Focused Fire (ATLA)

Zuko got up to the sound of war drums banging discordantly, and immediately rushed out of his cot, grogginess be damned. He had until the drums stopped to find and reach the assembly area…which hopefully hadn’t shifted too far today.

Thankfully, he made it well before the drums stopped. The rest of his group had assembled as well, despite the obvious lack of sleep many of them suffered from. Two recruits were still smeared in mud and twigs. The luckier intakes down the line had long ago learned to not gawk at the unruly mess the night training batch suffered through.

“Good morning, recruits!” Captain Ren barked out from the raised stage in front of the assembly ground.

“Good morning, captain!” came their shouted reply, almost in unison.

“Another day, another step closer to earning the right to serve in the 11th!”

“Yay, ma’am! We can’t wait, ma’am!”

Zuko had learned upon his inception into the regiment to push just the barest amount of enthusiasm in the replies. Captain Ren didn’t exactly single him out, but she definitely noticed any mistakes or poor attempts that he made far quicker compared to others. She still glared daggers at him, but Zuko found it easy enough to avoid the grudge-bearing woman outside of training.

The other instructors were almost as harsh, but their controlled malice was equally distributed throughout every recruit. ‘Win stupid prizes’ as someone had said, and thankfully Zuko’s previous martial training as a prince had kept him clear from suffering any of their creative punishments.

That was what probably kept Captain Ren pissed at him.

“Now who’s turn is it to lead?” the head instructor asked, her head scanning the crowd. She randomly yelled out a name and four poor sods had to step forwards. Surprising, considering that Lao was a rather common name; Zuko thought there’d be a bit more of them.

All four headed up to the raised stage, and the whole assembly, recruit and instructors alike snapped into a ready stance, even the most sleep deprived aspirant suddenly adopting a highly alert look.

At the edges of the grounds, a quartet of instructors began to pound at the drum again, this time slowly building up a rhythm. Zuko counted down the beats as the drumming plateaued until another group of elderly instructor-musicians entered with horns, erhu and guzheng to create a rousing melody. 

The Laos led the morning drills and the assembly followed after them. It was a simple form, ideal for the young and elderly alike, but with constant repetition and the background music stirring them, the air cracked as recruits and training instructors alike punched and kicked as one with deadly intent. 

Even outside the grounds, a good number of non-training staff were mirroring the motions with ease. Captain Ren’s daughter was also part of it, sporting a comically serious frown and her stuffed toy dragons hanging off her as the girl followed along with surprising competence.

Supposedly there were lyrics to go along with it, words that only the veterans of the 11th truly knew. Every now and then Zuko could hear them, even Captains Ren and Kai, mouthing the foreign words during morning drills. It had to be words instead of nonsensical noises because the veterans of the 11th could proudly tell you which syllables to emphasize and what the whole song meant.

Because of course Xing taught the regiment the song, and provided almost a syllable-by-syllable translation of the thing.

Even without the lyrics it was music to rouse the spirit, and Zuko found the few minutes of drilling to it to be one of the most enjoyable parts of his whole training. And after discovering what the song was supposed to mean? It made the whole thing even better. No wonder the tune was hummed all over the place.

The drill ended just as the music did, and most of the recruits returned to their ready stance with a sheen of sweat on them. With no one fouling up, Captain Ren skipped the verbal flaying and dismissed them for breakfast.

“Private Zuko. My office, after your meal.”

Maybe he spoke too soon. Zuko suppressed a sigh and headed for the mess hall. 

“Private, it’s clear that basic training is wasted on you,” Captain Ren said once they had convened in her office. Her husband was there too, almost frowning as he regarded Zuko. The prince remained quiet, knowing better than to reply to the statement. “So putting you through the rest of the course is frankly overly redundant and a waste of time.”

Ren gave a sigh before she smirked. “Therefore, it’s been decided that you will enjoy an accelerated program. You will undergo night training effective tomorrow. You will undergo the full course before we move you onto advanced intermediate tactics.” 

The smirk faded, and her eyebrows rose instead. “Any questions?”

“What about my squad?” From what he understood, recruits were grouped into squads for the entire duration of their training, and only broken up for specializations or once they were deployed to refill missing ranks.

It was Kai who answered him. “You will be assigned to a new one, and a new one after that. It’s not that uncommon for trainees to drop out or skip modules.”

Ren steepled her fingers and rested her chin in the cradle of her fingertips. “The crown princess and the colonel want you out there as soon as they can. Your sister assures me that as…average as you are, you could still speed through our training regimen in under half the time. Do you think you can do that, Private Zuko?”

Zuko gulped quietly, understanding the challenge he’s been given. He didn’t give it much thought and gave a sharp nod in reply. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Good. For the…convenience of everyone, you will be reassigned to a different bunk.”

Zuko didn’t understand why that was needed, until a group of instructors almost broke down the barracks of his newly assigned barracks in the middle of the night and literally set a fire under the waking trainees to get them assembled outside.

Night training was four weeks of utter torment, where Zuko had to struggle through sleep deprivation as he lay in the mud in ambush or marched around the whole regiment’s grounds under moonless nights. He learned how to endure being trampled on under his camouflaged trapdoor, how to quickly wake up to a ready state, and how to appreciate moonlit nights.

