The White Flame (An Avatar Story) Book 2: Warfare

by Aegis Whiteflame

The Rats and the Hornets are gone, but the streets of Citadel never change. Only its players. The Fire Nation's Siege of Ba Sing Se intensifies with every passing day, and the survivors of Citadel's latest turf war, now drafted into the Fire Nation, are on death row to see the worst of what war has to offer.

38. Aroma

Danev

Night had fallen, and it couldn't have done so at a better time.

With the sun's descent beyond the line of the horizon, Rulaan, Jame, Amorok, and I had risen above the line of our trench, sent off with little more than the well-wishes of the 114th and a single goal in mind–to find our men and bring them home.

It was easier said than done, but at the very least, in spite of the darkness that shrouded our path ahead, we weren't going in blind.

"15 degrees right in a tenth of a mile," Rulaan said, snuffing out the light of his lantern and bidding Jame to cast aside the poncho that the four of us had been huddled beneath in order to shroud our presence as we'd consulted our map.

"See," Jame whispered, aimed at Amorok who had questioned. "Told you we didn't overshoot."

"The treads veer off," Amorok defended himself, referring to the trail that did indeed seem to be turning at a point that was not intended, heading off in a direction that stood contrary to the patrol map Rulaan had 'confiscated' from brigade command. "You saying that shit means nothing?"

"It doesn't mean nothing," Rulaan interjected. "But doesn't mean everything either. Could be our tank, but maybe they went off trail and got back on path later. Could also be that it's simply a different tank's treads; we…we don't know for sure."

He was less certain about that last point, and he knew it, so there was no purpose to pointing out the obvious that the diversion had clearly come from the trail we'd been vaguely following thus, only about half reliable anyway on account of the deterioration the path had faced on account of the rain.

Rulaan continued, "Trail this way fades anyway. We follow it to the end, we're going in blind after that. These are soldiers, and my men know that when they get off trail, the chief objective is to find it again as soon as possible."

The thought of Chejuh and Shozi being that dedicated to their chief objective crossed my mind for a moment, them immediately left, inclining me almost to chuckle at the prospect. Instead, I just clicked my tongue and said, "Not sure I'd say the same for us in Dragon. We…have our own way of doing things."

"Well with any luck they wouldn't have been pushed to the point of needing to make their own decisions separate from the tank. Anybody see any footsteps?"

"Looked earlier," reliable Amorok said. "Nothing. No signs of a struggle either. If they went off trail, it wasn't out of desperation."

"Maybe they just misread the map?" Jame suggested.

"And go the complete opposite direction?" Rulaan questioned. "We've been following this trail for over 2 hours already. We take a wrong turn now, we can't know how much time they've got left."

Then we disregard the map, I thought to myself, the solution striking me as obvious. Even if it wasn't a direct combat engagement that threw our guys off the path, the map and the plan had been abandoned long ago. No plan survives first encounter with the enemy after all, we all knew that, but, with that said, or rather, thought, I understood Rulaan's dilemma. If we took the wrong turn here, odds were we weren't getting back on track any time soon.

We made the right choice now, or we wouldn't get a chance to make up for it again.

"Captain," I said, quietly. "If I might suggest, even if this isn't our tank we're following, it's clear something went off this way, and it more or less lines up with where we saw flares fired. There's friendlies in this direction one way or another, and we can't ignore that."

An appeal to responsibility. It was a low blow at a time like this when potentially drawing attention away from our primary purpose, but there was little other choice. We had to get back on the move or we were burning critical time. Because the longer we stayed around, the more time we were giving the Earth Kingdom to act. We were in enemy territory as we were, and our job was simple: get out there, grab our people, and bring them home.

Rulaan understood that, I knew, but it wasn't an easy ask. Not by any standard.

He was, however, Captain for a reason, and so whether it was because he read my words at face value or for the message beneath them–that this was our best chance of finding our guys, he agreed.

"We follow the trail," he announced. "Map's served its purpose. We follow our guts from here."

"Agreed," Jame said, ever quick to be the first to comply by a superior officer's orders, occasionally quite the blessing for me when it came to a platoon as wordy as Dragon.

Amorok nodded, in equal agreement, and so we quit wasting time, taking our first steps off of the fading trail that veered off, blind moving forward, praying that beneath our feet wasn't the remains of the same tank whose wake we followed, and buried with it those we hoped to bring home.

Or Fluke for that matter.

It was everything I could do not to imagine him among the hypothetical dead, but I had to stay focused, had to trust him to take care of himself. He survived this long without me. He could do a bit longer.

Right?

If I was trying to hide my concern, I wasn't doing a great job of it as Rulaan would slow down his steps to fall in line beside me, whispering to me, "You alright, Danev?"

"Fine," I answered, not about to admit that my mind was straying more than it ought to have.

Rulaan was, obviously, unconvinced, his gaze still on me, readable even in the dead of night as he asked, "Something I should be worried about too?"

"No," I countered immediately lest I plant more doubt in Rulaan about the mission than there already was. "Nothing like that. More worrying 'bout Fluke than anything else actually."

Rulaan studied me with his eyes for a time longer, perhaps pondering if this concern was getting in the way of my focus. I wanted to think though that a little under a year with Rulaan up to this point had been sufficient to convince the man that I could keep my head on straight, and he seemed to be of accord with that, answering, "Well, I hardy know the boy like you do, but if his reputation and what you've told me is to be mean anything, I'd say we hardly need to worry about him."

He chuckled. "Hell," he added. "Probably ought to be more worried 'bout any Earth Kingdom soldier that gets in his way than him."

And maybe that worries me just as much. "Yeah," I said, electing not to voice that concern. "Probably."

Rulaan didn't advance the subject, and I inwardly thanked him for that, more content to just keep moving forward, and focus on finding our people.

We walked for another hour, now finding ourselves in a valley between two larger hills, the silence getting to all of us, I knew, judging by the fact that even the shrillest chirp of an insect or faintest hoofbeat of a passing animal was turning us to attention, weapons raised. So, when we actually found ourselves approaching the sound of something that most certainly was not just the still of night, one would think there would be some sense of relief, but that would prove to be far from the case when the noise we hear was that of a high-pitch whistle descending from the sky.

"Artillery!" I screamed. "Down!"

The latter of my words would hardly get out by the time that the shell struck–high explosive, but not anywhere near us, instead, roughly a hundred yards away to our left over the crest of the hill, a massive overshot.

The hell?

Another faint boom in the distance, another one being fired.

"Stay down!" Rulaan hissed out. "They're not aiming for us!"

"Really damn feels like they are!" Jame retorted.

They weren't though, an overshot like that proved. Or, at least, if they were, then they were the furthest thing from a threat at the moment.

"With an overshot like that?" Amorok considered. "Doubt it."

"Then who the hell are they-"

Jame's question was cut off by a prompt 'shh' that came ahead of us, belonging to Rulaan. We all fell silent on his command, and could then make out the noise of chatter beyond the hill, coming from where the artillery presumably had been heading.

Ours or theirs?

It would make little sense for the Earth Kingdom to have opened fire on their own men, deliberately or otherwise given the circumstances, but stranger things have been known to happen.

Still, we needed to find out for sure, and so was right behind Rulaan who, prone to the ground, was making a slow descent up the hill, crawling.

Amorok and Jame were not far behind, fast on her heels as Rulaan and I reached the crest of the hill, and upon looking over, were able to notice two things.

A starker contrast in the pitch black night was the flash of artillery, due northeast, invisible to our eyes from where we'd been just moments ago in the valley between two hills. Judging by the brief flash, the gun was placed atop a hill near where the river to our east ran, right beside a larger mill.

But more important, however, was what was just over the hill, not quite as hidden by merit of a lack of places to hide, but still standing out to us a fair bit by merit of the noise they were producing.

"That last one headed for us?" a voice I distinctly recognized as Chejuh asked.

"Well if they, they-"

Another explosion interrupted the group as they spoke, and looking further over the crest of the hill, was able to make them out as they spoke. Arguing, Shozi and Chejuh, ducking for cover behind the chassis of a tank that'd seen better days.

"Fuck!" Shozi exclaimed. "You were saying?"

Then there was Homun, who, looking over at the smoke trail left by the artillery shell's impact, stated, "They're zeroing in on us. Going to have to move again if we don't want the next one being our last."

And lastly, there was Ele, stepping out of the rear hatch of the tank to turn to the others and say, "gunner's still in no position to move and we've milked the last out of this tank that we can. It's not moving."

The last three hours of looking for this exact group had made me accustomed to my heart having relocated itself to my stomach, twisting my guts in a knot from concern about all the number of ways in which they may have gotten themselves killed out here. As such, to feel that pressure all of a sudden released, I could have sworn I'd just been shot in the stomach and all my insides had spilled out of me so as to exclaim just how light I felt in that moment, floating on air as far as I was aware.

Rulaan felt no different, I saw upon turning to my right and seeing him there with his face against the grass, muttering under his breath, muffled against the grass, "Thank spirits."

We wouldn't be the only ones made aware of our fateful reunion for long, as it seemed that from below, we'd been noticed.

