Chapter 25: 25. Vulcan

24: Vulcan

Vulcan raised a pillar of earth so that he looked down on them while he spoke.

"My whole life, people hated me because they feared my father or despised my mother. Which one are you, Phantom?" 

"Neither," Aaron said. "I hate you plenty enough for melting my men." 

Vulcan laughed.

"Aaron," Mark said, "you might want to stop staring at the crazy person and shoot a wind blade at him or something."

"It's going to take more than a wind blade to kill him," Aaron said, appraising Vulcan. So far, he'd shown outrageous destructive abilities, and the way he controlled Lava was like nothing Aaron had ever seen before, but he picked up on the patterns. Lava flowed fast, but it was slow in the beginning, and Aaron was faster than Vulcan. All he had to do was overwhelm him before he ramped up his Lava bending.

"I supposed we better get started," Aaron thought as he sucked in air and let out a sharp whistle that made everybody clamp their ears and cringe. When Sato looked at Aaron, the Airbender gestured towards the rock at the entrance, and he understood.

 Sato shot off towards the entrance, and Vulcan reacted immediately, lobbing a rock infused with Lava to stop him, but Mark came to the rescue with a chunk of his own that shattered the fragile magma-infused shard of rock.

As the attacks cancelled each other out, Aaron was already in the air with a chi-assisted jump, halfway to Vulcan. His chest swelled with air and Chi, and he let out a gust that cooled the magma around them and knocked Vulcan off his platform.

He went tumbling to the ground while Aaron followed, readying another gust, but Vulcan slammed his hands onto the ground, causing it to explode in a visceral spray of bricks and Lava, and Aaron was forced to use the cool air he'd gathered. 

As the floor cooled, Vulcan raised a tall wall between them, which Aaron ran towards, only for it to explode outwards in Lava. A long jet of cold air flowed from Aaron's mouth, cooling the Lava solid as he floated back.

Wheezing, Vulcan swept his hand forward, reigniting the rock again, and pushed, forcing Aaron further back from him as Lava raged forth. 

Vulcan grinned when he saw the sweat pooling on Aaron's face.

"A little hot isn't it," he said. 

"You just sealed us in. If I'm feeling the heat, so are you," Aaron said. Vulcan's face tightened in a rare show of emotion.

"You might be skilled, but you're still a child, and I've killed people far more powerful."

"From what I've seen so far, I highly doubt it. I hope you're as good as a bender as you are a liar?" 

Vulcan growled and pulled three floating rocks and chucked them at Aaron, who flipped back who flipped to the side to dodge. Mid-air, he unleashed a powerful gust that picked up Lava and turned it right back at Vulcan. 

The Lava bender's eyes went wide, and he frantically swung his hand forward, trying to reverse the flow like a water bender would, but that opened him up to a chunk of rock that Mark fired.

It hit so hard that Aaron heard a crunch.

Vulcan was thrown back, rolling and screaming, and Aaron followed up with two wind blades that crashed into and decimated half of a hastily-erected rock wall the bender managed to conjure up at the last second.

Mark took the feather-fist stance and fired chunk after chunk of earth that whittled down Vulcan's strength even as he raised wall after wall to shield himself.

"You've probably never fought anyone who wasn't afraid of you," Aaron said as he gathered even more air and Chi and unleashed another powerful Wind blade that obliterated the last of Vulcan's fortification, but he wasn't there.

The ground under what was left of his fortification suddenly rumbled, and a wave of stone burst from the ground and shot toward Mark, who was somewhere behind Aaron. Aaron flipped out of the way on instinct, and Mark shifted the earth under him at the very last moment to avoid the tackle. 

Aaron's heart skipped a beat. It was the same move Igi used to use when they practised. And now, it belonged to Mark.

Vulcan pivoted after his miss but did not come to aim for them this time. Instead, he raced towards the tunnel he'd just emerged from. Mark sent an earth wave of his own, shooting short columns of spiky rocks to intercept Vulcan's, but the man just borrowed deeper into the ground and emerged underneath the attack. 

Aaron sent blast after blast of air at the fast-travelling, rumbling form of Vulcan with his teeth gritted. Vulcan was going to get away, and Aaron had no doubt fighting him when he'd had the time to prepare would be hell.  

