The Chong Sheng Trilogy: War by rachelthedemon

Spirit Journey

Disclaimer: I own not, you sue not.

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The Chong Sheng Trilogy

PART I: War

Chapter 14: Spirit Journey

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He couldn't stop shaking.

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to throw up.

But he knew this was neither the time nor the place for either one as they all slunk back through the door, and the great portal closed after them as though with a mind of its own, and doubly quiet. As if it knew their predicament and did not wish to alert the captors of its home. It was only when he led them into an alcove of the complex's most untouched -- and therefore remote -- sector that he finally leaned back against the wall with a hand to his forehead, breath shallow and fast and fingers trembling.

Katara set her hands on his shoulders to steady him, biting her lip, while Zuko kept watch around the corner for any pursuers. He felt her kneel with him as he slid down the wall to the ground, knees unable to hold him any longer. All the fear and dread and helplessness he'd wrestled with on board the ship now returned tenfold, hitting him like a battering ram to the gut. Making his insides shudder and his throat burn.

"There's no way. No way at all," he murmured. "We can't do anything to stop this. No time to even warn anyone before it's too late. We're screwed..."

"Never say that," Iroh cut him off. "The minute you start believing such things is when it's truly over."

"So...what do we do?" Zuko ventured. "We need to warn the Avatar, of course. But by the time we sail back to Ba Sing Se, it'll be too late. They'll already be on the move."

"We need a way to warn him from here," Katara said, though it was obvious she was stuck for way to do that. "Um...steal a messenger hawk maybe?"

Zuko shook his head. "It could be intercepted, and then we're really up the river without a boat. Any kind of message we don't deliver ourselves will run into the same issue. It needs to get there without the Fire Nation finding out."

"Then we only have one choice," Iroh announced, and all eyes turned to him expectantly. "The only way we can deliver a message to the Avatar, timely and with the most minimal risk of interception, is by tapping into that with which he is most familiar. The Spirit World itself."

Sokka didn't think it was possible for his confidence to sink any lower, but it did just at the look on Zuko's face. "Uncle, you...how? You can only get to the Spirit World by dying and--"

Iroh shook his head. "A common misconception. Dying is the only way most people can get to the Spirit World. But it's very possible to do so and still remain alive. It simply takes a lot of effort and specific training." He met Zuko's gaze knowingly. "I've done it before."

It felt as if the moonlight above had become an invisible pall, settling over all of them in a moment of charged silence. Sokka looked to Zuko, who looked positively ashen, almost ghostly. Katara wasn't much better, her cheeks paling despite her naturally dark skin. He swallowed thickly, meeting Iroh's eyes himself. "How...How would that work? Doesn't Aang have to be in the Spirit World for you to contact him?"

Iroh nodded. "He will be, at this time of night. If he's asleep and dreaming." At their identical looks of bewilderment, he elaborated. "Journeying to the Spirit World is a simple matter of letting go of earthly attachments. Even just for a moment. The Avatar, because of his nature, has the affinity to do this at will more than most people. It's what the Avatar State is; he's connecting with his past lives through the Spirit World.

"But to a point, we all enter the Spirit World partially when we dream. For those few minutes, we're letting go of ourselves and allowing our spirits to ascend. Not to the level the Avatar does, but enough that we can receive messages from the Spirit World if its residents have something to say." He paused, looking over each of them. "The proper mental training and discipline is required to do such a thing while still awake, when the mind is most active and aware."

Zuko swallowed thickly. "Is it safe? For you, I mean."

Iroh sighed. "Not entirely. Disengaging the spirit from the body always carries a risk. But at this point, we have no other choice."

Sokka nodded, despite his sinking heart. "Then we'll do what we must."

"But how can we--"

"We've got to," Sokka cut him off, and it came out far more vehement than he'd wanted it to. "We have to do something."

Iroh rested a hand on his nephew's shoulder, comforting. "I'll be all right, Prince Zuko. Don't worry."

Zuko hesitated, before biting his lip and nodding silently. In a way that clearly said he didn't believe him.

****

It was dark. Swirling and inky, but hardly oppressive. The free kind of darkness, cool and calming, where he didn't have to worry about all the fears he suppressed rearing up to mock him with nightmares and visions and the end of the world that he couldn't stop because he was still a mere child, Avatar or not, and saving the world was a job for adults. It was a nice change, to say the least.