"Hey," I made out Shozi's voice exclaim. "Got two on the hill."

Shit.

"Declare yourselves!" Homun called out.

To which, Rulaan, sensing the urgency of the situation, raised his face from the grass and responded, a whispered hiss so as not to draw too much attention, "114th!"

It would not be enough, and but a moment later, the shot of a hand cannon would ring out, kicking up dirt right beside Rulaan's face where the bullet thankfully struck the ground rather than his head.

"Fuck!" Rulaan called out, ducking just in time.

Fearing a potential second volley, I retreated to the other side of the hill, ducking, and soon after yelling out, no longer concerned about the noise as much as getting caught in a friendly fire incident, "For fuck's sake; friendlies!"

Then there was a pause, and a second pause.

"Danev?!" Chejuh's voice called out, questioning.

"Yeah, assholes!" I responded.

"Fucking hell," Shozi exclaimed shortly thereafter. "Almost zeroed our CO, dumbass."

I took the banter as an indication that it was safe enough to raise my head, and so did just that, catching sight of Shozi as he snatched the hand cannon from Chejuh's hands, Homun now getting in on drilling the boy, taking full advantage of the opportunity to grill a fellow staff sergeant.

Descending the hill, Shozi and Chejuh, more intent on facing the man they almost shot than the staff sergeant from Bat, turned to face me and saluted, the latter of whom noticeably a bit wearier, fearing whatever reprisal might come from firing on a friendly soldier.

But hell, I was glad enough to see the two in one piece that it may as well never have happened, and so said simply, "Chejuh, I'm disappointed. I really did think you were a better shot than that."

And with that, the boy smiled.

"I was telling him," Shozi said. "Be grateful it wasn't me holding that gun or I wouldn't've missed."

Rulaan, Amorok, and Jame were quick to follow behind me, the company captain's presence enough to elicit another salute, this time from Homun and Ele too.

"If you think that salute's going to save your asses once you're back home, you're going to be disappointed," Rulaan said, the relief in his voice evident to me behind his bold words. "What in spirits' name are you doing out here?"

"We're," Chejuh started, only to be interrupted by Homun who attempted to take over, saying, "We figured we'd, uh,-" only for him too to now be interrupted, but this time, by Ele, who may as well have appeared out of thin air in terms of presence to say, "They're here because of me."

Now that. That was a surprise. But hardly a believable one at that.

"Don't cover for them, Ele," Rulaan said. "Who the hell's idea was it for this?"

"She's telling the truth, sir," Homun surrendered.

The hell?

All eyes of Amorok, Jame, Rulaan, and I, turned on her.

"You kidding?" I asked.

I would have expected her to shrink back, to have made her statement while hidden behind a Mykezia who no longer with us, but to say that Ele was the same girl she'd been before our first attack on the wall would have, in the first place, been a complete lie. Instead, she stood by her words, and so stepped forward in her defense of them, saying, "I was going to go anyway, and the rest just came so I wouldn't be alone." She turned to face them, adding, "Even though I told their dumb asses not to."

Shozi only give a playful shrug, and things started to marginally make more sense, at least to me.

For Rulaan at my side on the other hand, I couldn't quite say that, seemingly prepared to ask another volley of questions until an explosion sounded, another HE shell, about 60 yards off, closer than before.

And, as such, a more curt answer to our many questions was high in demand, and Homun addressed us newcomers accordingly. "'Bout 4 miles back we came under hostile fire, enemy guerillas, and were driven off trail. They didn't pursue so we'd assumed we'd lost them, but they'd only disengaged because we were falling right into their trap. On a hill east northeast is a stolen Fire Nation gun."

"We saw it coming in," I said, confirming that the gun was still emplaced where last it'd been.

Homun nodded. "Hit our tank point blank with an AP round. Shot through both pilots instantly and tore up the gunner pretty bad."

"Firebender?" I asked.

Homun shook his head.

Good, I thought to myself, instantly regretting the thought, as though gladdened by the nature of the tragedy simply as it hadn't befallen a particular crew.

"And the engineer?" Amorok asked.

"Injured too, but alive," Ele responded.

"Won't be for long though," Chejuh said. "Artillery's drawing in closer and will be on top of us soon. Didn't have enough hands to get the two of them out before, but with y'all here now, we can finally get moving."

"You can indeed," Rulaan said. "Pack your things; we're headed home."

And leaving the gun standing?

"And leave that gun standing?" Ele asked, voicing that self-same though in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated from her. Then again, old perspectives of who Ele was clearly'd been failing as of late.

"She's right," I added to her argument. "We know the enemy's here; should take care of it."

Ele seemed surprised by my support, but was all the same bolstered by it, giving an affirmative nod, even in the face of Rulaan's protests.

"No," he said. "That mission's over; our job's to get these people back to camp and tend to the wounded."

"Then take 'em," Ele said. "Can finish this ourselves, right?"

She looked to Shozi and Chejuh with that question, but the two seemed to question just which side to take. On one hand, I could tell they agreed with Ele, but on the other, in direct opposition to a superior officer…

"Rulaan," I said. "Can we talk?"

"Whatever you want to say, you can say it here."

I'd been trying to spare him of the sight of me questioning his direct orders in front of the company, but very well.

"Sir," I started, ensuring a respectful tone of voice so as not to throw his position into question as I proceeded to list off every reason we simply couldn't abandon the enemy position in its current state. "We know of an enemy artillery position in the use of our stolen equipment. Standing orders when facing stolen equipment is either to recover, or scuttle it. At present, this position has already been used to destroy a tank patrol, killing 2 of our men, injuring 2 more, and endangering soldiers of the 114th. If we leave it here, it will continue to service the enemy and endanger Fire Nation lives."

"My concern is the lives of the men and women from my company, lieutenant."

"Yes," I agreed. "Which is why I want us to destroy this position now lest it be used against us when the time comes for it to be us who are sent to take it."

If ever there was one recourse and set-in-stone fact that I could resort to, it was the fact that it was the 114th who always seemed destined to see the brunt of the fighting. I had no doubt within a few days, a week at most, we would be right back out here, perhaps not in this exact location, but I didn't want to take any chances and risk going up against this gun again.

As though on cue, another strike of artillery, close enough to get us huddled up against the chassis of the fallen tank.

"That one's closer," Amorok said. "30 yards maybe."

All eyes were on Rulaan now. The choice was his. He sighed, and when he spoke, the somber surrender behind his seemingly firm words was evident, at least to me.

"Only volunteers."

"I'm going," Ele said.

"Going too," Chejuh added.

"Yeah, same," Shozi next.

"I can lend a hand too," Amorok started, "if-"

"No," Rulaan intervened. Need enough hands to help get the wounded out of here."

That much was true.

Rulaan turned to me, now the informal commander of this semi-sanctioned maneuver. "Am I going to have to bring another team out here come morning to bring your bodies home next?" he asked.

I scoffed. It had to have been the most annoyed that I've ever seen Rulaan, but every part of him in spite of his sarcastic words was sincere, and so I dropped my smile, and answered frankly, "No."

He nodded, and as he watched Ele, Shozi, Chejuh, and I embark on this task, the words behind his eyes were clear.

Come back home in one piece.

Aegis

I was growing to hate the smell of wine.

I'd found myself liking it at first when Hanzek and his men had brought it aboard, offering the bottle to our crew while also enjoying it while seated atop the chassis of our tank. I'd thought it sweet, pungent, even if the taste of it was a tad too bitter for my taste. I'd still liked the smell of it, at least, up until the point that its bottle had shattered against the side of my turret, and its contents had mixed with the blood of the selfsame men who had brought it aboard.

It wasn't the same anymore, not the way that it'd adopted a metallic tang that permeated the interior of my turret, the way that, even through the filter of my firebender's face shield, I could still smell what was left, suffocating.

Even as we rode in the dead of night through spring fields of sprouting flowers and rushing water, all I could smell was still the blood and the wine.

Even as we rode from one scuttled tank to the next, left vacant by a crew that too had lost their life by an enemy who left no trace to another, I still saw the faces of Hanzek, Ojom, and the others, heard their laughter that'd filled their air just seconds before they'd been cut down without a care in the world. I still felt their deaths on my conscience, and now adding to them, the deaths of the tank crews we searched for without avail, all gone before we could even arrive, dead for anywhere between hours to mere seconds, all evitable if we had just been that little bit quicker.

I was frustrated, as were the others of the Shanzi. It was our third tank of the night, another dead crew, the bodies of infantry littered about the barren farmfield they'd ridden through, stopped in their tracks by an ambush, the Earth Kingdom soldiers who'd left them in this sorry state the last thing they never saw.

I hadn't bothered to leave the tank. I knew we were too late before we'd even stopped, the last of the fires having already stopped burning, the last thing to move here the carrion birds that flew away upon our arrival.

That hadn't stopped Zek and Hizo from investigating the scene, my place in the turret, watching them as they investigated the remains, watching their surroundings lest they be next.

Zek had picked up a Fire Nation helmet–one of the only remainings signs of the struggle that'd occurred here, and upon seeing the red wine, no, blood, drip from it to the ground, he threw it to the ground.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed.

