- Location
- washington
Betraying his own virtues also has the potential of backfiring despite the logic therein of skewing them right?
DODGE THE WHEEL
- Thread starter BrunofanofK
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Brazil
Yeah, while being super loyal to your virtue has the opposite effect. Griffon, Solus, Polynazus, and Damon are monsters ahead of the pack capable of hitting above their station because of their unwavering commitment to their virtue.
- Location
- washington
offhand how much does socrates hit above his weight class as a philosopher?
I honestly want Zagreus to go to the virtuous sons world just to see how everyone would react tp his weirdness at this point.
- Location
- Brazil
Socrates and Polynazus fought against all elders of Raging Heaven cult at the same time AFTER Polynazus just lost his Domain. Honestly, Socrates might be actually stronger than the average Tyrant by then since the two Tyrants of the Coast(Athens) didn't pursue him after he spit the poison they made him drink in their eye. And that was a centuries-old history by the time of said fight, also Socrates was poisoned by the poison-ambrosia that actually eventually killed Bakkahos during it. He was rhetoricing away his own while doing all that. Definitely stronger than the average Tyrant.
- Location
- washington
I wonder if alexander hit above his weight class cause you basically said socrates was the guy who exemplified his cultivation stage, heracles the hero stage, and alexander the tyrant stage.
- Location
- Brazil
Considering Pitolemy, the Savior's performance in the fight? Definitely.
- Location
- Brazil
that would be a disaster, the boys (Griffon and Solus) have no shill and Zagreus is a low-key passive-aggressive little shit. He would push all of Griffon's buttons and before knew it they would be fighting. Zagreus is still a modern person with matching sensibilities, he wouldn't stick in Olympia.
- Location
- washington
I mean ooc this means hes likely not going there. But from our perspective if he was there would he have a choice would he just fuck off to egypt or something?
So how far does zagreus hit above his weight class right now?
- Location
- Brazil
He is still less martially inclined than Griffon even after almost a year in elemental kung fu land, but Zagreus forte is diversity and deep in mysteries and his natural inclination as a new blood of Dyonisus gives him a significant leg up in physical and mental endurance due to the nature of how they temper their soul. As of Solus, that is far less certain, the guy is all over the place due to his split foundation, throwing heroic cultivators around like they are toys and having levels of raw physical cultivation capable of brushing off the assaults of civic cultivators while deprived of pneuma. Sol is technically in the heroic realm of the romans, but their cultivation style focus on mass combat instead of heroic units as the Greek cultivation does. Zagreus has a twisted foundation due to Rher but he used the book of Enlightenment to mend them together through trial and error he does not remember of.
Awe I wanted to see how negotiations went with Iroh.
You know you misspell a lot of words right?
You didn't have to let the Earth King die right?
Since we after that removing bending is a horrid thing that would terrify anyone and it negates one's ability to be a Fire Lord making it especially effective deterrent in the Fire Nation.
Why did the MC change his mind about it being an acceptable and equal way to deal with Ozai and end the war. But now Ozai would be replaced by another Warmonger in spite of this now being tested and the power proved fruitful.
He agreed before about it's use when Aang first acquired it but now it's not good enough?
he flipped flopped. That is what confuses me.
You know you misspell a lot of words right?
You didn't have to let the Earth King die right?
A lot of interesting insight here. But before I move on I feel I need to take it back to my original question.
Since we after that removing bending is a horrid thing that would terrify anyone and it negates one's ability to be a Fire Lord making it especially effective deterrent in the Fire Nation.
Why did the MC change his mind about it being an acceptable and equal way to deal with Ozai and end the war. But now Ozai would be replaced by another Warmonger in spite of this now being tested and the power proved fruitful.
He agreed before about it's use when Aang first acquired it but now it's not good enough?
he flipped flopped. That is what confuses me.
I don't know where you are getting this from; before Aang even learned energy bending Zagreus talked to him that simply removing Ozai from power wouldn't necessarily stop the war, that's also why when Aang removed bending from Azula he had all that talk with Iroh about having him take over post-war.
- Location
- Brazil
Just look at Ba Sing Se, Avatar Kyoski created the Dai Li with the best of intentions and she generated a lot of prosperity for some short decades, but the problems in the city were there to stay. By Korra's time, the people of Ba Sing Se live well below the poverty line, eating rotten vegetables and being taxed to death to maintain the Earth Queen's lavish lifestyle.
it is far easier to make a functional institution than it is to reform a crooked one. Zagreus meant it when he said Aang would have to move to Ba Sing Se to stop it from going off the rails. Zagreus pulled the strings to accelerate said results so that not only the Fire Nation, but the entire world can turn on a new leaf after the war.
About the Earth King, well, considering he originally decided to start fighting with Zuko after the war was over to feel more like a man, had a horrible successor that dilapidated his kingdom and spent his entire life ignorant of the One Hundred Years War, I would say he also did not deserve to be king either. He was an objective failure as a monarch.
i skipped the talk with Iroh because I wanted to surprise you lot with Azula joining the party.
I agree. Just that he isn't a bad guy himself and not his fault that the Dai Lee and Co gas lit him from birth. And with the complete tear down of the kingdom there isn't even anything for him to rule. A peasent life for him.
Don't know about him fighting Zuko. I've only looked up the part of the team look for Zuko's mom.
As for his daughter? With him not in power with no hope of getting a position that the people wouldn't give even if he asked therefore she's non existent.
Need more to keep him off? Affect his fears like you affected the people's emotions. Associate what he sees then doing to officials to fear of what they'll do if they know he was the king.
Don't know where there was doubt at the get go. I only read confidence then doubt later:
That's the reason they were so excited by this besides bringing back the Air Nation.
If they know what's good for them they won't. Not unless they can find someone veeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyy stupid to act as a puppet.
So first we have certainty that this is all but an instant win power, then we have serious doubt.
So why the troubling doubt @MagiciansBlack ?
avatar the last airbender 8
- Location
- Brazil
"So, do you want me to believe you have turned a new leaf and deserve your bending back?" Aang accuses Azula with a question that wasn't a question.
Around him, my other students formed a line in opposition to Azula, who was lazily reclined on the throne of the Earth King while polishing and inspecting her nails.
"Not at the moment, no. I will save this for a later opportunity if you don't mind. Fire bending can be quite distracting and I am learning so much under Master Zagreus' tutelage that I fear my progress would slow down otherwise." It was amazing how much Azula words got under the Avatar gang's skin, were they jealous? "In fact, I almost felt like thanking you. For my entire life, I had been someone else's creature, but now I can become the True Azula. Master Zagreus is far kinder and crueler than Father ever managed to be. Isn't that right, Jet?"
Said freedom fighter answered her senior student by flipping her the middle finger. The action only elicited a broad smile from Azula, as if it was a victory… I supposed it was. Jet knows who Azula is, plus he is a [Chaotic] soul, diametrically opposed to her [Dominating] soul, yet she managed to cajole him into becoming a crow and joining her. Azula might have grown bored of fear but this only instigated her hunger for other means of domination.
What troublesome students I have collected!
"Which brings us to this." Katara interfered while pointing at Jet. "Jet. Here. Why?" She asked me with a betrayed expression.
I signed in exasperation. "Katara, I once confessed to Sokka that I was glad he was my first student instead of someone like Jet. Back then I felt I had no means of helping someone so troubled as I myself was lost. You are not the only ones that have experienced growth in this journey. I man cannot visit the same river twice, for they both will have changed by the second meeting. I owed the promise lying dormant in Jet's soul to at least try instead of cleansing my hands off of him. Something in me told me there wouldn't be a third chance."
My sincere confession disarmed the water tribe siblings, as they knew I wasn't exactly that keen on sticking my neck out for others until prompted and this is a chance brought about by their influence.
"Sifu, are you sure this is safe?" Aang asked me sincerely. He was the one true pacifist of our group, so if he is questioning this, I have to admit Azula and Jet are a gamble.
"Of course I am not sure, Aang. But did you forget? Even if you defeat the Fire Lord, Ozai is bound to keep and gather a hardcore line of supporters for as long as he lives even after you defang him. Make no mistake, even if we defeat the Fire Nation now, the following years will be crucial to decide if peace will last or if war will restart once more."
Aang started to massage his bald head. "Can we skip the history lesson today? I just want to restore peace to Ba Sing Se and go kick Ozai's ass!"
Zuko and Iroh just watched events unfold on the sideline. He wasn't happy to hear the Avatar talk so casually about defeating his father but he was forced to face the truth Aang had crossed the point where he could be stopped.
"There is no such a thing as an ideal or objectively right political system, I am afraid." I drove the point home by patting Aang on his bald head. "These kinds of things are ninety percent transpiration and ten percent inspiration. Democracy might sound nice but in practice, it drags everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Monarchies end like imperial powers like the Fire Nation or fall apart due to incompetent heirs like the Earth kingdom."
"Then what should I do? Everyone expects me to come up with a solution!"
"Do your best. Something everyone will agree on is that the world is ready for change after one century in this war. I can at least point out what policies have historical records of working out. Separation of legislative, executive and judiciary branches of powers, dismembering of regions as semi-autonomous districts, reasonable tax policies and the legal precedent of fundamental rights, for a start."
"For a start?! I am running myself ragged learning all four elements plus energy bending and avatar state! I am twelve!"
"Technically you are one hundred and twelve years old. And that is only the start because you still have to decide what to do with the Fire Nation colonies after the war."
This time it was Jet who shipped in. "What do you mean what to do? Are you not going to send them back to the fire nation? I thought this was the point!"
The other students looked at me with questioning gazes as well.
"Too much time has passed. At this point, this would involve breaking up families apart, not exactly a popular policy. It would be better to simply emancipate the Fire Nation colonies and give them independence as long as they respected the rights of people from other nations. It certainly would help the mainland to have fire benders not aligned with the Fire Lord, after all the Sozin comet is bound to return every one hundred years."
"So? Can't we simply extinguish fire bending then?" Jet pressed on, getting an ugly look from the Avatar gang and a disdainful scoff from Azula.
"Jet, humans are stubborn and irreverent creatures." I pointed out to Azula, "There is no way such a plan will work, especially as Aang is bound to start giving people bending at random in search of new air benders. It is his best shot to restore his people, can you ask him to give up on that?"
Jet serrated his fists but did not pursue the matter, taking a seat beside the steps of the throne.
Since the most immediate crisis had been averted, it was time to move the agenda forward. I gesture for Iroh to take point.
He somehow had become the owner of a tea shop by the time I reached him. A multitalented fellow. During the Purge, he rose to the occasion, gaining a lot of face with high and low citizens alike.
"Avatar Aang, as the descendant of both Sozin and Hoku, it is my responsibility to see that you restore balance to the world in order to restore honor to my nation. I ask that you push aside your reservations toward me for as long as I serve as your teacher in fire bending." Iroh knew he sort of botched the friendly grandpa look by going all Sith on my ass, so his formal approach was good enough. He made the candle hand gesture and everything.
Aang and everyone else looked apprehensive at Iroh, and for a long moment, I feared he would decline Iroh's olive branch. Fortunately, my talks with him drove the point across. To walk the path of the virtue of compassion, Aang will have to tolerate a lot of people he resents for harming those he cherishes. It was time to walk the walk and show the world that his compassion is his strength, not his weakness.
He answers Iroh's greeting with one of his own. He didn't call him sifu or drop his guarded expression but these would have been fake anyway.
A tentative start is better than nothing.
Ba Sing Se had a pretty extensive legal history but I managed to more or less crunching through it all before the night of madness even started. From there it was just a matter of leveraging my experience to create the leanest and most free legal reform possible. The are a lot of rack jobs that only exist for the sake of a corpulent bureaucratic body. This was the perfect chance to trim the fat.
I had Sokka brainstorm with what remained of the Council of Five while keeping communication lines with the insurgence forces of Omashu, North Water Tribe fleets, and General Long through the use of my crows.
He also contacted the good Machinist in the North Air Temple. Apparently, Sokka had the idea of creating submarines using water benders. I decided this would be a good opportunity to expedite things, so I sent the man the firearms I had acquired in Prehevil. This will give the non-benders much-needed firepower. Considering people live in a world where some people can shoot fire from their fingers' tips this sounds like a justifiable equalizer.
Jet and Azula mostly worked in the lower rings, making sure to crush gangs and other criminal elements that were obstructing the newly created districts from rising to their feet. I had already done my best to simplify the tax and legal system but the Earth Kingdom as a whole still lives in the mercantilist age, where merchant houses are free to squeeze the lone merchant.
