Chapter 121 – New Moves
Azula wakes up to crying. She sighs and pulls the blanket over her ears. Zina is a terrible crybaby, unlike Tulen. He wakes up annoyed and says “stahp” to his sister.
Of course, Zina is crying for a reason and she is not going to stop just because her older brother tells her to stop. Tulen doesn’t know that. He’s used to seeing Azula boss others around and others stopping when she tells them to stop. So he says it again with more force since her crying is really obnoxious, “Stahp!”
Since she still doesn’t stop, he punches the side of his reinforced crip and makes a big bang. “STAAAAAHHP!”
Zina quiets down and sniffles a bit. Azula groans under the covers and says, “Tulen, you are NOT allowed to scare your sister like that. Ask her nicely to be quiet next time.”
Tulen timidly says, “Ok mommy.”
Of course, that won’t work with Zina, but Azula’s words are final in this house. No ifs and buts about them.
Aiwei rushes in from hearing the commotion and checks Zina. Sure enough, she soiled herself. He picks her up and brings out to the pond to wash. Zuko shows up and heaves up Tulen from out of his crib. Tulen has grown more scales on his arms and legs now that he’s 3 years old. “Uncle Zuko!” he says cheerfully.
Zuko laughs and replies, “Good morning Tulen. How’s it going, sis?”
Most of the gang is worried about Azula, so they have begun to drop by regularly. Nuwa has not contacted them in two years, despite claiming that she could. They think it is because she is too young for now. Azula brought Tulen and Zina to the Spirit Realm with their physical bodies with Aang’s help the moment Zina finished her gestation. It actually only took 3 months for Zina’s umbilical cord to detach itself from the cradle and the ritual circle to collapse. Thankfully, she was born healthy.
The good news is that Azula gets lots of privacy here in the cave she tunneled and constructed by the beach, but the bad news is that anyone from the gang who is enlightened can pop up whenever they want from anywhere in the world to bother her. They can bring others with them too. Secretly, she enjoys how often they stop by, since she’d be driven mad if she had to take care of the two children by herself. “The usual.” Azula replies as she throws the covers off and burns the gunk off of her face with her Phoenix fire.
She asks, “Anything important happen?”
Furrowing his brow, Zuko says, “Not really, only greedy nobles for me.” Then he smiles and says, “Aang’s got to deal with those and bender supremacists, hehehe.”
Apparently, Aang and Zuko are competing to see whose Nation is better run or who has less work. It is definitely Zuko. Republic City has already been built on the site of Cranefish town and further construction is ongoing to expand it. Factories are popping up and most of the jobs for operating machinery do not require bending, so when benders see nonbenders snatch up cushy jobs, resentment forms.
In the Fire Nation, the statuses of different types of workers are pretty straightforward. They go by nobility first, then bending. In Republic City, according to the propaganda and constitution, everyone is equal, so there’s no clear cut power dynamic that’s already been established. Competition can easily become violence.
Grunting, Azula replies, “Let me know if things go to shit and I’ll step in. I can kill pretty much anybody now.”
Zuko grins, “Yeah, yeah. Wanna play Pai Sho? Mai brought Izumi to play with this punk right here.”
Tulen giggles happily hearing he gets to play with his cousin. Of course, they can’t play that close to each other. Mai has to keep Izumi’s spiritual body protected from Tulen’s prodigious strength.
Smiling back, Azula says, “Alright, let me get cleaned up.”
~ ~ ~
That night, when she’s sure that Zina and Tulen are asleep, Azula gets up and recalls the booklet Lo gave her that she memorized. It was both short and incredible. The booklet describes the process of gathering chi in key places of the body to open certain limitations placed upon humans. These limitations are in place to prevent the human body from falling apart through sheer overexertion, but hormones like adrenaline can loosen them slightly.
Azula has been increasing the durability of her body to handle the stresses of the technique for the past two years, but it is time to start practicing it. After all, with her Dao, she is the most suitable for a technique that overexerts her own body. Now she understood why Lo and Li wanted to keep a good relationship with her. They had practiced this technique to some level, but they saw that she had the potential to practice it to a higher level than they could. She sits cross-legged and puts her finger on the left side of her forehead, targeting the first of the ‘Eight Gates’ for chi infusion, the ‘Gate of Opening’!