"Hey," Hizo said, trying to calm him. "Easy."

"Third fucking tank and too late again, for fuck's sake!" Zek yelled again, refusing to abide by Hizo's words, and kicked the helmet. It shot forward, clanging against the side of the tank.

I knew how he was feeling, felt the way my fists clenched deeper into the palms of my hand with each similar sight we came across, but I was saving my frustration, my anger, my hate. I remembered what Jeong Jeong had told me, how a firebender's power comes from his breath, from his emotions. I remembered too how this had been his biggest criticism of our element, our birthright, but critique didn't erase reality, and so I let it build, tried to guess the names of each Fire Nation soldier that'd been killed here, of the families that'd lost their sons and fathers because of the Earth Kingdom, and so a part of me hoped, maybe, that Zek's yells would incite an attack against us.

Spirits knew I could use the release.

But as Zek and Hizo continued to argue, and we remained unmolested by the enemy, I temporarily put that hope aside, focusing instead on Boss who, from his pilot's seat, was consulting our patrol map, now edited with approximations of where the red emergency flares had hailed from.

We'd been close if not exact so far, Boss's knack for nailing distance from simple visual cues one to be admired, an attribution Zek claimed belonged to his time in the Navy.

I didn't care where it came from, as long as it brought us closer to finding our men, and finding their killers.

The pilot's cabin hatch opened, and Zek crawled inside, Hizo doing so from the rear shortly thereafter, the two dead silent.

It would be on Boss to speak first, orders already on his tongue as he said, "Get us started up. Coordinates for next flare site are-"

"Nearest or most-recently lit?" Zek asked.

"Nearest," Boss said. "Signal marking was set at 2314."

"Then already an hour and a half ago," Zek sighed. "They're already dead."

"We don't know that," Hizo said from the maintenance bay.

Yeah, I thought. We do.

Boss didn't give an answer to either, resolute in his order, simply repeating the command. "Local grid coordinates for next flare site are 40.753 degrees North, 73.983 degrees East. Get us started up, Hizo."

"Starting," Hizo answered.

"Zek, you're on navigation."

There was no answer from Zek, and leaning down to look, I could see his head just trained straight forward ahead of him, requiring Boss to repeat "Zek," before he answered.

"Roger," he said simply, taking the map from Boss's outstretched hand.

Soon enough, we were back on the move, at a snail's pace so as to reduce the noise we produced, headlamps out so as to do the same with our light. We didn't speak a word as we rode but to make minor course corrections and were otherwise dead silent.

About half an hour passed as we treaded the earth of our future battlefield in these early morning hours, not one of us tired by the merit of the hour, but more than anything by the understanding of the repetition of the last 3 cases that we were sure to face.

And sure enough, we did, noticing the severed tank chassis that lay dormant in two pieces ahead of us, split open by some freakish display of raw earthbending power that none of us aboard wished to contemplate.

Once again, Zek and Hizo stepped out to investigate the scene, but it wouldn't be necessary. I could count the bodies already from my turret seat, but still, we had to be certain, I supposed.

So I watched Hizo and Zek pick through the ruins, and watched the world that surrounded us, ready for the enemy to try the exact same thing all over again. But it would be different this time. I wouldn't let it happen.

"It's not your fault, you know."

I thought the voice one of my brain's own making, coming from within on account of how topical it was to my own thoughts, but it wasn't, instead, Boss's voice coming below from the pilot's bay.

I looked at him, stunned for a moment, wondering if either I had accidentally spoken my thoughts out loud, or perhaps Boss had developed mind-reading abilities in the last few minutes that he'd refrained from updating me about.

Perhaps sensing the questioning behind my silence, he continued without being prompted, saying, "4 crews investigated and the same fate–complete casualties, except for us. I know you blame yourself for the others, but don't. You did everything you could. We're alive because of you, Aegis."

"I could have stopped it," I said. "If I'd been paying more attention, maybe…," my voice trailed off. I didn't know where I was going with it, what tangent to follow, which misstep I might have made that cost us our escort.

"Maybe," Boss said. "Only you can know that, but so far as I can see, me, Zek, Hizo, we're alive because of you. Whatever happened to our escort, to these other crews, it's not on you. You're our gunner, your mission is to protect us, and as far as I'm concerned, you've done your part."

"So why are we out here then?" I asked, now curious as to Boss's reasoning. "If our part's done, why go after the other crews?"

"Would you have done differently?"

"I'm not saying that. I just want to know why you did."

He didn't answer right away, perhaps measuring his response. When he did eventually talk again, he said, "Spent enough of my service before Ba Sing Se doing things I still regret. I have enough on my conscience already that I'm not too keen to add any more than's necessary."

Boss wasn't old. I would have placed him maybe in his mid to late 20s at most, and find myself inclined to ask just how many regrets he could possibly have accumulated in that time, but found my window to ask such a question closed by the knock of a gloved hand against Shanzi's chassis.

It was from Zek, giving a simple shake of his head to indicate what we already knew.

"Nothing," he said, and we all knew better than to ask further.

He was already on his way boarding back onto the Shanzi, however, when something changed about the world around us–a familiar tint of red.

Whether it was Zek and Hizo with the perfect view form outside, Boss looking out from the pilot's hatch, or me from my turret viewport, we all saw it–a red emergency flare fired into the sky, judging by its distance, no more than a half mile away. They were close.

"Get in," Boss said.

Close enough for us to do something, and yet, we were frozen.

"Get in!" Boss yelled again, and that was finally enough to break us out of that trance. We delayed not a second longer, Zek and Hizo boarding and strapping themselves in, me adjusting my turret, and Boss getting us moving within seconds.

That signal flare was close, close enough for us to do something.

A chance to put regret aside for Boss and for myself, if only for a moment

We put aside all concerns we'd held previously for the presence we generated, and set our tank ahead full throttle lest precious minutes be wasted on undue concern placed on our own present safety.

And if we were to attract the Earth Kingdom's attention, then all the better, as it would be less soldiers choosing to focus instead on those we set out to save.

It would prove not to be the case, however, our passage to the site of the flare one that went unhindered by the enemy, and so we tread upon the site of our quarry in mere minutes, observing a Fire Nation tank engulfed in a growing inferno, surrounded, by the looks of it still isolated to the exterior, and a mass of Earth Kingdom soldiers, infantry and benders alike, harassing the vessel from all sides. I counted at least seven.

I couldn't make out any signs of friendly infantry–the tank's escort, which left us little in the way of options.

We were outnumbered, the disparity between our strength and theirs leaving a lot to be desired, but if there was to be a deterrent against us lending our aid however we could, this wasn't it.

"Aegis," Boss said, catching my attention immediately just as the Earth Kingdom soldiers took sight of us and I prepared to launch my first salvo. "Disembark as soon as we pull up next to the tank and put out that fire. We'll draw fire away from you!"

"You'll be without a gunner!" I protested, but realized as soon as I said so that dousing the fire was only one of the reasons behind what Boss suggested.

"We'll be fine," Boss retorted, and as soon as he had brought us nearly beside the tank, us now taking the brunt of the Earth Kingdom's attack, most missing on account of their surprise, I understood the full reasoning behind this move, this our only way too of dividing the enemy's attention lest they all be focused on one target, no doubt too much for us to bear.

And so without protest, without waiting for us to slow, I unstrapped myself from my gunner's seat, opened my hatch, and as soon as I felt the Shanzi make contact with the first of the threat before us-a poor Earth Kingdom soldier who hadn't leapt out of the way quick enough, I took my leave of the Shanzi, climbing out of the turret and leaping to the ground.

It'd been my own fault for choosing to jump instead of trying to slide down the side, but I'd wanted to take no chance of getting caught in the treads. My little maneuver had, instead, sent me, by merit of inertia, running into the chassis of the tank I'd been sent to save, fortunately missing the area of it consumed by flame.

The Shanzi, not having hesitated to slow down, was soon gone from behind me, the Earth Kingdom soldier it'd trampled with nowhere I could see, be this because he'd been so embedded into the Earth, or perhaps because he'd been pushed and/or dragged a few more feet by the vehicle that'd taken his life.

Either way, left in Shanzi's wake was an Earth Kingdom soldier, one who'd managed, it seemed, to have gotten out of the way in time. Still dazed from all that'd changed in the last 10 seconds, the earthbender proved little threat as I turned towards the tank, reaching out to feel the flames that consumed its chassis, and sent them through the air towards him instead, without so much as the time for him to rise to his feet.

And so he writhed and screamed, falling back to the ground as I pulled the flames away from the tank in favor of their new target.

The Fire Nation tank ceased to burn, hopefully providing some relief for those who otherwise would've been trapped within. I didn't get my hopes up though, knowing any matter of other ills could still have befallen the crew, but as I unsheathed my sword and moved towards the rear hatch to get it open and find out for myself, I was reminded of the fact that 5 present Earth Kingdom soldiers still had yet to be dealt with.

And, sure enough, there was one, waiting for me.

The soldier, a non-bender judging by his melee attack, swung with an overhead slash in the hopes of decapitating me.

