Operation: Interception <Wilderness, EarthKingdom>

[suki]

The princess showed herself to be quite agile with that dodge, and Suki made fast to follow her while she was on the defensive. From her teachings of firebending and her personal experience, she knew that yopu could not give up the offensive against them. Their element was almost useless for defense, but if you gave them range and time they would easily overwhelm you with firepower.

However, Tsuya beat her to the punch. The other Kyoshi warrior had been charging Azula from behind while she had avoided Suki's strike, and she had simply re-angled herself to attack the princess before she could fully recover. Suki grinned and joined the attack as well. She darted behind Tsuya, crossing over the path she'd just been through in order to use her charge as an optical barrier. With any luck, the cross-over would be enough to shake Azula's focus on her while she darted a few yards to the side and came at her left flank.



Meanwhile, Aoi and Kopa were not having as much luck with their opponent. The rather pale looking girl with the penchant for pointy objects was doing well in keeping them pinned down... literally. She seemed to have no limit to the projectiles in her sleeves, and her accuracy was nearly perfect. She was strafing them on her lizard mount, using the smoke screen to her own benefit as she would pin down the heavy skirts of their Kyoshi armor and then charge with the lizard. The first two times they had managed to avoid being hit, but eventually Kopa took a hard swipe from the creature's tail that sent her tumbling across the ground painfully.



On the other side of the field, Aoru and Hana had been unable to locate the thrid target among the three girls. Their search had brought them to the edge of the smoke screen where they could see the battle was turning into an all out rout. The Fire Nation was driving back the Earth kingdom soldiers, and more and more men were turning their attention to the smoke cloud behind their lines. The two Kyoshi warriors had managed to hold off the handful that were coming at them in order to determine the fate of their princess, but their were quickly organizing.

"Suki!" Aoru called into the mist after batting aside a Fire Nation spear and removing the hand of its owner, "We have to go!"

[zilong]

Though the sound of battle was loud, Zilong still heard the voice of someone inside the war crawler yelling up at him from within, and let out a deep, bellowing laugh in response. Well, part of the laugh came from the battle itself, which seemed to be quickly coming to a close. The Earth Kingdom forces were crumbling under the pressure. It seemed hardly even like a battle worth fighting anymore. However, from his vantage point on top of the tank, he saw the signs of battle where it shouldn’t have been: behind their lines, where Princess Azula and her entourage should have been. Zilong’s eyes widened. The Princess had seemed strong enough, but if she were harmed, this battle would be a defeat no matter what else happened. Cursing, Zilong banged Bora Gan’s tetsubo down onto the roof of the tank to get the attention of those inside, and went to one knee.

“Head for our rear! The Princess is under attack!” he half yelled to whoever was inside the war crawler.

Standing up, Zilong took a moment to regain his balance, and then ran forward and leapt of the front of the war crawler. The speed of the war crawler combined with his own speed, little though it was, was enough to send the large man hurtling forward, over the remainder of the fight and rolling into the dirt. He took a moment to get back to his feet, but while the fall had hurt, the harm was purely superficial thanks to his armor and his own decision to roll rather than try to land on his feet. As such, he immediately started jogging towards the rear, where several soldiers were being beat back by…two young colorfully dressed girls? Were he in a right state of mind, he would have been shocked, perhaps to the point of freezing, but his blood was still boiling from the battle around him. They were enemies between him and the Princess, and that was what mattered.

“Suki, we have to go!”

“You go nowhere!”

Turning towards the sound of the yell, the girl got her shield up just in time to block the tetsubo that came crashing into it. Although it was a clumsy, one handed swing, the weight of the weapon and Zilong’s remaining strength were still enough to send the girl stumbling backwards. The second warrior girl, seeing her comrade in danger rushed towards Zilong as the large veteran turned to face her. He swung wildly with his guan dao.

With speed that surprised Zilong, she ducked under the swing and whirled her sword about towards the hand that held the guan dao, knocking the weapon from his grasp. Her shield swung out to her other side, colliding with his tetsubo and preventing it from coming into play. Still moving forward, the girl leapt up and drove her knee into Zilong’s abdomen, just under his outer armor. Zilong bent forward and stepped backwards with his left foot, letting out a grunt as the blow hit him, but while that blow would have been more than enough for your average soldier, Zilong managed to fight through the pain. Grinning wolfishly down at the stunned warrior girl for a moment, Zilong then proceeded to quickly finish her off with a vicious head-butt right to her headguard.

