Wang stood alone in his tent, staring at his spear. He was dressed head to toe in dark fatigues, short blades, knives, poison, and rope strapped to him. All that was left was his signature weapon—the spear that earned him his nickname – thousand spears Wang.
He'd wielded it with such fearsome mastery that one strike flashed with the fury of a hundred, or so the record keepers of Ba Sing Se claimed.
They didn't understand Chi when they saw it. Few did.
"Nothing good has ever come from it," he muttered.
Only Phantoms and those who've tasted his spear understood. Chi gathering stole life and fighting with it cheapened it.
But orders were orders. And he hoped he didn't have to kill anyone tonight. It was why he'd devoted himself and his ghosts to Chi-blocking.
No bender, no matter how powerful, was immune to it.
But things rarely go as planned. And it paid to be ready.
Hence the spear.
Wang sighed long as he ran his hand over his slicked-back hair.
Someone stepped into the tent behind him. They were light on his feet and reflexively held their breath. He'd caught it because he felt the shift in the Air, despite how disconnected he'd forced himself to become.
"We are waiting for you, Sir." He bowed.
"I'm sorry for keeping you all, Ming," Wang said, "but you, of all people, should understand."
"Hundreds died the last time you were forced to use that Spear," Ming said, her voice a whisper. "But you must bring it. It's better to have it and not need it...."
"...than to need it and not have it," Wang completed, then turned back and looked at her. "But I still think it's unnecessary. You forget that I am a weapons master. I could make chopsticks lethal." Wang cracked a rare smile.
"Chopsticks can't handle your Chi, Sir," she said rather dryly. "Only your spear can."
"I'll give up all of my master belts if I let an enemy bring me low enough to draw on Chi in a fight," Wang scoffed.
Ming rolled her eyes.
Wang was not one to boast, but he was convinced nothing could push him to draw on combat techniques.
He was the second oldest son of the Flacon and had over 35 years of experience discovering Chi alongside his Father. He was there when he visited Wa Shi Tong, and he was also there when the first of the ancient fell.
Wang watched his Father draw inspiration from the beings that transcended their understanding and forged a connection that forced his will upon the world with his ultimate technique-- One Mind.
It linked all of his offspring together, save for those who knew how to evade him. He did it every waking moment of every day, and when his nephew had come to him and told him about her Child. He'd taught her to do it too.
Father thought he heard one thing while the other happened. It was as potent as it was difficult. A few months and she'd have mastered it, skilled enough to escape his gaze and hide her Child forever.
But Old scars lingered. His deepest was from his time at the front, and hers' was during the only mission they carried out together.
"Please be safe, Misha," he murmured. His manicured brows crinkled with worry.
The memories came back with a fury.
Wang saw flashes of him wielding his spear, wearing the same worried look, except it was Misha who talked him up.
Their mission had been to end Darkfire corp-- the Fire Nation's response to the Phantoms. They used strange fire colours and wove lightning like water.
And Misha was in danger.
"Master?"
Ming's voice pulled him back to the present, and with a heavy breath, he stepped forward and picked up the spear despite his shaky hands. He filled his lungs with air and emptied them.
"I've delayed long enough," Wang said, turning around. "Is my Ostrich horse ready?"
Ming nodded.
"We leave at once, then."
Despite the weight he felt in his hand or the chill trailing up his spine, he had to be at his best. He had to be ready. Otherwise, what would the decades of war, the countless deaths at the siege 10 years ago, have been for?
Wang was not allowed to sit out the last stretch. His Nation needed him. The world did.
--
Samir was supremely paranoid for one with the world's most powerful army on his side.
He rotated his guard constantly, changed locations, and moved from city to city in a procession.
Although Wang suspected, it also had to do with his ability to control people.
The intelligence the Falcon had given was not wrong. Over the last week, he'd slowly made his way to the Fire Nation's largest harbour. There, hundreds of Ships waited for him. He planned to take the Northern Water tribe, and he planned to take it soon.
He was camped in a small fishing town, a day away from his destination, and it was the Phantom's last chance to capture him before he set sail.
Ming and a small group had travelled ahead as a small circus troupe to scout ahead, and he and Wang had kept an eye on Ming all week long.
