Callan Stone and the Akashic Records

(Word Count: 4,037)

It felt a little strange to be traveling on my own again. In fact, I hadn't been on my own since I had left Uncle Iroh. Since then, I've traveled with the merchants, stayed with Master Piandao, then the Navy, and then I had spent nearly a month in the Water Tribe. I had gotten used to having so many people around. I took a moment to soak in the nostalgic feeling. It was like I was back in those first few weeks in this world.

I blinked. There on the horizon, was a Fire Nation ship. As I watched, I could see it veer from its course towards me. I was spotted. All of my nostalgia melted away into nervousness.

'This is bad. Really, really bad.' I was in repainted Fire Nation armor, and I had Telluris, which became notorious among the Fire Nation Navy as the Sword of the Spirits. I had seen my bounty poster and there was a clear depiction of the sword on it. They offered a hefty 500 Silver for its return and another 5 Gold for my head.

Even if I stripped off my armor and tried to pass myself off as a fisherman, which was already unlikely since I'm on a Water Tribe ship so far away from the North Pole, they would insist on searching the boat and they would find the blade. Then they would fight, and I would be out of my armor.

I had to fight.

I immediately turned the boat directly to the shoreline, just outside of view beyond the horizon, but I knew that within those hours it would take to get to land, the faster Fire Nation ship would be able to intercept me.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. I had managed to go so long without killing anyone yet, despite going through the siege at the North Pole, mainly because of all of the chaos. I could simply knock them out or make artificial wounds that would heal in time.

I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn't be so lucky this time.

Using a bit of Chi Sense, I scried on the approaching ship. There were about 50 men, 20 of which seemed to be Firebenders. A string of curses passed through my mind.

'Hey hey, hey! If Aang can run around through an entire Fire Nation ship, then why can't I? I'm strong, agile, a good swordsman, I got this! Okay, think. What's the strategy? I can't stay on the deck. I would be surrounded quickly. I have to bottleneck them, which means going into their ship. But that also means that I won't have as much room to maneuver, and I won't be able to use my greatsword as easily, Though I can still thrust and block. Their Firebending is going to be a problem. Aang had his airbending to defend against it, but there's no earth for me to bend.'

The hours it took for them to catch up was the worst feeling ever. The anxious calm, where I could do nothing but wait for the impending violence. In a way, this time was even worse than when I was waiting for the siege to start. At least then I could distract myself by making sure that my team was ready.

When the enemy ship was finally close enough, it was now ahead of me, coming in from the left, it launched a fiery meteor from its trebuchet. However, instead of being intimidating, it was actually a relief. There was some earth I could bend!

Just before it could crash down on my boat, I caught it with my earthbending, holding it aloft in front of me. It wasn't much earth, but it was still a lifeline. I plunged it into the sea to douse the flames, and sucked the heat out of the earth.

The ship got closer, so I wrapped the earth around myself as armor and, using a combination of Chi Enhancement and Earthbending my new earth armor, I leapt the remaining gap of 30 feet up onto the deck of the ship. I landed with a solid bang in the center of the deck, surrounded by about 15 people. 

With my landing, the bang faded out into silence. Everyone was shocked. My 6'2" frame, together with the earth armor, led to an imposing figure that loomed over everyone. 

'Crap. I leapt too far! I'm surrounded, exactly what I wanted to avoid,' I thought.

"No way!" One of the soldiers cried out.

"Did he really just jump that far?" Another asked.

"Is it too late to say sorry?" Someone in the back asked.

'Wait a second! I'm an idiot! I could have boosted my boat instead!' I realized a little too late that I could have avoided all of this.

"Why are you all just standing there! You idiots, get him!" The captain shouted at everyone. Everyone, including myself, was pulled out of the temporary pause. 5 different firebenders around me immediately leapt forward and sent a blast of fire at me.

I closed the gap in the armor for my eyes to protect them from the fire, choosing to rely on my seismic sense. Even with my fire-resistant armor and earth armor overtop, I still felt the heat of their fire. I was immediately drenched in sweat as the rock heated up. I couldn't stay here. I lunged forward towards the nearest bender, through the flames, and slashed down hard. The man's armor prevented most harm, but the blow still sent the man to the ground. But where one man fell, several more came forward.

The men working the trebuchet, wielding large hammers came through the crowd. I spun around, blocking the first blow, but several blows crashed into my back, and I stumbled forward, losing my balance. The second hammer man smashed me in the back before I could recover and I was sent sprawling. I should have known that this couldn't actually be like in the movies, where even fighting a group of people the MC would be able to defend against everyone.