Blood dripping from his forehead where it had hit the girl’s headguard, Zilong turned around as the defeated girl slumped to the ground, unconscious. He was greeted by her comrade, who had recovered and was now lunging straight towards him, her sword raised. She feinted a high strike, but suddenly stabbed towards Zilong’s gut. The feint caused Zilong to hesitate, making him unable to block it, but he managed to step to the side to avoid a serious blow. The blade stabbed into his left side, avoiding any organs but bringing a stinging pain. Before the girl could cause more damage, Zilong’s free left hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat.

The large man lifted her up off the ground, grinning wickedly as she clawed at his hand, desperate to get free. Her eyes weren’t pleading or scared, but angry and full of fire like a wolverines. But her face…her face was still just that of a young girl. Zilong’s smile slowly faded as the bloodlust began to leave him and sanity began to take hold. She looked so young, maybe she was in her teens at the oldest. Was this how far the Earth Kingdom was going? Sending little girls into battle? As the girl slipped into unconsciousness, Zilong let her fall to the ground, opting not to finish her off. Just because the Earth Kingdom was losing its honor didn’t mean that he would have to lose his own.

Panting even more heavily than before, Zilong pulled the sword from his side and gingerly bent over and retrieved his guan dao. He shifted his gaze towards where the princess was still battling. In his wounded wand weary condition, he could not help much at any rate, and the Princess looked confident. Besides, that war crawler would hopefully be showing up any minute now, and if the Princess didn’t put a stop to her enemies, then that machine most certainly would.

[prodigy]

It was time to break out the big guns so to say. Azula was still cornered by the two kyoshi warriors, approaching now from about a 45 degree angle on each side. She was backing up against the trees, feeling the heat from the fires that were consuming this area of the forest. The princess sneered as she kept lifted her arms upward, palms turned out to the women approaching her. It looked almost like a surrender, but of course, they were took smart to realize that. The Princess continued to back up, her eyes switching back and forth between the women.

She dropped suddenly downward, rotating her body 90 degrees away from Tsuya. She hovered on her toes, balacing so delicately as she swung the arm behind her, towards the trees forward. Her fingers curled into a fist, her index and middle finger remaining out however with skyblue tipped flames trailing behind her. Her srm swung through the air infront of her, and as her hand passed her midpoint, Azula began to straight back up and turn back towards the women. Her hand passed through the air, aure colored flames swirling around her finely filed nails. Her arm reached it's full extension as the Princess reached her full height, her haunting brass eyes meeting with Suki's warm, chocolate eyes.
She pressed her body forward, in preparation for the recoil as a swirling burst of flames exploded from her fingertips. The fires curled through the air in a swirling motion spiralling towards Suki's torso. The explusion of the energy pushed her body back onto her far foot, and Azula rocked into her heel. She lowered her body once more like she had before, this time, never letting her eyes leave the other girl. Her weight was poised perfectly over the one knee and ankle as her forward arm drew back, the same time the arm that had been behind her repeated the same motion.

Fingertips drew through the air, the colorful fires swirling at their tips. it was time to end them. Azula rose up to her first height, throwing her body forward on her other foor, allowing the wind to throw the tendrils of hair back against her head. She swung her arm through the air under her torso, and as her fingers reached their peak, there was that same eurption. Flames swirled forth, a mixure of blinding white and azure, swirling towards the other girl's chest.

[vu]

Mischevious was the grin that crossed the Vu's forward driver's face while he watched the bossy infantryman who once stood atop their warcrawler. Clutching the forward engine's throttle the driver, nicknamed Maru Maru, watched as the giant leap ahead of them from off the warcrawler.

"Sir," Maru Maru barked, "requesting permission to increase speed, sir!"

"Request granted," Vu replied, his sight more focused on where the infantry soldier was directing them. "But avoid the running down the freeloader," he continued, to Maru Maru disappointed moan. "He still has to pay his fare," he tugged on the hatches to either side of him.

From either side of Vu's warcrawler, bought of controlled flame spat out in quick succession of small and large globules, streams and arcs. Messaging the crews of the other war crawlers rather than attacking the enemies about them. As the six war crawlers neared the line of their own formations Vu and another began to speed forward, driving single file into the open spaces left for them as they rode towards Princess Azula's position. Their aim kept on the random spats of blue flame further in the forest. Meanwhile the other four war crawlers simply came to a halt, their captains turning around in their gunnery chairs before the machines began to move in reverse. Driving back into the crumbling and fleeing enemy ranks.

