Chapter 69 – Iroh
Although feeling some pain over the loss of a dao string worth of LEE, Nuwa sets it aside and wields her far more powerful [E-Vibe]. It might not be as deadly or offer as much protection as her Iron-tier vibranium gear, but it does offer more versatility when it comes to her ability to conduct sex daons through it. In fact, it feels as naturally hard as vibranium now. She doubts that her [E-Vibe] can disperse energy as well as vibranium, but that’s also besides the point. She’ll use it as a wand or staff, not as a shield!
Activating the formation with chi, she feels the soul force burden has significantly reduced, but it’s still sizable. E-Nuwa estimates that she can bend all elements simultaneously with mediocre power for about 10 minutes before she passes out due to soul force exhaustion despite having plenty of chi. She would probably be even weaker than a common Fire Nation soldier at bending, other than having the ability to bend more than one element at a time.
‘Urgh, I have to fix this formation, but I fucking hate geometric analysis. Sigh, whatever, I’ll devote 80% of my thought processes to simulations of a streamlined formation during my nights with Azula. I gotta get this right if I want to flex my tits properly.’ Nuwa pulls her fingers out of Azula’s pussy and licks them in thought.
+1k LEE, Total: 2384k LEE
She starts bending with an elongated [E-Vibe]. She twirls it around like Darth Maul while bending fire out of one side and air out of the other.
Azula and Katara watch as Nuwa bends multiple elements simultaneously, just like Raava. The problem is.. she’s bending miniature sized portions and only the speed of her movements makes up for the pitiful amount of bending she’s doing.
Azula encourages her, “You’ll get the hang of it eventually!”
Katara pivots back to look on the bright side, “You can always switch back to one element to be strong, right?”
Nuwa humphs and says, “It’s not ready yet! I haven’t found the right combination. Once I do, I’ll be doing old school WOMBO COMBOS up in here! That’s right, they won’t even know what hit them. They won’t be able to summon the least bit of resistance! My [E-Vibe] will blast them all to outer space! FALCON PAWNCH.”
Azula and Katara look into the distance and nod affirmatively as if they’re listening while Nuwa continues her angry, semi-delusional tirade. Katara whispers to Azula, “She’s bending kiddy sized water blasts and when she earthbends, she picks up soil instead of rock. She seems super mad. Are you sure she’s ok?”
Checking out what Nuwa is up to with the very edge of her visual field, Azula quietly gestures for Katara to shut up and whispers, “Just keep staring into the sky and wait for it to pass.”
~ ~ ~
Zuko laments as he jogs around the Palace, ‘Fucking hell, I know Azula said that I haven’t been training that seriously, but I never expected I would fall this low. Now I can’t even outpace my fat Uncle!’
In the past few months, Iroh has started some kind of workout from hell. Whenever he isn’t sipping tea or providing therapy, he’s working out or doing cardio. He still has a big belly, but it’s mostly muscle already. In the next few months, Zuko has no doubt that his old Uncle will be built like a tank.
Nuwa knows that he does this in canon too, but he does it in prison, before he breaks out during the Day of the Black Sun. With Nuwa’s preparations started far in advance and the Earth Nation’s corruption temporarily not a problem, the resistance is in a much better shape. Iroh beginning to work out early could be some sort of subconscious sign that he anticipates that the Avatar’s first showdown with Ozai will be the last or that he will participate himself.
In canon, Azula found out about the Day of the Black Sun and informed Ozai about it, which made them prepared for the attack and forced the resistance to retreat in the face of their airship counterattack. Since events turned out differently with Nuwa around though, the Fire Nation doesn’t have the advantage of knowing the date of the eclipse. They should be sitting ducks for the invasion force.
Mai is walking around the Palace followed by several Dai Li and snickering, knowing Zuko’s thoughts. She fell in love with Zuko for his kindness, so she doesn’t care if he’s strong. She’s actually become a little complacent as well, since she hasn’t needed to fight in weeks. Moreover, Mai never liked fighting. Azula forced her to train with knives as a kid, so she did become very good with them, but she prefers to laze around like a princess. She’s also the only one of the original Gang from a civilian noble family without any background in advanced martial arts training, so she’s adapting relatively very well to the lifestyle shift that comes with her pregnancy.
Katara hasn’t adapted so well. She still tries to follow Aang everywhere, until she looks down, sees her big belly, and gets depressed about not being able to do anything strenuous. She’s the type who likes to travel, do training, and help people. Little acts of kindness help keep the memory of her mother alive in her heart.
She also hates being followed by the Dai Li agents for protection or assistance, because she’s not used to having servants around. She’s the happiest about having June around to protect them, since June is never overtly subservient around them like the Dai Li are. She’s true-blue to her tsunderism, never once admitting that she is guarding her. She claims she’s just following Katara around for fun.