Past midnight, when the guards rotated, would be their best shot at sneaking in, grabbing the boy and sneaking out.
Given the nature of his ability, Wang had taken every precaution. They'd all meditated before the mission, and he'd provided ear waxes to those following him into the building. Only Wang was to make contact with the target, and upon capture, Samir was to be gagged, blindfolded and bound. And even after all that, he would be sedated, and Wang would scan each crew member's signature multiple times during the ordeal.
Wang was ready as he'll ever be, and he'd brought his spear, wrapped up and strapped behind him just in case a fight broke out. But he had contingencies for that, even.
Just before midnight, Wang moved with his group, approaching the town from both ends. They slunk through the shadow, avoiding any guard they came across until they came to a building a compound away from where Samir was staying.
They waited in absolute quiet until they saw a candlelight in a window on the second floor of a building a few houses back. It burned for a few moments before it flickered off.
Wang smiled and said to Ming. "Your apprentice does not disappoint."
"She's coming along nicely, isn't she?" Ming said. "It's a small miracle she managed to pull it off."
"I will have to see her officially joining the troupe after this," Wang smiled. "The Young one has earned it."
After following Samir for nearly a week and having spies watch them for longer, they'd notice a pattern. Samir never ate food not prepared by his chef. He'd been paranoid before fighting Misha, but now he behaved like someone was hunting him.
And he wasn't wrong.
Misha must've warned him somehow. It was the only way Wang saw the child learn about his presence or mission. Even the Fire Nation didn't know who he really was.
Over the past week of meditation and consultation, Grandfather shared that he was slowly losing his connection to her. It was only a matter of time before they were completely dark.
If that happened, he feared that there'd be no saving her.
Wang set his jaw. He wouldn't let that happen.
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Samir might've been all but inaccessible, but his guards weren't. They stopped in town for food wherever they camped, and it wasn't hard to use a fine young girl to bait a few excitable guards to a restaurant with a flexible waiter. The guards on the midnight shift won't be on guard for long.
Wang waited for the shift change to happen, and they burst into action. Six of them slithered out, surrounding the entire compound and climbed in through hatches and roofs. The guards in front of his chambers were predictably dozing off, and all it took were two quick blow darts to the neck to help them on their merry way, but not without the help of a few ghosts to catch their fall and tuck away their bodies.
Wang advanced into the pitch-black room without making a sound, reminding himself not to kill the boy the entire time.
He and his counterpart were still children. It wasn't too late for them. All he wanted was his nephew back.
Wang didn't see the trap until he crossed the barely visible tripwire set at the door.
An explosion ripped through the compound, sending fire and smoke tumbling through the air. The little fish town shook. The two dozen residents and soldiers died in an instant. No ghost survived.
Only Wang stumbled out of the conflagration with his left side burned, body hunched over, out of his mind with pain.
'Damn it,' he tried to say, but only nervous gasps came out.
And tears.
They were gone.
His entire team, dead.
Every inch of Wang hurt, the smell of his burning muscles and fat almost as unbearable as the pain itself, but all he could think about was Ming and the rest of his ghosts. They'd been with him for over a decade.
Like a fool, he'd failed to scan the room before he entered, not that his Chi would've caught it. One-With-the-World saw a lot, but it was not perfect. And neither were his eyes. They'd lined up the traps—impossibly well, no doubt drawing from Misha's Knowledge.
Oh, Misha. That little tyrant still had her. If anyone knew their order's weaknesses, it was her.
If Samir dared hurt her, he'd pay!
Wang called on his Chi, and his body surged in response. Muscles began to knit themselves, burns scabbed, and his surviving eye burned red as his vision cleared.
One by one, the restraints he placed on himself came undone. Strength returned to his muscles, and his eyes worked through the heat haze, a part of him savouring the strength he'd forced himself to be without for over a year now.
Around him, he saw a team of benders advance. They wore pitch-black armour with red accents and vicious grins on their faces as they slowly spread out like wolves, cornering their prey. Unfortunately for them, he was no prey.
"A bomb and Dark fire…." Wang rasped, his throat raw. "The boy is a bigger coward than I thought."