[suki]

Suki was forced to making a diving roll forward in order to avoid the searing blast of heat from Azula. The jet stream of flames would have knocked her sideways if she'd attempt to block with her shield. She hit the ground with her shield first and barrelled over it, coming gracefully into a crouch a heartbeat later. At that point, from elsewhere she could hear Aoru's warning that they had to escape.

Before she could look back to locate her second in command through the thinning smoke, a cry from Tsuya captured her attention. The other Kyoshi warrior had attempted to side-step Azula's follow-up strike, but hadn't managed to get far enough out of the line of attack. The explosive force of the blast hit her shield hard and spun her to the ground.

Suki's heart was racing, and for a split moment she managed to turn her head and survey the battlefield. Not far away she could see the forms of Kopa and Aoi littering the ground by the girl riding the lizard. And further to the left she managed to witness Aoru being manhandled by a massive Fire Nation soldier. Her warriors, her friends, were defeated...

She had to swallow a lump that was rising in her throat, resisting the sudden impulse to give in to despair. Instead Suki hardened her resolved and seethed out a steadying breath. There was still one way to keep hope alive.

"Tsuya!" she called to her downed comrade who was just starting to rise, "Get out of here! Go get help!" Suki had shifted her sword into her left hand for a moment and reached behind her belt with her right. There she grabbed onto the last smoke signal that Bora Gan had givn them and pulled it free. When Tsuya didn't make an immediate move, she yelled, "NOW!"

And at that she pulled hard on the string that lit the signal's fuse and pointed the firing end at Azula's feet. A heartbeat later, the tiny rocket shot forward and hit the ground, exploding a large cloud of smoke over the battlefield once more.

[zilong]

Zilong turned in time to see a cloud of smoke engulf where the Princess had been fighting. His head now a little clearer, he realized that this was actually a good sign. Her opponents were trying to escape using the smoke as cover, most likely. Still, he thought the Princess might need to be checked up on, and so he took a step forward. However, a cry of pain and anger from behind made him stop. Turning, he saw a one handed soldier stumble towards him, clutching a knife and glaring wildly at the girl at his feet.

“You bitch! You bitch! I’ll make you pay!”

Than man raised the knife and moved to stab the girl, but Zilong hastily stepped in. Before the man could bring the knife down, Zilong grabbed his wrist, stopping it in mid motion. The man struggled for a moment, but a squeeze from Zilong caused him to drop the knife. The veteran soldier kept a grip on the man’s wrist, snarling down at the man. His injury was bad, to be sure, but to lose his sanity over it? Disgraceful. How had such a man been allowed into Fire Nation armor, much less the 502nd infantry division?

“Soldiers do not murder defeated opponents,” Zilong growled. “Especially when someone else defeated them.”

“But my hand! My hand…”

“Is gone, and slaughtering a defeated girl won’t bring it back,” interjected a new, more calm voice. “Now go find a medic before you do something stupid.

Both heads turned in the direction of the new voice to find Captain Wenyuan striding towards them. Behind him, the battlefield was far less chaotic then what it had been like before. The war crawlers of the Lucky Eight had decimated the Thunderfist, first from the rear, and then from the front. There were few left, and most of those were attempting to find a way to retreat. The day was won, and so Wenyuan had left his second in command in charge of the clean up while he went to check on the Princess. The one handed soldier relented, and Zilong let go of his wrist. The man nearly collapsed, and Wenyuan hastily swooped in the help him up. After taking a moment to burn shut the wound where his hand used to be, the captain sent the man stumbling off towards the medics and directed a pair of soldiers to secure the defeated girl warriors.

Zilong stared at the warrior girls for another moment, then turned back to his captain. The man was giving the older sergeant a look that couldn’t quite be placed. After a moment, though, he turned towards the cloud of smoke as a war crawler arrived not far from them. Walking next to the crawler, Zilong, Wenyuan and a few other soldiers headed towards the smoke cloud to go check on the Princess.

[aaronaaronaaron]

Ty Lee squirmed and struggled at her feet that had been bound to the ground. A massive rock hurled toward her and she did her best to try and absorb the massive blow, pulling it into her chest as it ripped her out of the ground and pushing her back onto the floor.