They had to stop him.

"Sato!" Aaron bellowed, and thankfully the Earthbender answered. Sato lifted himself into the air with a platform and landed a few feet away from the tunnel. He stomped the ground hard and pulled to collapse it, closing off Vulcan's escape route, but it was too late. The wave passed the wall of rubble just before it came down.

"Fuck!" Aaron growled and sent a wind blade splashing into the wall of rock. He felt a sudden urge to pull his hair out. 

He couldn't seem to catch a fucking break today. 

"Can we get through it?" Aaron turned to Sato.

"Without crushing him and potentially compromising the tunnel he was digging? No." 

Aaron weighed the danger of letting an opponent like him live against finding out whatever his plans were and decided there was no choice at all. "Do it." 

"Mark, give me a hand," Sato said. "We are going to be shoving all that rock back. Remember, we gather momentum first. Then we command the Earth to move." 

"I remember," Mark said offhandedly as he came forward. Together they ran up to the wall, stomped, and when they tried to shove back the earth, it burst into Lava, splashing outwards. 

The world seemed to slow down as Aaron roused his Chi and shot a chi-infused gust to push Mark and Sato out of the way, but he was not fast enough. Some of the backsplash got on Sato's hand, and his howl of pain shook the entire chamber.

Aaron watched in excruciating detail as the Lava chewed through skin, muscle, and then bone. He had little choice but to take off Sato's hand with a swing of his blade.

Sato's screams reached new heights.

"Holy fuck, Holy fuck," Mark screamed as he sat up and crawled back. "Why would you do something like that!"

"He was in pain. I had to do something," Aaron yelled back. "Stop staring at him bleeding out. I'll cut him out of his armour, and you'll cut out the water tank."

"There's so much blood," Mark murmured and froze in place. He started to move again when he saw Aaron place pressure on the wound with one arm while he cut Sato's armour off.

The man tried to speak a few times, but he came across as unintelligible as they worked. In moments, Sato's wound was washed up and wrapped up, but he was still a screaming, drolling mess.

"Fuck me," Mark breathed as his body vibrated. With a sudden growl, he chucked a large piece of earth at the molten entrance of the tunnel. It crashed ineffectively against its base. As Mark raised his hand to summon another piece of stone, Aaron grabbed Mark.

"Get a hold of yourself!"  

"But he…he."

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"I know," Aaron grimaced. "And he'll die for what he's done."

"I thought he'd never shut up," Vulcan's voice echoed from the tunnel.

"Fuck you!" Mark yelled and Aaron had to hold Mark back.

 "I would say it's nothing personal, but you understand now, don't you?" he said. "The cost of going war with me. You can all still walk away from this. None of you needs to suffer as Sato has."

"The captain is still very much alive," Aaron said with an icy tone.

"He won't be for long if you don't get him medical attention." 

Aaron's fist tightened and he spoke with a monotone voice. "There's no escape for you. If it's not Sato or me, it will be the King himself. We know you're related to the royals because you somehow found a map to navigate this death trap, and we know one of your parents is at least a firebender. Most important of all, I know what you look like. There is no place in the Earth Nation you can hide. You'll look over your shoulder for the rest of your short and miserable life. Why don't you save us all the time and surrender? If you cooperate, I can, at the very least, promise you won't die screaming." 

Vulcan laughed. "You're good at what you do, Phantom, but so am I. I wouldn't have earned the title Smuggler King if I couldn't hide my tracks well."

 "No one escapes us," Aaron simply said.

"You're no King, Vulcan," Mark snapped. "And no one is coming to fucking save you. Forget Aaron; I'll be the one to cave your fucking head in for what you did to Sato."

"You have quite the mouth on you, don't you, little mouse?" Vulcan smirked, "but the adults are talking."

"The fuck did you just–" Aaron's shoulder squeeze stopped him from saying any more.

"He's only trying to get a rise out of you," Aaron frowned. "Don't let him." 

"He's scum," Mark hissed. "He melts every single person we came down with, and he still fucking jokes about it."

Aaron peered at Mark, surprised by the boy yet again. He had a conscience or bearing of a sense of justice. From his actions so far, he'd thought he saw them all as pawns. 

