Avatar: Awakened Gamer

Chapter 122 - Napoleon



…
Captain Li wasn't a happy man. 

First, he had been under General Zhao when he attacked the Avatar and his team in the Fire Sages Temples. He had been the second in command there.


Then his leadership had changed to Azula during the Northern Water Tribe attack. He had been the second in command there, though she never listened to his council. Captain Li would have normally been annoyed at a brat not listening to him, but the girl was a brilliant strategist. Also, he didn't get to take any blame when that whole fiasco failed. He had the excuse of princess Azula not listening to him.

But such failures, even if his military rank didn't suffer. His reputation did. 

Unlucky Li, that's what they had started calling him. The Captain brought bad luck to whoever he worked under. 


Now he was put in charge of this military expedition against Gaoling, and the Beifong Family. 


He didn't know what went on with the Beifong Family, as it was an open secret amongst the higher ups as most of them were bribed by them in some way to not attack. 


Captain Li was old and could feel his creaking bones as he rode a komodo rhino. 


It was time for him to retire soon, and he didn't want Unlucky Li to be his legacy. He would rather go on this one last expedition, and be remembered for his victories instead of his failures.


As they passed through a wide opening, with two mountains by their side. They caught sight of Gaoling Town. But… there was no army to be seen?


"Has that cowardly Beifong decided to give us the city without a fight?" Said one of his right-hand men.

"Maybe, but keep your eyes peeled and be ready for a fight. We outnumber them, but we don't want to suffer any heavy casualties here because of carelessness." Captain Li wasn't always the vigilant type. The bigger numbers would win the battle, that was the obvious conclusion. 


But the losses on the Fire Temples and Northern Water Tribe had tempered his personality. Both times they had outnumbered the enemy, and both times they had lost. 


"This battle, I will win it no matter what. Fire Temple and Northern Water Tribe losses were both flukes. Nothing like that will happen to me." Captain Li muttered under his breath, too quietly for anyone to hear.



After most of the vanguard passed, mountains rumbled and for a second Captain Li was terrified that they might fall. But no earthbender had ever been able to bring down a mountain. 


Almost half of the army had already passed. So what was the use of bringing down a mountain?


Even if they had the numbers to do so, which would be tens of thousands of earthbenders. Such a strategy would be useless, it would be more efficient for such numbers to fight head-on. 

Captain Li's heart beat like that of a lion-lizard that had run across the world. He decided to give an order to his right-hand man. "Go separate the army in the middle, just in case rocks start falling from the mountain."


The men immediately went and did so. 


Captain Li's face changed into a wide smile. Just as he predicted, suddenly boulders rolled down the mountain, crushing trees and anything within their wake. 


The soldiers down below saw this and rushed to part on both sides. Some go forward while others backward. Due to Captain Li's preparations, no one had died in this sneak attack. 

'This will be my perfect victory. Casualties will be in single digits.' 


When that happened, men in green jumped up from underground in the middle, where his army was separated. They masterfully got a hold of the rocks that were falling and created a wall of boulders. It was quite sophisticated, like a machine at its clockwork. 
Then even more rocks started rolling down from the mountain, so much that it seemed like an avalanche. 


Suddenly, Captain Li caught on to what was happening. 

"SHOOT!! Captain Li hurriedly ordered and started blasting fire toward the earthbenders from afar. With the falling boulders, no one dared get close to them as it would spell death to anyone that wasn't an earthbender themselves.



His enemy was separating the army in two! 


Since the vanguard of the army was only komodo rhinos and tundra tanks.  The army wasn't just split in two, but only three thousand were on this side of the walls. 


Even as they shot fire at them, the earthbenders worked unopposed as a new batch of them traveled down the mountain and stopped the fire from reaching their comrades. 



The rocks had crushed multiple Fire Nation soldiers to death as they tried to charge.  


Captain Li was confident in his victory if the numbers were 10 to 1 in his favor. 


But now it had become something of more 1 to 3, still to their advantage, but they weren't fighting in their field, while the earthbenders were. 


Captain Li immediately went into action, using his decades of experience. "We need to stop them from-" 


Blood burst out of his chest, and the tip of a spear guided it. 

The pain was unbearable but quick. His ribs had been broken within an instant. Whoever had thrown the spear had monstrous strength.


Whatever words Captain Li was going to say next were stuck in his throat, never to be spoken. 


His body slumped to the ground and he fell off his komodo rhino. That was when the whole command chain fell, and the troops delved into chaos. 


Captain Li's second-in-command was on the other side of the wall. Only officers were left, and they each had their platoon of 100 soldiers below them. Each of them wanted to do different things, and there was no coordination.



***
-Sokka-


It was strange. No, downright baffling.


