that flare meant one thing-the enemy, and it hardly mattered to us whose weapon we were armed with as long as we were.
In a moment, I was standing upon the stepping platform that Gan had been so kind as to bend for us in order to excuse deepening our trench by another two feet, now affording me a position to rest the barrel of my cannon of the lip of the trench, trained directly ahead at the empty Earth that still sported the craters made by their first barrage.
Why isn't the artillery coming down if we're under attack?
There was no sound of explosions, near or distant, or of battles being fought, of enemy boots marching towards us. There was only the sound of Fire Nation soldiers, not excluding those who'd been asleep only seconds ago, shuffling to get into position as quickly as they could in anticipation of what was coming.
But it isn't.
There was nothing ahead of us. Nothing that we saw at least. Is it further down the line?
"Danev," Tosa hissed in a whisper, as though scared he'd attract the Earth Kingdom to us. "What's happening?"
"Don't know."
"We under attack?"
"Don't know," I repeated. "Doesn't matter. Keep your gun up. Don't give 'em a reason."
A reason to what? Notice we were becoming complacent? Attack then? It was possible. Not worth excluding from consideration. Nothing was.
So, we held our positions, all men on the front lines, be them 114th, 122nd, or 54th, staring ahead at an empty battlefield, waiting for them to emerge from the shadows like a legion of the dead. We stood there for what was at first just ten minutes, then what stretched to thirty, then an hour. There was talk in that time, rumors spread down the line that lost all sense of recognition and reliability by the time they reached us, a jumbled mess of theories in interpretations.
"Saying the 122nd already finished 'em off."
"Just a task force. Acted alone."
"Part of a bigger attack coming."
"Some of our own men triggered the perimeter guard."
"Earthbenders in the 122nd say they saw something."
"Heard there was friendly fire."
And on and on the rumors went, whispered from one soldier to another throughout those minutes that passed until finally, the horn blared again, followed by an order given out from our lieutenant. "Stand down!" he ordered. "False alarm!"
False alarm?
A groan grew amongst the men of the 114th, finally now lowering the guards to either return to their posts, or the other half of us to their bedrolls if they were the lucky ones, or soft piles of dirt if not, now having lost an hour of their precious limited sleep.
"The hell was that shit about?" Mahung asked, rubbing his eyes, in no rush to get back to sleep knowing his bedroll had likely already been claimed by another soldier faster than him. "One of Amala's men get spooked?" The warning had come from the 122nd segment of the line. It was entirely possible it was nothing more than that. All the same, it felt odd.
"You so curious," Mykezia said, joining the fray. "Go ask."
"Fuck that," Mahung said. "I'm sleeping. Go yourself."
With that, he turned to retreat deeper into an alcove that'd been carved out into the earth, the closest thing to a full room with four walls and a ceiling, albeit all earthen and by Mano's design and construction.
I looked back at Mykezia, wondering if she planned on taking him up on it. This was her time to get some more shuteye if so she pleased, but by the look of her, she was damn well fully awake.
She shrugged. "Fuck it."
"Want some company?"
"To go to the 122nd? Hell, anyone extra from here's better than them."
I took that as the 'yes' it was and followed, stepping down from the firing platform and nearly tripping over Mano who, unlike the others, hadn't returned to the shelter for some sleep. His eyes were still wide in alarm, as though still in the first minutes of the alarm.
"Hey Mano!" I said, snapping him out of his seeming trance, staring directly ahead in anticipation of a threat that wasn't there. "You good?"
He looked between Mykezia and me, then down at the ground as though remembering where he was before saying, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."
The poor man looked tired as hell, and understandable too given he'd taken a late watch last night and had only gone to sleep about two and a half hours ago, having actually slept only half of that.
"Get some sleep, yeah?"
He nodded, and I left him there, hoping he might yet manage to get some semblance of sleep.
The closer we drew to the 122nd's position north up Wàihuán, the less orderly things became. It wasn't on account of lack of earthbenders to keep their ship tight. They had Fashun after all, but it seemed he was less of a homemaker than Mano. All the more reason to be 114th.
