A/N- Hey guys. Here's the new chappy. Expect the next update on Wednesday next week, and know you could skip the wait and read the next two chapters as well as continuous updates on Pa-treon right now. Since I now qualify as an unemployed member of society, all subscribers on my pa-treon are much appreciated. If you enjoy my writing, then please don't hesitate to support it if you can. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar. Please subscribe to my pa-treon using the website directly instead of using the IOS app. It's cheaper on the website.
Important Announcement: Changes made to my pa-treon structure mean its now cheaper to read the very next chapter with a lower-tier subscription. I'll be placing a discount on yearly memberships for a week or so to support this.
"So Ba Sing Se, huh?" Toji asked as we rode next to each other. Toph was to my other side, having a uniquely terrible time. I'd told her she couldn't just walk the distance because it would slow us down and being on a horse meant she had no way of 'seeing' her surroundings. It was a unique weakness that I was doing my best to eliminate.
"Indeed. The big one. The one we've all been waiting for." I said.
"So how are we getting there? I know most of this lot haven't bothered looking at a map, but I have. That tells me we're going the wrong way."
Toph's head whirled over to look at us at that.
"Please speak louder, Toji. The spies haven't heard you yet"
"Spies?"
"Gaoling knew we were coming before we even left Omashu. Someone is slipping information to someone they shouldn't be and that means we need to be careful with our information"
"You sound paranoid. Are you sure you're okay? Sleeping alright?" Toji said, giving me an assessing look.
"To answer your question, we are heading to a handy village that should have the port we need." I said.
"I see. And I assume we're not taking the land route because of the giant desert between us and the walled city."
"Precisely."
"So you have ships waiting? Or are we going to be waiting for them once we get there. Take the city and hold it until we get support?" He asked.
"What do you think the letters I sent when we took Gaoling were for?" I said.
"So if this was always the plan, then we didn't need to face General Shithead and lose several hundred men"
"No. Jinpei would have chased us this way regardless. I just didn't correct the assumption made that we were going to follow the same route General Iroh did, tracking through Mountain after mountain to arrive at our destination"
"I see. The others will be pissed when they figure it out" He said.
"I'm sure they will find it in their hearts to forgive me" I replied sarcastically.
XXXXXX
In the end, only a few members of the planning team had even bothered to make their dissatisfaction with my deception known. The rest had just moved on. It was clear to even the most unexposed of infantry members that we were taking a different route than they would have initially expected when they got their first glimpse of the coastline. Already, we had begun taking advantage of the coast to rest the horses more and give them room to drink water without risking our supplies during the march.
The Journey to Chen village ended up taking about eight days. It was an easy march. I did not force the troops to hurry, I even encouraged taking spontaneous breaks. It got me some looks of suspicion from the few infantrymen who could tell that this was probably too good to be true. They were right. This was essentially going to be the last rest the men would get for a long time. The second Siege of Ba Sing Se was going to be the biggest Fire Nation military action in decades. Might even the biggest thing the military would have ever done in its history-simply because unlike Iroh had. I would fucking succeed.
When we had breaks, I spent the time with either Toph or Toji. Surprisingly enough, Maki was still pissed at my decision to essentially recruit a Child soldier into the army and at the fact that said child soldier didn't care that she was being used to fight a war against what were ostensibly her own people. It was a piece of sentimentality that I hadn't seen coming from my friend, and so had not been prepared to deal with it. My answers when she questioned the decision that been far too blasé, in afterthought.
"How do I move fast like you?" Toph suddenly asked as I watched her make earthen structure after earthen structure and tear them apart one after another. It was one of the few ways I could help with her training-improving precision and pointing out when there were lapses in her concentration.
"Well, first of all, your model of Toji is highly flawed, but to answer your question- I do it by concentrating heat."
"Heat?"
"At the end of the day, all fire is, is concentrated heat and nothing more or less. I don't bother with the fire. Instead, I feel for my chi within me and heat it up. I send that heat all across my body and somehow that makes me faster, stronger, more flexible, shit like that, you know?" I said, explaining it to her. It was strange, to explain how I did something that had begun to come so naturally to me that it might as well have been second nature at this point. But that was the nature of being a teacher. Or a father, I realised, staring at the girl that I might have accidentally adopted.
"So it's not something I can replicate then" She said with a twist to her lips.
"No. No, it isn't. But maybe one day you will be able to draw upon the concept of earth and stillness to make it so no one can make your body move. I have heard myths of there being an earth bending technique that could let one become immortal even"
"Bullshit" She said instantly, and I winced while looking around to make sure Maki had not heard that.
"What did we say about language like that, Toph?"
"You use it"
I facepalmed. Yeah, it was going to be awhile before Maki forgave any of my misdeeds.
"Enough about that. How does the metal feel?" I asked.