Reacting quick enough and ducking, his sword only found the stern of the tank, clanging against it as I reared around the soldier, prepared to deliver a slash of my own.

Before I could, however, an impact behind me–a earthbender's boulder clipping against the stern corner of the tank, breaking apart before it could reach me, the shockwave and minimal fragments, however, enough to send me forward off my balance, crashing into the side of the soldier who'd been turning to face me directly again.

With me momentarily slumped forward against his side, attempting to regain my footing, he raised his sword to impale my side. Desperate for anything to do to knock him off his guard, I kneed him in the stomach, disrupting him for the mere moment required for me to plunge my sword instead into his stomach.

And just in time too.

The earthbender who'd tried to kill me before had now reached the tank, and reared his ugly head as he manifested from the ground a pike constructed of earth, his line of sight on me unobscured, not intending to miss this time around.

I used my sword, embedded in the mostly-dead Earth Kingdom's soldier's torso to try and turn him in time to absorb the bender's blow for me, but not quickly enough. It would prove unnecessary, however, as with a crash of thunder, a chunk would be blown out of the bender's chest, sending him to the ground, the fragments of his magic weapon alongside him.

His fall revealed behind him a speeding Shanzi, having shown up in the nick of time to save my skin. I wasn't about to question the timeliness of the Shanzi, myself simply grateful for their efforts as well as those of their hand cannoneer-Zek, I assumed.

Marking the fourth combatant down, we were left with around 3 more to eliminate, child's play.

Or so I thought.

Just as soon as the Shanzi had passed, in its wake, a tremor in the Earth around me from within the hills. Emerging from them, 3, no, 5, no, more, many more Earth Kingdom combatants.

Shit.

It was an ambush. And I was surrounded.

I committed to the first move being mine, turning to face those with the clearest line of sight on me-those directly behind the immobilized tank.

I let loose a blast of fire that found its landing between two emerging benders, one quick enough to bend a wall of cover for himself, the others not so lucky, being torn near in half by the blast.

I would have fired again to remove the second had another earthbender not emerged to the tank's right, his rock already in the air, ready to be sent towards me, nowhere to run.

It was a last ditch effort, but I reached for the handle of the tank's rear hatch, swinging the right door open, for some reason unlocked, but thankfully so.

The rock that would have hit me now instead made contact with the hatch door, knocking it clean from its hinges, and instead into me, sending me now to the ground, disarmed, albeit with a fraction of the force that otherwise would have taken me.

On my back, winded to say the least, I dared not take the second my body was desperately begging for to stay on the ground, instead pulling the hatch door off of me and tossing it aside, rolling onto my bellow in the direction of the tank to look to its left, noticing two Earth Kingdom spearmen charging towards me, non-benders, likely of the original three who'd been assaulting this tank.

I felt the the energy course through my body, reached to my side to let it manifest as fire, and prepared to hurl it towards the two combatants, proving unnecessary, however, as, once again, the Shanzi, circling the immobile tank, struck one, and another hand cannon blast claimed the second, sending him to the ground with a red spray.

From the turret, in addition to Zek's fire support, a simple yell of "Get in!"

With pleasure, I thought, rising to my feet as the Shanzi began to slow for me to board.

As soon as it did, however, the Earth Kingdom reinforcements seized the opportunity, a boulder flying just inches to the left of my head, hair carried by the wind, into Shanzi's port chassis, knocking her aside, off her path, but still moving.

Good, I thought. Catch me on the second pass.

I turned, seeing the same earthbender who'd sent the rear tank hatch into my chest, and fired,

The bender dodged my first strike, sliding left, bending an earthen pillar from the ground just in time to catch my second blast too, leaping into the air and punching off its upper portion, sending it careening straight towards me.

I ducked into a roll in time to avoid the attack, my hands managing to find the sword that'd fallen my grip just in time to emerge from my roll in a crouch, point thrusted into the bender's midsection, a rock spear just a foot away from my face before it fell harmlessly to the ground, its bearer along with it.

It was only when rising to my feet that I noticed something was off with my left leg, and looking down, was able to make out the shaft of an error sticking out of my calf, the point having penetrated through my leather boot, and into my leg.

I would have ideally liked to assess the damage, but looking up from my injury had made apparent too the one who'd dealt it, already knocking a second arrow, this one aimed higher.

The tank's rear hatch still possessed one door, the left, which I now swung open.

The clang of metal indicated a proper intercept, and so with the time afforded me, I slammed the hatch shut, and with my remaining good leg, kicked forward, sending a blast of fire towards the archer.

He tried to jump out of the way, but it wasn't enough to make up for the size of the blaze that took him.

But where one Earth Kingdom soldier fell, more rose, the hill beyond that archer now infested with a trio of other soldiers, already charging in my direction. Armed with spears and swords as they were though, and comparing their distance to what I assumed to be the distance of the men behind me judging by the sound of their footsteps, I opted to turn my back to them and instead sent an arc of fire towards the pair approaching me.

It took one straight in the chest, sending him down in a moment while the other ducked in time, met instead with an upwards slash of my sword that found itself lodged in the man's jawbone, myself needing to place my foot against his chest to remove it, as soon as I did so finding an Earth Kingdom spearman directly behind me.

I managed to lunge forward out of the way of his thrust that found the Fire Nation tank's hull instead.

I retreated to the tank's starboard, looking to my right to find, ahead of the tank, more Earth Kingdom soldiers including two archers who took aim at me now.

You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

My only consolation was the Shanzi rearing its beautiful head once more, a crack of thunder bringing down the nearest spearman to me. I'd never realized how much of a crack shot Zek was and knew I'd have to thank him later, if even there was a later. Even with as much damage as we were doing, we were outnumbered, and if I was being overwhelmed, then Shanzi was something else in it of herself.

I'd locked blades with the 2nd Earth Kingdom spearman, leveraging his weight to put him between me and the archers on the hill just in time for him to take two of their arrows in my place, only to look from where the spearman had come and see Shanzi take another direct hit, this one almost directly on the turret.

The earthbenders had turned their attention on her, and would continue to do so until she was in as sorry a state as the tank I was using for cover. So, when Shanzi made its second pass in an effort to pick me up, busy wresting the knife from the third sperman's belt to shove it into his throat and I saw the Shanzi just barely avoid another hit, I knew she couldn't stop.

I doubted that they'd heard my "Go!" over the sound of their engine, or perhaps even saw the zealous dismissive wave of my hand. Maybe they thought what they were doing as helpful to me as it was to them, but the Shanzi didn't slow down on the next pass, didn't wait for me to climb aboard, instead simply running into the pair of archers atop the hill ahead of the defunct tank, bringing with it, tailing behind, half of the remaining Earth Kingdom soldiers who were dead set on killing me, the other half turning to watch as it made its escape.

And suddenly, things seemed a lot more optimistic for me.

The spearmen who'd come after me dead, the archers atop the hill wounded or eliminated, and the other soldiers thinking the Shanzi's retreat from the battlefield an indication of my demise, I had the upper hand, even if only for a moment.

But I'd used it to my advantage.

There were 5 remaining soldiers, one of whom, a nonbender, appearing to be the commanding officer of this ambush, flanked by two earthbenders, another soldier and archer circling the tank to verify my death. I hadn't even bothered in the temporary lull to look inside the Fire Nation tank–the lack of movement from within indicative of a fate I wasn't yet ready to accept. There were more pressing matters-namely the soldiers coming after me.

One was coming from the left, another from the right, and so I went where neither of them were–above–the last place they'd expected an attack from.

As though leaping off of a springboard, I found myself jumping off of the turret into the air, sending a wound-up punch of fire with my free right hand towards the rightmost earthbender, catching him immediately off guard, the force of the blast alone sending him to the ground, dead in an instant, cinders on his corpse erupted into smaller localized flames that ate at his remains.

Towards the centermost nonbender, I raised my left knee in spite of the pain from the injury in my calf, using the movements of my leg to channel the energy into a flame, hoping to end it at where my knee would be rather than my foot, and burn the officer's face clean off.

The earthbender to the left, however, had been quick enough, and responded, forming an arc of earth that caught the blast, dissipating with it, leaving the nonbender unscathed, but the intercepted attack hadn't disrupted the movements of my left arm, a clean flash with my sword that ran across the bender's neck.

Though he reached for his throat to stop the bleeding, it was too little too late, and he fell dead to the ground.

The nonbender was raising something from his belt, I noticed, likely a dagger, but a kick from my right foot that found his hand, and the object clattered to the ground.

I would have killed him there had the archer and swordsman not noticed my push on their officer, and come to intervene.

The swordsman, naturally, was closest.

I pivoted on my left foot, sending a jolt of pain through the leg, but it was worth it for me to be able to get a blast of fire off on the soldier.

By some miracle or adept dexterity, however, the soldier's sword found my blast of fire which dissipated right against it, my focus of energy having been on the attack striking him rather than coming short.

The impact of the firebolt did little to slow the soldier, now swinging at me with a sword red from the heat.

