======== 61 - Farewell, Queen, long live the King! ==========
Perhaps at that moment, there was no creature in the world capable of developing faster than the Avatar - this fact had been proven by many researchers, and I had already managed to witness such anomalous things and come to terms with our human limitations.
Even a person with seven open chakras would not be able to replicate this powerful chi, which allows the use of any technique. The Avatar is always one step ahead of each of us... but the quality of chi does not particularly correlate with the speed of learning; the latter is dependent on acquired talent, teachers, and a bunch of other factors.
If there were an object that could thoroughly read any flow of qi in your body, repeat it, and adapt any element used by the Avatar to itself, would the learning speed of such an object be comparable to that of a reborn, omnipotent being?
Well, the very fact of copying would hardly allow such an imitator to gain strength at the same speed as Avatar — the time needed to understand, adapt and hone the learned technique would always keep him two, or even five steps behind. But the demigod named Avatar had a powerful limiting factor: he spent time on all four elements. But the imitator... or, to put it more simply, me, grouped all my knowledge on a single element.
"I see! All the flows of chi in her body — it's impossible to know for sure what she'll do, but I can try to repeat it," — and Kioshi directed the flow of energy according to her fighting style, creating a gust of wind that began to break and tear the ground itself. Wind is an extremely deadly element, and Kiyoshi did not hold back. I immediately repeated all these techniques.
Fsh-fsh-fsh*
The sound of grinding sand crackled across the seething volcano and, at a speed that amazed me — never before achieved — swept through the thick snow, biting into the barrier of water levitating around her body, created just after that iron glove attack.
I was very familiar with this defence technique - a self-repairing barrier capable of patching any hole faster than an attack could reach its target. I had my own analogue made of sand, which seemed even better thanks to one important factor - it couldn't be dried out. As soon as the sand hit the water, it simply absorbed the barrier, not even letting Kioshi understand where it had gone.
"Let my sand be a suspension now, but I still have control over it!" Surrounding her body, I turned the liquid sand construct into a swampy vice, just like she had done to me a moment ago.
To her credit, thanks to her defensive fighting style, she reacted instantly. She mechanically attacked with scattered pebbles, which, due to their near-sonic speed, were indistinguishable from bullets.
Dong-dong-dong*
A barrage of shots rained down on my own iron sand barrier, not even breaking it in half. Each dent instantly filled in, and I found myself in front of Kioshi in a split second, simply by pushing off the ground with all my strength.
"How tired I am of you," she said, unfortunately still not in the mood to talk. Breaking her shackles as if they had no chance of holding her back, the lady lunged at me with her illusory fans — though, as it turned out, they weren't entirely illusory — and released a dense stream of wind.
Bang*
"You know the saying: if you love something, let it go?" Intercepting the attack with my iron-gloved hand, we froze in place for a moment. Two semi-giants, beneath whom the earth itself creaked, stared at each other and insisted on completely different things," - I bet you would have let the person you trust finish this on their own.
"Who are you that I should trust you? - She raised her leg sharply. The swift limb almost broke my ribs - monstrous strength, coupled with equally monstrous magic, made her a peak fighter. Luckily, I knew a thing or two. Striking her leg and deflecting her blow, I assumed a stance that resembled a magical stance as closely as possible. Any master could predict the next blow from that position. Kioshi even snorted and, as if giving me a break, put her hand out in front of her, intending to stop the stones. For now... - Huh?
The blow came from where she didn't even expect it: a shower of stones rained down on her head, forcing her to immediately take a defensive position and stop them in mid-flight.
Bang*
I made another lunge, which was not difficult to predict, but instead of continuing with my magic technique as expected, I created a small karst sinkhole under my opponent, causing her to lose contact with the ground and still get hit by the hail of stones.
"You..." While she stopped attacking Zuko and his minions, lying somewhere two metres deep, Kioshi spoke in an extremely nasty voice, "Your movements don't match the magic you're using.
This infuriated her.
"My chi points on my arms and legs are destroyed, I literally cannot use magic," she said. When she looked up, she saw me standing sternly at the edge of the crater. "I'm not to blame for you getting yourself into such a mess. But seriously, let's just talk. These people can't be killed, they're part of my plan — at least for the sake of your feelings for Aang, don't continue.
"...You're just as strange as Yun," she said, lowering her head to hide her angry eyes behind her hair. "You have a deep love for people and the world, and you're just as much of a genius as he is... no, even more so, you have the cunning of Chin the Conqueror. But you are pursuing completely harmful goals. These people have put the village in danger, their very goal is to stop us, as the Avatar - their nation wiped the Air Nomads off the face of the earth. Do you really think we should stop? No compromises with the Fire Nation.
I've already noticed that she embodies all the principles that Suuki has honed, right? Well, she can't be persuaded to change her mind, as I did with all the other soldiers of Kioshi. Two hundred years of life have made her such a die-hard conservative that it would be easier to teach Bumi to control fire than to agree with her on completely different things. The qi stirring in my body told me that she was trying to use some kind of trick, but I didn't quite understand what it was. Until Tai Lee grabbed me, very quickly but elegantly dodging with me away from a pillar of compressed water that almost knocked me off the volcano.
"Huh? It didn't immediately dawn on me that Kioshi, just like Katara was doing at that moment, had condensed moisture from the clouds so that her approach couldn't be felt," I said. "Thanks for saving me."
"Come on, you could have done it yourself," the girl hanging over me corrected, pressing me to the ground with her hands.
"No, I don't think so," her anti-magic wasn't just disabling chakra points, it was an advanced fighting style that forced you to constantly monitor the terrain and every magical technique. While I was watching Kioshi, she was paying attention to the surroundings, creating perfect synergy. "My plan A didn't work, so let's move on to B. Block her chakra as soon as I give you the signal."