I pretty good recipe for success is to maximize freedoms so those who succeed can lead by example but these disruptive forces really upset old money. Fortunately, people are walking lightly around me and my policies proved popular the more effective they proved themselves.
Katara, who is first and foremost a bender, helped Aang and worked on mastering spirit bending.
Toph, who ran away from home to escape all this crap, got kidnapped by a false letter from her mother and developed metal bending in order to escape.
After the first month, I judged Aang really to start to give people bending in order to increase our forces. The more practice he gets the better, energybending is super dangerous so its mastery requires utmost commitment. Every time Aang uses it he is throwing the dice, so to speak, as to bend other's energy Aang needs to be unbendable himself.
The problem with it is that humans are transient and ephemeral creatures. The analogy of the river was well placed here. There are good reasons this art had been lost. Only Aang, who is the Avatar, and thereof part spirit and eternal has a real chance to learn and deploy it reliably… and as a man of principle who has cast off my robes of mortality and consigned myself to never-ending ascension, I am duty bound to walk this path besides my protegee.
Cultivation is a race toward divinity after all. As long as I walk the path of virtue my tripartite soul can't stray from it's path without being destroyed.
While I cannot give people bending as I am no bender myself, I can at least awaken their souls.
It is a mad venture every single time, like catching lightning between your teeth. One slips up and I am through. Plus, I am no Avatar, I can only awaken those that already have the potential for it, which is one in one hundred.
Even so, there is something divine about the experience. At least I can now diagnose with accuracy if someone is ready to be awakened or not.
Then, another month later came the time to start the pushback campaign, and complaints started once more.
He wasn't the only one unhappy with my decision, except for Azula who made a point to have a smug look as she would be taging along with me.
"There is good reason I kept this under wraps. The position of our new allies was still uncertain so I wanted to avoid leaking sensitive information. Plus, this was mostly an idea until recently. I only feel capable of pulling this off now."
"Yeah, because it is insane! Infiltrating and fighting the Fire Nation on your own? What are you even hoping to manage there by yourself?" Katara protested.
"Precisely due to these risks is that small cells would perform better than a standing army. I am more than capable of sabotaging, espionage and harassment campaigns. My reputation as the Raven and my performance in the North Water Tribe's failed invasion means Ozai won't be able to ignore me, and the more he fails to bring me down, the less support he will have by the time of the eclipse. And after it."
General Fong piped in. "Moral is crucial in war, I agree. But we have the Avatar. Between the two of you and the army we are mounting, crushing the Fire Nation will be a foregone conclusion!" I mindlessly bragged, oblivious to how unsettling this was for Aang.
I just used his example to silently point out why my strategy is the soundest. Aang wants to restore peace and balance to the world. He doesn't want to conquer the Fire Nation, but the thing is, even if not everyone is on board with Ozai, those are the survivors of Sozin's own political purges.
"We have to deal with Ozai's industrial military complex at the very least. Teo's father confirmed that they most likely got a hold of his war balloon. Air superiority is an overwhelming military advantage."
"We are fine with that, big guy. I just want to know why are you doing that with Azula and Jet!" Toph questioned while screaming at me like I had gone crazy. "Even I can never know when she is lying. What are the odds she is going to betray you?"
"She might. Even so, Azula can see reality for what it is. The war was more or less lost the moment Aang mastered the Avatar State. There is a reason Sozin waited for Hoku to die before he started his campaign."
"True enough, a princess surrenders with dignity." Azula cut in, always ready to rile up her fellow disciples. "I am joining precisely because these are my people and by taking part in it, I can direct the outcome in the better interest. We don't need a second massacre like in the North Pole."
Her words were sharp and full of panache, some of her old confidence was back. Which also means she is lying too, of course. But this doesn't matter. Using the Eclipse invasion to establish an occupying force until the Sozin Comet passes is essential and unavoidable. Azula's personal motivations are the least of them.
"This is enough small talk. Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, I trained and prepared your loot for this the best I could and I will be leaving you with the backing of our allies and friends. I am taking my share of the burden, you should focus on bearing yours first. This is the final stretch of the war. Victory or defeat lay ahead."
My words had the desired effect, but I still did not escape a second group hug.
Unfortunately for all present inhabitants, it was designed to keep people in, not prevent them from invading it. In that regard, it was no better than any other prison camp I had busted so far.
Under the cover of night, I plucked my scarlet strings a dissonant melody capable of disrupting the sleep of even the dead. I unstirred restlessness on the local spirits, and instigated them to attack the place.
The fire bender wards, for all their enthusiasm, lacked the capacity to truly harmed on interact with the spirits in any meaningful way as all the spirituality of fire bending had long been excised in the pursuit of power and mindless aggression. Their attacks leave no mark as the spirits have no flesh to be burned and cooked. The result was inevitable.
Before long they had subdued all resistance. Now it was show time. I had Jet and Azula release all prisoners and conduct them to the ward where we could speak terms.
I certainly cut an intimidating figure – a midnight wraith cloaked in a mantle of feathers playing a lyra whose sound resonates in the very soul of all listeners like a gong while marching a parade of evil spirits.
Especially as all presents were herded there like cattle by a pack of hostile dark spirits.
"W-who are you? What do you want from us?" Asked one captive with more courage than sense.
I still had my rod on, but let the memory of Rher's mind-flaying gaze peek through the windows of my own soul, causing my amethyst eyes to blaze with eldritch power.
Our eyes crossed and the brave but unfortunate prisoner fell like a rock, as if I had killed with one look. This thoroughly spooked the rest of the presents into submission.
While this was going on, I watched my two young crows, this detour was for their sake as they would be the ones in direct charge of the new recruits, as such I gave them the right to pick the ones they liked.
We had actually gotten here some days ago, infiltrating so as to give Azula and Jet plenty of time to pick the ones they thought most promising. This was the final test to see how they behave in this kind of stressful situation.
Well, did the two of you made up your minds yet? The raven in my shadow asked of the two crows.
Getting good help is so difficult nowadays, but alas, needs must. I found some hidden gems under all the dirt. The impudent young crow answered full of hidden enthusiasm.
These ones aren't so bad for Fire Nation. Commented the sullen young crow full of cocksureness. Jet is somewhat happy to return to familiar territory.
What are you waiting for then? Convince them to join our unkindness. I myself have no need of them. This night is for the two of you.
Was it bad I could feel the smile forming under their mantle? Some acts really die hard, and the two of them can't pass up the chance to show off and run the show.
They made their pick and it was clear how diametrically opposed they were from each other. There was a silent competition between the two as each tried to go for pieces the other sought. This level of rivalry was kind of unexpected in how friendly it was.
In the end, each crow got ten new members added to their flock and we moved on. The point had already been made. The Raven was in Fire Nation soil and it brought with it an army of dark spirits, going where he is not wanted, to say what no one wants to hear, and to do what absolutely must not be done.
Things got interesting rather quickly. I had to give it to the people of the Fire Nation, they went from a landlocked civilization to having a fleet of zeppelins in less than a year of said invention. Their industriousness is second to none.
A shame I had to burn it all down – iron and steel refineries, train lines and rails, war machine factories. We busted it all. Jet even managed to sneak in a bit of freedom fighting in the middle of it all. No matter where, there will always be those pushed to the margin of society.
The fact Azula followed my advice by actually joining in was the most surprising of it all. I guess people have ways to surprise you if given a chance. Azula's virtue might be will-to-power but her soul has yet to take its proper shape. I simply advised her that the fundamental difference between good and evil was in truth, a matter of aesthetic. Whether she finds validation in her existence through causing suffering and fear or in gratitude and admiration of others, the difference is only secondary.
Azula was surprised at first at my 'cynicism' but the fact she ended up going so far as to cosplay as a water spirit and bask in the admiration and gratitude of the common folk living by the river's side sort of proved my point. She was a rather demanding young lady, treating me like a living dispenser of food and medicine, but as her teacher, I was inclined to indulge her in exploring this new side of herself.
At least said incident led Jet to see both Azula and the people of the Fire Nation in a new light. It wasn't forgiveness, not yet. Might never be. But he no longer projected his trauma onto every Fire Nation person he saw.
I even got to break out my old alchemy kit in order to create a solution capable of quickening the sedimentation of the river detritus in order to clean it more quickly. It almost made up for all the trouble my actions have stirred… Yeah, I didn't believe my bullshit either. But at least I am helping someone and showing my students there are many paths they can take to solve problems.
The Fire Nation military tried to put on a resistance for the most part and the Fire Sages were summoned to attempt to exorcize me but both were always pushed aside with pathetical ease.
My crow shadow constructs managed to sneak in the shadow of important officials and spy on the Fire Nation's every move remotely. I soon flushed out the location of the new zeppelins and war balloons and destroyed them all.
The most interesting thing was my confrontation with Explosion Man; god I wish I could say Sokka's awful naming sense is rubbing off on me but I never had any to begin with.
Anyway, the man possessed a rather rare talent. Some deviation in the chakra of his forehead, allows him to release a concentrated fire-bending blast with his mind. I am familiar with the concept of chakra due to Aang's training, I have used my pneumatic and Sothic senses to read his chi in all of its permutations during the countless hours of flying bison ride.
Said chakra was called light chakra in Wa Shi Ton's records. It was supposed to deal with insight, and blocked by illusion, but I never thought it could be used like that.
The silent and severe assassin managed to get the jump on us and forced me to debut by fully manifested Carrion Intent to shield my two young crows. Building down from the bones, and muscles, to diamond-like skin, thirty feet tall Asura with six arms and three faces, colored in the wine-dark banner of Dionysus and embroiled by the turquoise banner of Rher.
Even then, every explosion rattled my phantom bones, cooked skin I didn't know I had, and torn muscles I flexed for the very first time. That is what made it worth to endure. I marched ceaselessly toward the Explosion Man even as he tore me apart, every attack to my manifested intent resonating in my tripartite soul.
But all the while I used my pneumatic and sophic senses to puzzle out his trick, and by the time I got to him, mangled as I was, I opened my own third eye by using energy bending to emit a spirit canon from my forehead in retaliation. Alas, eyes stand prominently in Rher's theme, far more than they ever did Dionysus. So, it should not stand as any surprise when said attack was heavily tainted by Rher's moon scorch.
Combustion man turned into a monster and then was freshly boiled apart as he imploded, leaving only a patch of tortoise cinders.
I sort of should have seen this coming. Tempering under Rher's mysteries expands the mind, first and foremost. The ability to read minds seems to be related to this chakra and the disorienting experience of opening it allows me to see the 'aura' of people in a way I simply couldn't beforehand. Diagnose the kind of soul they are at a glance.
That is why I don't like to fuck around with Rher's magic. It seems gifts from Old Gods always bring some creepy side-effects. Like a third eye in my forehead capable of blowing people up!
While my normal eyes can only be used to deliver Rher's version of an evil eye that attacks the mind, this one is built for its most potent mysteries. The only saving grace of the whole situation is that at least it is imperceptible while it is closed.
Despite being stranded behind the enemy's line I was still well informed about the situation of my young charges thanks to how heavily my murder of inky crows has been used by the Avatar's army.
Things went well on their end, despite some hiccups, our allies came through and things were in motion.
Instead of using the eclipse to do something as trivial as defeating a single firebender, something the Avatar was more than equipped to do by now if Hoku's memories serve, we would use it to establish an occupying force in Fire Nation territory in order to raise an iron curtain isolating the Fire Nation from the rest of the world until Sozin's Comet passing.
Aang would start the attack using the Avatar State to power through any unconventional defense they cooked up over the last one hundred years, smoothing the way for the invading army. As the eclipse only lasts for eight minutes Aang will have to start well before then as the eclipse if for the army.
I myself had my own preparations set in motion. In my time as a grave keeper, I became a pretty good necromancer, between my mastery of spiritualism and mastery over the line of life and death.
This day is about making a statement more than seizing a foregone victory.
And a fleet of undead dragons spreading havoc during a solar eclipse is certainly something to go down in history books.
Sozin started the tradition of hunting down dragons in pursuit of glory. Anyone who kills one would be granted the title of dragon to symbolize his ultimate mastery over fire bending. Of course, they would taxidermy such creatures to display their gruesome deed for eternity.
I covered my trail easily too, since I needed an absurd amount of both gold and silver to create sufficient amounts of the elixirs capable of restoring some resemblance of the dragon's former strength. During my harassment campaign, I had the crows stealing everything of value not nailed down.
I still had more than enough ingredients around to create a native version of life solution and my different powdered bee breeds Toxic solution and order solution.
