Chapter 96 – Above the Clouds
Aiwei and June are out taste-testing at food stalls late in the evening in Capital City. It is technically Aiwei’s first real life date and he had even been the one to ask her out. June faltered for a moment when she thought she was being asked out on a date, but then she dismissed it. Aiwei is only 15 or 16 to her knowledge. That’s a young boy or younger brother territory in her books.
Then again, he’s still growing and quite tall, more so than her already. Also, he’s handsome when he smiles, when he’s reading, and when he fixes his glasses out of nervousness. June giggles and figures she’ll go with him just to build rapport and eventually get more freebies from Nuwa. At least, that’s the best rationalization she can come up with.
The date is surprisingly eventful when it isn’t supposed to be. A few discontented Fire Nation soldiers knock over a cabbage stall after a minor disagreement, upon which June steps in. She cracks her whip and leaves a 1m (3ft) long, 5cm (2 inch) deep gash on the ground under the legs of the offending soldier, then says, “Get lost.”
The soldiers feel further indignation, but they didn’t even see the motion of the whip after she swung it, so they know they aren’t her match. They slink away into the night. The cabbage owner thanks them profusely and offers one of the fallen cabbages to June for her help. June was about to say something extremely rude while denying it like “Do you think I want your shitty cabbage, you raggedy old man?”, but Aiwei takes over and kindly says, “Thank you, we will accept this gift.”
June stifles her complaints and heads off, leaving Aiwei to run after her with a dirty cabbage in hand. When he catches up, she doesn’t look at him but still asks, “Don’t you get taken advantage of if you’re always nice like that?”
Aiwei scratches his head and says, “Umm.. no. I can usually tell whether a person is kind-hearted or not based on a conversation, so I’m nice to those people.”
June snorts and says, “You should demand a suitable payment for your services. In this case, at least an unblemished cabbage would be polite.”
Nodding in thought, Aiwei replies, “I viewed what we did as charity. He offered the dirty cabbage because he needed to repay the debt, but he couldn’t afford to give away a clean cabbage for free, especially with all the damages already, so I accepted it to absolve him of his debt despite the fact that it has no value. That’s the spirit of charity.”
June is momentarily dumbfounded and grumbles with a blush, “Ok smarty pants. You win this round.”
Aiwei notices her blush and internally cheers for himself. ‘I knew it! Ever since I caught her staring at me when I was reading, I knew it! June likes smart guys. I hit the jackpot!’ His heart soars into the clouds. It’s not more than his love of Nuwa, but it’s in a different manner. Nuwa.. is like a Goddess from his imagination and he wouldn’t be able to imagine being in a real life relationship with her. Nor does he think he deserves her. June is like the girl next door with a goth look, tough personality, but kind heart that he finds nothing wrong with crushing on.
He doesn’t make any advances or the like during the date though. Nuwa told him a few weeks back that June still views him as a child so it would make things awkward if he tries to hold hands. That is until she becomes more aware of his manliness!
~ ~ ~
Sokka and Yue are in the guest quarters of the Royal Palace. He is crying in Yue’s arms as she consoles him. The defeat of the Fire Nation and the end of the war. After 100 years, they finally did it. His tribe won’t be constantly hunted any longer. Unlike Katara, he’s not after his mother’s killer any more. From now on, he put down the burden of revenge that had been laid on his shoulders since his mother’s death a decade ago. He can move on.
~ ~ ~
High in the air, above the clouds, a hot-air balloon makes its way to the east riding on an easterly. The air is freezing, but when it comes to firebenders, it’s not much of a hassle. Lord Zata finally gets a chance to rest. He exhausted most of his chi to fly away from the Fire Nation as fast as he could. He eats some rations and looks out the side of the basket onto the ground far below. His next step is to rendezvous with his only remaining airship fleet of four blimps.
Surrounding him are boxes of riches including property deeds, blueprints, schematics, research, and a full box of crystallized dragon blood essence. The rest of the boxes contain essentials like food and water. He had the foresight to personally prepare an escape route and restock it regularly when he saw that the Earth Kingdom was picking up so much momentum among the commoners and from its streak of victories over the past year. He may be a petty and ambitious schemer, but he is also a cunning and paranoid man.
Lord Zata is exactly the kind of man who would prepare a nuclear bunker to work out of the moment a nuclear bomb is developed. He only surrounds himself with morally degenerate people because he knows what makes them tick. As long as he can continue to offer what they want most, he will never be in danger around them. Add to that a healthy dose of showing them the meaning of fear, power, and smarts and they won’t ever have the thought of betraying him.
Not when it can get them what they want. For example, his wife wants to cheat on him with other powerful men and have them wrapped around her finger. His mercenaries want money and whores. His sons want power and high class women. His daughters want money and high class men. They get off on these things physically or emotionally. These are weaknesses he can use to twist them to do what he wants.
He knows that he, similarly, has a weakness of wanting power and influence, but despite his great power and influence, he knows it can all come crashing down. That’s why he had prepared so many countermeasures. Unfortunately, the invasion came too soon. There wasn’t time to spread his countermeasures to anyone other than himself. Money was the problem. The Earth Kingdom’s rise in momentum meant that his mercenaries on and beyond the Earth Kingdom invasion line weren’t making the kind of money he needed to outfit his private forces.
