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Emerald Dragon chapter 29 -
🕑 Added 2021-12-10 21:24:49 +0000 UTCChapter 29 -
"So, you all live here?" Aang asked Teo as the two along with Sokka and Katara all sat together while Harry had gone off to work with Teo's dad on...well...they didn't actually know what.
"Yeah, we moved here a while ago," Teo nodded. "it was tough at first, living here. We didn't know anything about this place but...we didn't really have many options, you know? The Fire Nation, well...they can be pretty brutal."
"I get that," Sokka said understandingly, taking a bite out of a piece of fruit before he continued to talk. "back home we used to get raided like every other week."
"Did the Fire Nation destroy your village?" Katara asked in a soft voice.
"No," Teo shook his head in the negative. "that was the unfortunate coincidence of our village being in the exact spot where a flood would happen. I don't remember how old I was, barely old enough to remember. My mother, she...well...she didn't make it, unfortunately."
"I'm sorry," Aang said, with the other two also offering their condolences.
"Thanks," Teo said appreciatively. "anyway, I do remember we traveled for a few months and we had to deal with bandits and Fire Nation soldiers and so on until we arrived here. And, well...according to my dad it just seemed perfect, you know? After all the traveling they had finally found a place where there was plenty of food, clean water, and shelter."
"I can guess it must have felt like a blessing for you guys," Katara said. Aang looked thoughtful, on the one hand, he wasn't too happy about this group damaging a sacred temple, but on the other hand, he wasn't cruel enough to kick them out when they desperately needed it. Teo smiled at her before he responded.
"Yep, definitely, then my dad started making some changes, to make sure we would all be more comfortable here." Teo smiled before his lips curled down into a frown. "But then, things got worse. The Fire Nation had found us."
"What?!" Sokka blurted out. "The Fire Nation was here?!"
"Yeah," Teo let out a deep sigh before he continued talking. "my father ended up making a lot of weapons for them."
"What?!" Sokka shrieked as he jumped to his feet. "You guys are working with the Fire Nation?!"
"No," Teo scoffed, shaking his head. "not anymore at least. I only found out about it a couple of years ago, thanks to Harry."
"Harry told you?" Aang asked, sounding very interested.
"Yeah," Teo confirmed with a nod of his head. "one day Harry showed up, talked to my father. Told him to stop making stuff for the Fire Nation, that's when I found out. My dad...he didn't really want to stop making stuff for them."
"What?! Why not?!" Katara demanded. Teo stared at her for a moment, after a few seconds he spoke, answering her question with another question.
"Do you know what the Fire Nation would do to him, and by extension me and all of the other people here if he did stop?" He asked.
"He..." Katara paused before taking a moment to realize what he was saying, once she had realized she showed her understanding with one simple word. "...oh." It didn't take a genius to understand that the Fire Nation would have burnt this whole place off the map if they were ever given a remotely good reason to do so.
"Yeah, exactly," Teo continued. "Harry told him to stop, Dad said that he was worried about the Fire Nation's response, and the next thing I know, we end up in a massive battle fighting against the Fire Nation. It was awesome!" Teo grinned brightly. "There were tanks, and soldiers, and war balloons and soldiers!"
"How did you guys win?!" Sokka blurted out, looking entranced by Teo's story.
"Harry helped us," Teo began explaining. "between him and some of my father's own inventions, we were able to beat them all. It was tough, but we got it done. He was unbelievable, he..." Teo trailed off for a moment before he continued speaking. "...I had seen bending before but never anything like him. He was throwing out lightning blasts like they were falling out of value, and all that fire. I wasn't really close enough to see any of his kills, and my dad didn't let me look at the aftermath, but it was apparently quite brutal."
"I don't get it," Aang frowned, his voice so soft that he was barely able to be heard. "if he kills all of these people then how isn't he the bad guy?" He asked, staring between Teo, Sokka, and Katara.
"Well, it's not like he enjoys it," Teo said in a slightly confused voice. "I mean, they're attacking us and he defends us."
"Aang, Harry might be a complete and total jerk," Sokka began, in another part of the temple Harry sneezed and suddenly had an unexplained urge to hit Sokka. "but it's not like he's completely evil."