I dodged backwards, and just in time too for the archer's arrow to go flying past my face so close that I could have blown on it and sent it off course.

The non-bender officer was running, I saw from the corner of my eye, but that was a later problem, my present concern placed instead on freeing myself of these nuisances.

I brought my blade up to meet the soldiers, now adding my freehand to the grip, strengthening the powder behind his place as I deflected it once, twice, repositioned myself to put the swordsman between me and the archer, then locked blades with the swordsman as the archer was forced to reposition, but I had the swordsman right where I wanted, the weight of his slash against the weight of mine.

I wasn't intending to slash at him, however. I shifted my body, and let the weight of my counter-push wane, favoring instead to let my blade slide along his. The enemy's strength won out, the edge of his sword digging into my armor's pauldron, severely slowed, so not enough to go any deeper. My sword, however, had slid along the edge of his, finding his hands where they rested on the grip.

I felt the blade slice through at least two fingers before stopping against the bones of his hand.

He screamed, and I let my left hand leave the sword and reach around the soldier's back to find his left shoulder. From there, I spun him so that his back was to my chest, the shock of his injury having left him susceptible to my manipulation for just long enough for me to release my sword with my right hand now, and use it to get him in a headlock.

The soldier now portable cover for me, the archer's efforts to reposition to get a shot on me had proven in vain, and would prove to be his undoing as well. I didn't have such a moral dilemma as needing to risk the safety of a comrade by attacking, and so with my free left hand, the matter was as simple as catching the archer with a bolt of fire.

He went down without even a grunt, falling limp as though the marionette strings holding him up had suddenly been cut.

I felt the swordsman struggle in an effort to free myself, but his struggle wouldn't last long if I was going to get my way. He couldn't get the angle to get an effective swing of his sword on me, and so I was rather confident as I let my left hand search my belt for my dagger, only to feel a sudden sharp pain against my side.

It took me looking down to realize that, against all odds, I'd been stabbed. A grazing wound that'd taken a small chunk of my left side, I'd been stabbed nonetheless, and so too had the soldier in front of me been, much more by his own blade.

He'd impaled himself with his own blade just to get to me.

What the fuck? I thought as I shoved the soldier away from me. The blade retracted from my side as it and the soldier it was still shoved through stumbled forwards.

I saw the soldier, back to me, move his arms to the grip of my swords as though ready to pull it from his own stomach and continue the fight with his self-bloodied blade, but my left hand had finally found my knife, and I wasn't going to let the soldier get the opportunity he was hoping for.

I stepped forward, and bringing the dagger to the soldier's throat, cut.

I felt his blood spill out, warm against the hand that held the blade, still sawing through flesh and bone until the soldier stopped moving against my grip, and went limp in my arms, falling forward on his stomach, impaling himself with his own blade that last bit more.

Fucker, I thought to myself, feeling my wound with my right hand. The blood that spilled from it was no match for the swordsman's lost life, but it still did sting like a bitch, and undoubtedly would need looking at, but that could wait.

The field was clear. No more reinforcements had come, the rest of the ambushing force having gone after the Shanzi.

They'll be fine, I told myself.

As for this tank, however, it still sat lifeless.

Just a little over 2 minutes ago, it'd been burning, surrounded by enemies zealously doing their damndest to wipe it from the face of the Earth, but in the 2 minutes between its flames being extinguished and now, there hadn't been a single breath of life from it. Not as I used their hatches for cover, not as I climbed atop to get the jump on the remaining enemy, never.

The flames hadn't reached inside, nor had there been any sign of penetration. If what I'd observed had been any indication, then the crew should have been fine, but all evidence pointed to the contrary. So upon reaching the tank, I shouldn't have been surprised by the sight I saw.

Right where the maintenance hatch door had been torn, sat inside was the tank's maintenance officer, in a garb so similar to that of Hizo that for a moment I thought I was crawling into Shanzi's remains, but no, of course not. This man whose head faced the ceiling, his throat cut, he wasn't Hizo. Nor was the man slumped over in the turret seat, an arrow poking out of his forehead, me.

And for that matter, the two men up from, slumped over on the control dashboard, already cold, were not Zek or Boss. These men had been dead for a while. Not 2 minutes past, hell, not an hour past. Their deaths went back to before the sun had even set.

So what the hell was happening here?

Maybe I was waiting for Shanzi to return, maybe I was pacing around the field to think, to get away from the stench of the disabled tank's dead, or maybe because my eyes were on the footsteps of the retreating officer, but as I followed them, my foot clattered against the object the officer had dropped-that I'd kicked out of his hand.

And bending over, I picked up a Fire Nation flare gun, its charge expended, leaving only an emptied red emergency signal flare casing. I ejected it, and it fell to the ground, that flare casing, the one that'd been fired just a few minutes prior to our arrival, that had brought us to this exact spot, hours after the crew had been killed.

This had never been a rescue mission. It was a trap from the very beginning.

How many of the rest are traps? I wondered as my eyes turned towards the skies, remembering in relation to the stars where almost a dozen other flares of this exact type had been fired throughout the night.

How many other crews fell right into them?

And how many dead because of them, because of officers like this one?

My eyes had fallen back to the tracks he'd left without me even realizing it.

He couldn't have gotten far, and even if he did, I'd catch up. The Shanzi would know where to find me, but this wasn't done until this man, the last combatant of this ambush, was dead.

And as I walked, I asked myself, Is this another trap I'm walking right into?

Maybe.

Good, I thought then, picking my sword back up from the ground and wiping its blood against the uniform of the slain swordsman, sheathing it shortly thereafter so I could begin my hunt.

I wasn't done just yet.

Danev

Another shell fired, another explosion in the general vicinity of where we'd been a few minutes ago, the turn of the others' head enough to tell me it was different from the others.

I'd only been with the downed crew of the tank I now knew to be called, or rather, have been called the Valiant for the few minutes required to ascertain the state of our wayward 114th brethren. The time had not been sufficient for me to have been able to properly learn just where in these rolling hills the tank had been immobilized, and where its survivors had been huddling for cover for their dreadfully long stretch of night.

"That close?" I asked, barely above a whisper, our pace having already come to a temporary halt on account of the others' attention drawn towards the blast.

I saw Shozi nod his head, followed shortly by "Yup. Point blank by the look of it too. Thank spirits the others are out of there."

"Think they'll make it back okay?" Ele asked.

"They'll be fine," I said. "Earth Kingdom's probably hedging their bets on drawing rescue teams in for the kill. Probably why brigade command ordered us specifically not to go out on rescue missions." I murmured that last part under my breath as we set out on the move, not the most eager to confess to a blatant disregard of orders out loud.

"And you ignored them, huh?" Chejuh said, the smile behind his voice obvious. "Setting a good example for your subordinates, huh?"

"Rules for thee; not for me," was my reply. "Besides, y'all are here already, aren't you?"

"In our defense," Shozi said. "We never received any orders not to volunteer for the scouting parties."

That they hadn't, but between considering such an action, putting together a team across the entire company, not just my platoon, and embarking on said unsanctioned escapable, at no point had I been in the loop, and that was the part that was an issue.

"You left me out of the loop," I said. "Why the hell didn't you come to me first. You know I would've been right here if you'd bothered to say a single word."

"We know," Chejuh sighed as we continued. "Which is why we didn't say anything. We didn't want to risk our CO on this shit just to keep an eye on us."

"And now I'm out here anyway," I retorted.

"Yeah, well…," Chejuh said. "Things didn't exactly go as we hoped."

"I noticed," I said. "If you're going to do something off the books, least you can do is do it right so it doesn't make more of an issue or force others to put their line on the line to drag your asses off of it."

I wasn't unaccustomed to chewing out subordinates for their fuck ups. I had plenty of experience with that with the Hornets, but, granted, 'chewing out' with the Hornets had more meant beating the shit out of them until they were scared enough of the next prospective beating to make the same mistake again.

It'd worked, but I was hoping that here, words would prove sufficient.

A simple "Yes, sir," from either Chejuh or Shozi wouldn't have convinced me of anything. As such, I actually felt myself gladdened to hear nothing from them instead, the next words spoken coming from Ele instead.

"We're close," she said.

And so we were, the sounds of another shot being loaded into the gun audible from here.

We were really close.

We'd been moving along the hills that ran perpendicular to the mill's southeast before stopping at the river, whose rushing water I was also now beginning to be able to make out. The hills had kept us out of sight for the time being, but the time had now come to make our ascent, and so lowering ourselves to the soft grass of the hill, we climbed upwards until we reached its crest. And upon doing so, we could see the enemy emplacement–a water mill, its attached house, and behind it, going across the river, a stone bridge.

A river-crossing.

The stolen Fire Nation cannon beside the house fired again, a deafening roar that made it nearly impossible to hear Ele's next words past the ringing in my ears.

"Thought you said they already hit the tank," she whispered.

"Probably did," Shozi said, standing beside his prior claim. "But no way for them to know that. They'll fire 'till the sun's up and they can see the smoke most likely."

All the better for us, I thought, a possible asset in claiming this position that'd suddenly become a lot more valuable in the last few seconds.

