Focused Fire (ATLA)

“Oh kurwa.”

Koshi still didn’t exactly know what his charge meant by that, but he was getting a good idea about the nuances of Xing’s spirit-touched speech.

Xing and his bodyguards, along with Rufen’s 5th Battalion, were supposed to stall another pursuing army, utilizing sabotage and harassment tactics before the enemy could set up camp. The scouts had reported the army’s size, a standard thirty thousand strong horde made up of various elements from Omashu and lesser nearby counts, barons and dukes. Basically, a big, fragmented force that was susceptible to breaking down from the proper application of chaos.

They had failed to mention the fact that the Mad King of Omashu was part of the army. Hunched over and draped in courtly robes, King Bumi cackled something to a gaggle of generals at the head of the formation, the tri-peak banner of Omashu fluttering above them. Despite his withered age, the king kept up with the army’s marching pace, and exuded a liveliness to him that betrayed his strength.

Like many, Koshi was well aware of the exploits of the king of Omashu. He was practically one of the strongest, if not the strongest, earthbender alive. Supposedly, after a disastrous showing campaign, Fire Lord Azulon settled for waiting for the Mad King’s death before bothering to reconsider making a move on his kingdom.

“Rufen, pull your people back,” Xing whispered urgently to the captain beside him. “Now. Change of plans, we’re withdrawing.”

The captain gave a curt nod and salute before hurrying back into the shadows of the woods. Koshi joined his charge as he too withdrew from the forest’s edge. Xing’s nervousness was apparent but restrained as they pulled back before the loss of the Earth Kingdom scouts could be noted.

“Koshi, remind me later. The scout unit that overlooked this, naphtha endurance training and bland rations for a week.”

“Yes, colonel.” A week sounded about right. Their mistake at missing something so obvious had almost sent the battalion running into certain doom.

“The only t-”

Xing’s pause instinctively made Koshi and the other bodyguards dive for their colonel. The lieutenant reached his charge first and pulled him towards the ground, quickly using his own body as a shield. Before everyone could hit the ground, the forest edge was torn up by a horizontal hail of boulders. As broken trees and shredded bushes flew and the roar of crashing and cracking rocks drowned out all noise, Koshi stiffened his body and kept Xing under him.

The storm of earth ended just as abruptly as it began. Koshi waited for the sounds of his comrades rising and forming a protective cordon before he followed suit and allowed Xing to stand up. A quick check saw most of the others unharmed, though Kwan’s right arm was hanging a bit too loosely by the elbow, and Bofang sported a hefty dent on his helmet.

“See? I was right.” came a playful voice that belied its owner’s age. “Our scouts aren’t dressed so badly. The black is alright, but red?” King Bumi strode towards them, his robes falling away as he stood straighter and revealing a muscled body that badly mismatched his years.

The generals behind him were only a little less shocked than Koshi’s group, and it took them a few seconds to recover and begin yelling out orders.

“Run,” Xing ordered, and the bodyguards promptly obeyed.

Or they would have, if not for the boulders raining ahead of them and quickly trapping them. Something exploded behind them, sending a whole tree - roots and all - floating above their heads before crashing just in front of the fleeing group.

“Now, now. Leaving already? But you’ve just arrived!”

Koshi turned to see the Mad King drawing closer, confident and alone, while the Earth Kingdom army formed up behind him. A few generals made to follow after their king, but a casual wave of his hand held the men back.

Xing spat out another curse. “Someone, go tell 5th Battalion to run.” He lifted an arm and aimed it at the barrier behind them, the blast of white flame that followed burning a hole through tree and rocks. At a distance, the Mad King paused in his steps and adopted an amused posture.

Bofang was the first to reply. “With all due respect, sir, you should be the one to do it.”

“I’m young, not stupid, Bofang. You all won’t last long enough for me to even leave that hole. I’ll end up fighting regardless.”

Koshi gritted his teeth at that harsh fact. They were all good firebenders, but the lieutenant was also well aware of how outclassed they were. “We will not let you fight him…them alone,” he declared flatly, steeling himself for the fight to come.

Xing’s voice became cold as he pushed his way past his wall of bodyguards. “No offense, Koshi, but I don’t want to end up accidentally burning you or the others to a crisp.”

That too, was another harsh fact. The bodyguards’ presence in a fight would mean Xing would have to restrain himself. They would be detrimental to their charge by trying to do their jobs.

“Stay clear, Koshi,” Xing said with finality. “Please.” 

Koshi felt a distinct resentment at his own uselessness as he was forced to let the young colonel he had been tasked to protect go out to fight by himself…to save not just himself, but his bodyguards as well. The impotent anger was sentiment was shared by his fellow bodyguards, but they had little choice but to let the colonel meet the Mad King. 

The king of Omashu seemed to perk up when he saw Xing walk towards him. “Oho, a bit small for a soldier, aren’t you?”

Xing stood at attention and gave a sharp salute, and then fell into a stance without saying a word. King Bumi frowned at the display, but the ground around him slowly rose in response to the challenge.

The colonel glanced over his shoulder with a weak smile. “Get the 5th to fall back, please. I’ll…try to be fine.”

And then Xing burst into movement, explosions under his feet propelling him towards the Mad King of Omashu. King Bumi acted far quicker than Koshi had ever seen any earthbender done, turning the swathe of ground before him into a haphazard explosion of rocky walls and columns to block his opponent’s flight.

Almost immediately a column of blinding fire cut a hole through all of that, forcing the king to dodge aside as the beam created a crater at the ground he once stood on. Xing followed a second after, but a wall of dirt shot up to intercept his spinning kick from getting anywhere close to the earthbender.

“Oh ho! Now this is a fight!”