The rock lay on top of her, and she laid gasping for air. The two earthbenders she defeated still lay squirming on the floor like worms. Ty Lee seemed to be in luck however, as this line seemed to have been overrun without the full attention of the earth benders wall. The men that had subdued her were busy fighting and were all ready scorched by the oncomming flames.

Ty Lee began pushing the massive rock off her chest, it began to budge but Ty Lee felt exahsted and was running out of breath.

"Maybe.. I'll just take a quick nap." Ty Lee gasped and laid her head down.

[prodigy]

Azula's cool and collective facade fell for one moment as she gasped at the incoming blast, but her quick thinking mind maintained itself. As the explosion rocketed around her, she swept her arms through the air. She brought her hands from down at her hips up behind her, over her head and down in front of her to a single point, creating a shield of fire over her upper body, flaring out behind her clasped hands like the folded wings of a phoenix.

The shock wave of the small, firework-like flare passed quickly, leaving smoke simply pouring upward from the ground. The Princess lowered her hands, and began to walk forward through the smoke, a satisfactory grin on her face. Her golden eyes narrowed like a cat's eyes would when stalking prey, and her pale face turned down to the warrior in the facepaint who now laid on the ground.
As Azula tilted her head to gloat, her tendrils of hair swayed, the enameled diadem catching the light from it's place of honor on her topknot. Lifting her hands up, two fingers on each prepped, the princess began to slow, dramatic movements of separating the energies.

One arm lifted upward, over her head in a circular motion, the other arm following shortly after in the opposite direction. She brought her fingertips together just under her bosom, her eyes never leaving the woman on the ground before her. She spoke, singsong in her words of praise, emphasizing the true insult. "You fought well to protect the walls of Ba Seng Sei but nothing lasts against the ages."

With those last words, Azula seperated her fingers, the icy-blue glow already surrounding her well groomed nails. She arched one arm up to the sky, a crackling energy surrounding her and lifting the hairs on the back of her neck. Small electric bolts danced around her fingers before she brought them down in a swoop, the bolts aimed for the Kyoshi warrior.

[suki]

Tsuya pushed herself to her feet and bolted the moment Suki fired the smoke signal. A rush of grey haze surged out around her, and it was several more moments before she outran the immediate blast radius of the cloud. The warrior was headed straight for the treeline which had largely been burnt to a crisp. The flames had started to die down in some areas where the loose shrubs had been burned away, but there were still plenty of embers and ashes raining down. Tsuya merely put her shield over her head to keep her hair from catching flame and charged through. Tears were streaming down the sides of her face as she left her friends and companions behind.

Meanwhile, Suki had shifted sround Azula in order to put herself between the Fire Nation princess and her fleeing comrade. Her sword was clutched in both hands and pointed forward at Azula, ready to do battle. However, instead of pressing the attack in order to try and get to the fleeing warrior, Azula seemed to be taking her sweet time. It wasn't until the smoke started to thin and her silhouette became visible against the haze that Suki saw the first blue spark of light. It arces through the air, trailing Azula's fingers. Suki tensed up but held her ground. She had never seen something like this before.

A second arc cross through the air, flowing in the opposite direction. Azula's voice spoke out ominously through the cloud, "You fought well to protect the walls of Ba Seng Sei but nothing lasts against the ages."

Suki wasn't sure exactly what was coming, but she knew she could expect some fireworks. Turning her sword point down, she quickly thrust it into the soft ground before her and then ducked tightly behind her shield. Both arms braced the metal disc on her arm and the stuck one leg straight out behind her for support.

In the next instant, all she heard was the crackle of electricity and a flash of blue-white light. There was a thunderous clash and she suddenly felt as though a charging rhino had struck her shield. The force of the blast lifted her straight off the ground, simultaneously numbing her arm and the majority of her body. Suki let out a painful grunting sound as she was thrown back over a dozen feet through the air and hit the groundflat on her back. She was out before the second bounce, and at that point the battle was over.

They had lost...

[zilong]

The flash from Azula’s lightning caused Zilong and the other foot-soldiers to stop dead. Even through the remaining smoke, they could see it clearly. A bright arc of purest light flew through the air in an instant, and before any had time to even blink, it could no longer be seen. It lingered for a moment longer in their ears, its thunder not yet faded, and then at last one gone. Even then, the soldiers could not move. Some stood in hapless awe, jaws hanging unattended, while a few managed to regain a stoic composure, as Wenyuan had. Zilong, however, could not tell how to react, to either smile or simply watch with grim observance. He had heard of the lightning technique, the pinnacle of all Firebending that only the greatest of masters could achieve. The precision and the skill it required were immense, but then there was the mindset. One needed to be completely in tune with the element of fire to use it, and the mind of a teenage girl was not a mindset fit for that, or so he had thought.