The shards of sin to empower the restored organs of the dragons came from the dead bodies of the fire benders that died in the North Pole invasion. Breathing new fire into dead bones.
I had to commit since not all bodies were worth the effort to restore them, but by the end of it, I had over twenty fighting-ready dragons.
Time to do my best Daenerys impression.
All roads lead to Rome.
True cooperation, where an army of virtuous men exist as one, pitching each of their humble excellencies together to each of his battle brothers and being uplifted and supported in turn.
This, in practice, is executed via Roman marching cadence. An almost hypnotic song used to bring all men in marching formation, both in body and soul. Alas, while Julius Caesar was capable of inducting foreign cultivators into the Roman Style of cultivation, as good Roman souls as any native-born and raised, this is something I myself never got to experience.
There are ways around this though.
Eventually, every man places it all beneath himself.
Walking one path doesn't prevent a cultivator from dabbling in the others. Every hero and tyrant was once a philosopher after all. And even a philosopher can act like a conqueror. One doesn't need to be heartless in order to seize it all in hand as far as his reach allows.
I manifest the scarlet strings in the lyre-shaped Bounty of Nature and start my lone sonata. All carriers of my infernal bone marrow, the spirits under my thrall, and my reanimated dragons, all under my banner were made to dance under my tune, dance in line, and dance well. Their spirits were overtaken by the enthusiasm of the melody, a kind of mass mania of the frenzied [Tearer of Flesh]. A parade of demons right at the heart of Fire Nation's capital.
My haunting song was to gong for the final battle.
At my signal, the Avatar attacked.
Aang's presence could be felt from the capital. A giant tsunami washed away all fortifications like sand castles on the beach, followed by five giant pillars of fire converging into a single ring, followed by three more made of each of the four elements.
With the Avatar at their doorsteps and the monster in their flank, what are soldiers to do? They fought. With ferocity and anger that carried them through one hundred years of war, yet they were simply men, and they were being besieged by all sides.
The capital was made to burn under the wrathful vengeance of the risen dragons, the assault of frenzied spirits, and the harassment of crow's diplomacy, poison and dagger.
This prevented them from mounting a meaningful and organized defense for when the proper army rolled around and the eclipse started, depriving them of all fire bending.
It didn't deprive them of their courage, not yet, and not in all. But my dragons were no longer creatures of this world anymore. Seeing their ghost wine-dark flame dancing on the rooftops, not being deterred at all by the eclipse while the Avatar charged to deliver justice in Ozai's head was enough to break the moral of most.
My melody of despair urged them to submit, that they would be spared if they kneel, all they had to do to see another sunrise was to surrender.
First the North Pole Front, then Ba Sing Se, and now the Fire Nation's capital. Do I actually have a talent for the Conqueror's Path after all?
Yeah, it is hard to have sudden plot twists when the only reason there was a fight in the first place was because the fate of the world was on the back of a pacifist kid. Ozai stopped being a consideration the moment Aang walked out of the Demon Temple, so Zagreus focused on ensuring the Fire Nation could not exploit the power granted by the Comet.
Around him, my other students formed a line in opposition to Azula, who was lazily reclined on the throne of the Earth King while polishing and inspecting her nails.
"Not at the moment, no. I will save this for a later opportunity if you don't mind. Fire bending can be quite distracting and I am learning so much under Master Zagreus' tutelage that I fear my progress would slow down otherwise." It was amazing how much Azula words got under the Avatar gang's skin, were they jealous? "In fact, I almost felt like thanking you. For my entire life, I had been someone else's creature, but now I can become the True Azula. Master Zagreus is far kinder and crueler than Father ever managed to be. Isn't that right, Jet?"
Said freedom fighter answered her senior student by flipping her the middle finger. The action only elicited a broad smile from Azula, as if it was a victory… I supposed it was. Jet knows who Azula is, plus he is a [Chaotic] soul, diametrically opposed to her [Dominating] soul, yet she managed to cajole him into becoming a crow and joining her. Azula might have grown bored of fear but this only instigated her hunger for other means of domination.
What troublesome students I have collected!
"Which brings us to this." Katara interfered while pointing at Jet. "Jet. Here. Why?" She asked me with a betrayed expression.
I signed in exasperation. "Katara, I once confessed to Sokka that I was glad he was my first student instead of someone like Jet. Back then I felt I had no means of helping someone so troubled as I myself was lost. You are not the only ones that have experienced growth in this journey. I man cannot visit the same river twice, for they both will have changed by the second meeting. I owed the promise lying dormant in Jet's soul to at least try instead of cleansing my hands off of him. Something in me told me there wouldn't be a third chance."
My sincere confession disarmed the water tribe siblings, as they knew I wasn't exactly that keen on sticking my neck out for others until prompted and this is a chance brought about by their influence.
"Sifu, are you sure this is safe?" Aang asked me sincerely. He was the one true pacifist of our group, so if he is questioning this, I have to admit Azula and Jet are a gamble.
"Of course I am not sure, Aang. But did you forget? Even if you defeat the Fire Lord, Ozai is bound to keep and gather a hardcore line of supporters for as long as he lives even after you defang him. Make no mistake, even if we defeat the Fire Nation now, the following years will be crucial to decide if peace will last or if war will restart once more."
Aang started to massage his bald head. "Can we skip the history lesson today? I just want to restore peace to Ba Sing Se and go kick Ozai's ass!"
Zuko and Iroh just watched events unfold on the sideline. He wasn't happy to hear the Avatar talk so casually about defeating his father but he was forced to face the truth Aang had crossed the point where he could be stopped.
"There is no such a thing as an ideal or objectively right political system, I am afraid." I drove the point home by patting Aang on his bald head. "These kinds of things are ninety percent transpiration and ten percent inspiration. Democracy might sound nice but in practice, it drags everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Monarchies end like imperial powers like the Fire Nation or fall apart due to incompetent heirs like the Earth kingdom."
"Then what should I do? Everyone expects me to come up with a solution!"
"Do your best. Something everyone will agree on is that the world is ready for change after one century in this war. I can at least point out what policies have historical records of working out. Separation of legislative, executive and judiciary branches of powers, dismembering of regions as semi-autonomous districts, reasonable tax policies and the legal precedent of fundamental rights, for a start."
"For a start?! I am running myself ragged learning all four elements plus energy bending and avatar state! I am twelve!"
"Technically you are one hundred and twelve years old. And that is only the start because you still have to decide what to do with the Fire Nation colonies after the war."
This time it was Jet who shipped in. "What do you mean what to do? Are you not going to send them back to the fire nation? I thought this was the point!"
The other students looked at me with questioning gazes as well.
"Too much time has passed. At this point, this would involve breaking up families apart, not exactly a popular policy. It would be better to simply emancipate the Fire Nation colonies and give them independence as long as they respected the rights of people from other nations. It certainly would help the mainland to have fire benders not aligned with the Fire Lord, after all the Sozin comet is bound to return every one hundred years."
"So? Can't we simply extinguish fire bending then?" Jet pressed on, getting an ugly look from the Avatar gang and a disdainful scoff from Azula.
"Jet, humans are stubborn and irreverent creatures." I pointed out to Azula, "There is no way such a plan will work, especially as Aang is bound to start giving people bending at random in search of new air benders. It is his best shot to restore his people, can you ask him to give up on that?"
Jet serrated his fists but did not pursue the matter, taking a seat beside the steps of the throne.
Since the most immediate crisis had been averted, it was time to move the agenda forward. I gesture for Iroh to take point.
He somehow had become the owner of a tea shop by the time I reached him. A multitalented fellow. During the Purge, he rose to the occasion, gaining a lot of face with high and low citizens alike.
"Avatar Aang, as the descendant of both Sozin and Hoku, it is my responsibility to see that you restore balance to the world in order to restore honor to my nation. I ask that you push aside your reservations toward me for as long as I serve as your teacher in fire bending." Iroh knew he sort of botched the friendly grandpa look by going all Sith on my ass, so his formal approach was good enough. He made the candle hand gesture and everything.
Aang and everyone else looked apprehensive at Iroh, and for a long moment, I feared he would decline Iroh's olive branch. Fortunately, my talks with him drove the point across. To walk the path of the virtue of compassion, Aang will have to tolerate a lot of people he resents for harming those he cherishes. It was time to walk the walk and show the world that his compassion is his strength, not his weakness.
He answers Iroh's greeting with one of his own. He didn't call him sifu or drop his guarded expression but these would have been fake anyway.
A tentative start is better than nothing.
-//-
As Ba Sing Se experienced the Purge for the very first time, the following order of business to restore peace was the need for an official armistice to prevent endless political manhunts. It is ironic that I ended up more or less taking Long Fen's job as Aang had to focus the majority of his time learning fire bending with Iron in the private chamber of the palace when he wasn't making a public appearance to promote peace of mind and give an official front to my reforms.
Ba Sing Se had a pretty extensive legal history but I managed to more or less crunching through it all before the night of madness even started. From there it was just a matter of leveraging my experience to create the leanest and most free legal reform possible. The are a lot of rack jobs that only exist for the sake of a corpulent bureaucratic body. This was the perfect chance to trim the fat.
I had Sokka brainstorm with what remained of the Council of Five while keeping communication lines with the insurgence forces of Omashu, North Water Tribe fleets, and General Long through the use of my crows.
He also contacted the good Machinist in the North Air Temple. Apparently, Sokka had the idea of creating submarines using water benders. I decided this would be a good opportunity to expedite things, so I sent the man the firearms I had acquired in Prehevil. This will give the non-benders much-needed firepower. Considering people live in a world where some people can shoot fire from their fingers' tips this sounds like a justifiable equalizer.
Jet and Azula mostly worked in the lower rings, making sure to crush gangs and other criminal elements that were obstructing the newly created districts from rising to their feet. I had already done my best to simplify the tax and legal system but the Earth Kingdom as a whole still lives in the mercantilist age, where merchant houses are free to squeeze the lone merchant.
I pretty good recipe for success is to maximize freedoms so those who succeed can lead by example but these disruptive forces really upset old money. Fortunately, people are walking lightly around me and my policies proved popular the more effective they proved themselves.
Katara, who is first and foremost a bender, helped Aang and worked on mastering spirit bending.
Toph, who ran away from home to escape all this crap, got kidnapped by a false letter from her mother and developed metal bending in order to escape.
After the first month, I judged Aang really to start to give people bending in order to increase our forces. The more practice he gets the better, energybending is super dangerous so its mastery requires utmost commitment. Every time Aang uses it he is throwing the dice, so to speak, as to bend other's energy Aang needs to be unbendable himself.
The problem with it is that humans are transient and ephemeral creatures. The analogy of the river was well placed here. There are good reasons this art had been lost. Only Aang, who is the Avatar, and thereof part spirit and eternal has a real chance to learn and deploy it reliably… and as a man of principle who has cast off my robes of mortality and consigned myself to never-ending ascension, I am duty bound to walk this path besides my protegee.
Cultivation is a race toward divinity after all. As long as I walk the path of virtue my tripartite soul can't stray from it's path without being destroyed.
While I cannot give people bending as I am no bender myself, I can at least awaken their souls.
It is a mad venture every single time, like catching lightning between your teeth. One slips up and I am through. Plus, I am no Avatar, I can only awaken those that already have the potential for it, which is one in one hundred.
Even so, there is something divine about the experience. At least I can now diagnose with accuracy if someone is ready to be awakened or not.
Then, another month later came the time to start the pushback campaign, and complaints started once more.
-//-
"What do you mean we are going to separate again?" Sokka asked me with a mix of indignation and insecurity. "I thought dividing and conquering was something to be deployed against our enemies!"
He wasn't the only one unhappy with my decision, except for Azula who made a point to have a smug look as she would be taging along with me.
"There is good reason I kept this under wraps. The position of our new allies was still uncertain so I wanted to avoid leaking sensitive information. Plus, this was mostly an idea until recently. I only feel capable of pulling this off now."
"Yeah, because it is insane! Infiltrating and fighting the Fire Nation on your own? What are you even hoping to manage there by yourself?" Katara protested.
"Precisely due to these risks is that small cells would perform better than a standing army. I am more than capable of sabotaging, espionage and harassment campaigns. My reputation as the Raven and my performance in the North Water Tribe's failed invasion means Ozai won't be able to ignore me, and the more he fails to bring me down, the less support he will have by the time of the eclipse. And after it."
General Fong piped in. "Moral is crucial in war, I agree. But we have the Avatar. Between the two of you and the army we are mounting, crushing the Fire Nation will be a foregone conclusion!" I mindlessly bragged, oblivious to how unsettling this was for Aang.