Unfortunately for me, these soldiers weren't stupid and they were disciplined. They took advantage of every opening I made for them. With a group surrounding you, it was impossible not to.

I landed on the ground on my back, underneath the two hammer wielding men.

Several of the quicker firebenders start holding a stream of fire. Before they could strike down on my stomach, I spun around, kicking my legs around in a Firebender's move, to earthbend my stone armor into a wave around me. It was a small trick I theorized, instead of planting my feet to use as a sturdy foundation, I used my hands.

Everyone around me was sent sprawling, 2 of the men were sent overboard, but a good half of the earth I had fell over the side of the ship and into the ocean before I could call it back. I chided myself yet again. I was making too many mistakes.

Since I couldn't remake my earthen armor, I clumped all of the loose rock into two small boulders the size of basketballs and set them spinning around me to help keep my distance.

"Oryaaa!" The captain of the ship cried out as he leapt from the balcony overlooking the deck. He spun in a front flip, and came down in a flaming axe kick. I shot one of the boulders at him, but he somehow smashed through the rock with his fire kick. I leapt back out of the way, and he smashed down where I had been standing.

Before he could recover, I shot my second boulder in a scatter of small pebbles into the crowd. While I could have used sharp shrapnel, I didn't want to intentionally kill them. The captain hastily deflected the piece I had aimed at him, knocking it away from him. The rest of shots downed the front 5 benders. None of the shots managed to pierce the armor, but the blunt force probably broke some bones.

Not wanting to get surrounded again, I took advantage of the lull in the crowd to run over to the trebuchet. I noticed 3 more boulders that had been readied to load and fire. More earth.

I used one to shotgun another wave of pebbles into the crowd, and wrapped another around me to get my earth armor back. That was all I could do before the captain was back on me, launching a huge wave of fire at me. I flattened the last boulder into a small wall. Though the earth armor would stop most of the heat, I've learned from the first time that it does heat up quickly. Might as well block when I can.

Before the fire even died down, the captain leapt over the flames and my makeshift wall and punched out several small fireballs in quick succession. They splashed against my armor, heating the rock enough to glow red where they hit. I slashed at him with my sword, he deflected the blow with the back of his gauntlet.

I followed through with several more blows, trying not to give him any more time to strike back. In the meantime, I needed to I shaped the earthwall behind us into a large spike and shot it into the deck. Even with all the force I put behind it, it embedded itself only half way with a loud shriek of tearing metal.

The rest of the firebenders were coming forward, so I abandoned my attacks on the captain. I leapt high into the air, and smashed down onto the embedded spike, using both my weight and forcing it down with earthbending.

I crashed down through the hole along with the spike. In an instant, I took in my surroundings through Seismic Sense. I had landed in a storage room filled with barrels and crates. There was no one else around me. The only light source at the moment was the hole I came through in the ceiling. However, I didn't want anyone to follow down the hole after me so I reformed the spike to be a lot thicker and shot it up into the hole, stopping it. The room was plunged into darkness.

I unmasked my earth armor to take a moment to breathe. It had only been a few moments since the fight had started, yet I had already blown through a lot of my Chi. I was overusing my abilities for too little gain in the fight. I needed to end this so I could get away. 

Their ship was a lot faster than mine, so if I wanted to get away, I needed to damage their engine. Then I could launch myself back over to my boat and escape. However, from my time in the Fire Nation Navy, I knew that the engine was in the back of the ship. I was in the front. I sighed.

Hammer blows rang out from the ceiling. The big guys with hammers were probably trying to knock out the boulder. Just as the thought came to my mind, it shifted. The next blow succeeded and the boulder fell back down. I caught it with bending, and was about to send it back up to block it again when the captain leapt down into the storage room, sending a large blast of fire to ease his landing.

Man, this guy was persistent.

I stopped the hole again anyway, and the darkness returned. Now it was just the two of us. We faced off against each other. The captain made a small flame in one hand for light, casting flickering shadows around the room, his eyes seemed to reflect the fire itself back at me.

"You are the murderer of Jin Lee, aren't you?" The captain asked. "I recognize the blade you wield. It is not yours! It belongs to sword master Piandao!"

"If he wants it back, he's going to have to come and get it himself," I said. "You are the captain of this ship, right? I am too strong for your men. I don't want to have to kill your men to escape, but I will if I have to. Just let me go, and I will leave peacefully."

