Chapter 80 – Skirmish

Nuwa and Azula sleep for two hours and their powerful souls replenish an adequate amount of their mental energy for them to get up. By now, they don’t know what the Zata group in Misty Palms Oasis is up to, but they cannot have gotten far in the 40 hours of time it has been since they saved Aiwei. So Nuwa’s first course of action is to patrol along the supply lines surrounding Omashu in the direction of Misty Palms Oasis, secure the perimeter, and look for airship activity before going to hunt down the Zata group. If there are airships around, then shit will hit the fan. Nuwa hopes to down the airships with Toph’s help before they can even take off.

Another one of Nuwa's plans is to order all the earthbender bandits they captured to be released into the Fire Nation colonies. Although this would have a severe negative impact on the health of the commoners in the colonies, it would adequately distract the Fire Nation military from focusing too much attention on Omashu or attempting an airship run on either of the cities.

The Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Continent are hotbeds of economic activity that the Fire Nation cannot risk going into chaos. Currently, they are brewing signs of rebellion and the colonies themselves are understaffed when it comes to military. There are too many Noble Family mercenaries infighting in the shadows amongst themselves for resources that it’s too dangerous to post a large official military presence within. Only the colonial borders have official Fire Nation military garrisons present.

By freeing the imprisoned bandits and mercenaries they’ve caught on the way inside the colonial borders, Nuwa hopes to incite chaos and possibly ferment small-scale rebellions. The current local colonial nobles are almost entirely trash without a single moral fiber of good within them, so she wouldn’t have any regrets if the bandits went and killed them either. Neither would she be culpable to Aang’s no-killing demand if she didn’t personally order any killings. She could recommend the bandits to capture their victims, but their actions would be their own.

As for the captured firebenders, Nuwa plans to keep them in the prisons of Ba Sing Se and Omashu respectively. After all, they were planning on ending this war in only two months, on the Day of the Black Sun, and if all went well, the firebenders would be let out after that. They have enough supplies to feed them for a few months, and if they run out due to extenuating circumstances, then they can always restock on supplies by taking them from the Fire Nation military.

In fact, due to the reduction of bandits and corrupt nobles throughout the Earth Kingdom, the production of goods is slowly improving. Commoners throughout Ba Sing Se are feeling the effects of good governance since even fresh food can be found at the slums, where only rotten food was sold in the past.

Nuwa sets out on a low flying Appa with a slow caravan of Dai Li and Omashu soldiers riding carriages shuttled by camelephants. Mai and Katara are left in Omashu while Aang, Zuko, Toph, and Azula come to fight. They can only go out for 40 km (25 mi) in any given direction before returning to Omashu for the night. This should be enough to clear out enough of the area of hostile forces, especially with the wide area of view that Appa can provide. Plus, Nuwa and Azula’s Smartphones can zoom in like binoculars to widen their scope of view if they spot something suspicious that would threaten their personal safety.

Theoretically, there’s a lot of technological cheats that Nuwa could buy from the [Shop] to make this war go much smoother, but she’s quite sure that the World’s Will wants the war won based off of their effort and smarts rather than their cheats from the outside world. If she starts distributing foreign technology rather than local innovations that are adapted from foreign technology, she might get trolled by Willie through fate.

If there’s anything Nuwa doesn’t want to mess with right now, it’s fate’s ability to screw people over. She’s seen it firsthand with the Peaknights. That’s the main reason she’s not handing out Magical Twin-Papers or other means of communications to all her spies and the Order. Nuwa even warned Azula to use her Smartphone only for recreation or personal safety. In this case, they are using their smartphones to scout because, loosely interpreted, their safety could be on the line. In reality, Nuwa is quite sure that Willie won’t mind their gang-only usage of foreign technology, but she still wants to be careful.

A few hours later, Aang wakes up Nuwa and Azula from their nap saying that he sees something on Azula’s smartphone scope. Nuwa looks over where he’s pointing with her [Smartphone] camera and zooms in. She notices some Fire Nation transports moving along. Azula also gets a closer look through Nuwa’s scope.

Azula startles and says, “Those are the Zata bastards from Misty Palms Oasis! They must be following our tracks towards Omashu, hoping that we camped on the way. No clue why they are chasing us when they let us off scot-free last time though.”

Nuwa yawns and jokes, “Maybe they regret letting you go without getting a taste of your scrumptious ass.”

Snorting, Toph says, “Quit joking around and let’s get to the fighting! Put us down! I’m all fired up!”

Nuwa pauses and asks Azula, “You said they had devices that looked like bigger versions of Aang’s glider staff?”

Aang widens his eyes with anger, “What?! They copied our airbender staves?”

Azula nods and says, “Yeah. They look about two meters wide in wingspan, with seats for two people. There wasn’t anything else attached to it besides the wings and the metal seats.”

Nuwa nods in understanding and says, “They have no flying scouts at the moment, so the usage of those devices must be limited. Perhaps they’re chi-intensive and only designed for combat. Aang should stay up here on Appa with me to defend against an aerial assault while you guys go down and fight.”

