A/N; Here's a chapter to whet your taste buds. Went MIA for a bit, but this is the life I chose. I really hope you like this chapter. I want to say that its really good, but I wrote it so long ago that I can't remember. What I can remember is that Chapter 19, my most recent work is really fucking amazing. Stick around for a few weeks till we get up to that, and you'd be in for a real treat. It's already up on pa-treon, but don't feel pressured to pull that trigger. Sometimes, the wait is half the meal.

"Congratulations, Colonel Natsu. I knew you could do it. I never expected anything less" Sung said to be as I walked into his tent after our return and after action report. He said the words, but I could tell they were hollow. He'd expected much less. I was pretty sure that he'd expected me to completely fail and would have turned all of command's attention to me and my failures instead of any possible investigation into him. It was a good plan, all things considered, and there was no way for him to lose as no matter what happened, there was no chance that he'd lose out. He'd engineered a win-win situation while playing with the Mountain and I like puppets in his hand.

"Why wouldn't you have? Your plan worked." I said to him, trying to confirm my suspicions.

"Yes. Yes it did." He said.

"How did you know the Mountain would go after Colonel Shinsuke?" I asked him point-blank. That was one part of this plan of his that still made no sense to me. An hour or so before we'd set out, a messenger had given me a scroll to pass on to Colonel Shinsuke once we arrived at General Han's camp, but with the proviso that I was not allowed to open the letter. Now that what had unfolded had taken place, it was beginning to become obvious what exactly the letter had said.

"It was too obvious. The Mountain's attack patterns have shown a love for appearing where he'd be least expected. I also knew the he had some form of scouting system that kept him informed on what exactly the various units in the army were up to, and when it would be best to attack each place. He didn't attack us until the night we onboarded an entirely new batch of recruits. It could have been a coincidence, but that also happens to be the night that patrols are least efficient because we tend to mix existing patrols with recruits to let them get a feel for the job and start with their feet on the ground. The only way he'd have known that was from watching us for weeks if not months. So, I assumed he did. I assumed he'd watch you from the day you left the main camp until the day you returned. So how could I use it to my advantage? I made sure you couldn't be too subtle about your plans. I gave you clear orders on who to take, and who to leave behind, and then I made sure you'd start your search at the last place he attacked. He would never be foolish enough to confront those who'd been sent to hunt him down. The High Command had authorised several attempts to get at him, and he left each of them eating their own tails after months on the trail. Instead, wouldn't he be more likely to attack those who'd been left behind? Weakened by the absence of you and your division?" He asked, ending the long monologue that had me gaping at him. It all sounded like gambling to me.

"But didn't you say the High Command thought it wasn't worth it to send anyone after the Mountain?" I asked, looking at him with suspicion.

"I lied." He shrugged with the bright smile on his face still in place.

"But how did you even know for sure that he'd attack? It still sounds like gambling to me" I argued, leaving the admission to be dealt with after I got to the bottom of this.

"I won't lie. If that was all that I had to go off of, then I'd have estimated that the chances of him taking the bait were 50-50. Not bad odds, all things considered, but I had the means to weigh them in my favour so I did so. Colonel Shinsuke just happens to have what I refer to as a very punchable face, and I put him right next to a water bender" he said with a smile on his face that got a bit brighter at the end.

"What does that matter?" I asked, genuinely confused

"The Water bender bit? The Mountain had killed three water bending members of the healing corps before you put a stop to his existence. I had it on good authority that he had some form of beef against them. Maybe he views them as traitors. Maybe he just doesn't like their faces. Either way, It was enough to raise the odds that he'd attack to about 75%. From there, the rest was history." He said, looking mighty proud of himself. He had a look that any watcher of anime from my old life would identify as the 'Shadow Possession: Complete' look, the look genius anime characters would get when their plan worked without a hitch. I could see why he'd be proud though.

"So we were all bait? Even Healer Amara?" I asked him.

"Healer Amara is a soldier in this army just like any other. We must all perform the roles needed of us. For the glory of the Fire Nation and to fulfil the dream of Fire Lord Sozin the Great" He said, looking at me. He was daring me to object. I couldn't. To do so would echo too closely to treason for someone in my family. My father had already placed us in a precarious enough position with the Royal Family that Grandfather was only just beginning to rectify.

" I see. But now I must ask. Why did you lie?"

"You'll have to be more specific. I told you dozens of lies, Natsu. Each word I spoke to you was carefully tailored to get the optimal effects and reactions from you." He said.

"Let's start with the biggest one" I said.

