Chapter 123: Lessons From Uncle Iroh Final Part

 

(Unknown P.O.V) (Fire Plane)

It was time. No more waiting. 'He' was in danger!

(General P.O.V)

This time the energy was supercharged. Aden knew what was at stake and he was determined not to lose. Iroh calmly looked at him but by the slight narrowing of his eyes, you could tell he was taking Aden seriously. To be honest, he was surprised. Shocked even. To think that the Avatar was not a figure exclusive to his world. Iroh of course knew about the existence of other realms, past the conceptual boundaries of the infinitely large spirit world.

But these circumstances were very unusual. A boy just a little older than Zuko when he found his true path in life…with the power to wield fire to a degree that was frankly frightening. The power he could exert rivalled a grandmaster Firebender during Sozin's comet. It was that scary. His technique was mechanical and stiff but he more than compensated for that with his powerful body and ingenious use of Lightning to increase his speed and reaction time. That was…as far as Iroh was concerned, never seen before and impossible. The energy should have shredded his body from within.

And that weapon…it was strangely powerful. A blade that could change forms and ease the effort needed to channel fire and lightning through it? This new world was intriguing and very enticing to a spirit of knowledge like him. Which is why Iroh came up with the offer. He wanted to learn the difference between this world and his own. The difference between this Avatar and Aang, Korra or Genji. But the other reason was that he wanted to see the lengths this Avatar could go to. Hopefully, steer him along the right path because…a dark Avatar was something no world would survive. His heart had grown cold when he felt just how much strain Aden's spirit was under. Iroh could not let the world see another Unalaq. Its what he owed.

All these thoughts went through his mind quickly as he tensed his body…before relaxing the next second. It had been a long time since he had wielded his bending but the motions had been ingrained into his mind so much that even in his much more flexible spiritual form, he didn't feel rusty. He took a deep breath and exhaled, feeling the familiar warmth push through his chest cavity and escape his nose as steam.

(Aden's P.O.V)

Equity was in a reverse grip as I ran forward at high speeds. The wall of fire behind me blocked the weapon constructs, courtesy of the Grandmaster Firebender I had to beat. Somehow. Iroh stepped forward and punched out. The action sent a generic flame ball towards me that I evaded, then I slapped the next one to the side and jumped over another one. I flipped in the air and came down with an axe kick at his position. A fire arc proceeded to shoot out of my ankle.

Iroh smiled and grunted, raising his hands to the sky in a move that looked like something an earth-bender would do. Orange Flames bloomed on top of his hands in the shape of a tornado, warping my own attack so that they cancelled each other. At that point I was already touching down.
"Escape this!"
I said and slashed out towards his neck. Energy sense had already assured me I was dealing with the genuine article. I was dealing with the real Iroh.

It started with a slight pressure through my energy sense and then heat. I closed my eyes while pulling back my extending hand with Equity gripped on it to cover my body. Explosions rocked my body from one side to the other, and these genuinely hurt. I was thrown away a smoking form, while Equity was held at my front in a huge bastard sword size form. A chunk of hard metal that protected me from the worst of the blasts. Fuck. My Metallica t-shirt was left in dregs.

I rose up, wobbling a little.
"Dammit!" I breathed out. "You covered the area around your body with small balls of condensed flame, set to explode when I came into contact with them. And because your flame can't hurt you, you weren't in any danger. Clever." I commented, feeling a rush of adrenaline. Iroh had the experience to take me on without a problem. I couldn't remember the last time I was this challenged. It was… exhilarating.

"You're correct. What are you going to do now?"
He asked, referring to the fact that I couldn't get close to him without setting off the landmines? Air mines? You get the point. But he wasn't the only one with a few tricks up his sleeve.
"Let's try this again."

I stated as the coating of electric energy washed down on my form. Intense and cutting. I pulled on my inner energy some more. My top speed in this form was about 300 mph give or take. It was not nearly enough for what I intended to do but coupling that speed with Iroh's own skill, that I decided to steal and maybe I could pull it off.