"Didn't mention there was a damned bridge," I hissed.

"Didn't know," Shozi said. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm counting 6, 7. Just that I can see from here. 2 gunners, 2 at the front entrance, 2 inside playing guards, one marksman. No doubt more I can't see."

"Probably not many," Ele commented. "How many dirt eaters it take to shoot a cannon?"

"More than seven if they're guarding a bridge," I said. "They've likely got somebody on top of the mill keeping overwatch."

"Yeah," Shozi said. "Counted him."

"More inside asleep waiting for a day shift. This isn't an ambush site. They intend to hold this bridge long as they can with as little a commitment as possible. This line's not meant to bend. Soon as it's too much to hold, they'll break, and take that bridge with them."

"So we do this quiet-like then," Chejuh commented.

"Can take the two by the gun down without the others hearing a thing," Ele said. "Wait for the gun to fire again, make our move."

"My thoughts exactly," I said, finding myself for the moment impressed with how a girl who'd needed Mykezia beside her during training at all times just to properly load her hand cannon could think that up.

Wait for when rocks start flying, I reminded myself. Talk is worthless until the plan goes to shit, and the plan always goes to shit.

"Those inside?" Chejuh asked.

But even if the plan was to go to shit, going in without one was just plain suicide.

"Two teams," I said. "Shozi and Chejuh, take the first floor; Ele and I will go upstairs." It would be closer quarters there, out of Shozi's skillset while more in mine, and better allowing me too to keep Ele close to me.

"Gotcha," Chejuh said.

"From there," I continued. "We work out what to do with the mill and bridge assuming either is still standing. Shozi, get a shot lined up on that cannon gunner."

Right then, another shot from the artillery gun. How timely.

When the ringing in my ear had subsided enough for me to talk again without worrying I was accidentally yelling, I finished, "Wait for the rest of us to get in position then wait for the shot and take yours."

Shozi smiled. "They won't know what hit 'em."

I nodded, then turning to the others, indicated that the time had come to get in position.

We quietly descended one hill and then slowly ascended another, bringing us little more than a hair's width away from the artillery gun, slightly behind it, and accordingly, right behind its operators, one of whom had just finished loading the shot, the other preparing to fire it.

I would take out the operator, I decided, drawing my shortsword ever so slowly lest it produce a noise, and waited, watching as the shell was primed, the loader stood clear, and the gunner pulled the firing chord.

The sound of the blast consumed the earth, and I was half convinced that the gun had in some form misfired and sent fragmentation flying towards him, because as soon as the cannon fired, the Earth Kingdom soldier fell, and landed directly beside me with an inaudible thunk.

I'd planned to move immediately after, but Ele, to my surprise, proved quicker on the draw, already on her feet by the time I was just beginning to push myself off the ground. In just a matter of 3 or so seconds, she had closed the distance between herself and the operator, cutting through his throat with a single swing.

Following in her wake, I caught the soldier's body as it fell, dragging him the few feet required to stow his body behind the cannon, out of sight and out of mind.

Ele and Chejuh had already taken position on either side of the threshold that led into the house, quiet by all measures but for a card game I could observe being played by two soldiers.

From our initial count, two others waited at the front entrance. So, coming in from the side, they wouldn't be an issue. At least, not right away.

I found a position at the right side of the door with Ele who I nudged to scoot back to make room for me in front of her.

Shozi was quick to follow, finding a spot behind Chejuh, matchlock gun in hand, no doubt ready to make his entrance in style.

I gave a shake of my head, however. We had surprise on our side for the moment, and I wasn't about to have us sacrifice that in favor of a quick kill.

Chejuh nodded, and drew his own blade. The two soldiers inside would be dead within the half-minute.

I held out three fingers that soon became two, then one, then none, and the two of us rushed in. In the time it took the soldier who'd noticed us's chair to hit the ground, both were dead, one sliding off of my sword to the ground, and the other slumping forward, a red smile across his neck where Shozi had cut.

All fell silent for a moment, making the next two sounds I heard stand out all the bit more–the creaking of a wooden plank, and a gunshot.

Turning, I saw first Shozi, hand cannon in hand, smoke still trailing from the barrel, and following it, an Earth Kingdom soldier, bow and arrow in hand knocked backwards against the wall with one loud thunk, then falling the rest of the way down the stairs with many more.

And so our cover was blown, and as anticipated, the plan had gone to shit. But in the way that plans going to shit went, this was one of the better ways, five combatants already dead, and two coming from somewhere we already knew to expect them.

The front door of the home swung open, right beside Chejuh and I, allowing in two enemy soldiers. The sword of the one in front found mine just a second and a half before his companion found his blade locked with Chejuh's.

The force of his charge enough to take me aback, I was pushed a few paces to my rear before my back found the wall beneath the staircase.

Angling my blade and shifting my weight to the left, I sent the soldier's downward slash, locked with mine, into the woodwork of the wall beside me to my right.

The soldier realized quick enough what I was doing and stepped back, desperate to dislodge his sword from the wall, perhaps with more force than was warranted.

Staggering back on account of his own efforts, the soldier left himself exposed for the second it took me to shove my sword into my chest with my right hand, pushing him back with my left, sending him off and to the ground in time for me to see the outcome of Chejuh's own duel.

The ongoing struggle between them was disrupted by the intervention of Shozi, smashing the butt of his weapon into the soldier's head. Though the helmet may have spared him from lacerations, it wouldn't from the sheer force that sent the soldier stumbling backwards and to the ground, dead shortly thereafter from Chejuh's blade finding his gut.

I heard steps above me, and perhaps fearing more reinforcements coming from above, turned on my heel in an instant to see Ele already ascending. Without me.

Shit, I thought, moving to join her just in time for a crash from the north side of the building–a boulder careening through the window, taking part of the wall with it as it somehow found the air between Shozi and Chejuh rather than either one, and exploded against the south wall.

Shozi returned fire through the window, rushing for cover as Chejuh did the same.

"Go!" Chejuh said to me, giving me the assurance I desperately needed that they could handle the bender, allowing me to nod to him, and chase up the stairs after Ele to give her backup.

Not, I would realize, that she would need it.

I reached the second story to find myself stepping over the body of a slain Earth Kingdom soldier right by the top step of the stairway, his blood spilling down in a growing cascade.

She was a few steps ahead at the first door of the hallway on the right. She turned to face me, cocking her head in the direction of the opposite door on the left, and so I took it, covering Ele's rear as she swung open her door and I kicked in mine, leading to an empty room.

Ele's, however, not so much.

I re-entered the hallway to find Ele doing the same, though not by choice, shoved backwards to the wall facing the doorway she'd entered, a pair of brutish hands around her throat.

A door at the end of the hallway opened, revealing another Earth Kingdom soldier.

One thing at a time, I told myself as I shoved my sword through the neck of Ele's aggressor and pulled him away, Ele freed and left struggling for air just in time for me to notice that the new Earth Kingdom soldier was something more if the earthen projectile he held in the air was any indicator.

I wouldn't allow Ele to catch her breath just yet, grasping her by the collar of her uniform, fingers curling just beneath her pauldron as I swung her back into the room she'd emerged from, using the momentum to take her place.

Fortunately, the rock had been aimed for where I had been rather than where she had been, meaning that it only clipped me rather than crush my head against the wall, but still, it hurt like a motherfucker, and sent me to the ground, now the one gasping for air, at the mercy of the earthbender who prepared his second fatal attack.

But if the spirits hadn't proved to me yet that they had a thing for me, they would surely try to make their case now as the floor suddenly gave way before the earthbender, a crunching sound like that of bone resonating through the building.

The hallway I was lying flat on my back in now became a ramp, leading straight back down to the first story and a cloud of dust originating from where some hurled earthbender's boulder had missed its mark, claiming instead the very support holding this building up.

Much as I tried to hold myself where I was, I felt gravity claim see shortly thereafter, sending me into the debris of the first story, the dust doing little to help me regain my breath, and so to pull myself out of it, tried rising to my feet only to find myself not quite 'on top' of the debris as I would have liked, my leg trapped, or, rather, temporarily stuck beneath a small pile of wood.

And hell bent on not being delayed by the momentary inconvenience, rising to stand above me, the earthbender from the second story, dagger at his side.

He would drop, however, just as quickly as the floor beneath us had, sent falling to the side by a musketball to the head, having originated, I saw now, from Shozi who stood to my left, scanning the area ahead of us, the dust a useful smokescreen for the moment however.

I felt something pull me back now, freeing my leg of the rubble, and turned my head to find I could accredit the shared effort to Ele and Chejuh who pulled me free and to my feet.

"Your earthender?" I asked as soon as I was back up, feet on the ground, being led into cover along with Ele by Chejuh.

"Still out there," Shozi said, huddled behind the table the soldiers had been using for cards, reloading his matchlock, peering over the occasional odd second to see if the dust had dissipated well enough for him to get a line of sight.

It hadn't, but that didn't seem to mean much for the earthbender. From the dust cloud, a disc of earth emerged, embedding itself in the wall rear to Shozi's just a few inches shy, certain to have split the boy in half had he not been crouched.

