Grandfather fought back with an increasing clumsiness that belied his grief. His movements grew less refined, but still as razor-sharp as he'd come to expect from the leader of the Air Nation.

Some part of Aaron suspected that his current state was brought on by more than loss.

And it was then Aaron put it together.

‘Breaking into the system must be taking more out of him than he wants us to believe.’

His chi signature was still boundless, the output wasn’t just there.

Aaron switched on Reinforcement, and his chi exploded. Air currents buffeted around him as he struck, but as always, Grandfather was one step ahead. The ground underneath him suddenly shifted as he reached forward, sending Aaron spinning mid-air.

‘Earth?’ Aaron’s eyes widened. He hadn’t even caught the Chi.

Grandfather struck out with a fierce fiery kick with an almost apathetic disregard, but one of Aaron’s sub-minds surged. A jet of air sent his body pitching into the ground in time to dodge another overpowered burst of fire that incinerated dozens of soldiers rushing toward him.

Belatedly, he picked up that the attack had been a mixture of Fire and wind. Aaron wondered how his Grandfather was somehow managing to bend three of the four elements.

'Was this because he bonded with the Avatar previously?'

Aaron’s legs whipped around as he came up, sending two wind blades at the old man. Paku leaped above it and came down with an axe kick that Aaron already anticipated with One-with-the-world. He used White flash to quickly dash to his grandfather’s flank and released an empowered wind blade screaming towards the Old man’s neck.

A rotating wall of spirit and wind countered the blow before a ball of empowered wind slammed hard into his gut, nearly knocking him out of his empowered state. Again, Aaron had barely caught the Chi fluctuations. The temple kick that followed easily unraveled his Chi.

Aaron winked awake in time to see a boot crashing down. Somehow, his wounded body was whisked away in time by swift Earth bending.

Aaron came to stop beside Mark, who raised his hand, spawning dozens of metal bits from the ether. They swelled with Chi before ripping towards the old man at near supersonic speeds.

"What kept you away for so damn long?" Aaron demanded.

"You may find this hard to believe, but I can't move around faster than the eyes could track or use whatever bogus technique both of you are using. I would've been holding you back."

Paku launched himself into the air with an earth platform that came right along with him.

And as he came down, Aaron felt the platform fill with Chi. They broke into hundreds of pieces and fell to the ground like missiles.

Aaron and Mark blurred as they leaped, pivoted, somersaulted, and assisted each other with bending. Paku’s landing sent a wave of Chi that changed the landscape of the battlefield, generating platforms and depressions that warped the battlefield.

The very next second, Aaron felt a wave of sickeningly dense Chi ripple out. It was like the full intensity of the afternoon sun was focused on his eyes. He had to shut off One-with-the-world.

‘Gah,’ he grunted, and Mark hissed beside him. “We can’t go on like this. How does he have this much Chi?”

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“A lifetime of practice and stealing it,” Aaron said, rubbing the side of his head. “Keep your eyes open. He was dangerous enough when we could barely see him coming.”

“What’s the play here?” Mark asked, deferring to Aaron. The airbender’s multi-mind worked synchronously for the briefest moments before settling on a solution.

“Layer feints with your minds into your attacks. If we’re lucky, he’ll be as blind as we are, but knowing Grandfather, we probably won’t be as lucky. If that doesn’t work, we overwhelm him like we initially planned. With his focus split, he should have a lower tolerance.”

Mark blinked. “Huh, that’s a solid strategy. But if that doesn’t work?”

Aaron breathed as he shifted into a fighting stance. “We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”

Mark nodded and then added. “Aaron?”

“yeah?”

“I am really sorry about your Uncles.”

Aaron clenched his jaw and held back the sudden wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.

“It’s neither the time nor place. Focus on the fight ahead of us,” Aaron almost barked.

“Right,” Mark shrunk back slightly.

With those words, Aaron shifted his mental stack. Previously, one mind had been set to One-with-the-world, and the other maintained the trap, but with Mind One free, Aaron elected to make it the full-time fighting assistant.

No sooner had he done this than my senses picked up a rapidly approaching whistling sound. He instantly switched on Chi reinforcement in anticipation of some attack, but what came was a wave of Mist that obscured everyone and everything, plunging them into near-darkness.

--

Across from the boys, Yara and Harlan were in the middle of the greatest duel of their lives. Yara was like a spider, striking out with limbs and blades, sharpened to a knife point with air, while Harlan kept her back with his rough and rowdy style that mixed fist fighting and occasional airballs.

Yara gritted her teeth as she dove out of the way of an air-boosted high knee that flowed seamlessly into a sucker punch to the face. The second caught her in the arms, punting her several feet back as Harlan advanced with a roar.

She was fully tuned in. Her chi senses dialed in to predict future movement. The only problem was that when her opponent was burning Chi-reinforcement nearly as fast as her, it became damn near impossible to anticipate their attacks. She was doubly fucked because that opponent was her own flesh and blood. She had to hold back.

With a grunt, Yara summoned dozens of stingers, further draining her Chi, and pitched it forward at blistering speeds. Harlan responded how she’d predicted, sending his own volley to intercept hers while still maintaining a forward charge.

He might know how she moved, but she remembered how he thought.

She vaulted over his right hook, pulling a wire from her pouch, she twirled it around her arm, pulling it down with a current of air. The maneuver drove Harlan to his knees. She didn't stop there, however. She slipped between his legs and wrapped him up in layers of metal string until it was tight and snug.

“I don’t want to fight you, Harlan,” she said. “And you need to stop putting your trust in the old man. He tried exactly what he told us not to do, and the traveler’s patrons did not take it well. He needs to go, and we’ve only got a handful of hours before we're literarily scorched from the earth.”

“Since when have we ever listened to those travelers?” Harlan snorted as wind burst from his body, shredding the wire holding him. “They’ve lied to us since the first moment we met them.”

“Stop being so goddamn stubborn,” Yara practically yelled as she sent a razor-thin wind blade aimed at his leg.

Harlan sidestepped it and received Yara expertly as she tackled him. She attempted to wrap her legs around his neck, but he shoved her away and upwards. Her dagger fanned out in a wide arc as she came down. Harlan countered with an expanding blanket of air that sent all blades fanning out. Her rate of descent suddenly tripled at the very last moment as she slipped in a bit of spiritual energy for the extra boost.

Harlan panicked, erecting his strongest wind barrier, further over-drafting his Chi and spiritual energy. The bubble popped like a water balloon, allowing Harlan enough distance to attack with a concentrated gust of wind. Moments before his attack connected, two of her knives stabbed into the meaty chunks of his thighs.

He grunted but unleashed the attack anyway, and she parted it with both of her fingers focused to a point, her eyes resolute. “If I have to beat you listen. Then—”

Her voice cut off when she felt it, and both of their energies snuffed out. Ren and Wang. An Icy chill spread through her.

“No,” she whispered, and Wang froze entirely before he let out a wild bellow that reverberated through the battlefield before quickly cutting out.

In the next instant, Wang’s eyes turned bloodshot, and he lunged at her, but without his usual finesse. It was like he was possessed, and although distressed, he was laughably easy to bring him to a halt with a funnel of wind. He tried to break out of it, pitching his will against hers, but she noticed it was noticeably weaker. There was a hint of something familiar on the surface. Something that filled her with dread.

"No..." she whispered in a shaky voice. "He wouldn't."