I just used his example to silently point out why my strategy is the soundest. Aang wants to restore peace and balance to the world. He doesn't want to conquer the Fire Nation, but the thing is, even if not everyone is on board with Ozai, those are the survivors of Sozin's own political purges.
"We have to deal with Ozai's industrial military complex at the very least. Teo's father confirmed that they most likely got a hold of his war balloon. Air superiority is an overwhelming military advantage."
"We are fine with that, big guy. I just want to know why are you doing that with Azula and Jet!" Toph questioned while screaming at me like I had gone crazy. "Even I can never know when she is lying. What are the odds she is going to betray you?"
"She might. Even so, Azula can see reality for what it is. The war was more or less lost the moment Aang mastered the Avatar State. There is a reason Sozin waited for Hoku to die before he started his campaign."
"True enough, a princess surrenders with dignity." Azula cut in, always ready to rile up her fellow disciples. "I am joining precisely because these are my people and by taking part in it, I can direct the outcome in the better interest. We don't need a second massacre like in the North Pole."
Her words were sharp and full of panache, some of her old confidence was back. Which also means she is lying too, of course. But this doesn't matter. Using the Eclipse invasion to establish an occupying force until the Sozin Comet passes is essential and unavoidable. Azula's personal motivations are the least of them.
"This is enough small talk. Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, I trained and prepared your loot for this the best I could and I will be leaving you with the backing of our allies and friends. I am taking my share of the burden, you should focus on bearing yours first. This is the final stretch of the war. Victory or defeat lay ahead."
My words had the desired effect, but I still did not escape a second group hug.
-//-
Boiling Rock, the highest security prison in the Fire Nation. It's on an island in the middle of a boiling lake. The most dangerous criminals, both domestic and foreign alike, are sent here; these prisoners include thieves, traitors, and prisoners of war.
Unfortunately for all present inhabitants, it was designed to keep people in, not prevent them from invading it. In that regard, it was no better than any other prison camp I had busted so far.
Under the cover of night, I plucked my scarlet strings a dissonant melody capable of disrupting the sleep of even the dead. I unstirred restlessness on the local spirits, and instigated them to attack the place.
The fire bender wards, for all their enthusiasm, lacked the capacity to truly harmed on interact with the spirits in any meaningful way as all the spirituality of fire bending had long been excised in the pursuit of power and mindless aggression. Their attacks leave no mark as the spirits have no flesh to be burned and cooked. The result was inevitable.
Before long they had subdued all resistance. Now it was show time. I had Jet and Azula release all prisoners and conduct them to the ward where we could speak terms.
I certainly cut an intimidating figure – a midnight wraith cloaked in a mantle of feathers playing a lyra whose sound resonates in the very soul of all listeners like a gong while marching a parade of evil spirits.
Especially as all presents were herded there like cattle by a pack of hostile dark spirits.
"W-who are you? What do you want from us?" Asked one captive with more courage than sense.
I still had my rod on, but let the memory of Rher's mind-flaying gaze peek through the windows of my own soul, causing my amethyst eyes to blaze with eldritch power.
Our eyes crossed and the brave but unfortunate prisoner fell like a rock, as if I had killed with one look. This thoroughly spooked the rest of the presents into submission.
While this was going on, I watched my two young crows, this detour was for their sake as they would be the ones in direct charge of the new recruits, as such I gave them the right to pick the ones they liked.
We had actually gotten here some days ago, infiltrating so as to give Azula and Jet plenty of time to pick the ones they thought most promising. This was the final test to see how they behave in this kind of stressful situation.
Well, did the two of you made up your minds yet? The raven in my shadow asked of the two crows.
Getting good help is so difficult nowadays, but alas, needs must. I found some hidden gems under all the dirt. The impudent young crow answered full of hidden enthusiasm.
These ones aren't so bad for Fire Nation. Commented the sullen young crow full of cocksureness. Jet is somewhat happy to return to familiar territory.
What are you waiting for then? Convince them to join our unkindness. I myself have no need of them. This night is for the two of you.
Was it bad I could feel the smile forming under their mantle? Some acts really die hard, and the two of them can't pass up the chance to show off and run the show.
They made their pick and it was clear how diametrically opposed they were from each other. There was a silent competition between the two as each tried to go for pieces the other sought. This level of rivalry was kind of unexpected in how friendly it was.
In the end, each crow got ten new members added to their flock and we moved on. The point had already been made. The Raven was in Fire Nation soil and it brought with it an army of dark spirits, going where he is not wanted, to say what no one wants to hear, and to do what absolutely must not be done.
Things got interesting rather quickly. I had to give it to the people of the Fire Nation, they went from a landlocked civilization to having a fleet of zeppelins in less than a year of said invention. Their industriousness is second to none.
A shame I had to burn it all down – iron and steel refineries, train lines and rails, war machine factories. We busted it all. Jet even managed to sneak in a bit of freedom fighting in the middle of it all. No matter where, there will always be those pushed to the margin of society.
The fact Azula followed my advice by actually joining in was the most surprising of it all. I guess people have ways to surprise you if given a chance. Azula's virtue might be will-to-power but her soul has yet to take its proper shape. I simply advised her that the fundamental difference between good and evil was in truth, a matter of aesthetic. Whether she finds validation in her existence through causing suffering and fear or in gratitude and admiration of others, the difference is only secondary.
Azula was surprised at first at my 'cynicism' but the fact she ended up going so far as to cosplay as a water spirit and bask in the admiration and gratitude of the common folk living by the river's side sort of proved my point. She was a rather demanding young lady, treating me like a living dispenser of food and medicine, but as her teacher, I was inclined to indulge her in exploring this new side of herself.
At least said incident led Jet to see both Azula and the people of the Fire Nation in a new light. It wasn't forgiveness, not yet. Might never be. But he no longer projected his trauma onto every Fire Nation person he saw.
I even got to break out my old alchemy kit in order to create a solution capable of quickening the sedimentation of the river detritus in order to clean it more quickly. It almost made up for all the trouble my actions have stirred… Yeah, I didn't believe my bullshit either. But at least I am helping someone and showing my students there are many paths they can take to solve problems.
The Fire Nation military tried to put on a resistance for the most part and the Fire Sages were summoned to attempt to exorcize me but both were always pushed aside with pathetical ease.
My crow shadow constructs managed to sneak in the shadow of important officials and spy on the Fire Nation's every move remotely. I soon flushed out the location of the new zeppelins and war balloons and destroyed them all.
The most interesting thing was my confrontation with Explosion Man; god I wish I could say Sokka's awful naming sense is rubbing off on me but I never had any to begin with.
Anyway, the man possessed a rather rare talent. Some deviation in the chakra of his forehead, allows him to release a concentrated fire-bending blast with his mind. I am familiar with the concept of chakra due to Aang's training, I have used my pneumatic and Sothic senses to read his chi in all of its permutations during the countless hours of flying bison ride.
Said chakra was called light chakra in Wa Shi Ton's records. It was supposed to deal with insight, and blocked by illusion, but I never thought it could be used like that.
The silent and severe assassin managed to get the jump on us and forced me to debut by fully manifested Carrion Intent to shield my two young crows. Building down from the bones, and muscles, to diamond-like skin, thirty feet tall Asura with six arms and three faces, colored in the wine-dark banner of Dionysus and embroiled by the turquoise banner of Rher.
Even then, every explosion rattled my phantom bones, cooked skin I didn't know I had, and torn muscles I flexed for the very first time. That is what made it worth to endure. I marched ceaselessly toward the Explosion Man even as he tore me apart, every attack to my manifested intent resonating in my tripartite soul.
But all the while I used my pneumatic and sophic senses to puzzle out his trick, and by the time I got to him, mangled as I was, I opened my own third eye by using energy bending to emit a spirit canon from my forehead in retaliation. Alas, eyes stand prominently in Rher's theme, far more than they ever did Dionysus. So, it should not stand as any surprise when said attack was heavily tainted by Rher's moon scorch.
Combustion man turned into a monster and then was freshly boiled apart as he imploded, leaving only a patch of tortoise cinders.
I sort of should have seen this coming. Tempering under Rher's mysteries expands the mind, first and foremost. The ability to read minds seems to be related to this chakra and the disorienting experience of opening it allows me to see the 'aura' of people in a way I simply couldn't beforehand. Diagnose the kind of soul they are at a glance.
That is why I don't like to fuck around with Rher's magic. It seems gifts from Old Gods always bring some creepy side-effects. Like a third eye in my forehead capable of blowing people up!
While my normal eyes can only be used to deliver Rher's version of an evil eye that attacks the mind, this one is built for its most potent mysteries. The only saving grace of the whole situation is that at least it is imperceptible while it is closed.
-//-
Sooner than I realized, the darkest day in Fire Nation history was upon us.
Despite being stranded behind the enemy's line I was still well informed about the situation of my young charges thanks to how heavily my murder of inky crows has been used by the Avatar's army.
Things went well on their end, despite some hiccups, our allies came through and things were in motion.
Instead of using the eclipse to do something as trivial as defeating a single firebender, something the Avatar was more than equipped to do by now if Hoku's memories serve, we would use it to establish an occupying force in Fire Nation territory in order to raise an iron curtain isolating the Fire Nation from the rest of the world until Sozin's Comet passing.
Aang would start the attack using the Avatar State to power through any unconventional defense they cooked up over the last one hundred years, smoothing the way for the invading army. As the eclipse only lasts for eight minutes Aang will have to start well before then as the eclipse if for the army.
I myself had my own preparations set in motion. In my time as a grave keeper, I became a pretty good necromancer, between my mastery of spiritualism and mastery over the line of life and death.
This day is about making a statement more than seizing a foregone victory.
And a fleet of undead dragons spreading havoc during a solar eclipse is certainly something to go down in history books.
Sozin started the tradition of hunting down dragons in pursuit of glory. Anyone who kills one would be granted the title of dragon to symbolize his ultimate mastery over fire bending. Of course, they would taxidermy such creatures to display their gruesome deed for eternity.
I covered my trail easily too, since I needed an absurd amount of both gold and silver to create sufficient amounts of the elixirs capable of restoring some resemblance of the dragon's former strength. During my harassment campaign, I had the crows stealing everything of value not nailed down.
I still had more than enough ingredients around to create a native version of life solution and my different powdered bee breeds Toxic solution and order solution.
The shards of sin to empower the restored organs of the dragons came from the dead bodies of the fire benders that died in the North Pole invasion. Breathing new fire into dead bones.
I had to commit since not all bodies were worth the effort to restore them, but by the end of it, I had over twenty fighting-ready dragons.
Time to do my best Daenerys impression.
-//-
The core of Roman cultivation of virtue lies in the idea that one hundred men fighting as one surpass one man with the strength of a hundred men. Something plain to see in their Path – instead of philosopher, champion, and conqueror, the Romans follow the paths of the soldier, consul, and dictator. Presenting a more collectivist lens to the otherwise lonely path of cultivation.
All roads lead to Rome.
True cooperation, where an army of virtuous men exist as one, pitching each of their humble excellencies together to each of his battle brothers and being uplifted and supported in turn.
This, in practice, is executed via Roman marching cadence. An almost hypnotic song used to bring all men in marching formation, both in body and soul. Alas, while Julius Caesar was capable of inducting foreign cultivators into the Roman Style of cultivation, as good Roman souls as any native-born and raised, this is something I myself never got to experience.
There are ways around this though.
Eventually, every man places it all beneath himself.
Walking one path doesn't prevent a cultivator from dabbling in the others. Every hero and tyrant was once a philosopher after all. And even a philosopher can act like a conqueror. One doesn't need to be heartless in order to seize it all in hand as far as his reach allows.
I manifest the scarlet strings in the lyre-shaped Bounty of Nature and start my lone sonata. All carriers of my infernal bone marrow, the spirits under my thrall, and my reanimated dragons, all under my banner were made to dance under my tune, dance in line, and dance well. Their spirits were overtaken by the enthusiasm of the melody, a kind of mass mania of the frenzied [Tearer of Flesh]. A parade of demons right at the heart of Fire Nation's capital.
My haunting song was to gong for the final battle.
At my signal, the Avatar attacked.
Aang's presence could be felt from the capital. A giant tsunami washed away all fortifications like sand castles on the beach, followed by five giant pillars of fire converging into a single ring, followed by three more made of each of the four elements.
With the Avatar at their doorsteps and the monster in their flank, what are soldiers to do? They fought. With ferocity and anger that carried them through one hundred years of war, yet they were simply men, and they were being besieged by all sides.