Similar to my own comrades in the 114th, the 122nd seemed struck by a similar exhaustion and annoyance, if not more severe judging by the alarm having originated so close to their own lines. Mykezia and I quickly found our ways past numerous recognizable faces until we came across one that we were actually content to see-Amorok, a reliable private who I wanted to think I could take the word of at face value.
"Eyo Danev," he said, witnessing our approach. "Fancy seeing you 114th bunch here. Paying the east side of Citadel a lovely visit I see?"
"Lovely's far from the word I'd use," I said with a smirk that he returned, not one to mince the truth, perfectly aware of the disparity between the conditions of our two trench segments.
"What can I do you for then?"
"Wouldn't mind knowing what in Spirits' name just happened."
"Ah," he said as though it wasn't obvious. "That. Guess word hasn't passed down the line yet. Fashun got spooked in the middle of the night. Said he heard something, felt something, I don't know."
"Beneath us?" I asked, thinking back on our first days here and the still living bodies, wondering now just how deep they might have gone.
However, Amorok shook his head, saying with a point of his finger," Nah man. Up in no man's land. Thought we were being advanced on. False alarm I guess." He shrugged, clearly not quite thinking much of it.
It was as much of an answer as we were going to get from Amorok.
"He still awake?" Mykezia asked regarding the earthbender himself.
Amorok shook his head. "Nah. Ordered to hit the hay. Clear his head."
I nodded. It was a smart move if the boy was exhausted enough to be seeing things where none were. Because there had been no enemy. Right?
Mykezia nodded. "Appreciated."
Amorok returned the nod, leaving us to go our separate ways back towards the 114th. We only needed to turn around to catch a glimpse of, in the shadows, a familiar face. At least, one that was familiar to me, and only half a face if I was even being generous considering that a burn scar now lined the vast majority of it, still left there from an overconfident run in with Fluke. He no longer wore the bandages, but was, if anything, more recognizable now as Match. His eyes met mine, and mine his, though neither of us said a thing.
I didn't allow my gaze to linger, and instead turned my head, given some assistance by Mykezia who tugged on my sleeve to pull me along. There was a look in his eyes, a strange one too, and not just a result of seeing me, I suspected. What the hell is going on in the 122nd? Fashun, Match, they're all cracking. Slowly, but surely.
I supposed that it shouldn't have been too big of a surprise that they, or we too were starting to see things, heart things, see things that didn't exist. We'd been anticipating an attack for months now and, at this point, anything could have been one, at least to us.
The stress was getting to us all in different ways, and according to Fluke, for some worse than others.
"I have no idea what the fuck to do with him," he told me a few days after when there was thankfully no deployment scheduled for him, allowing him to instead spend a few hours back in Citadel. Well, our battlefront version of it at least. "Whenever the enemy shows, when we need him most, he just…collapses in on himself."
"Stress gets to some more than others," I said before taking a sip from a cup of broth that'd been prepared for us to help battle the early to mid Autumn chill.
"Getting the same thing here?" Fluke asked.
I shook my head. "Not quite as bad as that," I confessed. "But up in the 122nd, it seems like there's some cracks there. Fashun swears the enemy was in no man's land the other day."
"Saw 'em?"
"Felt him."
"Huh," Fluke said with a hesitant nod as though struggling to understand. "Didn't think they could be wrong with that stuff."
"Me neither," I said, remembering how Mano's 'seismic sense' had come in handy more than once during our training war games back in Citadel. I supposed he just had more of a knack for it than others. I hardly had a concrete sense of how it worked, but I imagined it wasn't totally out of the picture that mistakes could be made. "Might've just felt a rat scurrying across the field or something."
"Probably."
It still felt odd sometimes needed to create the cognitive separation between the four-legged rats and two-legged ones from back in the day. It was hard to think of any other context to bring up animals in the context of Citadel while actually referring to the real wild ones. It made it all the more interesting that the "Rats" then formed, rats being about the only animal that Citadel had no shortage of. In Sewers, alleys, other nooks and crannies, they were always there, hence the name I supposed. Seemed fitting they chose it then, despite how little some of them seemed to act like said rodents and more like savage beasts instead. The mental topic reminded me of what I saw too that day I visited the 122nd, and so said, "Saw Match too while I was up at the 122nd."
"Yeah?" Fluke asked, more sarcastically than anything. "How's scarface doing?"