~ ~ ~
Later that day, Azula and Iroh face off in the same deserted spot of the Spirit Realm that Raava manifested. There wasn’t much damage to the area other than a few rocks dislodged and bent plants from the waves of chi. Nuwa did more damage in her rage while swinging the [E-Vibe] around than Raava did.
On a nearby cliff, Aang, Zuko, and a blurry-faced Nuwa watch carefully since they have the most to learn from this spar about battle tactics, firebender form, and creative fire dances during battle. June somehow tsunderes her way into watching instead of guarding their mortal shells, thinking she’ll miss some excitement. Dan and Toph are outside guarding. Toph doesn’t seem too interested in fights that she can’t participate in.
Other than these four, there’s Xai Bau, Aiwei, Piandao, and Pakku watching. Aiwei is sneaking glances at June, while she’s scoffing at the obvious perversion of the young boy. What June doesn’t know is that Nuwa is trying to set her up with Aiwei, so she’ll be seeing him around often.
Azula and Iroh cup their fists and bow to each other. It’s a common ceremonial gesture throughout the Avatar Record to start out spars, a reminder to both sides that they are engaging in sport and not a deathmatch.
Azula leans her torso forward, butt back, spreads her legs apart just past shoulder width, and bends her knees slightly with one fist extended fully forward and one fist resting on her waist similar to a karate stance.
A newly muscular Iroh surprisingly doesn’t take a martial stance. From casually standing, he lowers his head, closes his eyes, and places his right hand flat below his heart as if he’s cupping an imaginary teacup. His other hand goes above his first hand as if it’s feeling the heat of the tea.
Despite not moving his body at all from that position, waves of warm chi blow vigorously from his “teacup” until a light kindles in front of his heart. A soothing sensation akin to sipping a hot cup of tea on a cold winter day radiates into the surroundings. Iroh keeps his right hand in the same position to maintain the spark, while placing his legs and open left palm in a martial stance indicating his preparations are complete.
~ ~ ~
Ever since Heza served him her tea once again, Iroh has developed his Dao of Tea to a new level. On top of that, his tea rehab helped hone his skills in the Dao. He then found out that he can partially merge his chi with the strange feeling he got from his mastery over tea. The first time he summoned the tea spark, he felt like he was back in front of the fireplace cuddling with Heza all those decades ago.
Moreover, he could feel the soothing sensation disperse into the surroundings. It actively affects the environment and animals of the Spirit Realm by calming them down no matter their temper. That was when he first had the idea to use it as a weapon.
He found that it is fueled by his chi, along with something else that he couldn’t put his finger on. Regardless, its main function is to soothe, and it can somehow soothe even the hottest of flames, reverting them from angry conflagrations to harmless candles. He hasn’t tested it on other elements besides fire, but he suspects it works best on fire because of his affinity with firebending.
Iroh is an extremely powerful firebender. He has all of his chakras opened, except the sacral. The reason he reached Tier 2 Soul is that he opened his Heart Chakra to an unfathomable degree when he rose out of his depression and chose to forgive the world and humanity for taking away his wife and son years ago. His Heart chakra is so powerful that he immediately obtained unlimited spiritual longevity upon his breakthrough to Tier 2 Soul.
Nevertheless, his Heart shines with only love and redemption as he remains humble and avoids confrontation, preferring to guide juniors to resolve the affairs of the world. Or, that was the case until today. Now he’s preparing for his final decisive battle of his life. He knows that after this war, his mortal shell will retire back to peace in old age or death. He wants to teach his niece everything he can.
Azula has long since stopped holding a grudge on Iroh for being chosen by the World’s Will as the father of the baby. She knows he isn’t aware of anything though, which she wants to keep as is. She’s resolved herself to be a father to the child and learn as much as she can from Iroh on how to live without only caring about power. Her child must grow in a happy household, unlike her own childhood! This is as much about her own redemption as the child’s happiness.
Despite respecting her Uncle’s wisdom greatly, she’s always been eager to spar with him ever since Nuwa told her how powerful he actually is. Somewhere deep down, she’s also resentful that he’s never spoken out or fought against her father regarding his parenting methods, or did more to help her mother when he’s already so powerful. So she sees this as a chance for her to release some of her childhood frustration.
At the source of all these disagreements, Azula disagrees with his passive path! It’s not proactive! He waits around for fate and the Avatar! He could have done more!
~ ~ ~
Azula tenses her muscles, teleports in front of Iroh, and thrusts the fist on her waist at his gut. Her fist does a partial uppercut motion towards Iroh’s gut and blue fire blazes around it. Actually, teleportation for Azula is the wrong move, because Iroh’s opened Third Eye chakra lets him sense the surrounding mindscape flows of the Spirit Realm and disturbances like teleportation are obvious to him. Nevertheless, he does nothing and allows Azula to complete her move.
As Azula’s blue fire approaches Iroh, his tea spark calms the flame and he pushes her approaching fist downwards to the side with his open palm and avoids taking any damage. The resulting deflected fire blast is still quite large, and scorches the rocky ground diagonally behind him, but it’s not nearly as powerful as the chi that Azula put into it at first.