The capital was made to burn under the wrathful vengeance of the risen dragons, the assault of frenzied spirits, and the harassment of crow's diplomacy, poison and dagger.
This prevented them from mounting a meaningful and organized defense for when the proper army rolled around and the eclipse started, depriving them of all fire bending.
It didn't deprive them of their courage, not yet, and not in all. But my dragons were no longer creatures of this world anymore. Seeing their ghost wine-dark flame dancing on the rooftops, not being deterred at all by the eclipse while the Avatar charged to deliver justice in Ozai's head was enough to break the moral of most.
My melody of despair urged them to submit, that they would be spared if they kneel, all they had to do to see another sunrise was to surrender.
First the North Pole Front, then Ba Sing Se, and now the Fire Nation's capital. Do I actually have a talent for the Conqueror's Path after all?
-//-
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
Yeah, it is hard to have sudden plot twists when the only reason there was a fight in the first place was because the fate of the world was on the back of a pacifist kid. Ozai stopped being a consideration the moment Aang walked out of the Demon Temple, so Zagreus focused on ensuring the Fire Nation could not exploit the power granted by the Comet.
- Location
- washington
An immortal avatar would be weird ngl.
- Location
- Brazil
Plus he died in his 60s because of the 100 years in Avatar state. Kyoshi lived to be 200+
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
So no cultivator Aang??
- Location
- washington
offhand is zagreus at all likely to eventually gain a companion even a companion animal would be nice? Well actually less animal because the difference doesn't mean much once they get far enough in cultivation.
- Location
- Brazil
Technically Haava use the incarnations as a flesh suit to interact and integrate with the mortal world, and considering how powerful the avatar becomes through each incarnation, it is more that the Avatar is half-spirit than Aang being locked out of cultivation.
Roku. His name is Roku and you've misspelled his name every time I believe. Need to fix ur Auto correct. Need a beta?
lot
avatar the last airbender 9
- Location
- Brazil
"I feel that you are somewhat angry with me, Aang." I commented with my reunited student after we had asserted our control over the capital and apprehended Ozai.
"It is nothing."
"Why didn't you mention your plan of using spirits to attack the Fire Nation?" He asks, extremely terse.
"Because it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, especially for a good cause. Plus, you even got to capitalize on good public relationships by visiting every place we attacked and pacify the spirits there! A genius strategy!"
My casual words did cause Aang to blow up a cascade, fortunately, Katara took it upon herself to pacify him.
"I am more than willing to stand trial for my war crimes, Aang. But if we are going this route, then there won't be much of a Fire Nation left after their own trial."
While this is incensed, a certain understanding finally dawns on him. "You are provoking me on purpose, aren't you!"
"The Avatar came back, defeated the Fire Lord, and restored balance to the world. Now the only thing that remains is for you to live the rest of your life. These people not only killed everyone you love Aang, but they also brought harm to your new family. People will keep on provoking you, Aang. Testing your virtue."
"You say that, but you still hope to get away with a slap on the wrist, don't you?"
"Guilty as charged," I say in good humor, eliciting a pout from the savior of the world.
There was a certain bittersweetness about it all, as we knew this would be the last time we travel like this.
They still managed to get neck-deep in trouble too. A bloodbender of all things! Fascinating. A shame Katara refused to learn the art, but I respected her decision.
Having done what they could for the people I terrorized, we returned to the capital for Zuko's coronation. Iroh argued he was too old for the position and his crimes prevented him from passing on the right image. Since the whole point was to have Aang crowing the next Fire Lord, as a symbol of this new age of peace and cooperation.
While they got busy, I went to check on my problem child.
"Azula?" I had to admit, of all responses, she could take at the news, finding her casually lounging in a royal spar while being pampered by attendants was not what I expected. At least not after the news, she considered the throne her life's ambition.
"What can I do for you, my Sifu?" She asks while not even bothering to open her eyes or turn her head my way.
"Someone is in a good mood. Honestly, I expected to come here to smoother some ruffled feathers."
"Oh, please. As if I need to feel jealous of Zuzu. In the end, the throne is being handed to him by our conquerors. I have to give it to Sozin to stick to his guts with Roku breathing down his neck, but in the end, the power he and all men of my line up to my father believed in was a lie supported by deception and betrayal." This time she opened her eyes, looking meaningfully my way. "It could never stand up to true power, power to save or destroy, the choice and capacity of acting as one please." She spoke as someone who had seen the heights for herself.
In a sense she has.
"You geniuses are all so frightening, you know? I never had this kind of composure at fifteen. It feels as if I will be left behind if I so much as blink." I complain while taking the other seat beside her. With a silent motion from Azula, the attendants started their ministration.
"Considering I am still breathing I will take this as a compliment then." She answers casually with a backhanded compliment of her own. In a sense she was right, if an enemy truly frightened me, I would destroy it without reservation. But that is only an enemy.
"Azula, you know I would never do this to you out of fear, right?"
She snorted in answer, "I know you wouldn't do that." She answers, displaying her deep understanding of my captain virtue acquired through our connection. One of the reasons she acts so sure-footed around me lately, she knew me as I knew her. Better than anyone ever bothered too. And boy, wasn't that sad?
"I am simply not so sure Uncle Iroh shares these feelings. I am an eyesore for sure, at the very least. It certainly would be convenient if I had some mental breakdown."
"Well, if you care so little for the coronation, then I can think of a more interesting agenda for you today. And remember to bring Jet."
She freezes us, instantly interested.
Time to initiate the two of them properly as Ravens. While I have no means to bring them to the Orphic House, I can at least share in my lived experience and make for them a pass necklace with directions to the Orphic House like the one I got in my initiation.
I brought the two of them to abandoned catacombs I repossessed and remodeled using my swan song to charm the stone, recreating to the best of my ability a place worth of their anointment in mystery faith as colony cults do in Olympia.
It is not like I would be welcome to Zuko's coronation anyway.
Some more months passed and it was time for the Avatar little gang to disband. Toph wanted to open a metal bending academy, confront her parents and start a musical carrier, Sokka is wrapped up with Princess Yue and has to go face the in-laws as the big damn hero, Aang and Katara hitched together and now she will follow Aang in his little Air Temple revitalization project.
As for me? Well, I know a certain owl that would be more than happy to get everything he can manage about the Fire Nation after a little arson incident.
My destination is Wan Shi Ton's Library. I have to restart my training, while a lot of growth can come from new experiences, I have neglected the plain foundations responsible for supporting the towering pillars of virtue I build inside my soul. My rhetoric is still crude, and all my basic skills stand to be a little more polished.
I had come up with some ideas but grim necessity had made them unavailable when the lives of so many depended on my top performance.
I and the spirit greeted each other as old friends, he was positively ecstatic with my gift and news of long-term residence. I had left Wan Shi Ton to oversee some long-term projects. The power once clinging to the Book of Enlightenment might be gone, but the owl's affinity for books made it capable of understanding its fundamental principles.
Sophic Cultivators can imprint their lived experiences into scrolls, allowing the reader to experience these memories in the first person as if they were there. Who is to say one can't do more? I intend to start on the basic, the passing of skills through this second-hand experience, and Wan Shi Ton is more than happy to assist me in this endeavor as it expands the limits of what books can do.
Between absorbing as much of the content of his library as I can manage and refining my rhetoric by perfecting my delivery and compressing the intent, I might be able to call myself a philosopher by the end of it.
Of course, while this is a great exercise for the mind, a cultivator of virtue is more than Reason.
The refinement of the body is both complicated and easy. As a captain of the Sophic Realm, I stand at the peak of mortal power, this doesn't mean I live up to my potential, but this means that tying a bolter to my back does little to my cardio. While I am more privileged in this regard, as my ivory shadow constructs allow me to match my body against my soul, allowing me to create dumbbells of impossible weight, at the end of the day I am a member of the Orphic House, we have our own focus of refinement.
While my time with Jeong Jeong enlightened me about the proper use of the Dharma Pneumatic Chambers, I could only Turn the Wheel at low throttle due to how painful intense, and exhausting it is, I had to be at peak performance to protect my students. I can barely go for one full minute while at full throttle now. The inevitability of pain and suffering is at the core of Dionysus's virtuous techniques, the only way for me to master it is by creating a tolerance for it.
I even went the extra mile and had Wan Shi Ton peruse samples of venomous and poisonous flora and fauna from all over the world. The first, I even get to produce on demand with Nature's Bounty, making their regular consumption a quick affair, even if not an easy one. Both a blessing and a curse, as all scarlet sons have to do is blind and burn themselves in pursuit of refinement. Am I not blessed for being so spoiled with options?
Alas, the use of the Dharma gives me a lot of spare pneuma to burn, so I have to find a useful way to employ it all.
Finally came my answer for the refinement of the Spirit. After my success with Archimedes' Golden Tread, the quintessence of Conversion, creating a lens through which to make the world predictable under a mathematical formula, I decided to pursue the quintessence of Diversion.
The philosopher Zeno was the creator of the famous Achille's paradox, which is in fact the mental exercise he used to explain his two fundamental paradoxes. The first is that finite things can be divided a limitless amount of times. Based on this comes the second paradox, that Motion, one of the three factors philosophers manipulate in their favor with their rhetoric, is a lie.
The basic idea here is simple to grasp and extremely powerful. If we imagine ourselves moving from Point A to Point B, we must also imagine ourselves moving from Point A to a point between Point A and Point B. If we call that middle point Point C, then in order to get to that point we must first move past a middle point between Point A and Point C. This can continue ad infinitum, and the problem this creates for us is that there seem to be infinitely many intermediate points between any two given points, which seems to suggest that there are infinitely many different points that exist between any two given points.
That is the underlying principle backing the famous Achille's paradox and manifesting it in reality through rhetoric is almost impossible! In over one year of casual attempts, the best I managed was to figure out Socrates' little telekinesis trick he deploys to attract things to him by manifesting 'negative numbers'.
Zeno's paradox is a perfect exercise for the Spirit, it requires me to neutralize Motion, Magnify all divided space, and lengthen the Time it takes to travel it, something easier said than done. There are simply too many vectors involved, it involves Accelerator levels of micromanagement, which is why it is worthwhile. Using my pneumatic and sophic senses to grasp my surroundings, combined with the predictable frame granted by Archimedes' Golden Treat, I have to manipulate my pneuma into smaller and smaller fractions through an ever-constant change caused by outside stimulus.
Even if no real-life application ever comes out of it, I should at least improve my efficiency and control of pneuma to the point of reaching close to zero waste, plus improve the precision and perception of my supernatural senses if not their reach.
And speaking of occult senses, finally comes the address of my soul's condition latest update. My freak new third eye, courtesy of Rher's influence shining through brought with it the god's tendency to uncover the truth of one's soul. This is a complicated topic even when normal cultivation is involved as Greek souls can have three parts while Egyptian souls can have five and both these styles can be true, contradicting the eternal nature of the soul. Then again, that is why we call mysteries as such, they are infuriatingly opaque to a mortal's perspective.
My case is even worse as I have been tempered under the Moon God's light and diagnosed a [Tormented] soul by whatever vagaries ruled that cursed world. The best word I could use to describe it would be [direction] of a soul, because I certainly acted according to my nature, devouring the essence of others in hunger to overcome Termina. All in order to survive that long nightmare.
The essences I devoured lingered to some extent. I could not totally digest them so my soul integrated them as part of myself instead. It wasn't the wrong path exactly but it is one I am stuck with. More precisely, what are the odds these essences bear within them traces of their logos, spirit, and hunger still? Their skills and unique excellence.
The third eye can easily pick the occult talents leaking from the Changeling and Enlightened and my elevated memory picks out how it has been coloring my actions and performance… I am technically the winner of Termina, I guess these are part of the illustrious heights the Jester bastard talked about.
There is a lot of hidden potential in me that I have yet to realize. It is still too early for me to step into the Heroic Realm as premature as I am right now.
Wan Shi Ton followed my progress with interest, especially as I consumed the content of his library with ever-increasing speed, pushed by a ravenous hunger for knowledge. Not really surprising though, after all, practice makes for perfection. Lived experience is one of the three main means rhetoric can be evoked, the more books I read the better I become at augmenting my reading speed and information absorption.
I then wrote Threads about each topic I passed through in a scroll augmented by my rhetoric, intending to instill the essence of the content through the voice of my soul.
I also helped the giant Owl how to manage his relationship with the outside world. Both, because we had become palls and because I had to earn my keep as I abused the services of the spirit foxes to perform my own errands. In the end, Wan Shi Ton was better off with a mercenary approach, people would just rip him off if he acted for free. As long as he kept low expectations, he would never be disappointed in humans.