But first I needed a distraction. I exploded forth, pouring out as much speed as I could. The hand holding Equity pulled back and I threw the sword towards Iroh and then changed its form from a Katana into an Oversized sword, shaped like Bustermarm from Fairy tail. A sword that crossed the boundary from being intimidating to plain goofy. But it accomplished what it set out to do.

Explosions rang out as the sword speared through them, barely changing it's course. Iroh jumped over it and started running along it's length towards my position in some gravity defying speed. The old Firebender turned spirit, jumped off the pommel, just as I dismissed Equity and fell down towards me, fireballs raining down on my form, that I batted away with Equity in its bastardized form, this time looking like Asta's Demon Slayer sword. The fire balls were sent back to Iroh who simply unravelled them.

Before he touched down, he timed the impact of his fall with a spread out flame explosion that took everything out wantonly. I jumped over the screen of flames and responded with a pillar of super hot fire down on his position, an attack that would have taken someone else out instantly. The pillar of fire was sliced apart by a thin but highly compressed arc of flame that went on to curve a slice on my chest. I winced in pain and stepped on a platform of fire to flip away, landing on the ground, only to find Iroh at close proximity. His palm was extended to the right in a slight diagonal trajectory, a move that would split me shoulder to hip.

I widened my eyes as the blow landed, Iroh grunting as the fire in his hands turned into a severey hot arc that met with barely any resistance from my body. Instead of blood however, the afterimage I had formed with a combination of fire constructs and pure speed lost it's form and exploded infront of Iroh. The initial blast set off a chain of more explosions that rag dolled the Firebender from all sides, using his own stolen move. But I wasn't done.

'Got ya.' I thought, appearing behind him like a ghost. A gyrating white ball that had a small sheen of blue covering it's form in my palm. Azula could form a lightning ball, it stands to reason that I could too. The ball landed on Iroh's back and I released it, blasting him towards the sky in a burst of energy that ended with a fiery explosion of light and streaks of blue lightning. That was everything I had.

After that, I unsteadily took a knee. Something felt wrong...as if my body had reached its current limit. Of course I had had to push myself even faster for that ploy to work. The exact speed needed to make one afterimage is 38,146 mph. As an example, Gon made about 4–5 afterimages during his match with Hisoka… so he was moving at about 150,000–200,000 mph. I was nowhere near that level of speed. Good lord, I couldn't imagine any other speedster on earth 16 ever hitting that level of speed either. Besides The Flash and his grandson from the Future, Impulse of course. Those numbers were pretty inconsistent though given different laws of physics in each world, so I used them as more of a reference point.

So, long story short, I had used fire as the shell to leave an imprint of me while in more of a sudden burst of speed than my consistent peak, I rushed forward. The sudden burst was probably like 500 mph all things considered. But now my body, particularly my legs and back muscles felt to be on the verge of breaking. But at least I had won... right? I breathed out in disappointment as a fast moving object pinged on my energy sense. Iroh was trying to disapprove of my notion. Fuck, what do I need to do to take him down?

I clumsily rolled away from whatever it was and stood up just as the dust and smoke from the explosion died away. My feet felt like they would give away from use but at least my enhanced healing was working overtime to ease the pain. Thank you adaptive physiology. Equity was back in my hands in its sword form, ready for...an...y...thing...I trailed off in thought as my eyes widened.

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I looked up and found myself standing before a giant made of orange. Iroh's full spiritual form. A gigantic man easily above 20 meters tall. I had seen it briefly after gaining my new skill of spirit attunement but I had just thought it to be the aura his presence took but for him to turn into a huge astral projection so suddenly was throwing me off my game. Defeating him in his regular form had been hard already but now I had to fight this levelled up version of him?