He knew where Shozi was.

"Shozi!" I hissed. "Move! He's got zeroed!"

"Yeah," he said, reaching for his belt to pull out a match which he promptly lit, bringing it to the fuse of his matchlock, prepping it to fire. What? "And so do I."

He rose from cover, placing the barrel of his hand cannon against the rim of the fallen table, aimed straight at the dust, and waited, a standoff between two invisible opponents.

The pause couldn't have been more than seconds, but felt like an eternity because the dust parted to make way for another disc that flew out, this one certain to be a direct hit.

Shozi fired, and no more than a yard from Shozi's face, the disc slowed, staggered, and dissipated into mere pebbles that harmlessly clanked against the sharpshooter's armor, its bender dead.

Shozi's shot had found its mark, and damn was it a sight to behold.

He stood, fully confident in his skill as the dust cleared, and in the silence, the drop of a pain could've been heard, but in its place only was the sight of relief that I let out. And sure enough, when the dust was gone, left only in its wake was the body of the bender, a hole clean through his forward.

"Still got the mill marksman to deal with," Shozi said, loading another round into his weapon. "Had some good fucking cover when last I saw him though."

"Think you can pull off another miracle shot then?"

Shozi looked at me and grinned. "Let's find out."

By his description of a sharpshooter atop the mill, we knew that, were he still there, he'd have an eye on the new entrance of the house's north side without question, just waiting for somebody to step through the hole in the wall left by his allied earthbender's barrage.

As such, none of us were so stupid so as to try charging immediately out of the breach. Instead, Shozi ascended up the ramp that'd once been the second story hallway to find a post at a window with a view.

Chejuh took up post beside the breach, and before I could leave back through the back entrance to find a way to flank the sharpshooter, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Turning to find Ele, I picked up the briefest glimpse of concern in her eyes before she said, "Hey, uh, thanks for throwing me out of the way back there." It was clear from the way that she was talking that thanks didn't come easy to her.

Is now really the time? I thought.

I was prepared to ask her as much if it wasn't for the way she spoke and the look in her eyes that told me she was legitimately remorseful, still thinking about the fact that I had to throw her out of the way of an earthbender's boulder and take it in her place.

I wasn't her commander, no, but I was her comrade, and that was good enough reason for me that there was no question.

I shook my head, trying to think of what to say as I started with, "Don't," but didn't know where to go with that. It couldn't be as simple as 'don't worry about it' or something of the same vein. It was true, she'd been reckless, gone ahead of the pack, and nearly gotten killed for it.

So instead I said, "You're a good fighter, Ele, but on our own, any of us are good as dead. You have a team for a reason, yeah?"

She nodded her head, and echoed my "yeah," and I had to take her word for it that the message was sent and delivered.

We both exited through the back decaying house's backdoor, finding the corner of the south wall that would afford us a line of sight on the mill.

Though the river sat at the base of the hill, a few yards lesser in elevation, the height of the matermill's structure and attached silo brought it to height with the 2nd story of the house we huddled behind-perfect for a standoff between two marksmen.

I was confident with my bets placed on Shozi, however, and so I waited, waited for a shot that didn't come, eyes on the watermill with Ele right behind me, the two of us ready to rush in at the soonest sound of a struggle that would not come.

The tension in the air was palpable to such a point that I was about ready to jump out of my own skin when Shozi's voice spoke from behind us, "He's not there."

It took my nerves a moment to recover from the shock so as to allow me to ask, "What?"

"What do you mean he's not there?" Ele repeated in more words.

"I mean he's not there. He must've switched positions, but that mill's empty as-"

"The bridge." I'd voiced the thought as soon as it'd come to my head when I realized, attracting the questioning eyes of Shozi and Ele who had yet to make the same connections–moments wasted on questioning rather than action. I looked right back at the two. "You two, on me; eyes open. They're going to blow the bridge."

"Shit," Ele muttered under her breath as she joined me in prowling forward along the east wall of the house before anxiety got to me, and I found myself breaking into a run regardless of the lack of cover afforded to us with no thought of stealth in mind.

Chejuh, without much difficulty, noticed us, asking as we passed, "Fuck are you doing?"

"He's moving on the bridge!" Shozi yelled behind him towards Chejuh, and soon enough, he was joining our mad dash to the crest of the hill, then down it towards the mill, a voice at the back of my head wondering if maybe, just maybe, we were walking into some trap, but it was a risk we had to take.

If we had that bridge, if we secured a river-crossing, then there was the faintest chance in hell that we could do a damn lot of good with it.

I was halfway down the hill when Shozi saw something my eyes couldn't even hope to make out in the dark, and yelled behind me "There!"

Even straining my eyes as I did, coming to a momentary halt, I couldn't make out the figure until he stepped out from under the bridge with a torch he just now lit.

"Hold!" I screamed to Shozi, only able to guess what would happen the moment that man dropped dead, and the torch with him.

I hadn't accounted for him not waiting to be shot. I hadn't thought that, when faced against 4 Fire Nation soldiers as us, one holding him at gun-point, he would see only one option left. I hadn't thought that a man who bore features as young as his that I now just was able to make out in the torchlight would be so willing to do whatever it took to push us back that one crucial step–and drop the torch on his own.

And the world became white.

I couldn't have estimated how much explosive must have been already packed beneath that bridge, only that it was enough to remove both him and the bridge from existence, send the mill beside it crashing to the earth with a bone-chilling cacophony of wooden screams and shouts, and send me falling backwards to the floor.

It was the ringing in my ears all over again, and now my vision too needing to reconstruct itself after being left near-blinded by the blaze.

By the time it was back, and I could actually make out the world around me, I was met only with the sight of a pile of stone sinking to the bottom of the river as flames put themselves out against the water's surface.

The bridge was gone. Because of a boy who chose to die for his country.

We'd been seconds away from saving it. Or seconds away from being caught in the blast.

I tried to tell myself that as I forced myself to rise back to my feet, and helped Ele up as Shozi did Chejuh.

We did what was to be expected from that point. We checked one another for injuries, ascertained that we were all still alive and that the bridge was, in fact, too far gone to be recovered. There was nothing less of it to be used, nor even anything left of the Earth Kingdom boy to be identified.

I don't know why it was that I was thinking about him even as I felt relief in seeing all of my team alive, even as we scuttled our stolen artillery piece ensuring the Earth Kingdom would get no use of it, even as we turned our backs to this hill and began the long trek back to our line.

And even as we walked away and I turned to face that hill one last time, seeing the gray plume of smoke that billowed into the air against the blue of an early-morning sky, I asked myself what it was that brought somebody to be willing to give their own life without a hope of survival. What it was that brought one to so love their country and so hate their enemy. He couldn't have been over 14 and yet had determined his life was nothing outside of this war. There was something in it I recognized, a cold familiarity that washed over as I was forced to wonder if the fate that met this boy so too would meet those just like him. I prayed it wouldn't.

Aegis

I'd killed the officer over an hour ago.

But he'd been running somewhere, I knew that much.

If he'd been trying to simply get away from me, the man would have taken turns through the hills, tried to cover his tracks, hide somewhere as the soldier I'd killed earlier today, no, yesterday had done in the rainstorm.

No, he'd taken a direct path, having seen me kill his comrades and figuring he would be next if he didn't run as fast as possible and get whatever help he could. And so I knew he was heading somewhere in particular. That, or into another trap, but as I had yet to find myself surrounded, I figured that not to be the case.

I'd considered following him at a distance, waiting to see where he wound up, but figured the chance of him alerting whoever it was he was going after and them leaving the area in time wasn't worth the risk. And so, I'd let myself catch up to him, and killed him.

The man was as useful to me in death as he had been in life, his corpse pointing the way forward even as his tracks ended behind him where he lay.

I wasn't going to lie to myself and claim that I had a plan. Or, at the very least, that I had a good one. I didn't, but I wasn't going to wait still in one spot for the Shanzi to return, which she would, I knew, in time. Following her tracks would have been pointless given her speed, so between chasing a tank that even at a slow speed was double the rate at which I could run or a stationary target that a fleeing combatant was for all intents and purposes leaving breadcrumbs too, I'd chosen the latter.

I hadn't been so lucky to find a map, orders, or something so obviously incriminating and pointing me to where and to what I was headed, only more of what I'd seen before-fresh fruit–lychee, reinforcing what I already suspected–the Earth Kingdom was holed up in the forest. It made sense; the forests were on this side of the river, and logistically, it was easier to launch raids from there, their targets a shorter distance away and on a purely land-based route rather than trying to move men and equipment across sparse and narrow river crossings-crossings the Earth Kingdom no doubt would be moving to seal off at the slightest sign of our advance to them.

I wasn't headed for the forests, hadn't neared that point of being suicidal just yet, but not every Earth Kingdom soldier was in that forest tonight. Obviously. Launching raids, catching our patrols in ambushes, they were on the hunt, launching them from somewhere that wasn't the forest. Somewhere I wanted to believe I was drawing in on.

Because I wasn't done yet, not as I continued walking northwest if the stars were any indication, not as I walked past the wrecks of more Fire Nation tanks and crews that'd been claimed by the Earth Kingdom in a single night.