That’s why he had to switch to the dangerous game of hunting dragons. It is risky to hunt dragons and they always lose troops whenever they try. If there is more than one dragon, they could even lose an entire airship. For them to hunt dragons without loss, they have to use scopes to seek out a lone dragon and attack it with more than one airship. Thankfully, dragons are prideful, territorial animals and don’t get along well unless they are mating.
Once a dragon is successfully hunted, it’s loaded up into a vat inside the airship where it’s allowed to bleed out. The blood goes through a long filtration process and only the portion that doesn’t evaporate from the flames, the heartblood, or blood essence, is collected. After a few cycles of evaporation and condensation, and a stabilized core of blood essence is reached, the sinister air around it is so thick that the World itself spontaneously generates a diamond crystal around it to contain it.
None of the researchers know this. They think the generation of the diamond crystal is a promising sign that this is the mandate of heaven. They entirely forget the fact that before the crystal is formed, they all want to puke when they look at the stabilizing blood essence. The World’s Will is telling them directly “THIS IS OUT OF BALANCE” but they ignore the warnings.
Lord Zata is not optimistic about his chances at recovering the power he held previously as a confidante and sycophant of Ozai. He’s fine hiding away for awhile and ruling a shadow organization though. He’s so paranoid that he plans to mask himself too and join the organization as a grunt while also playing the part of an anonymous leader in order to cause confusion and prevent anyone from ratting him out.
Unfortunately, fate yields all of his planning for naught. A thin sword pierces silently through his back and exits his chest at the location of his Heart chakra.
Lord Zata freezes and bends his head down slowly to look at his chest. “Im-impos-”
An old woman’s cackles with laughter from behind him, “Impossible, you say? Not so.”
Another old woman hoots and concurs, “Not so indeed. Nothing is impossible.”
Lo and Li poke various chakra points on Lord Zata’s back alternatively in the form of a diagram. Lord Zata’s breathing returns and his bleeding ceases, but he’s still impaled by the sword and he still cannot move his limbs. Fear overwhelms his senses, but his pride forces him to ask, “How..? I had prepared everything. No one should have known..”
They move him to the center of the basket on the hot-air balloon where he can see the open boxes devoid of anything except a meditation mat within.
Lo and Li say, “Foolish child.”
“Pay attention.”
“Nothing is..”
“..impossible!”
As they speak, their bodies slowly transform to return to their peak state and beauty. Their gray hair turns black. Their tits inflate and lose their sag. Their wrinkles smooth out. They regain perfect posture, lose their bellies, and lose the hunches on their backs. Their appearance is now that of beautiful twin milfs in their thirties with F cup breasts. The clothes they wore as old ladies are too small for their current bodies, so their nipples are on full display.
The parts of Lord Zata’s body that can move begin trembling with fear as he sees the old women transform in front of his eyes. “W-w-who.. W-what are you?”
Lo and Li sigh comfortably to be back in their usual form. No longer are they trapped by the behavior of alternating words and gestures in a synchronized manner, or the many other considerations that come with attuning their chakra to a mortal form. Having to occasionally break apart sentences while alternating was the part that pissed them off the most. Lo raises her brows in a regal manner as she turns and looks at Lord Zata. She says, “That’s not for you to know.”
Li says, “We have decided you will be our pet.”
Lo continues, “Please us, and you will be rewarded.”
Li threatens, “Flee or resist and your soul will be damned.”
Lo and Li bring out the crystallized dragon blood essence and cut his back linearly with the crystal along the trails of the chakra points they pressed as if they were playing connect-the-dots with Lo going from the start and Li going from the end. When they finish and meet at the middle near his neck, the diagram begins glowing gold and resembles a sketch of a dragon. Lord Zata’s eyes and mouth glow golden as a twisted version of Chakra Manipulation begins.
Lo removes the sword from his back and a blood fountain spurts out of both sides of his body. When the blood flow and his organs begin to fail, Li pushes two crystals of dragon blood essence into his body, one on each side of the clean wound. Lord Zata, who has lost almost all the blood in his body, and should by all means be dead the moment his Heart chakra was stabbed, begins to convulse while still glowing golden as his body undergoes dragonification.
Lo comments, “Ara ara.. His pecker is so small.”
Li replies, “No matter. I haven’t dual cultivated in so long that I’m positively starved.”
Lo agrees, “You’re right. I could go for just about anyone.”
Fidgeting, Li mentions, “Did you have wet dreams about Ozai pushing you down too, sister?”
Lo nods sadly, “Alas, we could not reveal to him our true forms and now he’s out of our hands.”
Li looks up at the night sky, which is clear from their location above the clouds, to read the stars and sense the momentum of the World, “Fate has claimed him. It wants blood.”
Lo asks, “Any readings on the Outsider? Should we interfere?”
Li looks at the stars for clues in vain, “Nothing. It’s too dangerous. She is shielded by this World.”
Lo agrees, “I told you she was special when we first met. She might even be eligible as a candidate.”
Li narrows her eyes and shakes her head, "She's too soft to be a cultivator."
Lo giggles and says, "I don't know about that sis. I sensed poison from deep within her today."
Widening her eyes, Li exclaims, "Oh? She's hiding her true self? If she can even fool me, then maybe you're right. We might even welcome her as a junior sister."
Lo claps happily and cheers, "I knew she was a keeper when I first saw her! She'll need a test though."
Li looks over to the still dragonifying Lord Zata and laughs, "Yes, a test would be most suitable."
(A/N: Alright.. Alright.. Hold onto your shits. The Plot has Recommenced in Grand Fashion.)
(A/N: https://discord.gg/VD3C2BFPAu)