From Mortal To Divinity

I lean against the wall of a building with my arms crossed over my chest in a dark alley as I wait for the patrolling Dai Li agents to arrive near my area. Getting into Ba Sing Se had proven to be as simple as disguising ourselves as refugees and sneaking. Once inside the Lower Ring we split off to conduct investigations to see what information we could obtain about the city.

What was learned was that the Dai Li had far more control over the city than in the show. Not only is the king a puppet, but so is the council of five. Normally obtaining such a piece of information would have been near impossible, however the Dai Li's increase in power also resulted in an increase in personnel which they used to patrol the lower ring. A pair of said personnel had been keeping an eye on us due to them recognizing Zuko as the exiled prince of the Fire Nation. We easily captured the pair and interrogated them for every piece of information they had. Then we had them smuggle us into the Middle Ring, the perfect place to cause a scene, get captured and sent to Lake Laogai, headquarters of the Dai Li.

Unlike the Lower Ring, the Middle Ring is where the laws set by Long Feng are enforced with extreme prejudice. In the Lower Ring, the population is far too big to be property policed, and the people there are in no position to cause any significant amount of trouble. The Middle Ring and Upper Ring however, are where the population is easily policed and any mention of a war going around can cause an untold number of problems.

Once in the Middle Ring, we interrogated another pair of Dai Li agents in case agents of different rings have different types of information. From them we learned about the best way to get sent to Lake Laogai, Dai Li parol schedules, and the layout of the headquarters. With the information, we made a simple plan to get in and have a conversation with Long Feng.

Which leads me to my current situation, waiting for the time to put our plan into action.

"This reminds me of the times when Bruce used to train me for infiltration. Scouting the location, interrogating the enemy, the stakeouts, such good times." I sigh in nostalgia.

"Bruce? Isn't he your mentor that dressed as a bat and went around at night apprehending criminals?" asks Azula from a dark corner of the alley.

"Yes. He's also the one that taught me most of what I know about hand to hand combat, infiltration, detective work and many more." I answer

"Is he also the one that taught you how to carry out assassinations, or was that during your tenure as an N7 Infiltrator?" asks Azula

I chuckle at the question before turning to the corner where she's standing and answering "If Bruce ever found out about my penchant for assassinating my enemies he'd be absolutely livid."

"Interesting." she says. "What of your brothers and Oracle?"

"D.i.c.k and Barbara would be majorly disappointed, while Jason would most likely pat me on the back and offer to take me out for a drink to trade stories." I answer with a fond smile on my face.

Immediately after saying so, I sense the two heat signatures eight hundred meters away approaching us, and overlapping those heat signatures are the chi signatures of two earthbenders.

"It's time." I say to Azula as I stand up straight, my back to the entrance of the alley.

"Do make sure not to break any of my bones. I'll need them." I tell her as I drop my guard and make myself as open to attack as possible.

"Hmmm, we'll see. This is after all the perfect opportunity to exact my revenge on you for the torturous training regime you put me through" she answers.

Before I can ask her whether she's joking or not, she front kicks me right in the solar plexus, sending me flying out of the alley. By now the Dai Li agents are about four hundred meters away, right around the corner, and in perfect hearing distance to hear Azula.

"IT'S YOUR FAULT! IT'S BECAUSE OF FIRE NATION SC.U.M LIKE YOU THAT I LOST MY MOTHER!" screams Azula as she runs out of the alley.

I pick myself up from the ground and take a basic boxing stance as I face her. The following exchange can't even be considered a fight. Azula uses the basic forms for earthbending to beat me up, while I made a show of attempting to evade. While some of her hits miss, the majority of them connect, and soon I find myself once more laying on the ground.

Azula straddles me, and begins to repeatedly punch me in the face while screaming hysterically "YOU SC.U.M STARTED THIS WAR AND KEEP ATTACKING US, I'LL KILL YOU"

By now the Dai Li agents have started to pick up the pace after hearing her screams. As I begin to lose consciousness, I can feel the duo's approaching heat signature as they sprint towards us to put a stop to Azula's screams about a war going on.

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I come to, strapped to a chair in a dark room with two other heat signatures. I take a second to calm myself and clear the fog from my mind. Once done I concentrate on where the pain is coming from to check for what injuries I've sustained. From what I can tell, my most serious injury is from a bruised rib where a roundhouse had connected. After making sure that I didn't sustain any serious injuries, I begin to put the plan into motion.

While the duo set about setting up whatever brainwashing contraption the Dai Li use, the part of myself that bonded with Max, my AI, begins to work. Immediately the world around me slows down, the dark room is no longer dark, smells that I didn't notice before are introduced to my nose, I can hear that centipede that scuttles on the wall to my left, and the receptors in my brain are dialed up to three times, including the ones pertaining to pain.

The pain that used to be tolerable is now enhanced threefold. As soon as the pain is enhanced, the AI part of my mind immediately forces itself to disconnect from it, making me no longer feel it at all. It however doesn't mean that my pain or my injuries have left, my mind simply tricks itself to no longer feel any of it.

Once that is done, my mind partitions itself into two, one to focus on the upcoming fight, and the second to subconsciously navigate the underground base using the schematics taken from the interrogated Dai Li agents. The whole process, from enhancing my perception to partitioning my mind, barely takes a second.

After checking that everything is in order, I begin to manipulate my chi to enhance my flames to a much hotter degree than I usually use. While not necessary, Azula wants me to put on a show as I escape. "Show them why your enemies have decided to call you Dragon" were her exact words.

Inhaling through my nose, I subconsciously go through the proper breathing technique before exhaling a jet of blue flames from my mouth and completely obliterating the stone door one hundred meters in front of me.