If anything, as much as it was hell for the prince, most of his peers had it worse, especially the nobles. In the first few weeks their groans and whispered complaints gave their positions away, bringing down the instructors’ wrath on them. Zuko saw most recruits drop out during one of the last ambush lessons. Enduring two sleepless nights and a forced march before being ordered to quickly dig basically a shallow grave to bury themselves in broke not only the middle and upper class recruits, but also those from lower strata of society.

Zuko himself barely kept his wits on as his hands with their cracked skin trembled for days later. What was surprising was that that lesson, along with others, were based on the 11th’s own experiences on campaign. And if Ren and the instructors’ boasting was accurate, then the training was all watered down compared to the hellish experience they went through. 

Under Xing’s provisional rule they did four days and nights of constant marching to escape a cavalry division, and decided to bury themselves and let the ostrich horses stampede over them to chase after false trails. Captain Kai had once literally holed up with a squad for two nights before popping out to burn down a camp’s stores.

It’d be easy to dismiss it all as bombastic exaggerations, but with what Zuko had read of the regiment, and what he went through with their training, the prince found himself worryingly believing the claims. And he did not look forward at all in trying to replicate any of them in the future.

Still, night training was assured by the older recruits to be the worst of it, and Zuko was about to reach the end of it. And so far the training was overall actually an enjoyable experience. There was a strange relief in no longer holding any command. Following orders might stress his body, but it was much more preferable to the burdens of leadership straining his mind.

It was also almost petty how much he enjoyed being recognized. His fellow recruits quickly ignored his royal status and accepted him as one of their own, and they were unabashed in their admiration of his talents with firebending and the blade.

Both Ren and Kai might still harbor a grudge, but they still praised his dueling forms and combat instincts, however begrudging the praise was. “Allies or enemies, we try not to downplay their accomplishments or exaggerate their flaws on strategic and tactical levels,” Ren had explained with a soft scowl. “The 11th learned both the hard way. If we can’t acknowledge both the good and the bad, we can’t plan for them.”

All in all, Zuko was looking forward to finishing his training and seeing what life as a line infantry was like.

*****

“I swear, I might have to ask father to reconsider his methods for this…”

Ty Lee feigned a carefree smile as Azula muttered at the paper she had received. They were headed back to Zilang when a messenger hawk dropped off a small scroll at Hai Sin’s post office. The scowl the princess gave was far greater than the jealous green-pink one she unconsciously formed when she received a message from the 11th.

Which probably did not bode well for the trio.

“What’s the problem?” Mai asked with a sideways glance at Azula. “Your colonel sparred with another girl?”

“Xing can spar with whoever he likes,” came the snappy, defensive retort before she tossed the message over to Mai. “I’ve been invited to witness the deployment of something I rather not attend.”

Mai read through it with bored eyes, and then considerately passed the message onto Ty Lee. “They’re going to deploy a weapon to break Ba Sing Se. Isn’t that a good thing?”

From what she read, it did look rather ambitious; Azula was being given front row seats to witness a great weapon to tear down the walls of the great city, and Chief Engineer Gunsou promised that she’d be the first to step foot into the captured city. It sounded like a typical grandiose offer, which made Azula’s reaction all the more surprising.

“It’d be a good thing if it would actually deliver,” the princess explained with a sigh. “I have eyes on that project, and everything about it screams disappointment. It’s just an unwieldy drill that’s going to waste lives even getting to the walls. Not to mention the metal that could’ve been used to build other, more useful things.”

Azula, the ruthless, hypercompetitive princess, caring first about lives? 

Once more Ty Lee had to suppress her surprise. Things have been changing so much with that girl that it was already proving this little excursion to be more than worth it.

Mai was not as good at masking her expression, her eyes going wide for a moment, but thankfully the princess either didn’t notice it or didn’t care.

“Urgh, it really seems that the courtiers back home are really that incompetent to allow this stupid plan to go forward.”

“So, you’re going to reject their offer?” Ty Lee asked, already imagining the verbal evisceration that would follow.

Shockingly, Azula shook her head. “Obviously not. I’ll be going along. The Chief Engineer might be an idiot, but the people under him might be salvageable. I can’t have the fool waste such potential.” 

She took the scroll off Ty Lee and turned to the postmaster who had been carefully not listening to the conversation. “Deliver my reply. Tell them I’ll be…happy to personally witness their weapon in action. I should be at the staging grounds in a few weeks.”

Mai gave her royal friend a curious (as much as Mai did curious) look. “You could send over an army or two to help it if you’re that worried?”

Azula shook her head with some angry orange frustration. “It’s not that simple. No, it’d make things worse. I’ve had High General Shinu check the numbers. Protecting something too big like that would threaten everything else we have on the continent. The amount of idiots riding on Gunsou’s little plan must be significant indeed to have my father’s approval… Idiots that are also in father’s War Council.”

“Well, at least you’ll get to identify them after this.”

“Quite.” They watched the hawk being sent off before Azula generously tipped the postmaster and the trio left for their ostrich horses. “I suppose on the bright side, I have a few promotions to plan…”

Azula suddenly paused, and then turned back to hastily march back to the postmaster before either Ty Lee or Mai could ask. 

“I want a hawk, red ribbon priority. Send it to the 11th Regiment’s barracks in Zilang. Recipient is exclusively for Colonel Xing…”