"Still dead. Metal bending is impossible, Natsu. I know you think there's something there, but I can tell you there isn't." She said in reply. I just nodded. It had come to me while I bathed at the stream earlier today that the reason Toph was having difficulty with the metal itself was because she hadn't started out with metal in canon. She'd started with the space rock. That got her sensitivity to smaller particles of earth to a high enough level that she could feel the earth within metal. When she'd been stuck in a metal cell with Katara at an earlier point, she hadn't been able to do anything. There just wasn't enough experience in her yet.
Since I had no idea how to get said space rock, Toph and I were definitely going to have to move to something else.
"What do you think about lava?" I asked her.
"What is lava?" She asked instantly back, rolling the unfamiliar word across her tongue as it, testing the taste of it. I just sighed and changed the cloud I was looking at while I tried to come up with a description for lava that would make sense to a blind girl.
"Well, it's what you'd get if you heated a stone until it became a sludge like liquid thing. Like molten rock." I said to her.
"Like metal in the forge?" She asked with an adorable twist to her lips.
"Precisely. Precisely like that"
"So what happened to it"
"Do you think you could bend it?"
"I don't even know what it really is" She said, and I nodded in understanding.
A description would not be enough. I had to actually get her to experience or rather feel it for herself. Thankfully, the Fire Nation had no shortage of active volcanoes. A leave for a brief holiday with my 'daughter' after taking Ba Sing Se shouldn't be that hard. Especially since taking Ba Sing Se itself would mean an end to much of the war. It would leave the Northern Water Tribe and a few smaller cities in the Earth Kingdom as the last bastions of resistance. It was shocking that we were at the precipice of achieving Sozin's dream.
"Fair. Just keep practicing your bending then"
"I want to spar" She said instead.
"You'll lose"
"I'll make you eat those words" She said, making me chuckle and push myself to my feet.
"Let's go then"
XXXXXXXXXX
In the end, we didn't even need to reach Chen's walls for me to be certain that my plan had worked. Out from the city rode a small company of men, flying the Fire Nation insignia on a banner above them.
"Toji, Maki, Lin come with me" I ordered as I spurred my own horse forward to meet them halfway. I could see Toph pouting at being excluded, but I had no desire in flaunting her in the face of a military officer who could possibly outrank me and who I would definitely not know. The risk was too great.
We met the other force at the half way line, and I was smiling before the leader even took off his helmet.
"General Sung, it is a pleasure to meet you again" I said to him.
"Not as much as it is to see you alive, well, and so successful, Natsu. Or I guess that would be General Natsu now" He said, taking out a scroll from his satchel and tossing it at me.
I caught the scroll in midair while my heart beat rapidly. Had my plan worked? It seemed like it had. But there was always a chance that something had been added in to make it a pyrrhic victory. I practically tore open the scroll's seal to read the words within. My eyes scanned through at a rapid pace. By the order of his royal blah blah blah…in recognition of…blah blah mends your…charges you to….confers upon you the rank of General of the Fire Nation, and grants the command of the Vanguard in the Siege of Ba Sing Se. I read with a smile blooming across my face.
"Pleased with the news, then?" Sung said with a sarcastic tone, and I looked up at him with my wide smile still in place.
"Yes indeed. It always pleases me to serve the fire nation. Now I trust that everything is as requested", I asked him.
"Yes. I have brought the ships. A dozen Imperial Carracks to ferry you and your army across the earth kingdom right to the gates of Ba Sing Se" he said.
"And the rest of it?"
"Well, I wouldn't know about that but word is that High General Hiro himself will be journeying down from the fire Nation to take command of the Siege. With him around, I doubt you will find your forces lacking for anything."
I took a breath and nodded.
Right from the beginning, I knew the only chance there was that the Fire Lord would allow me full command over a siege of Ba Sing Se was iff he expected me to fail. And if he expected me to fail, I was unlikely to get access to the tools and resources needed to prove him wrong. Instead, I had to follow the lessons my Grandfather had given me, even if I still remained estranged from him. I needed to turn the Fire Lord into an ally. That meant I needed my successes to become his successes.
After Omashu and the insult from its new Governor, I figured it wouldn't hurt to have friends in high places and so had made sure to include a letter to the Fire Lord with my letters to command when I took Fong's base. It had been nothing special. Just a piece of drivel that I had taken the fortress in his name and a request that the mountain base be renamed Ozai's Fist when the Fire Nation eventually rebuilt and resettled it. The letter after Gaoling had been the real one. Dedicating the victory to him was only the first step.
The second step was requesting his guidance and wisdom in my mission to take Ba Sing Se, and including a draft of my plans but made sure to phrase. The hope was that he would leave the plans basically untouched but would be more likely to back them since he would feel like he had some level of ownership over them since I had asked his advice first things first. It was a very transparent attempt at manipulation, and that was why I had hope of it working.
"That's good then. So we're cleared to move?" I asked Sung.