Yet, here she was, Princess Azula, a teenage girl who had displayed far more mastery than Zilong himself could attain, and thus a mind far more mature than her body. He looked down at the last fallen warrior, the remnants of her shield smoldering beside her. She, too was young. Was she dead? If she was, she wouldn’t have lived even half as long as he had. He felt something tug at him. Regret? Nostalgia? For a moment, he couldn’t place it. Then, he recognized it: age. For the first time in his life, he felt truly old.

“Princess, it is good to see you safe,” Captain Wenyuan greeted, saluting and bowing his head. “The battle is won. The enemy has been completely crushed.”

Wenyuan turned to Zilong and motioned him forward with his hand. Zilong blinked in confusion, but when Wenyuan glanced at the tetsubo in his left hand, he understood. Zilong took a moment to hand his captain his guan dao, cradled the tetsubo in both hands and walked slowly forward. He found himself sweating a little, and his heart racing, hardly believing the honor of the moment. Head down, he gingerly walked up in front of the distance, lowered himself to one knee and raised the tetsubo above his head in offering. Well, it wasn’t so much up as it was forward, factoring in his own height and the Princess’s age, but regardless, the tetsubo was now held in offering to the young woman before him.

“The weapon of the Thunderfist commander, your highness,” he said in a deep rumble, his head inclined in respect.

[vu]

"My early days overseas," Vu groaned, "all over again," disapprovingly tapping one raised foot upon the lip of his war crawler's open hatch.

"At least we were offered the chance to actually fight," comforting himself. "Better than the days of picking up cavalry scraps."

The Thunderfist Battalion was defeated. The odd girl soldiers fighting alongside them captured. Now all that was left was recovering who they could and who they chose. And for Vu that meant carting the injuried atop his war crawlers. Unable to walk or able to limp along, away from the front and rear engines, Vu's comrades-in-arms were offered a free ride to a medic atop the one of the Fire Nation's latest contraptions of technological superiority.

"You would think by now they could just retrofit one of the old obsolete models," Vu fussed to probably no one but himself as his war crawler steamed along the battlefield. Underneath the lethargic, amassing cloud of cawing raven-vultures, iron wheels of the war crawlers callously crushed and further broke the bodies of recently departed as they searched among the bleeding, moaning and twitching mass left on the battlefield. Around and alongside the crawlers walked their fellow footmen, guiding and carting what salvageable life they found littering the ground towards the war crawlers.

[prodigy]

The Princess stood, brushing the various grass bits off her uniform's front. At her feet lay the costumed leader of the Kyoshi warriors. Or so she seemed. She was still alive, breathing heavily.. but breathing.
Azula looked up as she heard the approaching clang of armor as the soldiers gathered around, their silence speaking their revereance.

Yes, the princess was capable of the lightning techniques of fire bending, the highest art of all. She was nothing short of a perfectionist.. a prodigy. The apple of her father's eye. Her golden eyes rose as the Captain approached, her face lacking expression save for the constant judgement of her eyes.

At his first words, she closed her eyes, dipping her head as she let those sweet words flow from her mouth. "The Earth Kingdom is no match for the superiority of the Fire Nation's military, Captain. But of course, you knew that." She gently brushed aside the tendril of long hair from the side of her face. She was displeased with the amount of hair that had come loose from her topknot. It all threated to come down with a too quick movement. Watching the captain carefully, she saw him step aside and allow an older soldier walk through. The man looked to be.. well older than her Father most certainly. That startled Azula.. who was used to the mostly young ranks of the Military. Only the most dedicated stayed long past their required service time.

She watched with quiet respect as he approached and presented the weapon, lifting it in front of him and towards her. The Princess reached forward and grasped the club by it's handle lifting it from his hands to examine it. The soldiers were treated to a humorous moment as the Princess misjudged the weight, nearly dropping the club as it pulled her shoulder down. Her eyes went wide for a moment, before she managed to get her other hand under the heaviest end of it.. carefully. Clearing her throat, she lifted her head, looking down her nose as she tried once more not to make a fool of herself. "Your name, Sergeant? And did you bring down the Thunderfist commander?"