We hadn't particularly talked much about Match after the incident back in Citadel. That was primarily on account of Fluke's training becoming more intense and my focus having been placed on keeping us slumdogs together and stopping the other Rats from trying to get revenge. Though by then, they'd already been drifting away from such old rivalries, thankfully.
"Still hate him, huh?" I asked.
Fluke scoffed. "Nah. Got that out of my system. No point in having a grudge. I'm the one who came out of there in one piece after all."
A fair point. I was glad though to see that Fluke had considered the matter settled between the two of them, as it truly was. Match had ceased to make a nuisance of himself, and the divide between us Rats and Hornets was a thing of the past. Things had worked out for the better, and much as I hated to admit it, it most likely was what'd happened with Fluke and Match that made the most difference. I still wanted to think I could have worked things out otherwise though.
I scoffed, realizing now that I'd been the one to dominate the conversation, taking it away from Fluke who'd been talking about a matter of his own. "Anyway," I said. "You were saying about Gunji?"
Fluke nodded remorsefully, as though regretting this was even something needing to be discussed. "Don't know what to do about him. Gan wanted to kill him, force logistics to reassign us so we'd have a full crew but…fuck."
I understood what he meant. I could see the logic in Gan's suggestion, getting rid of a loose end in order to actually get reinforced. It was safer for both of them, but on the other hand, murdering a comrade to do it…it was hardly a pleasant thought.
I didn't need to say anything for Fluke to continue. "We're going to try first to…knock some sense into him. The literal way, if you know what I mean."
I did. We'd done the same in the Hornets more than once. Whatever did the trick. "Do what you gotta do," I said, and Fluke nodded in muted and hesitant agreement.
I considered an agreement reached and would have stood to see where else in Citadel I was needed until something caught my eye–marks tallying the number six on the side of Fluke's helmet.
"Hey," I said, not thinking about what they could mean before deciding to ask and get an explanation the easy way. "What're those?"
Fluke turned the helmet in his hands as though needing to see what I was referring to before being able to give a proper answer. "Ah. Gan said I should do it-mark them down."
I didn't need him to elaborate. It occurred to me what he meant. "Kills?"
Fluke nodded.
Six already. I didn't quite know how to feel about that. When I'd first met Fluke, he was the type reluctant to even hurt a fly. He'd put himself in harm's way more than once just to try and make sure the people he cared about wouldn't be hurt, and though he'd hardly quiver at the sight of blood, certainly was rather adverse to it. And since then, since he'd joined the Hornets, he'd killed six people. A part of me couldn't help but feel rather responsible for it. And I wasn't sure if that was for better or worse.
Spirits knew that I had yet to see combat since getting to Ba Sing Se, but in Citadel on the other hand, well, I'd stopped counting a long time ago, though I certainly knew that the number of those I'd taken the lives of was no less than twenty. I could remember that many faces and names at least, tallied over the years as a Hornet. We'd done what we needed to survive back then, and it was no different here, only this wasn't our war. It never was meant to be. And here Fluke was forced to kill for it. It was different than with Janick. That was to save himself, but this, well, I supposed it wasn't too different at the end of the day. It just was about doing whatever it took to get by.
"Command's not going easy on you, huh?" I asked, knowing damn well it's been the 62nd to see the brunt of engagements as of late, sent more than once to clear the way towards the rest of the brigade. "How long they plan on keeping this shit up?"
Fluke shrugged. "Until we're no longer combat capable, I guess."
The 62nd–the only unit of the only soldiers in this brigade who've already seen true combat with the enemy. Being hit by shells and artillery didn't count. Fluke and those still alive from the 62nd were about the only ones here who knew what the enemy was capable of, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was for that exact reason that Eemusan, Deming, or whoever it was responsible in the chain of command wanted them rid of. They knew the reality of things, and soon enough, so would we.
That same night, after Fluke had already returned to his unit in preparation for what was supposed to be another combat deployment tomorrow, there was another alarm.
I was set to sleep in for the night, but was woken by the sound of hand cannon fire coming from our line. That got me up as quick as anything else, rushing to the side of my sleeping mat to grab as much of my equipment as I could while the others around me scurried to do the same. Mano seemed to be in the lead, however, armor already equipped, just now grabbing his weapon to leave. How's he done before I am? I was slow. I'd just woken up, but all the same, I was moving too slowly. The enemy can be right on top of us by now. Damnit, Danev! Wake up!