Aang looks as fired up as Toph in beating the Zata mercenaries up. Azula shouts below to the caravan to prepare for battle and charge northeast. The area is barren and open, with no cover, so there’s little else to do but charge.

Soon after the charge begins, the Zata mercenaries also catch sight of Appa and prepare for battle by unfurling their carriages and jumping in their gliders. There’s only 8 working gliders, so there’s 16 aerial fighters that boost themselves towards the earthbender caravan, holding small wooden boxes. Nuwa has no doubt those boxes hold some sort of explosive chemical and possibly a fuse, so she points out the danger to Aang.

The Zata mercs sit back to back on the gliders. The firebender that’s facing away from the battlefield uses fire thrusters to provide propulsion, while the front firebender attacks and carries the payload. There’s steering controls for both pilots, which means they have trained their coordination to accustom themselves to aerial movement, as well as to swap handling if necessary.

Azula reckons that the mercenary group must have left some of their members behind to take care of the wounded, because it’s not complete. There’s only 30 soldiers and the commander on land besides those in the air. The rest are engineers that stay in their carriages. Azula also recognizes the vice-commander launching into the air at the head of their aerial formation while getting off of Appa with Toph and Zuko.

There’s only five of the gang present on this excursion. The ground here closer to Omashu is rocky, unlike the sandy ground around the Misty Springs Oasis, so the conditions are ideal for the earthbender troops allied with the gang and Toph. Nuwa can tell the firebenders are somewhat worn out from their charging speed. Nuwa’s entourage consists of 50 well-rested earthbenders and the four from the gang, so it should be an easy win, even when accounting for each mercenary’s greater battle experience in comparison to their Omashu volunteers.

No Dai Li agents came. All of the Dai Li agents went to patrol in another direction from the city with June, Aiwei, Gunner, Haru, and the Peaknights. The teams should be about even in battle power, with the team that isn’t with Nuwa going on eelhounds and a safer route due to a lack of good scouting gear. They should be able to outrun anyone they can’t handle if they have to run.

Toph starts out the fight by pulling ahead of the Omashu rookie soldiers and chucking high speed rocks at the forward line of gliders. A few of the mercs suffer some nasty bruises, but they are only destabilized slightly before pulling up higher out of her range. None of them drop their payloads. The wings appear to be made of metal, so the rocks launched against gravity don’t have enough velocity to penetrate them.

Aang pulls Appa up to raise their height above the aerial firebenders. Nuwa summons her [E-Vibe] and imbues it with airbending. Firebending would help Nuwa in offense and defence against the mercs, but Appa wouldn’t be able to handle the heat, so she will have to stick to airbending and defending Appa. She shouts against the roar of the wind, “Aang, I’ll take care of Appa! You’re better than me at flying, so you’re on offense. Take them down!”

Aang gives a thumbs up and takes a running leap off Appa with his airbender staff sprawling open. Nuwa smiles and thinks to herself, “I should be able to copy Aang’s airbender staff with my [E-Vibe]. Flying sounds like fun. Maybe I’ll practice after I deliver the baby.”

Hovering above the firebender line, Aang is subject to sporadic volleys of fire blasts. The thruster mercs at the rear of the gliders take over steering while the attackers throw fire blasts. The mercs don’t appear very comfortable with aerial combat, despite being comfortable with flying, because a few of the fire blasts are carried away by wind and land on other gliders. Aang snorts when he deduces they must only have experience firing downwards on the defenceless.

One of the gliders is downed by their own people, so there’s still seven on the attack.

Aang remembers what Nuwa said earlier and dives towards two gliders close together in an attempt to dislodge their payloads before they can set off the fuses. These two gliders doggedly pursue him because the Fire Nation offers a lot of money for his capture or execution. One of the other gliders drops a payload early at Toph, out of anger. The fuse lights and it drops about 30 meters before Toph metalbends a cufflink to intercept it in midair away from the battlefield. It explodes with the same intensity as Combustion Man’s combustion blasts.

The earthbenders from Omashu feel fear at the thought of being caught in one of those explosions and their morale slips during the end of the charge. Toph, however, reinvigorates them with a roar as she slams her foot down to split the ground in two down the middle of the charging firebenders like an earthquake. This also incidentally put up walls that blocked incoming fire blasts, which gave the troops behind her some chance to recover their fortitude.

Nuwa stands up on top of Appa and twirls her staff, forming air blasts to deflect incoming fire blasts from the two gliders that attack Appa. The remaining three gliders support the land skirmish. Nuwa doesn’t expend much effort to deflect the fire blasts that come at her, so she’s thinking of how to turn the tides. Soon she finds her opportunity.

The gliders come at her alternatively, so when one shoots a fireblast, she deflects that fire blast onto the other glider, which catches the attacker on that glider by surprise, and knocks him off where he falls 30m to the ground. It’s not a fall that he should be able to survive, but Aang swoops down and sends an air blast to ease his landing into a bumpy fall rather than a fatal splat. Nuwa pays no attention to this and continues twirling her staff to form increasingly sharper air blasts which start to resemble Air Slash attacks from Pokemon.