My crow network still allowed me to keep tabs on the outside world. Pen pals had gone out of style before my own time, but in this new world, it was an unprecedented luxury. All of my students went through their own misadventures but somehow, they always found time to come visit at least once a year.
I was always surprised by how much they had grown with each passing visit. Aang grew like a weed, puberty hit Toph like a bolder to the point I had to pull Sokka away from her by the ear; she always had a crush on him, don't ask me why.
Azula and Jet came mostly for supplementary training, she became a nuisance for everyone and somehow it became my fault. At least she found some closure after meeting her missing mother in an incident involving Fire Lord Zuko. She didn't get what she was after but she at least spelled out the biggest dark cloud under her head. I guess mommy issues are another thing she has in common with Griffon. At least her reunion was less traumatic than his own turned out.
The world seems to be modernizing at a dazzling speed and a lot of people have expressed their complaints about the invention of firearms to me. Now that people of all nations are living together in the former Fire Nation colonies, the tension between benders, nonbenders, and cultivators of virtue is increasing.
It came to the point some people have come to pursue Wan Shi Ton's Library in search of my tutelage, of all things. Apparently, some of my works have been quite popular as people try to make sense of the cultivation of virtue. I had hit my limit of students, though. At this point any more charges would just be a distraction, so Wan Shi Ton shooed them all away.
Five years after I settled residence there, I summoned Aang. Time for his final lesson.
"Hey, Katara said it looks good on me!"
"She would say that, wouldn't she?"
At my smart-ass answer, Aang pouted, letting the hints of the boy I once knew shine through.
"Why did you call me here, Sifu?" Aang asks in his best Avatar business voice. He is right to be guarded, I made clear what was to follow was for his ears only.
"Do you remember his room?" I pointed out we once more were at the planetary calendar room of Wan Shi Ton's Library.
"This is where we discovered about the eclipse, right?" Aang asks for confirmation as he inspects the place, his childhood careless and unguarded curiosity giving way to a more appraising eye.
"Do me a favor and set it forward 54 years, will you?" I commanded him with a suggestion that was more like one of our old lessons. Reading the sky and mapping the stars was a necessary skill in most of the pre-modern civilizations. I had him learn it as a necessity for a true air nomad.
Aang didn't understand my goal with it, but he obeyed with anxious trepidation. As he adjusted the calendar his anxiety turned into dread, and dread turned into terror at what he saw.
"No. No, no, no. Harmonic Convergence!" he was in a panic like he was twelve again.
"Funny, I never taught you about it so how did you come to learn it, Aang?"
"I guess I always knew about it. Rather, I never forgot it. I just banished it from my mind. Until now."
"Well, you have the fight of your life ahead of you. I don't want to put pressure on you, but if you lose your death match with the embodiment of malevolence and darkness the world will be cast into ten thousand years of darkness."
"No pressure, right? Ahhhhh! Why does this keep happening to me!?"
Aang started to pass back and forth like Sokka said he did the week before the invasion when he tried to go three days without sleeping.
"Aang, relax. You got this. You won back then and you can do it again." I say with as much confidence as I can project, as Aang was no longer that lost little boy I first met.
"Right, I just have to win. And at least I have a heads-up this time. Usually, these things spring up on me out of nowhere. Thanks, Zagreus, you saved me again."
"I didn't call you here just to inform you about your scheduled death match with Vaatu." To drive the point, I reach deep into shadow, drawing from it all the skin-bibles I acquired from that odious cat monster and my own Thread about the dangers of the Spirit world and how to navigate them. "You are somewhat eternal as Raava, so I would sleep better at night knowing you have your eyes open to monsters the likes of Vaatu after I am gone."
"What are these?" Aang asked with fear in his voice. He knew nothing good could come from the content of these books, yet I had to burden him with it.
"I never told you where I came from, right Aang? Well, time to learn. Because this is also the reason I have to leave."
"Leave? You already live in isolation like some hermit!"
"It has to do with my curse, I am fated to live in interesting times. So I either pursue trouble or let it find me. Which is why it is better for everyone if I leave you than to risk my luck bringing trouble for your incoming battle."
"You don't know that!"
"Aang, you don't know how important you and Raava are to the world. I have seen a world of darkness and the memory scarred my very soul. I am burdening you with this information so that you can commit them to your eternal memory, just in case you ever run into any of them in this or another incarnation. I am also leaving guides to help your next incarnation as well."
"So, you really are leaving? Disappearing just as suddenly as the way you came?"
"Yes. Not yet, but sooner rather than later. That is why I want to get my affairs in order. And for now, this means showing you what lies beyond the safe haven you oversee. I made a point to compile all troublemakers and their most likely counters as well, just to be on the safe side."
"So, just like the old times?"
"Yes, come my spineless students. Attend!"
Most of them simply couldn't understand, except for Aang, who knew better by then, and the Raves Azula and Jet, who had a good idea of how petty and persistent some spirits can be through secondhand experience; I didn't take the name Zagreus lightly.
"So, you really are going, then?" Katara asked she was desolated as she felt powerless about the whole situation. I part of her would always be the little girl that got her mother taken from her.
"Afraid so, this old man is too much of a vagabond to settle, I am afraid. Sorry to disappoint you."
Or maybe not, she wasn't buying my casual words, answering with a deep hug followed by a drowned ugly cry she silenced in my shirt. I just hugged her back. She was a strong and reliable woman now, Katara would be fine.
Next, came Sokka. And boy, wasn't it strange to meet such a familiar gaze at an even eye level? The light of his soul had the most prominent effect on him compared to all my students. He was a thinking man himself. It is hard to believe some days that I raised him.
"Reconsider this, Zagreus. There is no logical reason for you to go!"
It was clear that while this departure was bittersweet to me, for him it was only bitter. He always disdained the ways of spirits and their workings and becoming a man of principle only solidified this view.
"I think I already told you not everything has to do with reason. After what I experienced, my virtuous heart aches to burn. For those I could not save, in defiance against cosmic injustices, to set the wrongs to right wherever I face them. You all healed me and reminded me the world doesn't have to be this grim. I will carry this with me forever."
It always surprised me how alike Sokka and Katara were at the end of the day. He joined his sister in his hug as he understood what I was confessing to him. The pieces settle into place.
A hero's lot was to burn, until the very end. It was what was required to stand against natural law. To make right of fundamental wrongs a man has to commit every part of himself all throw always his millenary existence for a single golden moment of glory. I was going out to die somewhere else beyond their reach, for every Epic was a tragedy.
This was our goodbye.
I returned my first student's desperate embrace. They would all be fine, as long as that remains true, I can move on.
Speaking of troubled children. "Well, aren't you going to embrace me too, Azula?" it was cute she thought she could use my tricks against me, but I taught her all these ninja tricks to obscure her presence.
"You seem to be overcrowded at the moment." She answers petulantly. Foolish girl, always lying to others and herself.
"Well, I do have a parting gift for you. Something to remember me by." I reach in my shadow for a serrated scarlet sword, almost like it was made of fresh blood. I then toss it her way with careless grace she answers with equal swiftlet.
"And this is?" She asks as she tests the blade.
"A souvenir I got from an impertinent godling. It is called [Red Virtue] and I hope it serves you better than it served her."
"Y-you give far better gifts than my uncle ever did, Sifu." Azula comments just to then jump and embrace me by the neck. Azula inherited Sozin's short king gene, the same as Iroh, so she never reached a prominent height despite being a cultivation prodigy.
The water tribe siblings weren't happy with her butting in, especially while holding a dangerous weapon like that, in the hand of a known nuisance like Azula. And I mean, Justice? Really Azula, that is your capital virtue? And isn't your current organization just a rebranded League of Shadows? Well, if anyone asks, I am not at fault here.
I turned toward Toph, who in contrast to Azula, was almost as tall as me and Sokka. "Well? Nothing to say, siren song?"
"Don't call me that! You never came to my concert!" She fumes at me in indignation.
"We can do a duet right now if you so wish. What do you say?"
She punches me in the kidney in answer, followed by a crushing embrace that would have killed mortal any man in half. "You know, I am starting to understand why everybody gets so livid with my devil-may-care attitude." She confesses as she complains.
"Sorry for being such a bad example, then," I answer in good humor. She wasn't wrong.
I turn to Jet, he somehow keeps a working relationship with Azula through the years as they fight for 'dark justice' or whatever freedom-fighting goal catches their fancy. I always tune it all when Aang complains about it to me.
We just compliment each other through a forearm grip. There wasn't much of a point in small talk, he wasn't that angry and lost boy anymore.
"Are you ready?" Aang asks. As the keeper of this realm, it is his responsibility to see that I don't leave any hole or backtrail when I am gone. We never know what might follow back here.
I nodded while patting his bald head a final time, for good luck. Maybe some of the Raava juice will rub off on me.
Somehow both man and spirit got peeved at my last little joke, I sensed.
"Well, goodbye, and thanks for all the fish." I did a last peace sign as I jumped the gate set up inside the Spirit Library.
Time to search for new shores.
The almost forgotten low rattle of cars all around? Check.
Neon lights peeking from all corners, almost like stars? Check.
I jump up, which in my raven mantle mind looks like I am actually taking flying as I scale up the building, a certain sense of absurdity asserting itself and driving home how much I had changed.
Yet, my musing is forgotten by the breathtaking sight.
Civilization. Modern post-industrial metropolis. And not any city either, I recognize that bald white mountain in the background, that is Tokyo!
Man, talk about second chances! I never got to visit it in the past-
Wait, what? Talk about something being too good to be true. While my normal senses see that the world before my eyes is completely ordinary and mundane, my sophic and pneumatic senses inform me of a hidden truth.
Pneuma, sort of, leaking from everyone. While common convention states that everything has pneuma and breaths, even if unconventionally, in this case, all pneuma comes from people. While stretching my range shows some buildings with great concentration of it, it is more like they are clinging to it due to human attention or gathering like sediments.
How do I explain it? Rather than an arcane power like chi, this feels more like human overthought being discharged in the ambient. Due to Rher's insight, I can perceive it is eminently negative in nature, though due to Dionysus' own chthonic mysteries, it was something I could perceive just by how familiar it is.
This is negative energy itself born from humanity's dark thoughts… and when enough of it condenses for long enough in a single place, it creates a cesspool that gives birth to all kinds of malaria. Those stemmed from the mind, that it.
Heart Demons.
Tokyo was a quiet pandemonium. They were literally everywhere, invisible to all. Yet they were far from harmless, people suffered under the attention of the least of imps and the more time was granted to the demons, the more a bearing they found to harm others.
After I started to look for it, it became clear normal people would have been easily overrun by any moderately old spirit yet society not only endured their attention but thrived despite it, free of any truly ancient horror.
The most likely answer is that someone is been playing exterminator and as these creatures are made of pure pneuma, they can only be harmed by pneuma in turn. Regular attacks can't harm them at all.
I finally had enough and decided to go into a cybercafé after pickpocketing the wallet of some fat cat, less than what he deserved as a corporative slave master; I guess the term is black company.
Of course, I also needed a better disguise without my mantle of anonymity. The average male Japanese height is 160 cm (5'3'), and my bodily refinement brought me to 215 cm (7 foot), that is without even mentioning the sinister leonine beauty Greek cultivators so heavily favor as the body reaches peak performance. This might have made me popular in the war-sieged Water Tribe but in the pacific and conformity-oriented modern Japan?
I will be lucky if the cops don't close in on me by the end of the hour.
Fortunately, I am not out of options, even if admitting this pains me. Greeks do have a second ideal standard for the male physical that doesn't involve its worship of warfare… this is how they named all their flower after all. Plus, Dionysus is heavily associated with the archetype of the Child and the concept of Puer Aeternus (eternal child). I had done similar in Ba Sing Se, something like this wasn't beyond my means.
The experience was unsettling and humiliating in a way that my time dragging as Joo Dee to infiltrate the Dai Le never managed to even come close. It is illogical, especially considering I don't even have any company to hold this over my head. But well… at least that form could still pass for a fierce and powerful heroine, my current form? Not so much.
Maybe a part of me has grown to enjoy looking down on people, having an intimidating presence that demanded respect and elicited fear. It is not exactly nice, especially for someone claiming to want to become a hero, but it is the truth.
Plus, the fact I turned out to be the prettiest person I have ever seen in person while in this form comes as an unexpected defeat. I mean, due to the cosmetics of cultivation continuous smoothing out of all outer imperfection, the result was a foregone conclusion when I am pitted against crude unrefined souls, but the realization still comes out as a blow.