[zilong]

It was a bit of a reality check to the handful of soldiers watching the Princess to see her falter under the weight of the tetsubo. In some respects, it was comical, but really it put her abilities in perspective even more. This was still a young girl of only fourteen, not physically strong and certainly not intimidating, yet she was still a master firebender and in an entirely different class than anyone present. Indeed, she was perhaps second only to the Firelord himself. As such, any smiles at her struggles with the heavy weapon were quickly halted halfway through, leaving most still with a somewhat reverent look, aside from the Captain, who remained stoic and at perfect attention. Zilong did not see the Princess falter, though he heard and felt enough to guess. The only movements he made came from his arms, the right one falling to rest its knuckles on the ground and the other resting on his raised left knee.

“Zilong, seventh company ranking officer, your highness.” he rattled off. “Yes, I defeated the Thunderfist commander, your highness.”

It occurred to Zilong that he was saying “your highness” too much. It also occurred to him that the first, and likely only, time he was meeting the Princess of the Fire Nation was when he was bleeding from his forehead and side, probably smelled like sweat and grime, and was missing his helmet. Normally, he really didn’t care about his appearance, but this was one of the only times he really would. In all his years, he’d never actually spoken to a member of the ruling family. Well…technically he’d said one “sir, yes, sir” to Lu Ten back during his time under General Iroh, but that hardly counted. Still, aside from a slightly elevated heart rate, he kept his nerves in check. Years and years of inspections worked wonders for this type of situation.

[prodigy]

"Then this belongs to you, Sergeant Zilong. A sign of your victory. Well done. Keep up such work up and I will put in a good word about you to the Fire Lord. He rewards the best soldiers." The princess turned over the weapon, an iron headed club in her fine hands. The skin was soft, supple, as if it had never seen a day of work in her life.. which truly: they hadn't. Her nails were impeccably clean, filed to points that resembled claws. Her golden eyes, with their long lashes looked down to the club, before back up to the Sergeant's aged face. She offered him the club back.

With it having been taken from her hands, she lifted her chin higher and raised her voice. "As such, the Fire Lord shall reward us graciously should we take Ba Seng Sei. Already, we have overcome one obstacle! Another lies infront of us, the great walls! Together, we shall achieve Victory like we did here today. For The Fire Nation!" The Princess's voice, one of the few feminine among the men, was luxurious. Each word enunciated correctly, the passion in her voice clear. She took a step back to observe the men, before lifting up a delicate hand. "Take these girls away. They shall witness the fall of Ba Seng Sei.."

[zilong]

Zilong nodded and took the weapon back, though he remained on one knee. He was a little disappointed that the Princess hadn’t accepted the weapon as a trophy, but he didn’t let it show. After all, another weapon was really no good to him out here. Sure, he could show it off, but carrying it around in battle would just weigh him down. Regardless, he couldn’t refuse the Princess, and silently accepted the weapon as she spoke. She was right. Today was but one step forward. Ba Sing Se was the real target. Once she was done speaking, he slowly rose from his position, backed away with his head inclined for three steps and then turned back. The Captain handed him back his guan dao, which he lung over his right shoulder. The Captain, too saluted and then turned, while the other soldiers there either followed his lead, or remained at attention to tend to the Princess and her attendants.

Wenyuans smacked Zilong on the back, “Get that wound tended to, Sergeant. You’ve earned a break.”

“Sir.”

*****

A short while later, Zilong had a bandage around his forehead, and several more under his armor around his abdominal region. Still without his helmet, he walked with his guan dao over his right shoulder, and the tetsubo hanging loosely in his left hand. Behind him marched his company’s survivors. They had pulled together after Zilong charged through the enemy ranks, but like all companies they had sustained losses. Even so, the morale among the men was high. They’d just defeated an elite Earth Kingdom unit in front of the Princess. It was truly a glorious day. To his left, a war crawler pulled alongside his company and matched their march, falling in with the rest of the unit. He turned his head at his approach, and smiled as he recognized its commander, sticking out of the hatch. It was the man who had stood next to him during his encounter with Agni. He grinned toothily. Now that was a happy coincidence.

“A close up view of Agni, get to fight the Thunderfist Battalion with the Princess,” he called out to the man. “We’ve had a big day, huh?”