Vicious invisible razor-like winds buffet the mercenaries and cuts appear on their clothing and uncovered portions of their body. One attacker is cut on his hand and another thruster is cut on his ankle. The vice-commander, who suffered a wound to his hand, screams over the sound of the wind, “What the hell is going on?! Forget it! Let’s retreat! We ain’t paid enough for this! Damn.. so close to capturing the Avatar! Wait, fuck me! That’s Toph Beifong metalbending down there! Get the fuck out of here!”

Indeed, the vice-commander has the sharp eyes of a coward. Toph starts metalbending when the Omashu soldiers start having a tough time blocking and dodging the fire blasts to help them out. Toph throws metal links and dances intricately so that they swoop around and clamp directly over the eyes of the strongest firebenders. With their vision obstructed, the firebenders shoot fire blasts chaotically in confusion and once again hit friendlies. They are soon immobilized by the Omashu soldiers who wrap them up in earth spires.

When one of the gliders goes low, Toph fires a metal link at high speed to rip through the air and cut off one of the intentionally light-weight support beams, which causes the glider’s frame to destabilize. The glider is locked into a tilt and crashes soon after with both mercs jumping out at the last moment, but still taking a nasty fall.

The other two gliders drop their payloads above the battlefield, which Azula fires small fire bullets at in midair shortly after they’re dropped. She sticks to martial arts and didn’t expose her firebending earlier than this or after, so it’s misconstrued as a faulty fuse in the chaos of war by the mercs.

Aang manages to dislodge both payloads from the gliders that he’s locked in an aerial fight with. Now, he’s sticking to dodging the fire blasts and waiting until they run out of chi. Both the rear and front firebenders on the gliders have to expend a lot of chi so that their fire can combat the forces of gravity and wind respectively. They are nearing exhaustion due to their attacks and maneuvers. Nuwa laughs as she compares dealing with Aang in the air to trying to hit a fly in midair with a flyswatter. Even if he looks like he’s about to be hit, he can just form an impromptu air shield in front of him to bounce himself away from the fire blast.

Soon the firebender mercenaries start retreating wearily and leaving their captured behind. Nuwa ponders for a moment before spurring on Appa to chase them on their retreat. It’s better to be rid of these Zata idiots entirely. The makeshift bombs are also too dangerous. Aang has a similar idea after he finishes tiring out the two gliders, which glide downwards as their pilots spend the last of their chi so they don’t crash. He moves on to harass the two gliders supporting the retreating troops. Four gliders and fourteen troops are all that’s left of the retreating Zata team.

They have all sorts of injuries among them compared to only two burn injuries among the Omashu soldiers, which are mild enough to be treated by Katara. Most Omashu soldiers have worse injuries from friendly fire earthbending than the fire blasts. They were too excited and inexperienced. Toph kept them safe from the fire, but not from their own earth. Even with bumps and bruises from stray earth blasts, they cheer as they chase down the fleeing firebenders.

Nuwa follows the gliders on Appa and deflects one of the fire blasts they shoot as cover fire back at another glider successfully. The vice-commander is blown off his seat and falls, but has enough wherewithal and remaining chi to right himself before he lands with some fire thrusters. Unfortunately for him, he’s knocked out by Azula with a chop to the neck while trying to get up and flee. She’s wearing a shawl so he wouldn’t recognize her, but it’s still quite ironic when she pulls out the same bag of coins she gave to them from his pack. Azula almost cracks up at how the mercs carry their gold with them even up in the air.

The pilots on the gliders which are successful in their retreat are out of chi and the engineers surrender before the fight even reaches them. Needless to say, the rest of the mercs are wrapped up handily by the united effort of the gang and the Omashu soldiers.

Throwing the injured, exhausted, or unconscious mercs into their transports, the group heads back to Omashu. Nuwa treats the wounds of those on both sides and offers the captured food, which calms and reassures the firebenders greatly. With her [Induced Good Impression], she even earns a few admirers.

There’s few women among Fire Nation combat personnel due to cultural mores. Only exceptionally powerful women like Azula and Nuwa can earn the respect of the Fire Nation military men. Women are usually relegated to support roles similar to the Northern Water Tribe even in the Fire Nation. For example, Ty La was kept as a secretary of a lowly officer, even though she is the eldest heir of a noble family and a chi-blocker of considerable skill.

When Nuwa performs the traditional roles of a caretaker, the captured mercs forget that she’s the one who cut them up in the first place. They subconsciously relax and the commander goes as far as to take liberties by copping a feel of her butt. This is a terrible mistake. Nuwa turns around, gives him an enchanting smile, and the next thing he knows, he is thrown off a cliff into the Fog of Lost Souls.

(A/N: WELP. Ya done messed with the wrong hoe, bub.)