Bakkahos, what did you use this form for?
You know what? I am better off not knowing.
So, Zagreus finally moved on from the elemental nations but not before finally cashing in his victory of Termina. Maybe he will return there someday? Who knows, it might be interesting to see the consequences of his actions.
But the most interesting thing now is the new shores he has to explore. So, did you figure out where he is yet?
"It is nothing."
"Why didn't you mention your plan of using spirits to attack the Fire Nation?" He asks, extremely terse.
"Because it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, especially for a good cause. Plus, you even got to capitalize on good public relationships by visiting every place we attacked and pacify the spirits there! A genius strategy!"
My casual words did cause Aang to blow up a cascade, fortunately, Katara took it upon herself to pacify him.
"I am more than willing to stand trial for my war crimes, Aang. But if we are going this route, then there won't be much of a Fire Nation left after their own trial."
While this is incensed, a certain understanding finally dawns on him. "You are provoking me on purpose, aren't you!"
"The Avatar came back, defeated the Fire Lord, and restored balance to the world. Now the only thing that remains is for you to live the rest of your life. These people not only killed everyone you love Aang, but they also brought harm to your new family. People will keep on provoking you, Aang. Testing your virtue."
"You say that, but you still hope to get away with a slap on the wrist, don't you?"
"Guilty as charged," I say in good humor, eliciting a pout from the savior of the world.
-//-
Aang and his gang went galivanting through the Fire Nation, as we often did, to undo my damage, so this time I didn't even get to complain about it.
There was a certain bittersweetness about it all, as we knew this would be the last time we travel like this.
They still managed to get neck-deep in trouble too. A bloodbender of all things! Fascinating. A shame Katara refused to learn the art, but I respected her decision.
Having done what they could for the people I terrorized, we returned to the capital for Zuko's coronation. Iroh argued he was too old for the position and his crimes prevented him from passing on the right image. Since the whole point was to have Aang crowing the next Fire Lord, as a symbol of this new age of peace and cooperation.
While they got busy, I went to check on my problem child.
"Azula?" I had to admit, of all responses, she could take at the news, finding her casually lounging in a royal spar while being pampered by attendants was not what I expected. At least not after the news, she considered the throne her life's ambition.
"What can I do for you, my Sifu?" She asks while not even bothering to open her eyes or turn her head my way.
"Someone is in a good mood. Honestly, I expected to come here to smoother some ruffled feathers."
"Oh, please. As if I need to feel jealous of Zuzu. In the end, the throne is being handed to him by our conquerors. I have to give it to Sozin to stick to his guts with Roku breathing down his neck, but in the end, the power he and all men of my line up to my father believed in was a lie supported by deception and betrayal." This time she opened her eyes, looking meaningfully my way. "It could never stand up to true power, power to save or destroy, the choice and capacity of acting as one please." She spoke as someone who had seen the heights for herself.
In a sense she has.
"You geniuses are all so frightening, you know? I never had this kind of composure at fifteen. It feels as if I will be left behind if I so much as blink." I complain while taking the other seat beside her. With a silent motion from Azula, the attendants started their ministration.
"Considering I am still breathing I will take this as a compliment then." She answers casually with a backhanded compliment of her own. In a sense she was right, if an enemy truly frightened me, I would destroy it without reservation. But that is only an enemy.
"Azula, you know I would never do this to you out of fear, right?"
She snorted in answer, "I know you wouldn't do that." She answers, displaying her deep understanding of my captain virtue acquired through our connection. One of the reasons she acts so sure-footed around me lately, she knew me as I knew her. Better than anyone ever bothered too. And boy, wasn't that sad?
"I am simply not so sure Uncle Iroh shares these feelings. I am an eyesore for sure, at the very least. It certainly would be convenient if I had some mental breakdown."
"Well, if you care so little for the coronation, then I can think of a more interesting agenda for you today. And remember to bring Jet."
She freezes us, instantly interested.
Time to initiate the two of them properly as Ravens. While I have no means to bring them to the Orphic House, I can at least share in my lived experience and make for them a pass necklace with directions to the Orphic House like the one I got in my initiation.
I brought the two of them to abandoned catacombs I repossessed and remodeled using my swan song to charm the stone, recreating to the best of my ability a place worth of their anointment in mystery faith as colony cults do in Olympia.
It is not like I would be welcome to Zuko's coronation anyway.
-//-
As I predicted, things settled down. The Sozin Comet passed without incident, and this was enough of a show of good faith for the occupying forces to pull out unless they got to the wrong side of the Avatar.
Some more months passed and it was time for the Avatar little gang to disband. Toph wanted to open a metal bending academy, confront her parents and start a musical carrier, Sokka is wrapped up with Princess Yue and has to go face the in-laws as the big damn hero, Aang and Katara hitched together and now she will follow Aang in his little Air Temple revitalization project.
As for me? Well, I know a certain owl that would be more than happy to get everything he can manage about the Fire Nation after a little arson incident.
My destination is Wan Shi Ton's Library. I have to restart my training, while a lot of growth can come from new experiences, I have neglected the plain foundations responsible for supporting the towering pillars of virtue I build inside my soul. My rhetoric is still crude, and all my basic skills stand to be a little more polished.
I had come up with some ideas but grim necessity had made them unavailable when the lives of so many depended on my top performance.
I and the spirit greeted each other as old friends, he was positively ecstatic with my gift and news of long-term residence. I had left Wan Shi Ton to oversee some long-term projects. The power once clinging to the Book of Enlightenment might be gone, but the owl's affinity for books made it capable of understanding its fundamental principles.
Sophic Cultivators can imprint their lived experiences into scrolls, allowing the reader to experience these memories in the first person as if they were there. Who is to say one can't do more? I intend to start on the basic, the passing of skills through this second-hand experience, and Wan Shi Ton is more than happy to assist me in this endeavor as it expands the limits of what books can do.
Between absorbing as much of the content of his library as I can manage and refining my rhetoric by perfecting my delivery and compressing the intent, I might be able to call myself a philosopher by the end of it.
Of course, while this is a great exercise for the mind, a cultivator of virtue is more than Reason.
The refinement of the body is both complicated and easy. As a captain of the Sophic Realm, I stand at the peak of mortal power, this doesn't mean I live up to my potential, but this means that tying a bolter to my back does little to my cardio. While I am more privileged in this regard, as my ivory shadow constructs allow me to match my body against my soul, allowing me to create dumbbells of impossible weight, at the end of the day I am a member of the Orphic House, we have our own focus of refinement.
While my time with Jeong Jeong enlightened me about the proper use of the Dharma Pneumatic Chambers, I could only Turn the Wheel at low throttle due to how painful intense, and exhausting it is, I had to be at peak performance to protect my students. I can barely go for one full minute while at full throttle now. The inevitability of pain and suffering is at the core of Dionysus's virtuous techniques, the only way for me to master it is by creating a tolerance for it.
I even went the extra mile and had Wan Shi Ton peruse samples of venomous and poisonous flora and fauna from all over the world. The first, I even get to produce on demand with Nature's Bounty, making their regular consumption a quick affair, even if not an easy one. Both a blessing and a curse, as all scarlet sons have to do is blind and burn themselves in pursuit of refinement. Am I not blessed for being so spoiled with options?
Alas, the use of the Dharma gives me a lot of spare pneuma to burn, so I have to find a useful way to employ it all.
Finally came my answer for the refinement of the Spirit. After my success with Archimedes' Golden Tread, the quintessence of Conversion, creating a lens through which to make the world predictable under a mathematical formula, I decided to pursue the quintessence of Diversion.
The philosopher Zeno was the creator of the famous Achille's paradox, which is in fact the mental exercise he used to explain his two fundamental paradoxes. The first is that finite things can be divided a limitless amount of times. Based on this comes the second paradox, that Motion, one of the three factors philosophers manipulate in their favor with their rhetoric, is a lie.
The basic idea here is simple to grasp and extremely powerful. If we imagine ourselves moving from Point A to Point B, we must also imagine ourselves moving from Point A to a point between Point A and Point B. If we call that middle point Point C, then in order to get to that point we must first move past a middle point between Point A and Point C. This can continue ad infinitum, and the problem this creates for us is that there seem to be infinitely many intermediate points between any two given points, which seems to suggest that there are infinitely many different points that exist between any two given points.
That is the underlying principle backing the famous Achille's paradox and manifesting it in reality through rhetoric is almost impossible! In over one year of casual attempts, the best I managed was to figure out Socrates' little telekinesis trick he deploys to attract things to him by manifesting 'negative numbers'.
Zeno's paradox is a perfect exercise for the Spirit, it requires me to neutralize Motion, Magnify all divided space, and lengthen the Time it takes to travel it, something easier said than done. There are simply too many vectors involved, it involves Accelerator levels of micromanagement, which is why it is worthwhile. Using my pneumatic and sophic senses to grasp my surroundings, combined with the predictable frame granted by Archimedes' Golden Treat, I have to manipulate my pneuma into smaller and smaller fractions through an ever-constant change caused by outside stimulus.
Even if no real-life application ever comes out of it, I should at least improve my efficiency and control of pneuma to the point of reaching close to zero waste, plus improve the precision and perception of my supernatural senses if not their reach.
And speaking of occult senses, finally comes the address of my soul's condition latest update. My freak new third eye, courtesy of Rher's influence shining through brought with it the god's tendency to uncover the truth of one's soul. This is a complicated topic even when normal cultivation is involved as Greek souls can have three parts while Egyptian souls can have five and both these styles can be true, contradicting the eternal nature of the soul. Then again, that is why we call mysteries as such, they are infuriatingly opaque to a mortal's perspective.
My case is even worse as I have been tempered under the Moon God's light and diagnosed a [Tormented] soul by whatever vagaries ruled that cursed world. The best word I could use to describe it would be [direction] of a soul, because I certainly acted according to my nature, devouring the essence of others in hunger to overcome Termina. All in order to survive that long nightmare.
The essences I devoured lingered to some extent. I could not totally digest them so my soul integrated them as part of myself instead. It wasn't the wrong path exactly but it is one I am stuck with. More precisely, what are the odds these essences bear within them traces of their logos, spirit, and hunger still? Their skills and unique excellence.
The third eye can easily pick the occult talents leaking from the Changeling and Enlightened and my elevated memory picks out how it has been coloring my actions and performance… I am technically the winner of Termina, I guess these are part of the illustrious heights the Jester bastard talked about.
There is a lot of hidden potential in me that I have yet to realize. It is still too early for me to step into the Heroic Realm as premature as I am right now.
-//-
Life in Wan Shi Ton's Library had a familiar marasmus to it, as the spirit library existed cut off from the cycles of days and nights. It reminded me of my times as a grave keeper in that regard, and the absurd company I kept.
Wan Shi Ton followed my progress with interest, especially as I consumed the content of his library with ever-increasing speed, pushed by a ravenous hunger for knowledge. Not really surprising though, after all, practice makes for perfection. Lived experience is one of the three main means rhetoric can be evoked, the more books I read the better I become at augmenting my reading speed and information absorption.
I then wrote Threads about each topic I passed through in a scroll augmented by my rhetoric, intending to instill the essence of the content through the voice of my soul.
I also helped the giant Owl how to manage his relationship with the outside world. Both, because we had become palls and because I had to earn my keep as I abused the services of the spirit foxes to perform my own errands. In the end, Wan Shi Ton was better off with a mercenary approach, people would just rip him off if he acted for free. As long as he kept low expectations, he would never be disappointed in humans.
My crow network still allowed me to keep tabs on the outside world. Pen pals had gone out of style before my own time, but in this new world, it was an unprecedented luxury. All of my students went through their own misadventures but somehow, they always found time to come visit at least once a year.
I was always surprised by how much they had grown with each passing visit. Aang grew like a weed, puberty hit Toph like a bolder to the point I had to pull Sokka away from her by the ear; she always had a crush on him, don't ask me why.
Azula and Jet came mostly for supplementary training, she became a nuisance for everyone and somehow it became my fault. At least she found some closure after meeting her missing mother in an incident involving Fire Lord Zuko. She didn't get what she was after but she at least spelled out the biggest dark cloud under her head. I guess mommy issues are another thing she has in common with Griffon. At least her reunion was less traumatic than his own turned out.
The world seems to be modernizing at a dazzling speed and a lot of people have expressed their complaints about the invention of firearms to me. Now that people of all nations are living together in the former Fire Nation colonies, the tension between benders, nonbenders, and cultivators of virtue is increasing.