The duo raise a wall to protect them from the flying debris, giving me the second I need to summon flames from my hand and destroying the stone chair I am strapped to. Standing up, I crack my neck and roll my shoulders before using a back kick to expel twin balls of flames that connect to my previous captors. Normally I'd burn them to death, but since they're Azula's future employees, I only leave them knocked out with a bad case of second degree burns.

With that done I walk out the room and step out into the hallway. Once out into the hallway, I make sure to expand my sensory field to its full potential of eight hundred meters and raise the temperature within it. With every step I take the temperature rises further, and by my tenth step everything arm's reach of me spontaneously combusts. Except for my body, which can easily take such temperatures, everything in that area catches on fire, including the clothes I used as disguise, leaving me in a pair of uncomfortable underwear that are made out of the same material as my armor.

Eventually I come across my first group of Dai Li agents, ten of them. I had sensed their heat signatures entering my domain of heat around the corner. The first to make his presence known did so by sending a pair of earth fists at my face. Without missing a beat, I exhale a jet of flames from my mouth and destroys his attack and continues on to combust after colliding with his chest, sending him flying into a wall. From there the fight dissolves into a battle of flames and rocks. They would send their earth fists at me, and I would either dodge or destroy them before knocking them out with flames that combust upon collision.

Eventually another group arrives as I knock out the last one. This group clearly learns from the mistakes of their predecessor, because instead of using their earth fists, they do the smart thing and start using the environment instead. After dodging a second pillar of rocks coming from the walls, I realize that they're stalling for time. Usually I wouldn't let them succeed, however I need to make a show of how powerful I am, so I play along.

Jumping into the air, I dodge an earth spike from the wall on the right and use it as a booster to jump higher and dodge a pillar from the wall on the left. While in midair I punch out a comet of fire at the nearest agent and knock him out. I land into a roll and come up while exhaling a jet of flames at another agent.

After taking out the third agent, I notice a large group of sixty heat signatures enter my sensory field and can't help the small look of annoyance that flickers through my face. Normally I wouldn't really care about how many came, however the environment is a complete detriment to me. I am literally standing in a corridor made completely of earth. Not only is it restricting my movement, but the environment itself is a weapon for my enemies.

So I make a split second decision, I return the temperature around back to normal, and remove the distance between them and me, forcing the battle to change from bending to pure close quarter combat.

For normal firebenders, this would reduce their effectiveness. Especially since earthbenders can form armor around their bodies using the earth. For me however, it only makes me more dangerous. As a warrior, I've always favored close quarter combat as opposed to mid or long range combat.

While I'm perhaps the most skilled bender alive right now, it's mostly due to the echo of my past combat experiences from the Mass Effect and Akham universes subtly giving me a head start. Soon enough though, Azula will outstrip me as a bender.

When the Dai Li agents realize that they will no longer be able to use earthbending, less they catch their comrades in the crossfire, they immediately form earthbending armor on their bodies and attack me using hand to hand combat and makeshift weapons made from the earth. Seeing this I form fire daggers of flame and throw myself into the fight.

Ducking under a strike, I push the agent away while quickly turning to flip another away. It has been a constant repeat of similar moves, using kicks, flips and pushes to keep the agents at a distance in order to avoid getting overwhelmed by their sheer number, while also making sure that they don't distance themselves enough to be able to use earthbending.

Despite how easy it sounds, it's a challenging task to do, especially since I don't want to kill any of them. To ease the challenge a bit, I've taken to subtly using biotics to subtly slow them down. A small push to redirect a strike, an inconvenient pull to make an enemy's stance too wide. The only indication of my use of biotics are my eyes occasionally flickering with a violet light, easily dismissed as a trick of the light.

As the fight continues, more and more agents arrive and I stop consciously keeping track of them and just flow in the battle. Eventually they realize that the narrow hallway makes my job easier, and they remove the walls giving them more room to operate

Every time I put distance between myself and an agent, another would be on top of me in an instant. It left me with next to no time to think and even with my skills, I know it won't take long before an earth spike gets lucky and skewers me. Unlike in my battle with Stannis' army, these men aren't your average soldier. They are elite earthbenders who use a style that was made by Avatar Kyoshi, who is perhaps the most militant avatar there ever was. Defeating them would take me using my biotics in less subtle ways. The last time I did that I ended up being looked at as if I'm a god, and honestly I don't need the hassle right now, especially since I'll be in this world for a few more months.

So I start to make my way to the middle of the group of agents to finish this.

Sidestepping a jab, I grab the offender's arm and pull him in between me and an earth spear aiming for my shoulder. Letting go of him, I perform a sweeping kick, using it to send arcs of flames all around me. The flames give me just enough room to perform my finishing move. Borrowing Azula's created technique, I form a sphere of fire that completely surrounds me. Unlike Azula however, I compact the sphere as close to my body as possible before exploding it in every direction.

The resulting explosion sends all of the agents flying except for the ones that are located on the outskirts of it. Unfortunately for them, being on the outskirts doesn't leave them unscathed from the flying debris of stones.

The majority of agents are knocked out, leaving only a small number of them still standing. Even then, those agents aren't enough to take me down, especially since I now have room to move.

They know it, and they also know that I notice that particular detail.

Before the fight can resume however, a clap resounds in the chamber as Azula finally makes her presence known.

"Splendid performance" she says.

She'd arrive a few minutes after the Dai Li had removed the walls and was watching from makeshift rafters along with Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee.

While my job was to attract as much of the Dai Li's attention to me as I possibly could, Azula was "persuading" Long Feng to work for her, and the others were sneaking around the base gathering as much important information as they could find.

Turning to the ceiling where she's situated, I notice that there are Dai Li agents following her around. Meaning that when she arrived the Dai Li was already under her control and she let the fight continue to see how well I'd perform. The scary part is that I can't tell whether it was out of curiosity or her just because she wanted to see me demolish them.