Chapter 43

He bent at the waist just in the nick of time to avoid the fireball that wizzed over his head, fired by the soldier directly behind him.

"You didn't expect this to be a fair fight, did you?" Tanya chuckled, snapping her fingers. Other soldiers began launching fireballs as well, forcing Aang to leap and spin like a ballet dancer in order to keep evading them.

...

He swerved, spun and weaved as fireball after fireball sped towards him from every side, forcing him into a relentless pace of dodging and weaving. Or at least it felt relentless at first, until after about a minute of continuous evasion Aang began sensing a rhythm to the attacks. As soon as he dodged one attack, another soldier behind him would launch a fireball of equal speed and intensity at him: an attack powerful enough to hurt, but slow enough for the soldiers on the other side of the encirclement to avoid getting hit by after he'd evaded them. The only one who wasn't attacking anymore was Tanya, who instead opted to simply watch with a look of intense concentration.

"She planned this!" Aang realised with a start. They weren't seriously trying to defeat him! They wanted to keep him pinned down, and make him use up all his energy on evading so that he'd be too tired to combat the rest of the invasion force! He needed to get out of here!

As he backflipped over the next fireball Aang looked around, his eyes landing on one of the surrounding soldiers; a big man with a prideful sneer on his face. The next time it was that soldier's turn to attack Aang not only ducked under it, but made sure to point his posterior directly at the soldier and wiggle it at him mockingly. "Nah nah, you can't hit me." He taunted childishly.

The big soldier's sneer dropped, and was quickly replaced by a furious scowl. He hurled another fireball, which Aang gracefully sidestepped.

"Officer…" Tanya muttered warningly.

"Guess I shouldn't be worried after all." Aang chimed in. "If everyone in the Fire Nation aims as poorly as him, this fleet will have set itself on fire before it reaches the city wall."

The big soldier snarled like a beast and threw yet another fireball, this one notably bigger and more forceful than the last. But again Aang simply slid aside with mocking ease, smirking cheekily at him.

"Stay in formation, officer!" Tanya snapped.

The veins on the big soldier's temples were a prominent, swollen red, and the way he was grinding his teeth was all the indication Aang needed that he was one step away from going berserk. Zhao was far from the only Fire Nation soldier with temper issues. It seemed that, in their haste to churn out combat-ready firebenders for the frontlines, their military was failing to teach new recruits how to control the aggression they were fostering within them. All it would take was one more push…

As another fireball shot towards him Aang swung his staff like a cricket bat, conjuring a gust of wind that swept the fireball off trajectory. It weakened the fire to little better than a candle flame, but it was still enough to bop the large soldier right on the nose.

The soldier's eye twitched, and with an animalistic roar he went berserk.

"NO!" Tanya screeched, but it was too late. Two meaty hands swept down, conjuring a wave of fire that roared towards Aang. Aang simply jumped, a current of air enhancing his leap so that he sailed clear over the attack.

The soldiers on the other side of the encirclement however weren't so skilled. The fire wave careered towards two of them, showing no signs of stopping. Their courage broke, and the soldiers dived out of the way to let the reckless attack sail past them and off the side of the ship. The encirclement was broken, and Aang wasted no time zipping forward with wind-enhanced speed through to freedom.

"Idiots!" Tanya scowled, fire blasting from her feet to carry her into the sky, at the same time Aang unfurled his glider and took off. The two raced to gain height; Aang skillfully flowing with the fickle changes in air currents, while Tanya forcefully rocketed up along her own path. Before long thin layers of low-hanging clouds began to wreathe the two of them, and on an unspoken agreement the two of them ceased their ascent and began to circle one another.

"Give it up Tanya!" Aang shouted, his voice struggling to carry against the harsh winds. "The Northern Water Tribes will never fall to you."

Tanya only grinned wolfishly back at him. "That's what people said about The Southern Water Tribes too. Ask your companions how well that worked out for them. Or better yet, look down."

Despite the danger Tanya presented, Aang allowed his eyes to flicker down to see what she meant. They widened with horror at the sight below.

Hundreds of Fire Nation ships sailed in formation towards the North Pole. Their numbers dirtied the rich blue glow of the ocean with stains of iron-black, and the smog pouring from their chimneys left a tangible black haze. Even if he could take out a ship every hour it would take days to get rid of them all! There were simply too many for him to take down alone!

"Do you see what I mean? This war is so much bigger than you." Tanya shouted. "Even you, with all your power, cannot stop The Fire Nation. Nobody can. Set down your weapons, cease this petty resistance, and embrace the dawning of a new era."

Aang did not reply, but a deep growl from behind did. Tanya swerved out of the way just in time as Appa came hurtling past towards his master, scooping the young nomad onto his back and rushing away back to Agna Qel'a. Aang looked back to see if Tanya would pursue him, and was surprised to find that she wasn't. The golden haired girl was just watching him go with a hostile glare.

It wouldn't have mattered if she had. Even if they didn't succeed, The Fire Nation fleet was going to wreck the city. Aang could not see a way to keep them at bay when there were just too many of them. Before this siege ended people would be dead.

And he was powerless to stop it.

...

Even when darkness had fallen, the bombardment continued.

The night was nearly deathly silent. In Agna Qel'a the citizens cowered in their homes, while the soldiers waited in grim patience for the first sign of movement from the enemy fleet. Out at the ocean the huge iron ships bobbed lazily up and down in the waves, quiet as graveyards, save that every minute one of them would launch a blazing coal-ball at the city walls.

Some would have said that such a lacklustre salvo was a waste of time. Whatever the coal-balls hit, it was but the work of a few hand motions from the water tribe guards to reforge again from fresh ice.

However Tanya vehemently disagreed. One of the most important factors in any form of warfare was the morale of the troops, and nothing affected that more than exhaustion.

Her ships only had to spare half a dozen troops each to load and fire the trebuchets, while the rest of the crew could get a full night's sleep before the big push tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile the water tribe didn't share that luxury. They had to keep a much larger force of soldiers awake and spread out across key points around the city on the off-chance that area was targeted for bombardment.

As easy as it was for them to repair their own fortifications that didn't mean they could afford to ignore any damage, else they'd risk allowing them to become larger gaps in their defences by the time morning came.

Plus, who could sleep easily when you feared that a giant fireball might crash through the ceiling of your barracks at any minute? By the time morning came the Fire Nation were well rested and refreshed, while the Water Tribe were cranky and impatient.

It was literally when the first hint of the sun peaked out from over the horizon that the Fire Nation fleet suddenly burst into action. All at once every siege engine they had burst to life, raining an endless stream of coal-balls directly at the front gates, while boarding ships began to swarm out towards the coast.

The sudden shift in intensity caught the groggy waterbenders by surprise, and the guards at the main gates fell back as the unrelenting onslaught of siege fire smashed a hole in their gates and buried everything around it in piles of blazing coal.

Rather than fight to hold an already comprised position the water tribe followed its preferred tactic: retreating from the front walls, and falling back to the next set of defensive points. Behind the gates lay a long, flat courtyard of sheet ice broken into four strips by thin waterways, and at their end the inner walls that protected the actual city.

The Fire Nation would have no cover along the courtyard to protect them from the ranged troops stationed on the inner wall, and it was a simple matter to sink any tanks or other mobile siege weapons into the ground.

...

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