"Um... Dagoth~" She slowly raised her head, looking somewhere towards the roaring volcano. I didn't even have to turn my eyes to understand how, due to the turmoil in Kioshi's ki, all the magma began to rise, turning into a giant wave over fifty metres high. It resembled a tsunami, just like at the seashore, except that the temperature of such a wave would be about one and a half thousand degrees.
"She's going to destroy the place," Katara and Sokka successfully held the soldiers at bay: their excellent throwing skills stunned their opponents while the water froze the rest to the ground, but because my dear companions fought so well, all the targets were grouped together in one spot and it was very easy to turn them all into charcoal with a single attack.
It was too late to stop or defend anyone. Any stone wall would be destroyed and any burrow flooded, and even cutting down Kioshi was useless, as she had already given momentum to the wave, so that it could only rush forward, burning everything in its path.
"I thought I was strong. At least strong enough to withstand ordinary misfortunes that are easy to predict. But how wrong I was," compared to the Avatar, I am nothing.
Noticing how the qi moved in Avatar's body, I pushed off the ground and stood in front of the wave of volcanic debris, with my back to Zuko and Airo.
"What?" The pupils of all the observers contracted in an instant, and the wave began to descend on our heads. In the blink of an eye, our group of fire mages was engulfed in red-hot rocks.
***
"Listen, Afka, are there any detailed descriptions of how to control magma in the books? Standing with a bored expression on my face on the mountain plateau and letting the qi flow through my legs, I watched the rapidly spinning ground. It was a very small area, twenty-five centimetres in diameter, and the ground in it had turned into a funnel-like shape and was spinning rapidly under the force of my thoughts. But it was clearly not enough to heat it up to even four hundred degrees.
"Do you think any of the Avatars honoured themselves with magnum opuses on types of magic that no one else knows? I searched the library myself for an answer to this question, but alas, we have nothing. Be sure to let me know if you do come across something similar.
"Eh... if my research is correct, temperature control is something that most magicians have in common, although it manifests itself in different ways. I need to try again to replicate the movements of the fire magicians who control high temperatures to heat up the rock! Their movements must literally manipulate energy.
***
"You know, Afka, I think the stones are starting to heat up," I said, standing near the gazebo in the middle of the village surrounded by girls dressed in Kioshi uniforms. I touched the rapidly moving stones with my finger. "It seems like mixing the fire mages' movements is helping, but it's not fast enough.
"Are you still going on with this nonsense? Although I don't mind if you fail, you somehow manage to come up with completely unheard-of techniques.
I rolled my eyes, but had to admit she was right. In an attempt to spin the same disc of abrasive material, moving each grain of sand inside it in a circle, hoping that it would turn into magma, I achieved something completely abnormal. The disc began to emit electronites, although I had only achieved this before when creating spheres.
Grinding the grains of sand at tremendous speed, I caused what appeared to be a static object to emit electric discharges in all directions.
"I think I need exceptional control here. The objects under my control need to be much faster, ideally turning stone into magma without making any movements with my hands — it's scary to even imagine what level that would be. Let's refine the fire mages' movements later, maybe the secret lies in temperature control after all.
***
The secret is in the speed of your control. The faster the qi runs through the body, the easier it is to accelerate objects. Fire mages learned this secret thousands of years ago, adapting their style to the acceleration of their own qi. They could be static, sitting and meditating, but gradually increasing the temperature of their own flame.
That is why it is important to remember one thing: disunity is an illusion.
And Kioshi became a stumbling block, after which the realisation of all the subtleties filled my head: I saw the superb level of magma magic and in the blink of an eye tried to do everything to repeat it.
"Dagoth!" cried Tai Lee, frozen in place, seeing me and the group of magicians covered by a giant wave. It would have been impossible to escape from such a simple stone wall... but then, the place where we were covered swelled and formed a bubble.
The magma scattered to the sides like an explosion, showing that the large area around me had not even been touched; it had no way of getting close, quickly freezing under my slightly clumsy hands.
"Phew... Damn, why my fingers? - Focusing on my hands, I noticed that they were slightly burned," - True, when your chi points are already broken, you don't really care if your limbs get hurt. But you have to worry about getting treatment in time so you don't end up looking like Sokka.
"Hey!" he shouted, overcoming his shock.
At that moment, I slowly turned to Kioshi, who had opened her mouth. Apparently, catching a mere mortal using deadly magma was an extraordinary miracle. Maybe there were such unique individuals in history, but they were clearly not found on every street corner.
"Darling, I'm cooler than your Yuna," she said, blushing for a second. Or maybe it was just my imagination, because I couldn't believe that I could embarrass Kioshi herself.
Winking, I raised my hand and made a movement that was supposed to redirect the volcanic rock towards her, to let her feel what it was like to burn alive. She even jumped back, trying to put up a defence, but...
"I fooled myself again," I thought, and instead of lava, I simply picked up the iron sand that Tai Li had left near her and tied it around her arm with a rope. I had to jerk it once sharply, sending an electric shock through her body, so that Kioshi lost her concentration for a second. And when her body fell to Tai Li's feet, Tai Li cracked her knuckles with all her might and, without holding back, struck her spine.
The more control you have over your ki, the more effective a single strike will be. Opening one chakra and honing her technique with Afka, she managed to create such a dense barrier in the spine that access to the Queen's spiritual power was instantly cut off, causing the nearest ki points to close.
Kiochi didn't even have time to scream before a gust of wind blew away the Earth Queen's soul, revealing an ordinary little boy lying unconscious on the ground. "Phew... my training wasn't for nothing," Tai Li smiled sweetly and clenched her fists. I think I'll take the title of strongest mage of the earth for myself.