I shook my head violently to wake myself up all the quicker and got my chestplate on quick enough, followed by my gloves, greaves, and boots. I grabbed my helmet with one hand and clutched my hand cannon by the barrel with the other, hearing the sound of artillery from outside too now. By how loud the initial explosion was and distance of the impacts, I suspected it was our own batteries firing.
So where are the enemy's?
As soon as I ran outside though, setting the barrel of my cannon on the lip of the trench to return fire, a horn blew from directly behind us. We turned to see not our own lieutenant, in the trench same as us, but the company commander, captain Yuzeh, yelling at us, "Cease fire! Cease fire, damnit! You're not shooting at anything!"
Distant horns from both the 122nd and 54th indicated that a similar order was being given to the other companies we shared our trench with, and, soon enough, the sound of gunfire died down until it finally stopped altogether. A look behind me at Yuzeh, for once actually visible on the line with us, perhaps prompted by the conjunction of artillery with our paranoia, afforded me a look at what seemed an expression of total exhaustion from him. I imagined he'd been woken up by this same as myself, but seemed far more irritated than I did.
He rubbed his eyes, saying as though to just make it clear, "It's a false alarm. False alarm!"
Now I was no longer the only one eyeing the captain with concerned curiosity. He closed his eyes, pensive, as though something far more was bothering him. "Get back to your posts, get some sleep. Just…"
He didn't bother saying anything more. He left us there, back to whatever command tent he'd marked as his home away from home, far enough from the trench line not to smell the fear and shit.
The rest of us were now just beginning to settle down and calm down, with the exception of Mano whose eyes still rested on no man's land until a clap on the back from Murao on the back snapped him out of this trance once again. What does he see out there?
"You alright?" I overheard Murao ask Mano.
"Yeah," Mano nodded silent as the rest of the 122nd either returned to sentry duty or their sleeping spots. "Just…spooked is all."
"Yeah," Murao said with a chuckle meant to comfort his comrade. "No kidding. Just get some rest, right?"
Mano nodded, and I couldn't help but wonder once again if Fashun had really been wrong. Twice in a row, more if some rumors were to be believed?
"Hey, Mano," I said, catching his attention as Murao walked off back to his sentry point. "Saying that Fashun felt somebody out there. That seismic sense thing you earthbenders have, yeah?"
"Some of us have," he corrected, as though keen on reminding me it was a skill rather than a simple trait. "But yeah. Talked to him about it."
Of course they would, I figured, them, Gimor, and a few scattered others about the only ones here who could properly understand one another. But that was besides the point. I continued with my question.
"Can it be wrong sometimes?" As soon as I said it, I was worried it may come across as offensive, or perhaps insulting, and so tried to clear my meaning, adding, "Same as how you sometimes see something that isn't there, hear a noise that isn't real, or-"
"Don't know," Mano confessed. "I mean, I'm still new to this too. Maybe he thought he saw soldiers, but just saw some animal like-"
"Like a rat?"
"Yeah. Or maybe just stress?"
"We haven't been off the line for over a week," I said. "It's possible."
Mano nodded. "He just needs some rest."
"We all do," I said, hardly able to miss the exhaustion that Mano certainly wore himself as clear as anywhere as in his eyes, on the verge of shutting on their own. "Just get some rest."
He nodded his head again, and I just hoped that he wouldn't be the one to crack next.
Because cracked Fashun had, by the sound of it. At least if the rumors that I overheard being passed down the line while I tried to sleep were any indication. The bits I heard were scattered and distorted at best, but repeated more than one to a point that I could make out a general gist, be it how this was not Fashun's first, or even second time doing this, but that it'd happened within the 122nd more times than once too, and that his comrades were growing increasingly tired of it. There was talk of hostility, of blame, and even scattered rumors that it was intentional, and words were being spread questioning his allegiance, thinking he may intentionally be sewing dissent within our ranks in order to join his earthbender brethren.
But it was only gossip. Nothing more.