Except for the part where it never lasted, and tonight was no different. Before him, the darkness tore itself into a long, oval portal of white light, growing taller and wider until it towered above his head, bright enough that he found it painful to look at despite knowing his body wasn't actually feeling any discomfort as he had his eyes closed and his face buried in a pillow and warm blanket to snuggle under.

He shielded his eyes with his arm as the light flared its brightest, then settled to a more comfortable dimness. He dared a look over his sleeve, blinking in puzzlement at the familiar glowing figure of Roku's dragon as it stepped from the portal. But it was not the former Avatar who perched atop its neck. Aang rubbed his eyes, blinking as it came into better focus, murmuring aloud yet barely realizing it.

"...Iroh?"

The great steed crouched on the invisible black plane before him, bowing its head to the ground in respect. Iroh's spectral form offered a hand, his voice thick with effort. "Come with me, Avatar. I don't have a lot of time, but there's something I must show you before it's too late."

"But...But why are you... H-How? I don't understand..."

Iroh shook his head, stretching his hand out further in beckoning. "I'll explain later. Just trust me on this one, please."

Aang bit his lip in reflex, even knowing that this had to be a dream and therefore the danger was at least not physical. He swallowed thickly, taking that hand and letting Iroh pull him up onto the dragon's back. The animal loosed a trilling growl, turning around and heading back into the light, making Aang hide his face in Iroh's shoulder for a second. When he looked up again, they were flying high above the land, across the continent at a dizzying speed. In much the same way as he had on the Winter Solstice to see Roku himself.

Aang clung to the back of Iroh's cloak, murmuring. "Where are we going?"

Iroh pointed ahead, to the mountains, and he could clearly see the spires of the Northern Air Temple. But there were not clear and serene as he'd left them months ago. Rather, smoke billowed from exhaust stacks and the stone itself was blackened with soot and grime. The red flags with the dreaded insignia flying above explained everything, and he felt a knot of dread form in his figurative stomach.

The dragon took them in brazenly, as if it knew that no soldier stationed at this place could see them. And they were everywhere, running supplies and watching from the towers, piling finished armor and weapons on great salamander-drawn wagons for transport and heaving them onto tanks at the mountain's base. His apprehension grew as they neared the doors of the great eastern chamber, passing through them effortlessly into the yawning cavern beyond, the very air aflame with the smoke and sweat of hard labor.

"The story Azula told is true," Iroh intoned as they neared the edge of the great ravine at the chamber's center. "There will be an attack on Ba Sing Se, on a scale which no one had previously imagined."

"And they're preparing it here?" Aang asked. "How are they going to get through the walls?"

"They won't need to," Iroh answered as the dragon leaned over the chasm to let them see down into it. "Nobody need go through the walls any longer. The Fire Nation has found a way over them."

Aang forced away the hard lump in his throat as he looked down into it, letting his eyes follow the pattern of movement to the far end of the giant pit, through the steam and smoke of machinery, those unmistakeable forms towering above the writhing landscape before them. His jaw dropped, and if he had a stomach it would've churned violently after tying itself into a very unlucky knot.

"They... They can't..."

"They are," Iroh affirmed. "You must warn the citizens at once."

Aang shook his head, trying desperately not to panic. "But...But what about the Dai Li? Even if I warn people, they won't listen. They're afraid..."

"You must find a way to make them listen. If not to you, then to one of their own. As long as they hear and heed the warning, it doesn't matter who bears it. But you have to try. Saving some, no matter how few, is better than saving none."

Aang nodded, though his expression didn't change. "They can't be stopped, can they?"

Iroh shook his head. "Not with any means we have. You'll have time to get some of the civillians to safety at the very most. It's best not to waste it."

He briefly recalled the incident with Jet at the reservoir. What Sokka had done to avert disaster, rather than what Aang knew he would've tried in his friend's shoes. Because he was a hero. Or thought he was, at any rate, before it was proven to him through his own brash ignorance just how human and vulnerable and helpless he could be, despite possessing the deepest well of potential power in the world. That same fear that he'd known watching the dam explode and the wall of water come crashing down through the valley gripped him now in iron talons around his noncorporeal heart.

This is no time for a hero. They need a leader.

He nodded, fingers tightening in Iroh's clothes. "I'll do whatever I can to save them first. But we aren't backing down without a fight."

Iroh turned around, his face serious. "Victory is not always possible, Avatar Aang. Choose your battles wisely."