"Hmm. The lie that the mission was not approved then. As you've probably figured out by now, I wrote to High Command the day after you fought the Mountain to a standstill with the idea for the mission to send you to hunt him down. Their permission came with the very same letter that granted you your first promotion. I was also able to negotiate a further promotion for you as a reward for if you managed to succeed, which was approved on the day before you set out. For this lie, the reasoning was simple. I needed to know if I could trust you. It was a test, and one that I'm happy to say you passed with flying colours. You didn't blab about the mission to anyone who wasn't supposed to know, and perhaps most importantly, you didn't try to snitch me to High Command. It bodes well for our future relationship, don't you think so, Colonel Natsu?" He asked, standing up and staring up at me while somehow making me feel like I was the one being stared down.

There was another reason he wasn't saying. It was a power play. He wanted me to know that I'd never be able to outsmart him because he'd always be the one who held the cards. I just nodded at him before taking the hand that he stretched out in mine and pumping it.

He won this exchange. He was the one in power now, but sooner or later, I'd surpass him. He'd be nothing more than a stepping stone on my way to the top.

"Good. Now we can plan our very next assignment. The Conquest of Omashu." He said grandly with a wide, hungry smile on his face.

"Welcome to Operation Firestorm, Colonel Natsu" He said, and then as if responding to some signal, Amara, Shinsuke, Tal, and half a dozen other officers walked in.

"What is this?" I asked.

"A plan" Shinsuke replied with a smirk as he walked in and bumped into my shoulder.

"A plan to change the shape of the war and bring it to an end" Amara clarified, while doing very little in the way of clarifying what the fuck was going on here.

"Stop teasing him, guys" Sung finally said with a smile on his face.

"Operation Firestorm is a dream of mine. What if we could bring the war to an end in our generation? What if we could break the earth kingdom and force to it to its knees while at the same time ensuring that whatever resistance would come from the water tribes is choked and killed in the bud? It was always a tall dream in my mind, then I saw General Iroh run roughshod over the earth kingdom and make his way to Ba Sing Se. I've gone through the simulations a thousand times in my mind. If he'd kept the siege going for even a month longer, then the city would have fallen. The soldiers who were at the siege already reported mass desertions among the City's defenders. He might not have succeeded, but the General had shown me that it could be done. While I'm nowhere near as dangerous a combatant as the famed Dragon of the West, I've managed to spear head a push deep into what had once been Earth Kingdom controlled territory. With the people here and our allies spread throughout the army and navy, I am certain that the war will come to an end in the next two years." He said, looking certain. For the first time, I could see passion in the Commander's voice. Actual passion and interest in something. I have no idea if all he'd told me was true or not, but I'd bet good money that most of it was. It was the first time, I''d heard him care about a topic or subject matter. The amused apathy in his voice was gone, replaced with a fire that grabbed at me and threatened never to let go.

"And what does this have to do with me?" Because I was certain that I wouldn't be finding out about this unless he had something he needed for me.

"Like I told you earlier, we'll be taking Omashu next. But that matters to you for one key reason" He said, stopping at the last word, making me stare at him in irritation as he dragged things out rather than giving me the answer immediately.

"King Bumi is a once in a generation Earth bending prodigy. In the earlier years of the war, they say he killed so many firebenders that his black hair was died red at the end of the first Assault on Omashu. But that was decades ago. He is an older man, now. But still not one to be underestimated. That is why you will be the one to fight him. We'll pit our prodigy against theirs" He said with a smile on his face that I ached to punch off it. If there was one thing I was certain of, it was that Bumi was a hell of a warrior. I stood no chance.

"Is that an order?" I asked, slightly resigned to my fate.

"Don't worry. I'm neither crazy nor callous enough to do what you're thinking. All I will ask of you is that you hold him off. IK hear you're quick on your feet. Our scouts tell us that Omashu's army is a shadow of its former self. With reinforcements streaming in from all across the army, we'll be able to take them out with little in the way of difficulty. The only wildcard is Bumi just need you to hold him off while we take the City and then you will have all the reinforcements you need. We'll bury the man in numbers." He said to me, making me let out an unconscious breath of relief at the knowledge that I wasn't being sent on a suicide mission. Merely an impossible one. How the fuck would one even hold off an earth bender of Bumi's calibre?

"We still have months left to polish the plan, so don't worry" He said, nodding at me before Tal produced a giant map of the Earth Kingdom practically from thin air and we all crowded around it.