But over 6 feet underground in a trench that there was no escaping from, facing the invisible enemy head on, it was easy for fiction to become fact, and for even the most baseless rumor as to why we were stuck here to be seized on and taken action against.
It hadn't happened that night, but the one after. I didn't know where the order had come from: if it'd been Fashun's platoon commander, captain Amala of the 122nd, or somebody further up the chain of command. As we walked down along the Grain Streets, Liangzhe however, on the way to collect our morning rations, Fashun's corpse hung from a wooden gallows above our line, dangling feet casting a shadow on the serving bowl we were fed out of in a place nobody would miss it.
"Information is a weapon no different than a sword or cannon!" Lieutenant Colonel Aranee announced from where he stood on ground level overlooking us as we shuffled forward to grab our portions, eyes set however on yet another casualty of this siege, only this time self-inflicted. "When used recklessly, or when used deliberately against our own, it is no different than treason!"
They'd hung him in his uniform, not even bothering to remove it from him, black and crimson paint reflecting the marginal sun that the mostly cloudy morning had to offer while we shuffled forward to grab our half portions of morning brew one at a time.
"If you have any information on the enemy or their activities!" he continued. "Report it to your superiors and the threat will be dealt with accordingly."
"That's what he fucking did," Chejuh mumbled under his breath, looking up at the hanging body of a man who'd done that precise thing.
And as there always were, there were a variety of stories about what'd happened that circulated around the trench those next few days. Some told stories of how Fashun had been stolen in his sleep, dragged outside and his throat slit, claiming the rope just hid the cut. Then there were those who said he'd been lured out on the promise of going home, had been provoked into doing it himself, or some other variational bullshit. One way or another, he'd been killed by his own side, and the colors he wore in death served as stark reminder that the Earth Kingdom was only one danger.
Fashun had thought them the enemy, and he'd only been half right, ignoring the one at his back.
He would not give a false alarm again.
We thought that meant there wouldn't be a false alarm again.
We were wrong.
Again came one two days later. It was louder, closer, and there would be no need to wait for the rumors to reach us as it'd come from the platoon right next to ours–Elephant.
"Not the fucking time to joke like this, man," Eraim said, another soldier from Elephant platoon, and an ex Rat at that.
"It's not a joke! I fucking feel them!" Gimor called out, motioning towards no man's land as though the enemy would suddenly manifest before our eyes the moment he reassured us that they did in fact exist. None did.
"Gimor," "Relax. You're seeing shit. Might've just been an animal or something. Nobody's out there."
Nobody was. We'd lit no man's land with flares to know for sure and a few overeager soldiers from Elephant who'd taken the boy at face value had even fired a volley of shots in there to be sure. Nothing.
"There is!" Gimor asserted. "I still fucking feel them."
"Feel them where?" lieutenant Rulaan asked calmly, at the very least taking this seriously. Hell; after Fashun, nobody could afford not to. "You say they're out there. Do you know where?"
Gimor looked back towards no man's land, pulling himself up by the lip of the line to get a better look before being yanked back down by Zihe, clearly concerned that the resident earthbender might get his head blown off by an Earth Kingdom sharpshooter, if one such existed. This was hardly an exclusive Elephant matter anymore. Scattered soldiers from all corners of the 114th had gathered around to get insight as to what it was that'd woken up in the middle of the night.
Gimor stammered, trying to form words, but failing. "I don't…I don't know for sure, but-"
"You could be seeing things that aren't there," Lieutenant Rulaan said, not insultingly, but almost trying to reassure him. "It happens to all of us, but there's nothing out there. We fired flares, have our sharpshooters looking, and there's nothing."
"There is, lieutenant! There's-"
Rulaan shushed him. "Get some sleep, private." He was adamant about this, and it was no wonder why. He saw what happened to Fashun. He wasn't about to let that happen here. "You'll feel better in the morning."
It took Gimor a few seconds after that to finally calm down, but eventually, he did, shoulders dropping by his side, calmer on account of at least having a platoon and lieutenant that gave a shit about him, and nodded his head. He turned to leave back to his sleeping roll where he might finally get some rest.
He wouldn't last all of thirty minutes before he was shaking out of his sleep, howling as though possessed, "They're beneath us! They're beneath us!"
On watch as I was, it wasn't particularly hard for me to make it to the source of his screaming before it went quiet.
