A Joke
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Avatar: Awakened Gamer
🕑 Added 2022-01-07 05:56:22 +0000 UTCChapter 97 - The World Bleeds
***
Upon a remote Fire Nation outpost, a lone man stood amongst a field of corpses. There was no scratch in his body, nor any blood in his clothes.
His gaze was cold as he stared at the dozen or so survivors who cowed back in fear.
What they had seen wasn’t something a simple human could achieve. “P -Please spare our lives,” one of the women in the group bowed. “I -I will do anything. Please don’t kill me, I have a sick mother and father to take care of.”
Sokka didn’t say anything and just kept staring at her coldly. But within a flash, before she could even react he was in front of them, and his spear was pointed at her neck. “I don’t believe in the notion of Karma, or that bad deeds earn you bad luck. Some of the vilest people in the world live happy lives, so there is no reason to think of such fantasy.”
The Fire Nation soldiers didn’t know what he was getting at, but they backed away in fear. Sokka clenched his teeth, sighed, and in a burst of speed, he disappeared. But his voice still lingered in the crisp air. “When I don’t like something, I twist it.”
With those words, he left like the wind, as if he hadn't been here, to begin with. Everyone there had a terrified look on their faces and a memory that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
**
Fwish!
Sokka swung through the trees at incredible speeds and arrived back to the village not much longer.
One of his water clones was taking care of the children and he looked on somberly with a small smile on his face.
No matter how sometimes he wanted to be coldly logical, that sense of humanity would come and bring him back. "*sigh* I can't afford to act like this again. Soft-hearted emotions will only hold me back. Especially with that guy pulling the strings, no sane man would create something like this."
He opened the interface and glanced at it.
'Azula is in place, Aang and Katara are too, just need to wait until Toph joins, and then everything will be ready.'
Sokka wanted to create an armada against Ozai and have Azula be seen as the better alternative to lead the people. Zuko had a part in this too, but Sokka knew he couldn’t charm Zuko and the young man was a little lacking and immature when it came to leading people.
Making a couple more clones in case the first one breaks away, Sokka left them instructions on how to take care of things. These children needed to survive somehow. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he will feed himself for the rest of his life.
At least that was the basic ideology of how things went. Sokka was going to do the same, but had to compromise a little and couldn’t stay in the place forever. Leaving water clones here wouldn’t be a good idea either, so he had to go and stealthily slaughter the close-by Fire Nation stronghold. He left some of the soldiers alive to spread the word.
His water clones wouldn’t be able to deal with such big numbers. So he had to take care of them. There would be more soldiers filling the missing numbers of the dead ones, but the logistics of that were a nightmare and would take months until the message of what happened spread and a couple more months until troops arrived.
By the time this place was filled with soldiers again, Sokka planned for this war to be finished. The first thing he did was take a map out of his inventory, and reading he went towards a certain swamp, needing to get some water benders who would be willing to participate in this war and a plan bender too. “Since I am away from the Gaang, I need to take care of some things I would have had to do as Sokka either way.”
***
It didn't take Sokka long to approach the swamp lands, the giant trees, as big ten-story apartment buildings were in the outskirts, and they even were considered amongst the smallest in the outskirts of the swamp. Sokka couldn't get a clear look as he was quite far away.
He also remembered from the show that this same swamp also had a distinct ability to connect with everything. During the show, Sokka remembered how it was used as a way to explain how everything was connected.
During this ordeal, he also kept his guard up and made sure that no spirit would suddenly start jumping him. He had too much of an experience with that to be careless.
**
After some hours of running at his top speeds, Sokka got a little tired but he managed to get a handle on his running speed so he wouldn’t get tired too soon.
While [Gamer’s Body] would deal with a lot of the problems of normally getting tired by being back up to their best condition, Sokka didn’t want to stop anywhere at all and finish this as soon as possible.
But as he approached the swamp, he caught sight of something rapidly running after him on the [Map] and this made him frown, the yellow dot was approaching rapidly. That meant the thing approaching him wasn't directly an enemy, but a neutral party, but that in and of itself can mean a lot of things.
Also, no one should be aware of what he was doing, or that he was here. So Sokka was curious who was so skilled as to track him down all the way here.
Looking around, Sokka was in a grass field with a forest to the side. Unlike the swamp far ahead, the forest was normal, with average-sized trees.
It didn’t take long for the person to show themselves, it was some giant creature that seemed like an anteater and bear, its size was around that of Appa, just a little smaller. Sokka recognized her from the show, it was June and her pet mount that she used to track people.
“Seems like I have a stalker nowadays,” muttered Sokka under his breath, wondering if someone had sent this woman. Who was he kidding? Of course, someone had sent her after him.
As her mount turned its head towards where he was hiding, he jumped down from the tree and showed himself. “You know, I am flattered with a girl as pretty as you. But I already have a girl in mind.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, smiling and taking out a pamphlet of paper. She frowned as she glanced back and forth between Sokka and the paper in her hands. “You smell like someone else, did you steal his clothes or something?”
‘Ohhh… so she’s talking about my identity as Kuzon? Then that makes sense, now at least I know which lightning-throwing psycho sent her after me. Well, maybe it was someone else, but I am sure that it was Azula. Or her father who wanted me killed for getting too close to his daughter.’
“Somewhat like that,” Sokka glanced at her clothes, which consisted of the Fire Nation red. “Did the Fire Lord send you to kill me off? Or was it Azula?”
She frowned at the mention of the names and Sokka could guess that it was one of the two, judging by her expression. He wanted to know about the person who hired her, but June didn’t see, to have his patience and charged Sokka with her whip ready. “Tell me where the man named Kuzon is?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sokka shrugged as he dodged the tongue of the elephant-sized animal and then readied his spear to attack when June’s whip wrapped around his weapon.
“You have his smell all over you,” she said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “It’s likely that you haven’t been too long away from him. If you don’t answer,” she patted her mount. “My cute Nyla will run her tongue all over you, and trust me, you don’t want that.”
“Hmmm~ is that so?” Sokka chuckled and tugged his spear and June’s eyes widened as she was easily pulled towards him. Though Sokka noticed that her strength was many times that of a normal man, which was weird for such a slim body.
Fish!
The mount’s tongue swang out, and Sokka dodged to the side, barely, as it moved quite fast. But he had to make sure the tongue didn't even touch him because he knew it had a paralysis agent in it.
“So, the Fire Lord sent you? Didn’t he?” Sokka smiled widely.
“What kind of creep are you?” June asked, with a weirded-out look in her eyes. “Why do you seem so excited at the thought of that?”
“Thank God,” Sokka sighed in relief. “I thought he would never send someone after me. Which would have sucked.”
'Let's see how Azula reacts when she learns that her father wanted to finish off Kuzon.'