~ ~ ~
Aang drags his feet home from fatigue over how tiresome the nobles and supremacist sympathizers on the United Republic Council are. ‘Commuting prison sentences for terrorists claiming ‘unfortunately excessive force in self-defense’, ugh. These guys are rotten.’
He perks up after remembering he can play with Tenzin though. Swapping between fire thrusters and his airbender staff, he lands on Air Temple Island. Entering his house, he finds Katara preparing food with Bumi and Yasuke running around. Plopping himself down with his head on the table, he sighs heavily and asks, “Hey Katara. Where’s Tenzin?”
Katara turns around, looking a bit chubbier after two additional pregnancies without Nuwa’s help to resolve the damages and becoming a full-time housewife. She smiles, “Hey sweetie!” then she frowns, “You look exhausted. Busy day, huh? He’s sleeping. Why don’t you play with Kya?”
They now have three kids: Bumi, their firstborn nonbender son, Kya, a waterbender daughter, and Tenzin, an airbender son. Katara refuses to have more. She has plenty on her plate with these three and she’s worried that her figure will deteriorate even more. Finally having an airbender son made Aang happy, so he did not push her.
“Yeah, terrible day.. Alright.” Aang says with a bit of reluctance. Katara frowns again. Aang shows clear favoritism towards Tenzin when it is just them. Katara ponders, ‘If it was Tenzin, he would be happily playing, but with only Bumi or Kya, he would rather go to sleep. I’ve talked about it with him before, but he claims he loves them all the same. That may be true, but he should at least give them all the same level of attention, so that they know it.’
~ ~ ~
A few hours later, when Nuwa gets bored of messing with the shades, Zagreus takes her to the training room. There he finds Achilles in the training room swinging his arms and spear so fast that they form a blur before he stops, inhales, and cools down with slower, more visible swings. Zagreus puts Nuwa down, picks up a spear, and jumps in the way of Achilles’ spear, blocking its blows. Toddler Nuwa starts spinning around on a bowl-shaped shield well out of the way of the student and teacher duo.
“Wheeeeeeee!”
Achilles’ blows get harsher and soon, Zagreus’ muscles and bones begin to creak. Just before he’s about to run out of strength, Achilles lets up and says, “Not bad. Ready to learn a new move?”
Zagreus pants with exertion and nods, ignoring the trembles in his arms and legs.
Nuwa slides by on her shield-sled. Even though there are weapons all over the place, they let Nuwa play here without a care because all residents of the House of Hades are exempt from a Physical Death (as opposed to Soul Death, which is permanent). The most she can do is hurt herself, which will teach her what not to do in the future to keep safe. She’s already had a few hair-snake heads cut off, which she cried terribly over, until her daddy healed her with a bit of blood from the River Styx.
Achilles leans in close and says, “This move is my masterpiece and one of the reasons I was invincible on the battlefield. I call it the dash.”
He stands in front of Zagreus and adjusts his ankles slightly. The next thing Zagreus knew, Achilles had disappeared in a flash of green! He knows his Father could do short-distance teleportation with his authority over the Underworld and his Mother could do long-distance teleportation to anywhere shrouded by the Night, but Achilles shouldn’t be able to. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Zagreus swings his spear around, only for Achilles to grab it. Growing excited, Zagreus asks, “You can teleport?!”
Achilles chuckles and says, “Not quite, lad. You see, my only weakness is my heel. In an attempt to usurp my weakness, I deeply developed the abilities of my feet. Eventually, I trained myself to perform this move. By focusing all my willpower and soul on my feet, I can do a short dash straight in the direction my heel faces. It is not a teleport, but for the duration of the dash, I am invulnerable to damage. Using it here in the Underworld as a shade, it lets me phase directly through obstacles.”