Perhaps there was more to him than met the eyes.

"A Phantom teaching an Earthbender? how touching," Vulcan mused. "I thought you were all murderous mercenaries," Vulcan broke out into a coughing fit towards the end.

"You act so certain, Vulcan," Aaron smiled as he slowly stalked the collapsed entrance, "but the way I see it, you're the mouse trapped in a cage. Escaping to the surface is a death sentence. If you don't drown in the reservoirs, you'll fall to the legions of troupes that patrol the facilities below the city, and that's if your body doesn't give up first." 

"Your man will bleed out before my wounds become fatal," Vulcan said, some of the worry seeping through his voice.

"Probably," Aaron frowned. "But we'll wait you out if that's what it takes." Aaron searched Mark's for an objection, but he said nothing. 

It appeared his conscience did not override his desire for self-preservation. That made him predictable.

Vulcan snorted. "I should've expected no less from a killer."

"What can I say?" Aaron said in an aloof voice. "I won't deny what I am, but you, on the other hand, are certainly no mastermind or royalty. What was your plan for coming to the under city? Give the fire Nation a secret path into the city? We would've collapsed the tunnel as soon as we sensed them. Or maybe you're on the hunt for gemmanite, Mechant Lord," Aaron sneered.

"Face it, Vulcan, you're out of your depth. Surrender while you're still alive. Don't force us to come through that wall."

"So young, yet so brazen," Vulcan hissed, his voice dripping with poison. "You remind me so much of the insufferable twats I grew up with. I enjoyed melting every single one of them."

What was his end game? Aaron wondered.

But did it matter? All they had to do was kill him. However, Aaron wasn't eager to start another fight. Sato would not survive. Despite what he'd said, he respected the man too much to sacrifice him if there was an alternative. 

And from the look in Mark's eyes, there didn't seem to be one.

The Lava bender had to die. Preferably sooner rather than later.

According to Uncle Wang, Lavabenders were the second most lethal type of soldiers the fire Nation had ever produced. 

Combustion benders were the absolute worse.

When the Falcon learned that the Fire Nation was raising a squad of Lava benders in secret, he dropped a tornado on the mountain compound, wiping out every recruit, their trainers, and parent.

Then he went after the officials who commissioned the programs. While many Phantoms fell in the retaliation that followed, the Falcon had argued that the sacrifice had been necessary, and from what Aaron had seen Vulcan do, he could understand the decision.

A fully trained Lava bender could get through any defence. Walls might well be paper. Ba Sing Se would've fallen the second they got a Lava bender to the wall, and Vulcan could do the same to Omashu if he ever escaped. 

"Aaron," Mark called, pulling Aaron from his thoughts. "We have to get him. Remember, I don't have much of a choice." 

"Or Samir gets ahead," Aaron muttered, rubbing his forehead. He'd almost forgotten about the shitstain that took his cousin.

Sato was smiling when Aaron finally gathered the courage to look at the man he'd be damning. Most of the bleeding had stopped, but Aaron saw that he was barely holding on.

"I understand, kid," he said, shaking as he struggled to his feet. "And this is not the time to get sentimental. Remember the King's orders. Vulcan has to go." 

 "How very touching!" Vulcan's voice boomed out, and the entire chamber suddenly trembled. The floor cracked, and Lava bubbled forth, spreading a network of fissures that slowly swallowed up everything. 

The fucker had been buying time. How could he have been so naive.

Aaron cursed under his breath as he pulled Sato himself with a Vacuum pull and thew the man over his shoulder. He bolted towards the exit, and Mark followed behind, summoning a pillar that boosted him over the rapidly melting floor. One-eight of the way there, chunks of earth started raining down from the low-hanging roof.

Aaron tried to dodge the debris by flaring Chi, but he was just too slow with Sato draped over his shoulder. It bounced off Sato, pressing into his back and sending both of them spilling into the floor, while Mark slammed into a rock chest first into a rock that dropped in front of him at the last moment.

"You were fools to underestimate me. You bickered in front of me like I wasn't even there," Vulcan's voice echoed. "Samir would be very disappointed in his so-called mortal enemy."

Aaron went still when he heard the name, and Mark shot him a look across the room.

"You're working for Samir!"

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