I tapped into my spirit attunement and shut the skill off instantly. His presence was overwhelming. Iroh pulled back his leg, which I understand had been what I had evaded and raised it. I jumped out of the way as he stomped the ground on my position. The surroundings shook and rumbled. Sections of the earth broke off and the plateue that had been reduced to a hill was now reduced to a mound of rock and soil. I took to the air with my jet flames to escape the onslaught and come up with an effective strategy.

Then I found out that Iroh was not the least bit slower in this form, I couldn't move fast enough out of the way of his palm. So I turned Equity into it's anime size sword and covered my back. The smack came in loud and instant. It seemed like the ground came up to meet me instead of the other way around. A crater formed under me as I heaved...breath taken out of my lungs by the impact. I spat out blood, not knowing if it came from my bust lip or something else. My eyesight struggled to focus as Iroh came to my position. I was going to lose. No I...I couldn't give up. I...I don't want to give up!!

'Come on!' I shouted at myself as I shook my head in disorientation. My fingers stabbed into the soil and slow but sure, I rose up. Only for my knees to shake and for me to fall down in a heap again. 'Ok so that way is out.' I thought as I laid down on my back, sprawled out.

My eyes focused enough that I saw Iroh peer down at me. His form impeccably strong. His gaze having changed from that of a caring and wise old man into a combatant's who had seen more than enough of war and suffering. Who was I kidding thinking I could have beat him? Defeated someone with years of experience with a measly 3 months of my own experience under my belt. It sounded laughable. Still, this fight was his only when I couldn't fight back. As long as I had my wits about me...I was not going to give up! Time for a dangerous move. I couldn't move my body, but Equity could more than channel the element for me. I kneeded every ounce of inner energy I had within me, going a step further and taking a risk. I started mixing electric energy and thermal energy.

Iroh must have known what I was going to do as he raised his leg once more, intent on knocking me out with a sudden stomp. And unfortunately, he was faster. His foot came down before I could fully attack. I closed my eyes and waited for darkness only to see and feel light bloom through my eyelids and energy sense. I opened my eyes and saw a winding blue and purple shining coat. The shade giving off a feeling of power through it's panorama of color. A familiar figure. The small dragon had intervened!

A breath of energy left her mouth, as her front limbs gripped Iroh's giant foot with her claws. The energy was not regular fire but something of a darker purple. Shades deeper than the Dragon Patriarch's and oh so much stronger. Iroh was pushed back by it and the small dragon turned to me.

'Hurt?'

I got from a link that had naturally slotted in place between us. Weirdly, it was two links instead of one.

'Not hurt. Just tired. Really tired.'

I answered back. She floated closer to me and looked into my eyes. Questioning. Intelligent.

'Help?'

Once again she asked, offering.

'I would appreciate it.'

Not really seeing how she could help. And turns out I was right. She couldn't help but the other one could.

In the shadow of the small purple and blue dragon, one colored in green and white emerged. My mouth opened a little in shock. That's who the second link belonged to. There were two of them. The new dragon seemed to be shy in comparison to his sister but he still pulled in close to me and asked the same question. Intelligence blooming inside his eyes too.

'Help?'

I nodded. Noticing I could tell their genders even before I heard their voices. Feminine for the female and masculine for the male, just really young. Like the voices you would expect from two eight year olds.

'Yes please.'

If I could move, I could finish this fight, once and for all. Iroh had gone into his spirit form because I had hurt him in his human one. And now that he was a bigger target, there wasn't a shortage of places I could hit. The blue and purple dragon rubbed it's head on my shoulder before winding up and flying towards Iroh to distract him as I got back on my feet. The green dragon touched it's forehead into mine and I felt a white and pure flame run through my body, filling me with energy and power, while also telling me what the dragons were.

My shock and surprise was palpable. But it soon gave way to determination and hope. Maybe I could actually win this. That was the first meeting between me and two of the first spirits of the elemental dimension. Hakai and Saisei. The spirits of Destruction and Rebirth. The spirits of the fire plane. My first sapient creations.

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