The enemy had an army that was over ten times his. Yet why were they losing so terribly? 


Sokka hadn't had any losses yet. Zero.

No guy stumbled and accidentally broke his neck. No friendly fire amongst allies, nothing. 


Was the Fire Nation command chain so incompetent? No, there should have been a second in command. Maybe even a third, though that was probably the guy he had killed initially to start this whole war. 


But still. Why weren't they prepared for his plans? 

He was going to separate an army that was too big to handle head-on. Did they think he was going to fight them like a fool? Or maybe create walls and make his own mini Ba Sing Se here?


Sokka was stupefied by how well the plan went. He had even thrown the spear to kill the man who spoke out orders and he assumed to be the leader. 


The last time Sokka had fought like this was in the Northern Water Tribe. He's the same guy he was back then.


Having a Gamer Interface was useful, but that didn't mean much when he didn't have the military education and experience these people should have.


But for now, it wasn't time to contemplate why his plan went so well. Sokka's surprise lasted for only a split second as he started giving orders.

"Everyone with me!"


Sokka gathered soldiers by his side, using every ounce of power within him to pull the water from the river close by as a row of earthbenders created a canal. 



The cave system within the mountain that Toph had shown him was used to speed up the process as the rough work was already there and they didn't have to dog through a mountain. Earthbending or not, that would have taken a lot more time than he had available.



The canal was spread a little too thin, and it was uneven in places. But Sokka didn't need it to be that good. He wasn't using it to water crops here, just to bring him water. 


Even while in panic, the tanks and komodo rhinos charged at him. With the rest of the soldiers too. But the charge was so disorganized, that tanks got in front of komodo rhinos and blocked their charge. Komodo rhinos got in front of the tanks too, stopping them from throwing fire through their hole.



Sokka stood still, and pulled his hands up, slowly but in huge amounts, the water rose from the bed of the canal. He could feel the water, his senses swam in it.

The water was muddy, just like he had wanted it. With the help of a dozen earthbenders by his side, they all controlled the dirty water together, blasting it toward the incoming force. Digging it into the earth.



That didn't hurt any of the enemy soldiers, and they kept coming. 

Sokka noticed some of the people next to him were getting worried too. But it wasn't like they had a place to run, so they would have to give it they're all. 


"Hold!" He told them. "Keep smashing the water across the ground."


The scared soldiers listened to him. Which was impressive, as they were just some roughed up earthbenders he had gathered. 


Slowly, the ground became softer and muddy, turning into a swamp.

That was it, the tanks immediately came to a halt. 

The komodo rhinos weren't affected by the newly made wetlands, but they exhausted more energy to move about. 


"Throw!" Sokka ordered them, and the earthbenders immediately went into action. 


Working together to throw gigantic boulders at the army that had been trapped.



Sokka too gave it his all, using waterbending to freeze as much of the water as he could around the komodo rhinos. Stopping their movements even further by trapping their feet, turning the ground from hard ice to soft swamp to make them stumble and drop their riders. 



But soon enough, the komodo rhinos broke through, and the firebenders atop the creatures threw some fire around, burning some of the soldiers. 


Sokka stood still, even as he felt a blast of fire thrown toward him.


'Concentrate! Keep your eyes on the bigger picture, no matter what happens!'


He tried to pump himself up to stand strong. When the fire started licking his skin, he winced in pain. But he held his ground as the earthbenders around him fought, he had to slow down the majority of the komodo rhinos that were still in the swamp. 

If he let go now, they would stomp through them all. 

.
Thankfully it didn't last long, as Toph came down from the mountain, a team of earthbenders behind her.


She threw rocks with such precision that they hit all of the komodo rhino riders. 

At least it would have hit them. Most of them were able to stop such an attack, having fought against earthbenders many times already. But their numbers dwindled considerably, and Sokka wouldn't have to be spread so thin. 


"I hope I wasn't too late," said Toph, smiling while throwing rocks. In on fellow swoop, she took down all of the komodo rhino riders that had made it past the swamp. "Also your waterbending is quite good. It feels like we have ten waterbenders here instead of one."


Sokka smiled at her compliments. "Don't say such things little lady, or you will make me blush."

He brought his hands down, creating a tidal wave of muddy water and freezing the ground. His stance changed, from the soft and flowing one of a waterbender to that of an earthbender.


Aang was on the makeshift wall of earth that had separated the two armies. His job was to stop anyone from climbing over or having the army join back together.



From the strong blasts of wind that could be felt even from here, Sokka could tell Aang was doing his job. Now he was going to do him, and so he kicked the ground as an earthbender would.




****
A/N: Plans never usually go perfectly, something always happens. Sokka expected something to happen. Thankfully, Luck was on his side.   


P.S: This was 5 chaps for the days I missed.