"Beneath us, around us. They're here! They're here!"
Though it wouldn't end for a while. He wouldn't stop yelling, even as the entirety of the Elephant platoon and half of the 114th in addition were crowding around where he squirmed on the ground. He could still be heard too through the gag we'd tried to use on him.
It would be about a quarter of an hour until he was taking deep and complete breaths again, but by then, it was too late. I didn't think that anybody had necessarily snitched on Gimor. At least not intentionally. Perhaps one of the lieutenants had save for Rulaan who was Gimor the whole time, and, surprisingly enough, Aozon, who hadn't gone anywhere in spite of eyeing the private with a look of plain disgust.
All the same, it wasn't nearly as bad as what was retrieved from the officers who came after–colonel Yuzeh of the 114th, and by the look on his face, what was to follow was obvious. He didn't bother to ask what was going on. Word had already gotten to him. Somehow.
"Private 6429114E14, if you would come with us, please."
Gimor, in a state of shock as he was, seemed not to realize right away what was happening, submissively standing up as though to allow himself to be taken away without a fight, but a fight there would be. If not put up by him, then by another.
"He's fine," lieutenant Rulaan said, standing to put himself between his subordinate and the captain's two guards who moved in to grab the boy. "He's just panicked. That's all."
"He's been making false reports about enemy movements," Captain Yuzeh said, unknown to me if his words were his, those of battalion commander, lieutenant colonel Aramee, or somebody even higher up the food chain. "Spreading misinformation through friendly lines is equatable to treason." Odds were the captain was simply following orders and falling in line, unlike a particular lieutenant.
"There's only misinformation," the lieutenant countered, and not inaccurately. "We came to this position expecting a battle and found a graveyard! We haven't known where the enemy has been once the entire damn time!"
"Because of those like him!" the captain said, nearing lieutenant Rulaan who stood in his way, making clear emphasis towards Gimor who was only then beginning to realize what was happening. "We'll be doing you a favor getting rid of the damn dirt eater anyway."
He attempted to circle Rulaan, but that wasn't going to happen. I wished I could have said that Rulaan wasn't alone, but I think he was about the only one there, by merit of the stripes on his shoulder, with something even close to a position to stand up to the captain in such a way. Even I found myself frozen, wondering if I would dare to take a step forward to be by Rulaan's side for this, but couldn't move. I remembered the rope Fashun had hung by while we'd retrieved our morning meals. Lieutenant Aozon was one thing, all talk and no bite, but this…
"He's not the enemy," Rulaan said, standing his ground in a way that I doubted my lieutenant ever would have done for any of us.
"Then where is the enemy, lieutenant?" the captain asked, looking behind him outside of the cove we huddled in, straight towards no man's land. "Out there?"
Out there killing the soldiers of the 62nd with every passing day, I thought, the six tally marks on Fluke's helmet still etched into my mind. Just waiting to get to us next and watching as we kill ourselves first.
"The enemy is everywhere," the captain resumed. "And they're nowhere. The enemy attacks from without and within, and those who tear us apart are no different. The earthbender's no different. So surrender him, or you and your platoon can join those considered the enemy."
The stakes were set, the exchange clear. It was Gimor, or it was the entirety of Elephant platoon.
I'd never heard a sound quite so heart-wrenching as that of complete and utter betrayal let out from Gimor when Rulaan had had no choice but to step aside, and allow the captain's men to seize him.
There wasn't a single one of us who didn't want to, but ultimately were unable to stand in Yuzeh's path, instead being forced to watch helplessly as Gimor was carried off.
The next we would see of him would be hanging from yet another stockade as another reminder of what happened to those who spoke up, who simply thought they were helping. And once again, his uniform had remained on, no different from ours except in that it bore the markings of an earthbender soldier, the distinction that really mattered at the end of the day.
It left us all with the same questions again of what was true and what was false. Had Gimor been lying? Was he working with the enemy? The obvious answer was 'no.' Of course he wasn't. He had neither motive nor means to do so. How the hell would he have arranged such a thing with the enemy unless this was all of his own accord, which was even less likely.