"And watch as you continue to dishonor the Fire Nation? I would rather die!" Seeing the look in his eyes, I believed him. 

The captain roared and shot a stream of fire. Instead of just a single wave, the captain had focused it like a large blowtorch. I wasn't too worried though, dealing with one enemy is far easier than a crowd.

I flared my Chi Enhancement and shot forward far faster than I had on the deck. I ducked beneath the fire stream and tackled into the man. I smashed him through several crates and barrels. I landed on top of him, and gave a solid punch to his face, knocking him out. I sat there for a moment, looking at the man's face, and wondered if I should kill him.

'No, he's knocked out. He's out of the fight. I'll be off his ship before he wakes up.' 

I looked around the storage room at the aftermath of our fight. Many of the crates were now on fire and the room was filling with smoke. I sighed. 'Not my problem. Some of his men should get here quickly and get him.'

Now I just need to get to the engine.

As I made my way down the hall, I rolled my shoulder, feeling the heat still emanating from the earth armor. If that had hit me directly, I'm sure it would have left some minor burns, even through all my layers.

'Wait a minute, I'm an idiot." I could change the temperature of the earth I bend. If I just force the earth around me to stay cool, I would basically be immune to their fire. Didn't Toph tank several blasts of fire in metal armor without the armor heating up? Metal would get hotter far quicker than rock, so she must have done this as well.

I heard a shout coming from around the corner, "Find him!" heavy foot falls clanging against the metal flooring. Through Seismic Sense, I saw around 10 soldiers. It didn't matter. They could only come at me two at a time.

I undid my earth armor, formed it into a boulder, and launched it at the first two men to appear. It plowed right through them, knocking them spinning to the ground, and embedded itself into the wall behind them.

Shouting erupted. "He's here!" 

I pulled the boulder back out of the wall, and sent it shooting off down the hall around the corner and raked the boulder back and forth through the crowded hallway, targeting anyone still standing. Seismic Sense was really convenient like that.

When the screams and cries of pain died down to groaning, I stepped around the corner where I pulled the boulder back to me, molding itself into armor again. 

I stepped up to the one that seemed to have been in charge of the group. He was still conscious, so I kicked him over onto his back so he was looking up at me. "Hey," I said, "Your captain is unconscious in a room filled with burning crates. You may want to go save him."

With that, I stepped around all the groaning soldiers and made my way to the back of the ship. I could feel through Seismic Sense the men from the deck were already down on this floor, so I was running out of time.

I made it to the engine room. The room was filled with loud moving machinery, steam, and coal. More earth!

There were several engineers in the room, and they all turned towards me as I burst through the doors. I hadn't sensed them before. Due to the loud vibrations from the engines, my Seismic Sense was overwhelmed and I couldn't pick anything out anymore, not even from the rest of the ship. I had to create an eye slit to see from.

"Hey! You're not supposed to be in here! Get out!" The head engineer yelled at me.

"Are you an idiot? I'm not a guest here!" I yelled back, and earthbent coal into a wave, crashing it into the nearest furnace.

"Stop him!" The man yelled.

Several of the large workers, as big as I was without all of my armor, grabbed the nearest tool and charged me. Luckily, these were no warriors. I wove myself between their attacks and simply focused on causing as much wreckage as I could to the engines using the coal.

"You idiots!" The head engineer snarled and he jumped down from the railings, and drew a sword. This man was definitely a trained swordsman, from his smooth posture. Worse yet, his Chi had a hot and fiery quality to it. He was a firebender. "Earthbender! My name is Xiao Feng! You're wielding a fine blade, and yet you have not used it once! You're a shame to all the swordsmen around! Fight like a true warrior!"

"Aren't you the head engineer? Why are you suddenly spouting crap like a samurai?" I said incredulously. And what is with all of the Xiao's?

"This is the Fire Nation Navy! No one gets promoted very far without being a true Fire Nation Warrior! Now fight me with your blade, or shame yourself further!"

I glance back at ruined engines, sputtering out smoke. I had already completed my goal, so all I needed was to get back to my boat and they wouldn't be able to follow me. That didn't mean I would waste my time on a pointless duel. Instead of answering him, I just launched several compressed coal boulders at him. 

He deftly destroyed each one with fiery kicks. 'Tch. First the captain and now him. What is with these people just breaking boulders apart? Is it the Chi in their fire?' 