It came to the point some people have come to pursue Wan Shi Ton's Library in search of my tutelage, of all things. Apparently, some of my works have been quite popular as people try to make sense of the cultivation of virtue. I had hit my limit of students, though. At this point any more charges would just be a distraction, so Wan Shi Ton shooed them all away.
Five years after I settled residence there, I summoned Aang. Time for his final lesson.
-//-
"My, you become bigger each time I see you, but the shallow beard doesn't suit you at all."
"Hey, Katara said it looks good on me!"
"She would say that, wouldn't she?"
At my smart-ass answer, Aang pouted, letting the hints of the boy I once knew shine through.
"Why did you call me here, Sifu?" Aang asks in his best Avatar business voice. He is right to be guarded, I made clear what was to follow was for his ears only.
"Do you remember his room?" I pointed out we once more were at the planetary calendar room of Wan Shi Ton's Library.
"This is where we discovered about the eclipse, right?" Aang asks for confirmation as he inspects the place, his childhood careless and unguarded curiosity giving way to a more appraising eye.
"Do me a favor and set it forward 54 years, will you?" I commanded him with a suggestion that was more like one of our old lessons. Reading the sky and mapping the stars was a necessary skill in most of the pre-modern civilizations. I had him learn it as a necessity for a true air nomad.
Aang didn't understand my goal with it, but he obeyed with anxious trepidation. As he adjusted the calendar his anxiety turned into dread, and dread turned into terror at what he saw.
"No. No, no, no. Harmonic Convergence!" he was in a panic like he was twelve again.
"Funny, I never taught you about it so how did you come to learn it, Aang?"
"I guess I always knew about it. Rather, I never forgot it. I just banished it from my mind. Until now."
"Well, you have the fight of your life ahead of you. I don't want to put pressure on you, but if you lose your death match with the embodiment of malevolence and darkness the world will be cast into ten thousand years of darkness."
"No pressure, right? Ahhhhh! Why does this keep happening to me!?"
Aang started to pass back and forth like Sokka said he did the week before the invasion when he tried to go three days without sleeping.
"Aang, relax. You got this. You won back then and you can do it again." I say with as much confidence as I can project, as Aang was no longer that lost little boy I first met.
"Right, I just have to win. And at least I have a heads-up this time. Usually, these things spring up on me out of nowhere. Thanks, Zagreus, you saved me again."
"I didn't call you here just to inform you about your scheduled death match with Vaatu." To drive the point, I reach deep into shadow, drawing from it all the skin-bibles I acquired from that odious cat monster and my own Thread about the dangers of the Spirit world and how to navigate them. "You are somewhat eternal as Raava, so I would sleep better at night knowing you have your eyes open to monsters the likes of Vaatu after I am gone."
"What are these?" Aang asked with fear in his voice. He knew nothing good could come from the content of these books, yet I had to burden him with it.
"I never told you where I came from, right Aang? Well, time to learn. Because this is also the reason I have to leave."
"Leave? You already live in isolation like some hermit!"
"It has to do with my curse, I am fated to live in interesting times. So I either pursue trouble or let it find me. Which is why it is better for everyone if I leave you than to risk my luck bringing trouble for your incoming battle."
"You don't know that!"
"Aang, you don't know how important you and Raava are to the world. I have seen a world of darkness and the memory scarred my very soul. I am burdening you with this information so that you can commit them to your eternal memory, just in case you ever run into any of them in this or another incarnation. I am also leaving guides to help your next incarnation as well."
"So, you really are leaving? Disappearing just as suddenly as the way you came?"
"Yes. Not yet, but sooner rather than later. That is why I want to get my affairs in order. And for now, this means showing you what lies beyond the safe haven you oversee. I made a point to compile all troublemakers and their most likely counters as well, just to be on the safe side."
"So, just like the old times?"
"Yes, come my spineless students. Attend!"
-//-
I spent a good six months drilling Aang into everything I learned about the work of the spirits, and after some more time, the rest of my disciples got wind of the news and came knocking at my door, look to take satisfaction or voice their complaint about my decision.
Most of them simply couldn't understand, except for Aang, who knew better by then, and the Raves Azula and Jet, who had a good idea of how petty and persistent some spirits can be through secondhand experience; I didn't take the name Zagreus lightly.
"So, you really are going, then?" Katara asked she was desolated as she felt powerless about the whole situation. I part of her would always be the little girl that got her mother taken from her.
"Afraid so, this old man is too much of a vagabond to settle, I am afraid. Sorry to disappoint you."
Or maybe not, she wasn't buying my casual words, answering with a deep hug followed by a drowned ugly cry she silenced in my shirt. I just hugged her back. She was a strong and reliable woman now, Katara would be fine.
Next, came Sokka. And boy, wasn't it strange to meet such a familiar gaze at an even eye level? The light of his soul had the most prominent effect on him compared to all my students. He was a thinking man himself. It is hard to believe some days that I raised him.
"Reconsider this, Zagreus. There is no logical reason for you to go!"
It was clear that while this departure was bittersweet to me, for him it was only bitter. He always disdained the ways of spirits and their workings and becoming a man of principle only solidified this view.
"I think I already told you not everything has to do with reason. After what I experienced, my virtuous heart aches to burn. For those I could not save, in defiance against cosmic injustices, to set the wrongs to right wherever I face them. You all healed me and reminded me the world doesn't have to be this grim. I will carry this with me forever."
It always surprised me how alike Sokka and Katara were at the end of the day. He joined his sister in his hug as he understood what I was confessing to him. The pieces settle into place.
A hero's lot was to burn, until the very end. It was what was required to stand against natural law. To make right of fundamental wrongs a man has to commit every part of himself all throw always his millenary existence for a single golden moment of glory. I was going out to die somewhere else beyond their reach, for every Epic was a tragedy.
This was our goodbye.
I returned my first student's desperate embrace. They would all be fine, as long as that remains true, I can move on.
Speaking of troubled children. "Well, aren't you going to embrace me too, Azula?" it was cute she thought she could use my tricks against me, but I taught her all these ninja tricks to obscure her presence.
"You seem to be overcrowded at the moment." She answers petulantly. Foolish girl, always lying to others and herself.
"Well, I do have a parting gift for you. Something to remember me by." I reach in my shadow for a serrated scarlet sword, almost like it was made of fresh blood. I then toss it her way with careless grace she answers with equal swiftlet.
"And this is?" She asks as she tests the blade.
"A souvenir I got from an impertinent godling. It is called [Red Virtue] and I hope it serves you better than it served her."
"Y-you give far better gifts than my uncle ever did, Sifu." Azula comments just to then jump and embrace me by the neck. Azula inherited Sozin's short king gene, the same as Iroh, so she never reached a prominent height despite being a cultivation prodigy.
The water tribe siblings weren't happy with her butting in, especially while holding a dangerous weapon like that, in the hand of a known nuisance like Azula. And I mean, Justice? Really Azula, that is your capital virtue? And isn't your current organization just a rebranded League of Shadows? Well, if anyone asks, I am not at fault here.
I turned toward Toph, who in contrast to Azula, was almost as tall as me and Sokka. "Well? Nothing to say, siren song?"
"Don't call me that! You never came to my concert!" She fumes at me in indignation.
"We can do a duet right now if you so wish. What do you say?"
She punches me in the kidney in answer, followed by a crushing embrace that would have killed mortal any man in half. "You know, I am starting to understand why everybody gets so livid with my devil-may-care attitude." She confesses as she complains.
"Sorry for being such a bad example, then," I answer in good humor. She wasn't wrong.
I turn to Jet, he somehow keeps a working relationship with Azula through the years as they fight for 'dark justice' or whatever freedom-fighting goal catches their fancy. I always tune it all when Aang complains about it to me.
We just compliment each other through a forearm grip. There wasn't much of a point in small talk, he wasn't that angry and lost boy anymore.
"Are you ready?" Aang asks. As the keeper of this realm, it is his responsibility to see that I don't leave any hole or backtrail when I am gone. We never know what might follow back here.
I nodded while patting his bald head a final time, for good luck. Maybe some of the Raava juice will rub off on me.
Somehow both man and spirit got peeved at my last little joke, I sensed.
"Well, goodbye, and thanks for all the fish." I did a last peace sign as I jumped the gate set up inside the Spirit Library.
Time to search for new shores.
-//-
Concrete narrow alley filled with garbage cans? Check.
The almost forgotten low rattle of cars all around? Check.
Neon lights peeking from all corners, almost like stars? Check.
I jump up, which in my raven mantle mind looks like I am actually taking flying as I scale up the building, a certain sense of absurdity asserting itself and driving home how much I had changed.
Yet, my musing is forgotten by the breathtaking sight.
Civilization. Modern post-industrial metropolis. And not any city either, I recognize that bald white mountain in the background, that is Tokyo!
Man, talk about second chances! I never got to visit it in the past-
Wait, what? Talk about something being too good to be true. While my normal senses see that the world before my eyes is completely ordinary and mundane, my sophic and pneumatic senses inform me of a hidden truth.
Pneuma, sort of, leaking from everyone. While common convention states that everything has pneuma and breaths, even if unconventionally, in this case, all pneuma comes from people. While stretching my range shows some buildings with great concentration of it, it is more like they are clinging to it due to human attention or gathering like sediments.
How do I explain it? Rather than an arcane power like chi, this feels more like human overthought being discharged in the ambient. Due to Rher's insight, I can perceive it is eminently negative in nature, though due to Dionysus' own chthonic mysteries, it was something I could perceive just by how familiar it is.
This is negative energy itself born from humanity's dark thoughts… and when enough of it condenses for long enough in a single place, it creates a cesspool that gives birth to all kinds of malaria. Those stemmed from the mind, that it.
Heart Demons.
Tokyo was a quiet pandemonium. They were literally everywhere, invisible to all. Yet they were far from harmless, people suffered under the attention of the least of imps and the more time was granted to the demons, the more a bearing they found to harm others.
After I started to look for it, it became clear normal people would have been easily overrun by any moderately old spirit yet society not only endured their attention but thrived despite it, free of any truly ancient horror.
The most likely answer is that someone is been playing exterminator and as these creatures are made of pure pneuma, they can only be harmed by pneuma in turn. Regular attacks can't harm them at all.
I finally had enough and decided to go into a cybercafé after pickpocketing the wallet of some fat cat, less than what he deserved as a corporative slave master; I guess the term is black company.
Of course, I also needed a better disguise without my mantle of anonymity. The average male Japanese height is 160 cm (5'3'), and my bodily refinement brought me to 215 cm (7 foot), that is without even mentioning the sinister leonine beauty Greek cultivators so heavily favor as the body reaches peak performance. This might have made me popular in the war-sieged Water Tribe but in the pacific and conformity-oriented modern Japan?
I will be lucky if the cops don't close in on me by the end of the hour.
Fortunately, I am not out of options, even if admitting this pains me. Greeks do have a second ideal standard for the male physical that doesn't involve its worship of warfare… this is how they named all their flower after all. Plus, Dionysus is heavily associated with the archetype of the Child and the concept of Puer Aeternus (eternal child). I had done similar in Ba Sing Se, something like this wasn't beyond my means.
The experience was unsettling and humiliating in a way that my time dragging as Joo Dee to infiltrate the Dai Le never managed to even come close. It is illogical, especially considering I don't even have any company to hold this over my head. But well… at least that form could still pass for a fierce and powerful heroine, my current form? Not so much.
Maybe a part of me has grown to enjoy looking down on people, having an intimidating presence that demanded respect and elicited fear. It is not exactly nice, especially for someone claiming to want to become a hero, but it is the truth.
Plus, the fact I turned out to be the prettiest person I have ever seen in person while in this form comes as an unexpected defeat. I mean, due to the cosmetics of cultivation continuous smoothing out of all outer imperfection, the result was a foregone conclusion when I am pitted against crude unrefined souls, but the realization still comes out as a blow.
Bakkahos, what did you use this form for?
You know what? I am better off not knowing.
-//-
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
So, Zagreus finally moved on from the elemental nations but not before finally cashing in his victory of Termina. Maybe he will return there someday? Who knows, it might be interesting to see the consequences of his actions.
But the most interesting thing now is the new shores he has to explore. So, did you figure out where he is yet?
Welp, pack your bags kids, Uncle Kenjaku is taking us on wild ride in Jujutsu Kaisen!
I don't have any good guess, maybe shaman king or blue exorcist.
It's a really good chapter so thanks.
also, chapter is supposed to be 9 not 8
Edit: forgot about Jujutsu Kaisen. But I agree
It's a really good chapter so thanks.
also, chapter is supposed to be 9 not 8
Edit: forgot about Jujutsu Kaisen. But I agree