XXXXX- ONE MONTH LATER

"Your shipment is here, Colonel Natsu" An infantryman told me as I walked into the mail tent. I nodded at him before directing two other soldiers who had followed me to pick up the giant package of scrolls and tomes. One advantage of being a high ranked officer in the military was that I could request things to be sent to me from home. I'd taken advantage of it to have scrolls and books shipped over. When iu first wrote to the steward requesting for books to be sent on the earth kingdom as well as some of the older fire bending forms, I'd expected my Grandfather to block the request but the old man turned out to be willing to turn a blind eye to so many priceless pieces of literature leaving the vault.

That was one thing I was thankful for. Because I knew that if I was going to face off against a Bumi who actually wanted to fight, then I was going to have quite an uphill battle ahead of me to learn all that I'd need to learn. We'd trained for fighting against earth benders back in the Academy, but all of that had been surface level. Shin was a bastard, but his lessons had been enough to create a foundation at the very least. Apart from that, though, I hadn't done much to prepare for facing off against other forms of benders beyond training my fire bending in isolation.

That was why the bulk of the scrolls were either on earth, water, or even air bending. The latter had the least amount of scrolls. The only reason we'd even had any was because of the scrolls my Great Grandfather had looted during the Air Nomad Genocide. The man had been Supreme Commander of Sozin's forces, and also a hell of a bookworm. He'd taken everything he could get his hands on. Which was unfortunately not a lot. Airbenders kept their most secrete texts behind massive metal doors that needed an Airbender to open.

Earthbending and Waterbending, however. There was a ton to look through. Across centuries, my ancestors had both fought and befriended masters of the elements and some of that wisdom had been reduced to scrolls. Like how I now knew that when fighting an earth bender, mobility would be both my best friend and worst enemy. Mobility meant I wouldn't just get trapped in quicksand or something, but it also meant I'd never have the time to perform the deep breaths that more powerful fire bending attacks would require.

The best advice I could find for fighting earthbenders and water benders was just to not. The author of the scroll, Lord Svetto, thought he was very witty when he said it. I almost even threw it away after that sarcastic piece of advice, if not for the following sentences;

_"In my long life and friendship with the Great Yangchen, I have seen and fought dozens of benders of the other elements. I do not mean it lightly when I say that an average Son of Agni would lose to an average earth or water bender nine times out of ten. When it comes to the Masters, however. True masters like myself and maybe even you, my noble descendant, can flip those odds on their head. First of all, when fighting a water bender, never do it near a large water body. No matter how much power you can generate, you cannot boil an ocean, or even a river. You will lose. Retreat and reengage when the odds are in your favour. Against an earthbender, you must bring your power to the fore. In my youth, I lost all fights to Earth benders above middling competence. But that was before Master Yang Chen taught me a tale from her youth. Sons of Agni placed in abominable conditions and abused until they could direct their Chi through their minds to cause spontaneous combustion of unforeseen levels. _

_The tale angered me, to think that children of Agni could be abused such by inferior benders of mud and stone. But it also came with inspiration. If peasants could manage such a feat, then surely I, a noble Son of Agni could do the same. It makes me proud to tell you that I managed it. Not at the same level or with the same form as the poor tortured souls, but a skill worthy of emulation, on its own. _

_My friend Yang Chen is gone now. I have lived a century and a score more years. My son is not gifted with the flames of Agni. Neither is his son. This skill shall not die with me. You, my descendant, will learn. Chi begins at the chest. In your chest beats the heart of a dragon, a tongue of fire. Pay attention now, let me teach you to draw that fire forth" _

To be quite honest, I could not believe what I was reading. Combustion bending without any of the torture to learn the skill? It sounded like something straight out of a fairy tail. Maki never spoke much about her experience learning the skill, but I'd gotten to peek at the scars along her back once or twice. They were not a pretty sight, not by any means. But she also wasn't too pissed about them, seeing them as necessary for giving her the skill that made her at least thrice as valuable to the army as the average fire bender. Oh she'd be so pissed when she learned I could do the same thing without any of the sacrifice. I continued further into the scroll, reading my ancestor's messy scrawl with rapt attention, but becoming more and more disheartened as I got closer and closer to the end.

_"Draw out the chi. Twist it, turn it. Remove the fire, Son of Agni, and let it explode forth" _ He directed. What the fuck was this? I saw it now. Why no one had paid any attention to this before me. One, his handwriting was a mess. Two, these instructions were bullshit. At least with lightning, I had Iroh's teaching from the canon tv series to go off of. Fuck.

A/N: And that's the chapter. The next two are up on pa-treon now, give or take.