"To see Thousand Spear Wang reduced to a walking corpse," one gloated. "This is a sight for the ages."
"It's even more shocking that he survived that," another said.
"Has the Avatar of fire whipped you like he's done the Firelord and half of the army, too," said Wang. "Shame, you were all something once."
"Your words fall on deaf ears," a man said, stepping forward with his blade drawn. He was missing one eye and maintained a healthy greying beard. "We are not foot soldiers that your speech can sway. Stand and die like the proud General you were once."
Wang blinked. "Cheng. It's been a while. I took one of your eyes when he last crossed paths. Maybe I'll take the second one today."
Cheng scowled, then burst out in a derisive laugh. "You have one eye yourself, Wang, and one hand left. You're oddly confident for a dead man."
Wang flexed his healing hand. I hurt like a bitch, but Cheng didn't need to know that. "It looks just fine to me." With a twist of his palm, he drew a shortsword from its sheathe at his side. It'd been the only weapon that survived.
"Come on, then," Wang said. "I don't have all night."
Cheng shifted his stance as he prepared for a fight, and that minute opening was what Wang needed.
He appeared in front of him, body pumping with Chi, blade mid-arc, and Cheng, despite his surprise, edged away quickly enough to escape with only a nasty cut to his collarbone.
Wang ticked his tongue. If only he'd been a smidgen faster.
Two others burst forth, fire enhancing their charge, while the third hung in the back slinging lightning.
Cheng came on the rebound, his sword covered in blue flame as he came swinging up. Wang side-stepped it and, with his hand strengthened with Chi, lopped off Cheng's sword arm.
He flipped behind the screaming man as the two fire benders came crashing down and caught the lightning the man hanging in the back was generating, channelled it through his blade and threw it at one of the two fire benders.
The reaction was instant. A shrill scream drowned out the roar of the fire and the madness that preceded. It was music to Wang's ears. The firebender's leg evaporated and exploded simultaneously, and he collapsed to the floor in a sputtering, jittering mess.
Wang grinned, his eyes glowing a malefic red. He'd missed fighting with Chi. He felt his senses grow as One-With-The-World gradually plugged him into the world around him. Every blade of grass, every burning wood, came under his scrutiny.
It was taking in a breath of country air after being trapped in a city for months.
'Why did I ever fight without this?'
He knew why. He didn't use his best judgement when he was like this.
"Who's the dead one again?" Wang laughed before he flashed before the Lightning bender, who flipped away in time and dodged three of his follow-up slashes. His body was coated in lightning, reams of sweat pouring from him, and he swung with a left hook so fast it caught Wang in the chin and sent a current rushing through him that rattled him to his core.
A nasty fireball exploded on his back a second later, baptising him in pain and undoing most of the healing he'd burned most of his Chi for.
A wave of red energy rippled from him and stopped when it formed a ball around him, shielding him from most of the fire.
Wang drew in deep breaths. Lightning reinforcement. A kind of adjacent to the Phantom's Chi reinforcement. He didn't think firebenders could do that.
"So, that's how he survived," the lightning user cursed, wiping away sweat.
"Stop gawking and attack him," Cheng commanded. "Can't let him recover," he growled as he cauterised his hand. "He'll gut us if you give him a moment to breathe."
Wang zipped forward at the same moment the lightning bender charged, blinking in front of him with a thunderclap. The punch came again, but Wang was burning more Chi this time, and he wove under the attack and delivered a nasty kick to the side in return. The bender gasped as the pain knocked him out of his obscure technique.
Before he could gather himself for another attack, Wang's wounded hand snaked forward, striking with precision. Six straight jabs rendered half of the lightning user's body useless. Wang swung down to end the biggest threat in the fight, but Cheng's blade rebuffed him just in time, and two large fireballs followed a breath later.
Wang frowned as he spun away from the attack. He was a bit miffed that the Lightning bender was alive, but he was out of the picture, at least for a while.
Cheng or the firebenders
Who would die next?
Cheng was fighting with his off-hand, while the fire benders had actually managed to endanger him.
The question answered itself.
Wang dashed towards Cheng, who raised his blade and ignited it with flame as he squared up, waiting. The firebenders hung back, leaning on each other for support.