It took for the night to begin to fade in favor of a faint dawn for me to see that my efforts hadn't gone in vain.

In the distance, to the north, a campsite so small and so nondescript it may as well have belonged to a passing hunter, but nestled between the trees atop a hill, far away enough from the action to go unnoticed while close enough too to provide support, sporting a single Earth Kingdom banner to help guide their own men, I knew it was more than that.

It didn't take long to reach, only about a half mile away from where I'd been when I'd noticed it, my walk there having gone unmolested, forcing me slowly to come to terms with an uncomfortable reality–it was too late.

Damnit.

Of course it was. Morning had finally come, the Earth Kingdom had claimed their kills, and so, satisfied with the damage they'd dealt in a single night, abandoned the site, the embers of their fire still burning.

I swung the flap of the tent open with my left hand, my sword in my right ready for anything only to be met with nothing.

Just like that, I thought. A night spent killing dozens if not hundreds of soldiers only to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Cleared desks, scattered furnishings, undone bedding, they were here. Erected fortifications, a supported tent structure, a well-cleared floor, they'd been here for a while too, before tonight, hell, likely before we'd taken their auxiliary trench. They were prepared for the possibility of us breaking through their walls and their first line of defense, and would likely be prepared for us to move through here too. They'd had over a year to prepare for the war reaching past the outer wall, and every move we made now was one through a land that they'd paved, waiting for our arrival.

I paced around the tent, looking for something, anything, still lost in my head.

They knew the Fire Nation would be coming, and likely knew that one such as me would be coming too.

And so they left, not possibly having been over an hour ago. If I'd still been with the Shanzi, I could have stopped them, could've made them pay for tonight, returned the favor at least in part.

'If' after 'if' statement went through my head, none changing the facts of reality however.

I took another step through the tent, and felt something beneath my foot. Raising it, juice seeped out from beneath, dripping back to the floor atop a crushed lychee fruit, no different from the ones I'd seen earlier tonight-fresh, lying discarded atop a piece of plywood that lay on the earth, concealing something beneath–a second stone floor, and within this floor, holes–ventilation.

They're still here.

I forced myself not to react in any outward way as I imagine that, right below me, this tent's command crew thought themselves hidden, looking up at me, likely imagining more than just myself outside the tent.

It wouldn't take them long to realize I was alone and decide to try their hand. I would have invited them to do so, but I wasn't interested in a fair fight. They hadn't been when they sprung out of the ground to attack our patrols, when they'd used our emergency flares to draw more in, when they'd hid beneath the ground because they'd feared discovery, because they weren't soldiers. They were merely their puppeteers.

But, as puppeteers, I couldn't put anything past them, didn't know just what was in store beneath me, how many waited, if it was a mere pit or perhaps an entire network of tunnels that extended beneath this soon-to-be battlefield every which way. Tunnels they would retreat to, any effort I made to burn them alive wasted, doing little more than to stir a waiting hornet's nest.

An idea, however. The holes weren't large, but not too small either for nothing to fit through-a small rock for instance. One that I could accidentally kick into the hole, and listen. Should I hear nothing, I would know the sound had escaped into winding tunnels beneath us. If I heard the noise bounce across the walls and back up at me, well, then my next move was obvious.

I let the small rock fall inside with a simple tap of my foot, and so it did. The fractions of seconds I waited for a response sound back felt like an eternity, but eventually, one came. There it was–the sound of a rock hitting rock sounding back up to me, alongside the briefest most subtle shuffle of footsteps to get out of the way, perhaps thinking it more than just a pebble.

I smiled.

There you are, fuckers.

I wasn't going to tip my hand, light a fire right here and now, give the Earth Kingdom beneath any reason to believe I knew of their presence. So, I stepped aside, and only then did I let it build, let myself thinking of the night they'd put me through, of those they'd killed, and those they would go on to kill if I let them do the same damned thing again, even if just for another night.

That was too many dead comrades that would be on my hands, more than there already were

And I was through feeling guilty for the deaths of others.

The energy was built, coursing through my body, ready for release, and so I stepped back into the tent, onto their stone floor, and placed the palm of my hand to the hole, and let fire rain down from above.

The sound was like that of a waterfall or a howling wind–a loud roar that filled the tent and filled the chasm beneath me, so loud I could barely make out the screams of those beneath. But I heard them, and I knew I had struck true.

Fire built up in the pit, and the heat of the tent grew, flames and soke rising out of the other holes of the grated surface I stood atop, burning the plywood that'd hastily been arranged to cover part of it. It all burned.

They all burned, no way out of the hell I'd made for them but death, which, eventually, did come for them.

The screaming ceased, as did my flames.

The tent sat silent. Silent but for the cackling of embers that danced slowly across the tarp of the tent before running out of air and material to feed their hunger and so extinguished.

They were dead. The Earth Kingdom soldiers I told myself were responsible for this all, they put up a fight no longer, dead alongside the men whose lives they were responsible for ending, whose lives had been in my hands, whose lives I'd failed.

I found the corners of the grate, and lifted it, the weight unforgiving and allowing me only to move it slightly enough to witness the still-burning corpses below, their sight and stench on full display.

I wasn't going to act as though this had fixed everything, as though killing the men below me had brought peace to the Fire Nation soldiers who'd perished tonight. It hadn't, but I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a small bit better.

I did, and now, that was more of them dead, and less of them left to continue this fight longer than it needed to go on.

And at the very least, that was a start.

The heat in the tent was beginning to die down, the cackling of small remaining embers still intense enough that I almost didn't hear the sound coming from outside of the tent–one that sent first through my body a rush of fear, then, shortly after, one of relief.

After a year of serving inside of one, it was a sound I recognized anywhere–that of a Fire Nation tank. And not just any tank.

Stepping outside of the Earth Kingdom command tent, I was met with the sight of them, mere shadows against the rising sun to their backs, but still recognizable anywhere–the crew of the Shanzi, already half-disembarked, Zek atop my turret, Hizo opening the tank's rear hatch, and Boss, already out and about, stepping towards me.

He didn't need to say a word. He and his crew were alive, they'd followed my tracks here I could only imagine, or perhaps found this play in a similar way to how I had, and they were here, as was I, alive, with a burning tent to my back, which his eyes now fell to, then turned back to me.

"Fuckin' hell," Zek said, having disembarked from the Shanzi. "That you, Fluke? Smell a hell of a lot worse than you did just a few hours ago."

That would be the smell of the burning bodies, which I'm sure Zek knew, but if ever there was anyone to try and keep spirits high in times like this, it was him, and so I mustered a fraction of a smile for him. It was the least I could do, and besides, they were alive. That was something to be glad about.

"See you made it out in one piece," I said.

Zek nodded in Boss's stead, joining his side and saying, "Hey, we pulled our weight before you came along, gunner. Don't think we're helpless without you."

"We outran them," Boss said, offering a depiction of the story not quite as colorful as the image that Zek seemed to be trying to put into my head. "Have to assume they'll be following us."

"Or coming back here," I said, knowing the significance of this place now, which Boss drew his eyes to again, as did Zek.

I motioned for them to follow me inside the largely extinguished tent by now, and they followed in spite of the smell and heat, able to witness with their own eyes the sight I'd left.

"Officers," I said, filling in the blanks. "Probably just logistics."

"Anything salvageable?" Boss asked.

"Not when I came in. If there was, they took it to the grave with them."

At around that time , Zek had had enough of the smell, and so retreated from the tent, a gloved hand around his nose.

Boss and I followed suit, and I noticed that I'd hardly even noticed the smell, at least, not in a negative way. There were smells, but hadn't quite bothered me the same way they seemed to with Zek. If anything, as I returned to the Shanzi, and began to board, another smell came over me…one that, actually, smelled sweet.

It took me a moment to realize it was the wine, no longer the same nauseating stench it'd been for me earlier tonight, but rather, something almost pleasant, even intermixed with the copper and smoke as it was.

Back atop my turret seat, my home in the absence of any other, my eyes turned towards the rising sun, and then towards the opposite direction–west, and the expanse of woods that remained shrouded in shadow, the sun's light not having yet reached it.

"Pity," Boss said as he climbed back aboard the Shanzi after me, speaking in regard to the lack of anything salvageable intelligence from the tent. "Could've been something useful there–something to help us make sense of this all, find maybe just where the hell they staged all this from."

"We already know that," I said, my eyes on their source now. "Woods to the west. Earth Kingdom's hiding in there, ready to do this all over again, every night if they have to."

"Fat good that does us," Hizo commented from inside. "Gotta be hundreds of acres, those woods. Could be anywhere in there. Would be just as costly trying to find them as putting up with their shit same way we did tonight."

Maybe, I thought, my eyes on the land in front of me, one I'd been caught admiring just under a day ago, finding me fixated, almost obsessed even, my attention so placed on the outwards appearance of the Earth that I'd failed to see what it was–a weapon like any other. A weapon our enemies had mastered, and so would turn against us with any chance they had, leaving us only one option.

"Not if we burn it all."