The Mad King sent the wall flying towards Xing, forcing him to use his extended leg as leverage to twist and bend over it. The colonel sent out a blast of flame before he even landed, causing the ancient earthbender to abort a solid stomp onto the ground.

Instead, King Bumi resorted to an uppercut gesture with both arms, and the ground rolled up into a wave to crash against Xing. Once more he had to use his flames to blast apart the attack, the force of which also forced his opponent to hurriedly dodge the devouring flames. Xing rushed to close the distance, but a sudden flurry of rocky columns erupting all around him foiled the charge and forced him into evasive maneuvers. A few connected with him, pummeling the colonel and eventually sending him flying back.

Xing used the momentum to twist mid-flight, landing feet first in a familiar wide stance. The Mad King looked perplexed for a moment, but he reacted as soon as he saw the glow and smoke from Xing’s mouth. Another jagged wave of earth rose up between the two combatants, which was promptly bisected as it met the Young Dragon’s condensed beam of fire. 

King Bumi threw up more earthen walls before he wisely twisted aside right as the beam punched through rock and dirt and through the space he once occupied. A cloud of dust slowly formed as the two benders paused to recenter themselves. Xing was standing stiffly, no doubt fighting off the chilling cold settling on his body. At the same time, King Bumi lost all his good cheer, regarding his foe with far more seriousness.

All of that took place in less than twenty seconds, and already the ground was a broken and charred mess. Koshi found himself unable to tear his gaze away from the duel, and it took some effort to look to the rest of the enemy army to find that they too were in a similar state.

He saw Xing take two deep breaths before hurling himself at his opponent once more. This time, the ground ahead of him blasted up to intercept him at less direct angles. Xing simply endured the dirt and rocks as he dove through them, straight for his target. The surprised king just barely shifted the ground he stood on, dragging him out of the way along with it. The sideways movement was a mistake, as the king turned too slowly to face a Xing who quickly pounced as soon as he landed.

The Mad King of Omashu was sent stumbling back from a barely blocked knee to the face, though a quick stomp onto the ground sent the dirt exploding below Xing to foil any follow ups. The dirt also blocked the colonel’s view from the rocky column erupting below him, sending him flying once more with a distinct crack of aggregate rocks against metal plates.

This time, Xing landed in a roll and quickly stumbled to his feet. A barrage of rocks forced him to backpedal, as King Bumi finally had enough of the close proximity. Earthen walls and hexagonal columns erupted from the earth to force Xing back, and the intense storm of dirt and rock inevitably created a distance between him and the king. Xing tried to blast a path through, but then his opponent simply sent his attacks flying from every possible angle.

Tired of evading, Xing finally took to the skies again in a quick burst. He shot up faster than King Bumi could track, and the boulders fell wide off their mark. Koshi had to squint in the late afternoon sun to figure out where his charge was, and so did the king. The earthbender got caught off guard as the first white fireballs rained from the sky and almost knocked him off his feet. 

A thick layer of earth quickly rolled up into a protective shell around King Bumi, allowing him to weather the aerial bombardment, but also blocking his view and stopping him from contesting Xing’s descent. The colonel landed among the stunned Earth Kingdom army, who took a second to finally react to his presence by hastily stumbling away from him.

Koshi saw the Mad King emerge from his earthen shell to stare at Xing, who had discarded his helmet and armor in his descent and was now surrounded by the visible distortion of a heat haze. The cloth underlayer he was left with was smoking and slowly burning away. A pit formed in the lieutenant’s stomach at the sight, but his legs would not move. None of his fellow bodyguards moved as well.

And neither did the enemy, the Mad King included.

Silence, spiced with the hiss of smoke and the pattering of dirt, settled as combat finally came to a halt no more than a few minutes since it began. Xing and the king stared at each other, though Koshi saw the signs that his colonel was just barely keeping on his feet, and probably his consciousness.

King Bumi finally broke the stare seconds later to glance at Koshi and his team, and then returned his attention to Xing with a nod. Even from a distance, the amused admiration in the old earthbender was obvious to see.

“Well played,” the lieutenant barely heard the king say. “Well played indeed.”

King Bumi gestured with a hand, snapping his army out from their trance as a short wall rose to push the crowd away from Xing. He then gave a short bow, one which the colonel stiffly returned as he dispersed the catastrophic buildup of energy, the heat haze around him banishing immediately.

That finally snapped Koshi out of his own trance, and he immediately broke into a fire-propelled run, his team following right behind him. It took a few bursts of fire under their feet to finally reach their charge, and the bodyguards quickly formed a protective ring around their commander. Still, Xing pushed through the ring of armor with trembling arms to face his grinning opponent.

 “Your life for my army’s eh?” King Bumi asked loudly, betraying only some signs of exertion through his maniacal grin as he spoke. “You drive a hard bargain, kid. You’re free to leave.” 

Koshi thought he could hear several hundred sets of eyes around him blink. 

“Go on then. Before I think about a rematch. I promise that this army, at least, will turn around and return home.”

A few generals sputtered, but King Bumi waved them to silence. Xing managed another, deeper bow, visibly trembling as the fight began to take its toll on his body. “Th-thank you for your c-consideration.”

Koshi had to help him straighten up, and then resorted to carrying him, while Bofang secured the colonel’s armor before they left with all haste. Behind them, they could hear King Bumi cackling at his confused generals while telling them to turn around.

It was a bitter consolation that the main objective had been met, though Koshi took some solace in the fact that his colonel had challenged and survived the Mad King of Omashu. Maybe once this whole campaign was over, he might come to better appreciate the fight he witnessed. Right now, the feeling of uselessness was a thick fog in his mind.

“A m-month…” Xing suddenly muttered in his arms. It took a second before the lieutenant understood. 

“I would suggest at least two months of naphtha endurance, sir,” he countered sternly. “And a thorough retraining under Ren and Kai.”