****

Zuko bit his lip, hardly daring to breathe lest the sound disturb Iroh's concentration. He'd been sitting like that for over an hour, eyes lightly closed, hands resting in front of him, and legs crossed in a way that made the prince's hips hurt just watching it. Serene and still, as though the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Of course, in his mind it had.

Sokka swallowed thickly, looking between the three of them, finally settling on Zuko. "Is...Is he okay?"

"I don't know. I've never seen him do anything like this before...."

Katara's brow creased in worry, staring at his frozen form. "I saw Aang do it once. At the North Pole Oasis. He was almost not breathing when he meditated like that. Your uncle doesn't have any glowing tattoos to speak of, but he's in the Spirit World by no--"

Zuko cut her off with a hand to her lips, suddenly alert. "Shhh!"

He could barely hear it over her voice, though his entire body reacted with years of military training. The clack of boots and the creak of plated armor, the flap of leather and the clink of a scabbard against its girding. He knew them anywhere. And there were lots of them.

"What is it?" Sokka whispered.

"Soldiers," he answred, lowering his hand from Katara's mouth. "Not a full battallion, but enough to make me nervous."

"And how many would that be?" she asked.

"Twenty. Maybe twenty-five. Hard to tell." He gulped, taking another look at his uncle. "We have to get out of here before we're discovered."

"But we can't move his body," Katara said. "It's his anchor here. He won't be able to get back to the physical world otherwise."

Zuko clenched his hands to stop their shaking. "Well we can't just leave him here." His mind raced for a solution. Something to keep his uncle safe and avoid fighting off an entire outpost full of Fire Nation troops. Off course, the latter would accomplish the former. The sticky part was that Iroh's body had to stay put if they didn't want to lose him for good. He almost wished he knew more about this Spirit World stuff, no matter how frightening he found the concept of a world full of dead people that he entered into through his sleep every night.

"I'm going to go find out exactly how many there are first," he said. "Then I'll figure something out."

Sokka nodded, despite a visible shudder. "We'll stay here with him."

He sucked in a breath, slinking around the corner, pressed to the wall, edging silently toward the sound of his brethren marching back the way he'd just come. Toward the great chamber with those flying monstrosities. He gulped, heart pounding furiously as the noice grew louder the closer he drew. Until the stone itself shook beneath his feet, making him wince. He swallowed hard in anticipation, turning to peer around the wall and into the main corridor leading from the courtyard.

The sight of them made him sick inside. Yet he stared, mentally counting the rows of marching feet until the last one disappeared into the distance ahead, and the sound of its following battallion echoed from the stone plaza behind. The realization hit him like a polearm strike. They had no time to waste. At all.

He edged back the way he came as quickly as possible, coming back to the alcove, knowing he must look like hell warmed over by the expressions his companions wore.

"Do we wanna know?" Sokka asked.

Zuko shook his head. "They're on the move already. The fleet will be at Ba Sing Se by next week if they leave tonight."

"Then we need to go after them," Katara said, sounding confident as ever, but it didn't take much effort to see the worry behind her eyes.

"And where would you be going so quickly?"

All three of them jumped as if they'd sat on tacks, looking around frantically like a family of startled field mice at the sound of a screaming hawk. The crunch of boots on stone made Zuko's heart threaten to cave in, before the form of a grinning young infantryman met him head on. His smile widened, and he drew his saber with a menacing skirr of chilled steel.

"Well, if it isn't our Traitor Prince himself. Looks like I played the lucky tile today after all..."

****

"You can't be serious," Shen murmured, shaking the sleep from his body as he stared at Aang in a cross between disbelief and abject horror. "You rode atop Avatar Roku's dragon, with General Iroh, to the Northern Air Temple. Through the Spirit World. In a dream."

Toph snorted. "He's the Avatar. He can do that, remember?"

Aang nodded. "I don't have dreams like that unless they're important. And this one is. We have a fleet of war balloons headed right for us. Hundreds of them."

Jin stroked her chin, staring into the fire. "There are plenty of entrances for the people to access the tunnels with. They'll just have to bring supplies. You said we have a week to prepare?"

"At the shortest, yes," Aang replied. "We have to get as many people as we can to safety, and prepare to defend this place as nest we can. Even if we lose, we have to try."

Shen nodded. "My men will station themselves at the major entrances and round up anyone who will listen to us. It's the most we can do to get these people to safety."

"Then let's do it as soon as dawn breaks," Aang said. "We don't have a moment to lose."


TO BE CONTINUED...

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