That left another possibility of him being simply wrong. We'd seen the way he'd responded though. We all remembered his cries of fear, truly believing they were out there and directly beneath us as though ready to emerge from the ground at any moment. He'd woken up screaming, seeming to believe their knives were already at our throats. Perhaps they were and we simply didn't know it then.
So why are we alive this long?
Then had he simply been wrong, was the other question, but I remembered him during training, the way Mano spoke of him. It was Gimor who'd foiled our attack during our final war game. It was him that'd allowed Elephant platoon to ward off our attack and seize the day at our expense. He hadn't been wrong about the enemy then? So how could he have been now?
I wanted to believe it was just the stress of it all. It could get to anybody in due time, and even the best of soldiers were not immune to that. Not Gimor, not myself, not Mano.
Between the night that Gimor was seized and the morning when we saw him swing, his face had not gotten any less pale. Nor had it when the following night had come, the two of us on watch duty, and he'd whispered over to me, not an inch of fear or anxiousness, but the simple fact, "They're out there."
"What?" I asked, perhaps thinking I hadn't quite heard right.
"Earth Kingdom. The others weren't lying."
"Why didn't you say anything?" I hissed before realizing just how stupid of a question that was. I hardly needed Mano to remind me as to why not and why my question was idiotic, but he did so anyway, albeit less insultingly.
"You saw what happened to the others."
I did. I knew. Were I in his shoes, I wouldn't have said a damn thing either.
"But they're out there," he continued. "Feel them moving, just waiting for us to act first, shoot at nothing, and turn against one another."
"Why?" I whispered.
Mano shrugged. "Because we have nothing else to do but call each other the enemy and kill each other accordingly? They want us to kill our own earthbenders? The only people who know the shit they're doing?"
"Do that to their own people?"
"Stopped being 'their people' when they put on our uniform."
'Our uniform.' I could hardly understand how anything was still 'us' after the last week, and what the Fire Nation had done, and what they were just waiting to do to him. But what more was there? What other option but to serve an army that'd killed two men, two good men, men I'd known, just because their ancestry wasn't quite the same.
"Just," Mano continued. "Don't say anything. Don't want to be next."
But somebody would be next. Whether it was this excuse or another, I couldn't let this sit. Not like this. Fuck that.
"You feel them now?" I asked Mano, looking over the lip of the trench, wondering if I might catch a visual. Of course I wouldn't, but all the same, Mano looked at me, confused for a moment, before finally answering.
"Yeah?"
Then there's still the chance to do the right thing here. I unslung my hand cannon from around my back, no shortage of stupid ideas throwing through my mind.
"Where?"
Mano's look became no less confused. "About…a hundred yards or so?
A shot that I couldn't make, but one that somebody else could. Chejuh.
"Come with me," I said to Mano, not bothering to elaborate. If the enemy was out there now, then what they were counting on was for us to overreact again. He wanted us to set the alarm, wear ourselves out, and keep on killing our own men. That wasn't going to happen. Not this time at least.
I found Chejuh asleep as was expected for him at this hour, but woke him there with a light kick to the rib. He woke to the sight of Mano and I standing over him. He was just now beginning to wake up, nothing of a sense in him as to what was going on, asking groggily, "What's happening?"
"Hunting," I said, admittedly rather vaguely, not intending to elaborate much until Mykezia, not far off, began to stir from her slumber as well. Her hair draped over her face in a way that made me vaguely understand what it was that Fluke saw in her, a messy sort of prettiness, but all the same behind a layer of mud and muck that couldn't help but remind me of Bee from back home.
"What's going on?" she asked as Chejuh rubbed his eyes, clearly just as wanting for an answer as she. Hell. The extra hands never hurt. Besides, reliable too.
Even Mano gave me a look that indicated he wanted an answer to that all-too-frequent question, 'what's going on?'
"Earth Kingdom's out there," I said.
"No shit," Mykezia groaned, thinking perhaps I was talking about their defensive line a mile or two away.
"No. In no man's land. The others weren't lying, or wrong. They're there."
That got their attention.
"You see 'em?" Chejuh asked. Mano looked towards me, wondering if I would throw him under the bus and admit it was him. Like nearly everyone in the 114th, neither Mykezia nor Chejuh had agreed with what'd happened to Fashun and Gimor, but had all the same grown tired tired of the whole debacle. Hell. Who hadn't? There was no way of knowing at what value they would take Mano's word after this all, but I did know whose they would.