Zagreus’ eyes brighten at the thought of dashing. He can use this to escape from his Father’s eyesight! If he’s already gone by the time his Father looks in his direction, he won’t get yelled at! Just like that, learning to dash has become the utmost priority for the young, 12 years old Zagreus. Nuwa sits on the side in a shield chewing on her hair-snakies like babies would suck on their thumbs.
“I’ll learn it!” Zagreus says with enthusiasm. Achilles mentally sighs at how the boy has serious daddy issues. He tries to make up for the shadow Hades put over Zagreus and he has to some extent, but negativity is always a stronger motivator than positivity.
“Alright, first, get into the crouched sprinter’s position and focus all of your soul on your ankles. I’ll slash at your position from your side with the blunt end of my spear the moment I see you begin to move. If your ankles don’t produce enough thrust, you’ll be in for a world of pain. Think you can handle it, lad? I won’t accept quitting halfway.”
Zagreus unhesitantly gets into position and says, “Let’s go!” He feels Achilles gaze upon him as he gets into position, puts all of his focus into his ankles, and pushes forward with his entire body.
*WHACK*
Before he can make it a single meter, he’s slammed into the ground by the handle of Achilles’ spear, who only says, “Faster.”
There’s a slight indentation on the ground from how harshly Achilles pounded him into it, but Zagreus’ divine body can take plenty of beating before he’s out for the count. He has never left the House of Hades, so he doesn’t know this, but being inside the House gives him a passive health recovery due to his Father’s domain.
He gets up and tries again with all of his muscles, only to be downed again. Achilles is impressed by the boy’s persistence. He doesn’t sense a shred of futility. He can tell that Zagreus needs this dash and he has full confidence that the boy will get it. The boy’s a Godling, after all.
Nuwa watches, happily clapping and giggling each time Zagreus is pounded into the ground. She senses the mood. Even though her Big Bro Zag is in pain, he’s happy.
Thanatos floats in and picks up Nuwa from off the unnecessarily sharp shield. He has no idea how Nuwa finds a way not to cut herself playing with these things with how stupid she can be at other times. “Big Bro Thanny.” Nuwa pouts at Thanatos for ruining her fun.
Thanatos just snorts back at her and refuses to let her down. He’s a 1.9m (bit over 6 ft) tall man with white hair, grey skin, black robes, a gloomy disposition, and always lugs around a massive scythe on his back. Thanatos, like all of Nyx’s direct children, was born asexually from a detached piece of her, similar to how Athena sprung out of the forehead of Zeus. He holds authority over Death, which is a vital role with lots of work to be done, so he is frequently forced to roam the mortal realm, however much he dislikes the sun.
He and the Fates take their work most seriously out of all of Nyx’s children. In fact, the Fates never visit the House of Hades, perfectly content to remain entirely hidden from the world in a secret location that their Mother always veils to prevent destiny from going awry. Thanatos also enjoys spending time with his family though, despite what his overtly tsundere nature may lead one to believe.
Thanatos pointedly glares at Achilles and says in a dull voice, “Hey, is it necessary to be that harsh? Want to try being on the receiving end of my scythe a second time?”
Smiling humbly and continuing to hit Zagreus with the same strength, Achilles replies, “If Death wants me, what can I do to stop you?”
Zagreus turns to Thanatos and smiles widely, “It’s ok, big bro Than. I think I’ve almost got it!”
“Humph, fine. Torture yourself. See if I care.” Thanatos grumbles.
Nuwa raises her hair-snakies to give kisses all over her Big Bro Thanny’s face to which she giggles loudly when he pushes them aside. He says in his usual monotone, “Stop it.”
She does it again and he pushes them away again. He actually finds it adorable and wants to leave them there kissing him, but he’s got an image to keep as the God of Death and all. People have to fear Death or there would be too much work for him.
Thus, the training room sinks into a routine of Zagreus being smashed into the ground and Thanatos watching along while pushing Nuwa’s hair-snakies away.
(A/N: When I was a toddler, I used to think the longer and louder that I said STAAAAAAAAAAAAHP to my crying little brother, the more effective it would be.)