"Exactly," Katara quickly agreed. "think about it, Aang, Harry was raised in the Fire Nation. He was raised in a world where he was supposed to fight and kill everyone, but he broke off from that. He's on our side now. Aang, if I have to be honest, I'm not happy about Harry killing people either." Katara shivered before she continued speaking."And I will definitely do my best to stop him if I think he goes too far. But there's a clear difference between him and the Fire Nation, Harry has helped us, even when the easier option would be to stay with the Fire Nation. Think about all the people that Harry has left behind and all of the enemies he has made by joining us."
"Aang," Sokka spoke up. "think about it this way, Harry's not running around killing innocent people, is he?"
"But killing is still killing!" Aang protested, tears dripping down his eyes.
"That's true," Sokka agreed. "but he's not killing innocent people, is he?" Sokka repeated.
"Well...no...but..."
"I get it," Sokka cut him off. "I get that you were raised by monks and taught to believe that violence is bad and all, but we have been in a war for the last hundred years. Whether you like it or not, peace isn't an option."
"He's right," Teo spoke up. "it doesn't matter what we like, people are going to die. I think that the best thing that we can do is minimize the number of people that die and do our best to make sure that we're not part of the dead. I get that you don't like it, but it is the way it is. Besides, Harry doesn't seem like the type of guy who enjoys it any more than you do." Aang stared at the three of them for a moment, allowing their words to wash over him.
"I...I just...I don't know that I can be okay with it." Aang sighed, looking down at the floor.
"And that's alright," Katara said as she moved over and sat next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into a hug. "we're not asking you to support or encourage it, none of us like it, Harry included."
"But we are asking you to understand the necessity of it," Sokka replied in a serious voice. "I'm not saying we should kill each and every single member of the Fire Nation, but it is pretty unavoidable that we will end up taking a few lives. I'm sorry, Aang."
(.)
"Hey guys," Harry said when he and the group reunited a short while later.
"Hi, where's my dad?" Teo asked.
"Off building something," Harry rolled his eyes. "I swear that that's all he does."
"Pretty much," Teo chuckled. "so, are those what my dad built for you?" He asked, gesturing to the two black gauntlets stretching from Harry's wrists to his elbows.
"Yeah," Harry confirmed with a nod "actually, these two are the first thing I asked your dad for. I figured that they would help me out in stealth and hand-to-hand combat."
"How do those two help? What even are they?" Sokka asked.
"Well, the first thing they do is this," Harry said, leaning his wrist back and allowing two small blades to pop out from his wrist. "this is the part that will help me out with stealth."
"Oh." Sokka blinked.
"Here's the other thing that they do." Harry's wrist blades retracted back into his gauntlets, with a twist of his wrist, the gauntlets transformed into two black diamond-shaped shields.
"Whoa." Teo gasped, the group stared at the shields for several seconds. "That's impressive."
"Thanks," Harry grinned. "though thank your dad, he's the one who made it for me."
"What did you do to it?" Katara asked.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Well, didn't you say earlier that you would be modifying them? What did you do to them?"
"Ah, well that's a bit of a long explanation so I will leave that till last and instead show you my other new weapon." After he finished speaking, Harry turned his shields back to his arm gauntlets and deactivated them both before he pulled out two black, metal billy clubs.
"You've got two sticks?" Sokka frowned.
"No, my uneducated Water Tribe savage, these are much more than that." Harry grinned. "Firstly I can use them as they are, but I can also do this." Harry put the two clubs together and the two joined to become a bigger weapon.
"Wow," Aang stared at it. "it's not as big as my staff, but still, pretty good."
"I'm not done." Harry twisted the weapon until a clicking noise was heard, he then aimed the small staff away from the group and half of the weapon shot off, flying forwards before being pulled back by a cable that had attached it to the other club. "Cool, huh?" Harry asked as he rejoined the two clubs together, he twisted them and then pulled them apart from each other, this time with no cable attached.
"That's amazing!" Katara exclaimed.
"Thanks, figured I could do with some non-lethal weapons." Harry shrugged.
"So you got these so you won't kill anyone?" Aang blinked.
"Aang, I could very easily kill anyone with any of these weapons, but I am going to do my best to minimize the number of people I do," Harry replied, staring at Aang.
"I..." Aang stopped and let out a deep breath. "...I don't think I will ever be okay with it, but...I will try to work with you."
"Good enough for me," Harry said in an appreciative voice.
"I'm sorry," Aang apologized. "if you thought I hated you or..."
"Aang, I get it," Harry cut him off. "really. I do."
"Great, now that we got that out of the way, what modifications have you made?" Sokka asked.
"Ah, right, I haven't told you." Harry tossed his billy clubs a small distance away. "Watch this." Harry raised his right hand and a second later both clubs rose from the ground and shot towards Harry, landing in both of his hands. "Tada," Harry said in a dry voice as he turned his attention back to his stunned friends. "that's what I did."
"How did you do that?!" Katara asked with pure disbelief. "Was that some airbending technique?" She guessed.
"No, it wasn't." Aang quickly answered on Harry's behalf. "What was it?"
"Runes," Harry answered.
"Runes?"
"Yeah, magic."
"I thought bending wasn't magic." Sokka sounded undeniably confused.
"I'm not talking about bending, I'm talking about proper magic," Harry explained.
"You...you can do magic?" Katara's eyes were so wide that Harry was slightly worried that they would pop out of her head.
"Yeah, there's a bit of a story behind that."
(.)
"That's better," Harry complimented just before ducking under Azula's fire dagger and blasting her a couple of feet back with an airblast, she barely managed to stay on her feet. "but not good enough." He grinned at her before Zuko charged forward with a yell, a sword in each hand. Harry jumped in the air and with the assistance of fire shooting out of his feet was able to jump over Zuko, Harry grabbed him by the ponytail and pulled just before he landed. Zuko fell on his back and looked up at Harry who shot a fire blast that left a small black mark on the floor next to his head. "You're dead, and some great advice for the future, don't yell when you charge at someone, kind of gives away where you are." Harry looked up and jumped to the side to avoid a fire blast from Azula. "Cute." He mocked.
"I'll show you 'cute', Harry!" Azula growled as she sent several more fire blasts at Harry who dodged, ducked, and blocked them all.
"That was adorable," Harry grinned before sending a fire blast at Azula, Azula blocked it and was about to respond when a voice called out.
"Stop," The trio turned to see Ursa, Zuko, and Azula's mother, rushing towards them. "oh good, you're all here." She said in a relieved voice.
"Mother, what's wrong?" Zuko asked in a worried voice.
"I...I have no...I have no good way to tell you this," Ursa sighed as she knelt down so she could stare all three of them in the eyes. "General Iroh has suffered a terrible loss, one that he can't recover from."
"He couldn't...he gave up after one whole year of trying?!" Azula asked with disbelief, in her mind if they had put a whole year's worth of effort into something then they should have at least tried to accomplish something
"He did leave but I was not talking about Ba Sing Se, " Ursa shook her head, her tone incredibly sad. "General Iroh had stopped because he lost the will to fight...because the war took his son. Lu Ten is dead."
(.)
A.N: How will the loss of Iroh's son change everything? Wait and see.
First of all, I didn't really want to focus on Aang hating the fact that the temple was taken over, Aang's mind was a bit more preoccupied with his friend being a murderer. Aang's issues with killing aren't completely gone but this is a good starting point.
As for Harry's weapons:
1) The gauntlets will alternate between working like the wrist blades in assassins creed (which will be useful for stealth kills and surprising enemies that come close) and working as shields (for the design of the shield, just think of the Wakanda shields that Captain America had in Infinity War). The shields will mostly be for defense (seeing as that's a weak point for a lot of firebenders) but can also be used offensively and will help Harry with bending as I plan to show in the future. Magically enhancements: unbreakable, cleans itself, can be used to assist with bending.
2) For the billy clubs, they're basically just Daredevil's billy club. They can be separated into two sticks, joined together into one big stick, they can be attached to each other through a cable. When they're connected via cable they can be used as nunchucks, or mid-range weapons and even use to grab or grapple onto things from a distance away. I included this because, in my opinion, they are some of the most versatile and underrated weapons in fiction, not to mention they (along with the shields) can help Harry in situations where he doesn't want to kill people, and even in battle, they'll reduce the number of deaths (probably not by a lot when Harry's using them) which is something that Harry would like given that he's not like the Punisher here. Magical enhancements: unbreakable, cleans itself, returns to Harry's hand like Thor's hammer.
There might be more magical enhancements added in the future but this is it for now, also I'll explain how magic works in this fic in the next chapter or the chapter after.
Thanks for reading, feel free to leave a review.
Comments
Christian Jeffress
Thanks for another great chapter and introducing awesome weapons.
Revanshan2077
Nice