Halfway to Cheng, Wang changed directions, bull-rushing the benders. They tossed fireballs, which he deftly dodged, not as effortlessly as he'd liked. The pressure mounted as he drew closer, and with a chi-assisted throw, he sent his blade flying straight into the neck of the wounded bender.
He turned into a blinking, gargling mess.
"No!" Cheng came swinging into view a split second later, just as his One-With-The-World predicted. Wang ducked to the left to dodge it while digging into Cheng's side with a Chi jab. He danced away before the last bender could chuck a fireball.
He was becoming a nuisance, but Wang hesitated to use Air in direct combat.
It was a gateway to Chi-infused air techniques and those threatened to shatter his tenuous balance.
He needed his wits about him if he would make it out of the town alive.
Wang raised a shaking hand and tracked down his spear with One-With-With-The-World. The fire that'd enveloped the compound spun out of control as his spear came tumbling out.
With a deft of his wrist, the spear arced wide to mulch the uninjured firebender, but he flipped away in time.
Wang juked and weaved through several of Cheng's furious attacks until he caught his spear, and then the tables turned.
With an easy grin, he overwhelmed Cheng with sharp stabs, swings, and quarter-staff techniques that gave him no room to unleash his fiery sword attacks. Even when he tried to unfurl and fire a longer crescent, it made no difference, and slowly his lack of skill with his off-hand was becoming his undoing.
His proximity to Cheng and clever angling kept the firebender from attacking him outright, but the occasional condensed flame bolt was getting on his nerves.
Wang's breathing also grew ragged. Chi reinforcement layered with healing was burning through his bountiful reserves faster than he anticipated. Layering Chi into his spear strikes didn't help the matter either.
A few more minutes of this careful dance, and the tables would turn. And then, he'd be in real danger.
He'd hoped the spear would be enough, but he was wounded and rusty. He couldn't afford to stall any longer.
Although he risked sending himself into a frenzy, losing all modicum of control he'd wrestled to gain for months after his episode. Wang gathered air, and his speed skyrocketed. Cheng's eyes bulged at the sudden increase. His shout of panic came to a fraction too late. Wang's spear slid past his weak defence and punctured his throat. The firebenders muscles tightened in shock, and a heartbeat later, his head rolled from his body, and his neck exploded in gore.
The wind blade had been so fast he'd never seen it coming.
Wang let out a victorious laugh before he doubled over as fatigue took him, and he collapsed to his knees. Yet his muscles sang with excitement.
Pure dopamine flooded his body as every inch of him begged to rip, tear, and fight.
The memories came flooding back. Hundreds sprawled on a battlefield of fire and ash, with him at the centre, soldiers on both sides dead. The Dark Fire squad had been better than he expected. Ten of them attacked as one, overwhelming he and Misha in a blink of an eye, and on instinct, he'd let the beast out.
How dare they!
They'd tried to ambush them as General Iroh had. Hundreds died that day because of one man's deceit.
No more!
The wind howled, the sky darkened, and a twister descended, and with a wave of his righteous spear, chaos descended.
--
Wang clutched his head, teeth shut so tight, he was sure they'd shatter as he relived his greatest blunder. It'd almost cost his nephew her life, and he promised himself he'd never lose himself like that again.
His eyes burned deep crimson, and the wind howled as he wrestled for and lost control.
Every moment brought him closer to an inevitable fall despite how much he struggled.
"General!"
A voice cut through the darkness. Just as she'd done for him a year ago on the battlefield, Misha's voice brought him back to harbour.
Wang's inhuman control over Chi and his element snapped back into place, bringing a sharp end to the storm brewing.
"Misha?" Wang called out, his working eyes flickering, scanning, but she wasn't in the square. She never was. After a moment of contemplation and meditation, he gathered himself. It took a great deal of self-control not to route through the hotel's remains for dead members of his troupe.
They deserved a hero's burial. His eye misted over as he dashed away from the battle scene. Samir might've won the battle, but he just started a war he couldn't hope to win. He was a coward like Iroh and the Dark Fire. Mission be damned, he was going to put him in the ground as he did them; mission be damned.
"Be strong, nephew," Wang said. "General Wang is on his way."