Even while throwing her other fist at him, Azula’s superhuman battle instincts tell her that the spark he’s holding is weakening the offensive output of her flames. It’s almost like the spark “convinces” her own chi not to attack! Iroh once again casually deflects her second fist into the air with his open palm.
Azula furrows her brows and decides to test something. She jumps backward at a low angle with a back flips and throws several blue fireballs at her opponent. Iroh’s tea spark glitters in the dim light and the fireballs that approach him visibly slow before Iroh simply waves his free hand and they’re pushed off their original trajectory.
Now fully understanding that the tea spark suppresses flames regardless of if they are close to or far away from her body, Azula rushes back into close combat range. Her initial judgement to enter close-combat was correct, since he’s handicapped himself to one hand.
Azula starts throwing rapid jabs and kicks at Iroh, while he mostly deflects with his palm and knees. The ones he can’t deflect, he allows to fall on a sturdy area of his body that won’t take much damage. During this time, he’s constantly disrupting her rhythm with redirection of force via his palm. Never does he counterattack.
Azula gets mad and tries to headbutt him out of frustration that he’s not taking her seriously by not attacking her back. However, he intercepts her head by raising his tea spark and its calming aura washes over her. The fight comes to a momentary pause as Azula freezes.
~ ~ ~
Xai Bau smokes a pipe as he admires the tea spark, just like Piando and Pakku. In fact, all of them there can feel the slight calming effect of the tea spark from the approximately 20 meter distance. Nuwa curiously observes the Dao of Tea that Iroh wields. Zuko and Aang seem more focused on the fight. Aang in particular is wide-eyed at how Iroh redirects Azula’s chi and blows.
Nuwa speaks into her soul, “Hey [System], why didn’t I get daons of time, lust, or tea from the times I had sex with their holders?”
*The users were too weak in the Dao and The Tree of Time is too powerful.*
“Oh. Ok, forget it then.”
June complains, “When will they get to the real fighting?”
Nuwa puts her hand on June’s shoulder and points as the blue fire behind Iroh slowly extinguishes to reveal melted rock, “They have been fighting.”
“Oh I see. Why’s that old man not attacking and how’s he so nimble?” she continues questioning.
Nuwa says, “I don't know the answer to your first question. Maybe he wants her to go all out and see how much he can take or wants to teach her a life lesson. To your second question, that’s because he’s the Great General Iroh who almost conquered Ba Sing Se. He may be a changed old man, but he’s always known his way around a fight.”
June screeches, “EH? This fat old uncle?”
Xai Bau puffs out a circle of smoke from under his kasa (conical japanese straw hat) and adds, “Don’t let the fact he’s lost his edge fool you. He’s an old monster.”
June lowers her eyes in the realization that being the #1 bounty hunter in the world doesn't mean she can go against these guys. Nuwa pats her shoulder and encourages, “You’re quite strong for your age. Because you’re still young, there’s plenty of time for you to improve! Keep looking forward and don’t always compare yourself to others.”
June blushes and demurely says, “Thanks, Stella.”
Nuwa’s seductive prowess is boosted due to the removal of her Stella Face Mask, so June feels herself slightly heat up when Nuwa compliments and touches her. June wonders, ‘Is something wrong with me! How can I fancy this demon queen!?’
Aiwei pitches in with a small blush, “You’re so pretty and strong, big sis June!”
Nuwa smirks at the convincing innocent kid routine that she taught Aiwei to do over the past three months. Aiwei is a naturally terrible liar, but he can tell the truth in different ways. For example, in this situation, he is telling the complete truth, but pretending he is younger than his true mental and physical maturity because Nuwa told him that girls give liberties to young boys.
June entirely forgets about how Aiwei was oogling her earlier and pinches then squishes his cheeks, “Hahah, thanks kid! You seem pretty nerdy. What are you doing here watching fights?”
Aiwei blushes at the close contact with a girl that isn’t Nuwa or Azula and stammers, “U-uh-uhm, I only came to hang out with big sis Stella.”
Nuwa cheerfully nods, “That’s right, Aiwei is my youngest bro! I love to spoil him the most.”
June looks over greedily at Aiwei with a twinkle in her eye, “Is that so? It wouldn’t hurt to be friends with you, I guess! Hmm, let me feel your cheeks again. Yes, quite squishable.”
Aiwei blushes and murmurs while June squishes his cheeks, “F-fanks, June.”
Nuwa’s [Acting] makes her giggle at June pulling Aiwei’s cheeks. Without it, she would no doubt be breaking out into uncontrollable maniacal laughter at the sight of a successful first stage in her top secret plans to ship June x Aiwei!
(A/N: Nuwavatar currently a dud. Wise old men always know Tai Chi. T-Minus 3 years until Aiwei is of age.)