"Yes," I said. "Mano will help track him, and you'll kill him," I said, looking at Chejuh and the hand cannon by his side. From a certain point of view, it was manipulation, but I trusted Mano, and if he knew something was true, then I did too. His experiences may as well have been my own by the trust I put into him, and perhaps that was simply my excuse out of admitting I was lying, but it was my sentiment all the same, and it was what made the different with Chejuh and Mykezia, now finally at my side on the line, in place, and ready.
Chejuh had his hand cannon slung around his back, opting instead for the crossbow he held with him now, but that wouldn't do. "No," I said. "Cannon's better. Entire brigade needs to know. Can't let command sweep this under the rug again."
"Gonna wake the entire line up," Chejuh said. "If I miss,"
Mano is dead.
"Then don't," I finished for him.
Chejuh nodded, and I looked back at Mano, the man this also depended on.
"Feel him?" I asked.
There was a moment of hesitation, but finally, Mano nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "He's coming up. Less than a hundred yards out or so."
Chejuh, having finished loading his hand cannon, stood up on the firing platform, joining the rest of us: me poking my head over, Mano with his hands to the floor to feel for the vibrations, and Mykezia warming herself with a small flame, but ready to lend her services however required.
"Just show me where, man," Chejuh said to Mano. "Shot's yours."
And that it was. It may end up being Chejuh to pull the trigger, but at long last, this would be the Earthbender's vengeance.
"Shift right," Mano said, allowing Chejuh to do so. I saw nothing. All I could make out were splintered trees and craters left from the Earth Kingdom's barrages over the past few weeks we'd been here, finally aware of their presence. "About 80 yards out."
Coming closer. Probably figures that since no alarm has gone up, he can do so. He'll be in for a nasty surprise.
"Left again," Mano said, and Chejuh shifted just that. "About seventy yards. He's coming up for a look."
70 yards. That's a hell of a distance for a shot. If it misses,...
"Chejuh," I said. "That's not an easy shot. Sure you can-?"
"Mykezia," Chejuh said, cutting me off. "Light."
She understood her cue, and stood up beside Chejuh, ready to ignite the fuse of his hand cannon whenever needed. The field was pitch dark, and still to me, not a single sign of the enemy to be seen.
"You need a flare?" I asked, ready to provide just that if it meant killing our target.
However, Chejuh simply shook his head, and said, "No."
He looked down his sights, and something caught my eye from no man's land. Emerging from the ground, a glint of light, faint, but unmistakable–an Earth Kingdom soldier's helm, as seen by us only in textbook images before, but now finally real, the first real enemy any of us have seen since coming here, and the shot was his.
"Now," Chejuh said.
Mykezia lit the fuse, and the world exploded beside me as the spark touched blasting jelly, and the gun fired.
And within a second, the glint was gone. No, not gone. On the ground, staring up at the sky, dead. As expected, the trench line shot to life, expecting more of the same, but more of just that would not come.
We gathered now around the body of an Earth Kingdom scout, dragged from no man's land back to our line as proof. Proof that Fashun and Gimor hadn't been traitors, but had been in the right. Proof that our enemy was not one another, but the enemy that waited just a few miles beyond no man's land, and so too the officers who felt so little regard for those who would win this war.
The lifeless soldier looked up at the sky as a crowd of Fire Nation soldiers of the 114th gathered around, and turned their sights to look back at ground level, expecting to find perhaps our company captain, or even lieutenant colonel, but saw instead Deming himself, a look on his face that was not anger, or shame, or guilt, but more than anything, disappointment–defeat.
The soldiers of the 114th would learn something then. Trust could not be given to just anyone. It was reserved for those who'd earned it. That did not include officers sitting in command tents hundreds of yards behind the front lines. It included those like Rulaan who fought for us, and those like Mano, Chejuh, and Mykezia who fought beside us. It was reserved for those who faced hell with us with every passing day because it was they who knew what this war we fought truly was. And it was something that none others would understand.
We'd lost two good soldiers that week, but if there was anything I could do about it, not another would be lost. Not like this. Not when we knew who it was we could trust.