"You coward!" He said with disgust and charged in with his sword. Normally, I really wouldn't have to worry about being hit with a sword, being covered in stone and all, but given how he had just smashed several boulders in front of me, I wasn't about to test my luck.

I dodged around him and made towards the exit. "Block the door!" Xiao Feng called, chasing after me.

All of the huge engineers had already been between me and the exit, so it was easy for them to follow their order. Before, they were all spread out throughout the room, so it was easy for me to slip around them, but now they were a dense crowd.

One of them even shot a fireball at me, which splashed harmlessly against my stone.

"There's no escape for you now, Earthbender! Oryaa!" Xiao Feng slashed down in an overhead attack, which I blocked.

"Fine, if you want to fight so bad, here you go!" I forced his sword to the side, breaking his guard, and slash horizontally at his guts. Xiao Feng may be a swordsman, but he wasn't armored so heavily as the soldiers above. He jumped backwards to dodge.

At the same time as my attack, I earthbent my stone armor away and launched it at the crowd of engineers. They were in my way and I needed to escape quickly, and I was already beginning to feel my Chi run low. I wasn't running on empty just yet, but I didn't have enough to justify using it for everything. I had to save it for key moments, like clearing the crowd of engineers.

As Xiao Feng jumped back, I followed after him to keep him on the backfoot. I lunged into a stab, which was parried just enough so that it nicked his side instead. Xiao Feng was good, but he wasn't skilled enough to handle my extra strength. He was on a similar level to Fat.

As we began trading blows, more men came pouring into the room. The soldiers from the deck. In the front, a hand clutched to his side, was the captain. I cursed. He should have stayed down.

It seemed as if the entire ship were here, and now they were all surrounding me.

The captain sneered at me. "You should have killed me when you had the chance. Now you won't be leaving my ship alive."

All of the firebenders leapt forward and a sea of fire came crashing toward me. At the same time, Xiao Feng attacked from behind. "DIE!"

I pulled my stone back toward me to form a hasty shield, and blocked Xiao Feng's swordstrike. But the shield wasn't enough. As I was in a sword bind with Xiao Feng, the wave of fire went around my meager shield and coated my legs and up my back. I screamed in agony and flared my Chi Enhancement, throwing Xiao Feng back. I crumpled to the ground.

The stone wall I had erected crashed to the ground next to me, and I could see the firebenders prepare to send another wave of fire at me. Time seemed to slow down.

"AAARGH!" I screamed in pain and panic and reached out with both hands. All the coal from around the room pulled itself from the wreckage of the engines. A lot of it was on fire from the furnaces. 

Just as the first licks of flame were appearing from the firebenders, I slammed it all down on top of them with all of the force I could muster.

The coal crashed down in a giant wave onto all of the firebenders, including the captain, and squashed them into paste. Blood exploded out from underneath. I grit my teeth and spun the coal into the floor, grinding anything that remained like a millstone would grain. 

When I was sure that they were all dead, I incited the temperature of the coal and it all burst into flames. I thrust my hand forward and the coal broke apart into hundreds of flaming bullets that shot forward into the engineers. Unlike the boulders and pebbles I was using to knock them around, these bullets tore them apart.

"NOOOO!" Xiao Feng picked himself back up and stared in horror at the carnage I had caused. He charged me again with his sword, but I forced myself to stand with Chi Enhancement, and blurred around him. I cleaved him in two from right shoulder to left waist.

He fell down, dead.

I was breathing hard, nearly delirious from the pain, but I was nearly choking on the thick odor of blood and guts that filled the room. Exhaustion hit me and I staggered. I had to prop myself up with my sword so I wouldn't fall. The fight had taken everything out of me. I had to get out of here.

I fled the room, staggering my way back through the corridors and up the stairs. Most of my attention went towards Chi Healing to ease the pain, but I kept an eye out for any survivors. I couldn't afford one of them attacking me right now.

When I got back up to the deck, I looked over the side and saw my boat beating up against the side of the ship. I jumped down, crashing onto my side. My sword tumbled out of my grasp, onto the deck, but I ignored it. I crawled my way to the back, groaning from the strain, where my supplies were strapped down.

I desperately tore my way through the packs and pulled out the small box of earth. It was the rich soil from the spirit oasis. While I could use Chi Healing on myself without the medium, using this spiritual earth would boost the skill's effectiveness. I grit my teeth in anger. I had just left the water tribe and I already had to use it.

As I healed myself, feeling the cool soothing earth on my body, I used a tiny portion of stone I had brought with me to push my boat away from the ship.