"Yes. Let's get going to Sozin's landing." He said, gesturing to the city behind him.
"What?"
"Our CO chose the name" He said.
"CO? Who commands a General of the Fire Nation?" I asked.
"There's quite a few ranks above General, you know?" He replied with a smirk.
I just lifted my eyebrow at him. "Few people belong to those ranks and I think if any of them were in that town over there then I would know. At least I hope I would because wouldn't make sense at all for that not to be the very first thing to come up in our conversation." I said.
"Well, the Princess is in that town"
"The Princess?" I stuttered the words out.
"Princess Azula, daughter of Fire Lord Ozai." He elaborated with a smile that just rigged of smug.
"Alright then. The Princess is there. I assume you will be in charge of leading me to her, and your men will ensure that my people get situated." I said.
"Actually no. The Princess will dress you and every Commissioned Officer in your unit at the same time. The rest will wait outside the Town Hall while that happens."
"That's new" I said.
"She gave very specific orders" He said in reply.
As we began to put things in order to go into the city, I did my best to keep an eye on Sung while Toji took charge of things. The second I saw the men next to him ride off to a different area to ask some questions, I approached him.
"Am I about to be fucked?" I whispered to him. It was the only reason I could see for the strange approach. Strange meant new, and new was dangerous.
"The Princess does tend to be sharp with her words. Use your head, and you'll be fine" He said, as if that was somehow enough advice.
XXXXXXXXX
"Princess Azula" I greeted on bent knees. Because what else could I have done? Sung was an asshole for springing this up on me the way he did. Like it was an afterthought. The presence of a Princess was not something that one mentioned as a lesser matter. The Royal Family were not forgiving off insults, and from what I knew of the Princess from canon, she was not the most stable of individuals. Even for a daughter of Agni, her sanity left a lot to be desired. But in the end, what could I do other than bend and scrape to her whims and caprices.
"General Natsu of the Wu family. I have heard a lot about you. They say you are a prodigy of the likes the Fire Nation has never seen before. In the Capital, they whisper that you are the second coming of the Dragon of the West himself. Omashu, Gaoling, and even Fong's fortress. Now you have set your sights on Ba Sing Se." She said the words with no emotion behind them. There was no question within them as well. With anyone else I would not respond, wait for them to get their point. But something told me that the Princess did not react well to such.
"All I do, I do in the name of Fire Lord Ozai, and for the glory of the Fire Nation" I said to her, head still bowed and facing the ground. I could feel Toji's restlessness from my side. We had not been asked to rise, and so we could not do so without paying insult but a bow this long was unusual. Our families were nobility that could trace themselves back to the formation of the Fire Nation itself. Toji's ancestors had been Kings in their own right before they bowed before Fire Lord Kuzan the Unifier.
"Yes. Yes, you do it in his name. But was it his name that led your Grandfather to seek my hand in marriage for you?" I did not move. I remained almost painfully still at her words now. This was a crowded tent. Not just my forces, but multiple Generals were in the room. Next to the Princess herself sat four other Generals I could recognise. Speaking like this in such a public forum? There could be only one purpose for it. My humiliation. Now just what had led the Princess to wanting to put me down?
"My Grandfather's actions are his own, Princess. We might share a name, but we do not share a brain" I winced as the words left my mouth. Especially with the way Toji froze by my side. Too caustic. Completely unintentionally, I might actually end up paying an insult to the royal family by the time I was done here.
"I see. Tell me, General Natsu, what do you think your role here is to be?" She asked, switching topics.
"The orders from the Fire Lord command me to take command of the Vanguard. I expect to be the first one over the wall at any breaching and to lead my men to claim glory for the fire nation" I said simply.
"Oh, just the vanguard? I would have thought someone with your pedigree would need command over the entire force"
"There is none more worthy to lead the Siege than the Princess herself, Great-Granddaughter of Fire Lord Sozin who won the War's greatest victory with the annihilation of the air nomads" I said plainly, praising a genocidal warlord with a smile on my face. What did I care for air benders who lived a century ago? What did I care that even in the praise I had included what they were, nomads and pacifists who had been no real threat to the Fire Nation?
"I agree. Now rise General and come take your seat by my side" She said, gesturing to a place three seats away from her on the long table.
Important Announcement: Changes made to my pa-treon structure mean it's now cheaper to read the very next chapter with a lower-tier subscription. I'll be placing a discount on yearly memberships for a week or so to support this
A/N: That's the chappy. Yes, Ozai sends Azula to take the glory of taking Ba Sing Se because it wouldn't do to have someone else immortalized for that. On the other hand, this plays into Natsu's plans because it ensures he doesn't get fucked. Like I said earlier, you can either wait till Wednesday next week for the next chapter or skip the waiting and read the next two, as well as continuous updates as I write on pa-treon (same username as up here- link in bio). Both are equally valid actions, so no rush. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar.