Chapter 18 The Plan

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New Chapter .... Enjoy

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Unless you were gifted something akin to a Salted Fish system, or had an extreme sense of Justice, almost all Transversers would have the Lawful Evil alignment based on their actions.

Human souls wandering from planet earth were usually synonymous with one word. Chaos.

There were three different scenarios.

One, If it wasn't an already known world, then the legendary journey to embed their names in history would begin.

Two, If it was, then expect the original timeline to come crashing down at some point.

And three, if it were an online gaming world on any kind.....

'hughh!' one would shiver at the thought.

There was reincarnation, soul crossing, or of course, a mixture of both. One that would give birth to probably the biggest catastrophe any fantasy world will ever experience ..... The players.

Honestly, those were the worst. Vast numbers of idle, crazed human beings with virtual bodies and unkillable souls who did nothing but grind, grind and grind all day long.

On the steam powered riverboat, Luca couldn't help but ponder multiple scenarios.

In their campaign for world domination, the Fire Nation had made greats strides and achieved considerable success.

The Air Nomads were wiped out, southern water tribe disabled, Earth kingdom territory conquered in large acres ..... With their advanced technology, powerful bending ability and large troop numbers second only to the earth kingdom, it was only a matter of time before the whole world fell into Ozai's control.

... Then something completely incomprehensible happened.

A virtual player army from planet Earth was summoned to fight in the hundred-year war.

Rich, poor, old and young ..... Millions of gaming maniacs with helmets on their heads as they stared at their screens and sat on their chairs ready for the gaming experience of a lifetime....

[You have received a new quest: The Fire Nation has waged war on the world and are very close to succeeding. Join the ranks of earth kingdom fighters and push back the invasion of the colonists]

[Reward: A random Bending affinity]

'Yep, if that happened, the fire nation were goners'.

Although the chances of such events taking place were infinitely close to zero, Luca still found the possibility hilarious.

But it would be difficult for regular players to beat soldiers, so levelling up was essential.

The poor animals and beasts would bear the brunt of it. Honestly, he sometimes wondered how such a situation would spin off if it actually happened.

This all went to insinuate the troubles a transverser could cause.

'The world would be plunged into chaos'. He thought, resisting the urge to chuckle, remaining completely unaware that his simple actions of escaping from the Fire Nation had already begun causing ripples in the timeline.

The butterfly effect, if you will.

On the steam powered riverboat, Luca stepped away from the steering wheel.

"Stat Panel".

Although it had been nothing more than a few days, Luca had already made it a habit to check his status every time he went through an event of any kind.

Be it minor or major.

Escaping capture from Zuko's ship three days ago was definitely something noteworthy.

Name: Luca

Affiliation: Fire Nation ....

Attributes: Strength 10, Dexterity 9 Constitution 11, Chi 895, Perception 14, Spirit Chi: 1,305

Fatigue: Fatigue 2/100

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Personal Perks: Density Shifting, Permanent Chi Absorption, Chi Manipulation: 186,

Mastered abilities: Stealth: 16, Blademanship: 16, Hand To Hand Combat: 13, Poison Mastery: 17, Disguise:16, Tool Creation: 15, Marksmanship: 16, Lock picking: 15, Earth Kingdom Culture: 16, Interrogation: 17, Battle Instinct: 14, Evasion and Escape: 16, Regeneration: 10

Assignable Achievement Points (AP): .....

Status: Otherworlder/ Rebel (spy)(Fugitive on the run)

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After confirming his destination and next course of action while imprisoned on Zuko's ship, Luca immediately began implementing his escape plan.

Using his originally pitiful 223 chi reserves, he phased out of his shackles, through the metal door and right through the heart of the imperial firebender guarding the door.

All in less than two seconds.

For a moment, he actually felt....

'The Reverse Flash ….'. Of course, it was the yellow-suited speedster. After all, Barry never killed anyone with phasing.

Sounds easy right? No …. No, it wasn't.

At that moment, Luca realized that shifting density to phase through objects was one thing, but attempting to kill a man using said ability was another.

At first, Luca thought that all he had to do was phase his hand through the chest and into the Firebender's heart before materializing it.

Hence, a human hand appearing in the middle of a heart would make it explode.

The theory wasn't wrong, so it worked without a hitch. The Imperial Firebender had been killed with one blow. However, Luca had skipped a crucial question and performed such action unprepared.

What would happen when solid matter appeared simultaneously within solid matter?

(From now verified information) Turns out, the atoms comprising one had to give way for the other, hence falling apart.

As for which one would give way ..... It all depends on which of the two was denser. Luca had inserted a quarter of his arm inside a living body.

Compared to a hand with strong bones, a meaty heart would definitely give way. But due to his unfamiliarity with his ability and lack of practice, the area he materialized wasn't just moving through the heart but also the rib cage.

That's where the problem laid.

Squelch!

Those flash TV shows were spitting blatant half-truths in their action scenes. Luca completed the kill, but didn't complete it unscathed.

The moment he killed the guard, immense pain suddenly flooded his senses, causing him to collapse.

"Argh".

Thud!

'…. I …. What the hell ….'.

Falling to his knees, the boy took a look at his right hand, his eyes widening in shock at what he saw.

Blood.

Unknowingly, cracks had appeared all over the area from his fingertips to a little over his wrist.

Crack!

Beads of sweat emerged on his forehead As the slight attempt to move it was immediately followed by the pain of broken bones.

In his first attempt to phase kill, Luca ended up breaking his arm.

Unlike in TV shows, real life stated that phasing into and through other objects carried serious dangers.

It was fine if you could make it all the way through. If you couldn't…. Then it was either the phased through object broke apart for you to appear or your very being getting squashed between the molecular spaces within the object.

The mere imagination of the latter displayed a gruesome image in his head that could easily be classified as a swift and miserable death.

For the phased object to break apart instead of you, then the density of your atoms must surpass the former. To escape without injury, your density needed to surpass it by far.

It would have been fine If he had simply phased the part of his hand that was right through the heart, but unknowingly, he had materialized everything else that had gone through to the other side.

'"ugh!" Luca let out a pained groan through gritted teeth. He couldn't scream, he couldn't make his actions known and raise an alarm.

Due to the tight schedule at the time, not knowing when the next shift would appear and preferring to escape this place without staging a brutal battle, Luca placed the problem of his half-baked phase kill aside and bore with the pain.

It happened then. The ball of Spirit Chi stationed firmly at the bottom of his abdominal area finally grew active.

Luca wanted to kill the imperial firebender instantly. One, because his regular Chi only allowed two seconds of usage time.

And two, having made up his mind to preserve his Spirit chi, he decided not to use it unless absolutely necessary.

Great, now it was acting without his consent.

Streams of energy flowed from his Dantian (This isn't an intended Chinese MTL word usage. It is recorded and used in ATLA at the North Pole during the explanation of using waterbending chi in healing to Katara) to his right limb.

The last time this happened was when Luca was pierced by an arrow. At that time, he was clothed and riding a Komodo Rhino. Hence he only felt the sensation within his clothes but never actually witnessed it.

Now he did.

Streams of blue energy emerged from his pores, enveloping the injured area.

A soothing feeling emerged from his bleeding, broken arm, followed by a moderate itch.

This was the blood platelets working at hyper speed after being drowned in large amounts of Spirit energy drink.

At the same time, his Spirit Chi began to deplete rapidly. One point disappeared with each passing second for close to four minutes.

Almost a two hundred points of Spirit chi was used to regenerate a broken and bleeding arm.

This was also why his Spirit chi had decreased instead of remaining stagnant.

For Luca, alongside Joy, was also depression. But just like the matter with his phase kill, that was swiftly put behind him for the meantime as well.

'Well, this isn't a total loss ….'. He thought to himself as he looked at the corpse of the imperial firebender.

Placing his hand, he activated his chi absorption technique and a large amount of energy flooded into his body.

It couldn't be compared to Hei Bai's, but it was definitely a shocking number.

Chi: +493.

A regular Firebender provided him with more than a hundred points of Chi. And an imperial firebender gave almost four times that amount.

Following which, Luca took the key and unlocked his cell. Then he stripped the Firebender of his uniform, tossed his body into it, and left the prison hold.

Zuko's ship was smaller than a regular fire Nation cruiser. Not only was the ship an old model, but it was also understaffed.

The reason this banished prince even had a crew was because of his uncle Iroh.

There were scarce men patrolling the ship and those who were would not dare interfere with the actions of an Imperial Firebender.

Apart from Zuko and Iroh, no one else had the ability to order them around. Not even Captain Jee could question their actions unless it was clearly fatal and dangerous.

The following time was spent exploring Zuko's ship, during which he found the ship's armory, killed the non-bending guards and drained their chi.

If there was a favorability rating, he was sure that his values with zuko would be in the negative zone.

"Well what do we have here….?"

Opening the armory door, he found several sets of weapons neatly arranged and placed in separate corners. Including, the ship's full stock of black powder and dynamite.

'Bingo …'.

Hence, he successfully transferred half of Zuko's black powder and dynamite inventory to the prison hold, where the dead body was kept.

Once he was done, he lit the fuse and left to escape.

An explosion in the Prison Hold of such magnitude would be difficult to ignore, attracting all the attention.

When the explosion took place, Luca opened the hangar door and released one of the riverboats into sea.

The others were sabotaged by him to make them unusable in a short term. For insurance purposes, he even destroyed the catapults to make sure they couldn't fire at him after he escaped.

Iroh getting caught in the explosion was purely an accident.

So with the ship unable to move due to the explosion, Luca successfully escaped from the cruiser on the steam powered boat with several items he had gathered.

Weapons, food, a map, a compass, explosives, and a scroll container that carried the sigil of the royal family.

Apart from not wanting to waste Spirit Chi, these things were the reason Luca had followed Zuko without resistance.

In this world, a map and a compass were essential for travelling. With his understanding of the plot, he had been planning his actions the moment Zuko first stepped into his line of sight.

The riverboat was something he had to get at all costs. After all, the Fire Nation were searching for him within Earth kingdom territory.

While true, it would be on land, not at sea. Traveling on water was much faster than on the back of a Komodo dragon.

With his previous pace, it would take more than a week to ride to the Mining Village. Now, only two days had passed and he was almost there.

It would take some time for Zuko to repair his cruiser before gaining motion. Even if he did, chances are that Zuko would not reveal that he had ever seen him, let alone captured him.

After all, he already lost the avatar. If word spread that a fire nation rebel also escaped from his grasp, then Zuko would become more of a laughingstock than he already was.

Nobody in their right minds would publicize their shame, so Zuko would try his best to keep this matter under wraps.

As for turning back to chase after him? Luca and the Avatar were heading in two different directions.

The Winter Solstice was tomorrow. Two days had passed and Zuko's cruiser was nowhere to be seen.

This confirmed his thoughts. After Zuko calmed down from his anger, there was no way he would give up chasing the avatar to apprehend Luca.

Their level of importance was simply on different levels. This was why Luca felt assured. Either Zuko's ship still hadn't been fixed yet, it had sunk, or he had resumed his hunt for Aang.

Chasing him simply wasn't part of the options. So the Fire Nation prince could only swallow this grudge, document it down, and look for an opportunity to seek revenge in the future.

Hence, before the Fire Nation realized he was no longer on land, he would already be past the mining village and heading towards Omashu.

Slipping right through their noses before they could even react. Preliminary freedom was practically beckoning to him already.

All of this hinged on the fact that he successfully escaped from Zuko's ship while making sure the banished prince couldn't or wouldn't pursue him.

However, Luca wasn't out of the woods yet. There were several fire nation outposts between here and Omashu.

By this time, those outposts had probably received word that he was heading in their direction. However, they would be looking for him on land. Sending search parties to patrol colonial territory.

Luca had already slipped past the vast majority of them on the riverboat and would slip past the rest in a few hours at most.

That, however, excluded one.

The Fire Nation Prison Rig on the Mo Ce Sea.

(This was the location of Episode 6, Book 1. The Earth bending prison where Haru and his father Tyro were imprisoned)

The Prison Rig was the last outpost, miles away at sea from the mining village. Once Luca successfully got past that, then the most difficult part of his escape would be over.

Meeting Fire Nation troops was still possible, but the intensity would decrease greatly.

At this time, Aang and team Avatar had already freed the earth benders from the rig. With the prisoners liberated, there should technically be chaos within the base, but Zuko arrived later on, helping the warden achieve order and stabilizing the situation.

In the series, he also found Katara's lost necklace, which he would latter use to track down Aang sometime in the future before departing.

Luca didn't even realize this until last night when he was looking through the map he had stole..... Borrowed from him.

In the days that followed, he chased the avatar until eventually encountering the eagle hawk that led him to Luca.

The point being, order should have returned to the prison rig now.

With word of his escape dispatched by Messenger hawks, There was a high chance that the rig would be on alert. After all, he didn't have a cruiser and a lone riverboat was bound to attract attention.

This was his last obstacle.

To deal with this, Luca could only come up with one solution.

Successfully disguise himself as a member of the Fire Nation to be granted passage.

As for how he was going to do that?

The panel disappeared, prompting Luca to take a look at what he was wearing.

Uniform. That's right, the Imperial Firebender Uniform he had taken hadn't been thrown away yet.

At the moment, he was fully clothed in it, save for the helmet that was put aside for now.

Luca's plan was simple. He was going to Impersonate an Imperial Firebender.

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