Chapter 26: Sand Castle

It began… the second coming of Liu. For quite understandable and objective reasons, I felt anxious when the girl came to my home again and sat down on the firm, not very comfortable sofa. First, I knew she would be able to help me with something today and perhaps even provide a potential pool of knowledge for the future, and second, I wanted at least someone to appreciate my slightly modified, more fortified home, built on the feeling of how it should be done properly. Yes, purely on feelings. Afka still hadn't returned, and I didn't have the necessary books.

"How is this possible?" she said, blinking, looking around in shock. I immediately held my breath and broke into a wide smile. "How could you make a house with even more incorrect proportions?"

"…It is stronger than the previous one!" I immediately got defensive. Anyone can hurt a creator's feelings, but for me, it was doubly unpleasant because the feeling of shame blocked my third chakra; by the way, I had no desire to keep banging my head against the wall to deal with this problem sometime in the future.

"You simply learned to make a few strong, load-bearing areas, but now you've built everything completely against the rules. Your walls will crack after a few strikes, and dirt and large debris will pour inside. If this place is meant to be a bunker – zero points."

I opened my mouth, but realized there was no point in arguing with someone more educated in this field. I'd stay quiet; maybe I'd pass for smart.

"Sigh, in any case, this isn't what I wanted to talk about, but we absolutely have to work on This." Folding her hands on her knees, she lowered her voice slightly. "Do you want to make a deal with me?"

"Hm?"

"I will teach you the proper construction method and give you the necessary lessons. In exchange, you will build everything for me according to the blueprints and test their durability on Fire Nation soldiers. Novice architects can rarely create a blueprint capable of stopping the bending or technological gadgets of that nation. I want to cheat the system. Besides, you’ve been on a rampage lately, haven't you? At least, there are rumors circulating among the soldiers about some Sandbender."

The girl looked shyly at the tentacles protruding from my back, which were pouring us both tea into crystal mugs, clinking with a spoon. It all made sense now, my reputation had finally worked in my favor. As for Liu, it wasn't about her being grateful at all; it was about her own selfish motives. Although, the goals were quite sound and reasonable, and they interested me. I took a sip from my cup and, after pretending to think about it, I nodded.

"Excellent," she said, greedily rubbing her hands together for some reason. "But first tell me, have you ever built with your soul, pouring all your feelings into the structure?"

"In my childhood, when I tried to build a castle in a sandbox," I replied with a heavy heart. "Then a downpour started, and the sandbox flooded with water. I lost my passion for everything in this life."

"Um... funny joke."

Sitting with a glazed look in my eyes, I swore one thing to myself: I would never tell her about the touching moments of my life again. Yet, the training began, starting with the blueprints that Liu herself had brought. The girl had made several quite simple and convenient designs. My task was, firstly, to figure them out, and secondly, to glean important architectural solutions. From the start, we both agreed that beautiful excesses and strange ornaments without practical meaning were out of the question. The Earth Kingdom people were generally pragmatic, and excessive design demanded a level of control that could be redirected toward something useful.

And when it came down to business, I had to clarify some geometric details with the designer.

"Who builds a wall like that?! Look at the bevel, I asked for a ninety-degree angle, not ninety-five!" the girl complained, standing with an angle meter by the wall of my house. If I hadn't learned to chisel stone into a perfectly smooth surface back in the forge, I would have been cornered on this point as well. Yes, this was the first problem. When building at high speed, the angles often sloped; it wasn't like sharpening, which just needed to be minimized, and that, in turn, severely affected the object's structural strength.

On the other hand, so as not to lose face, I finally started reading the books Afka brought me. She couldn't carry many, so by delivering one, she received in return a scroll containing my own thoughts on the importance of architecture in earthbending, and ran for the next one. As I understood, Wan Shi Tong accepted any of my knowledge, mainly because he valued my thoughts... that was flattering.

For several long weeks, I simply memorized the basics. Sometimes Liu demanded even more than I actually needed, like finding the ideal location for a build with a good view, but I brought her back down to earth. Our agreement did not make me an obedient little boy. We help each other grow; that was what mattered.

"You learn fast," the girl sitting at the table whispered in surprise, looking at the notebooks I had sorted out at her request.

"No, I just remember some of the school curriculum."

"Ah... I thought you were one of those..."

"Which ones?" I squinted, looking at her sunlit face.

"Don't make me say it out loud!" she cringed under my gaze. "You look like... an orphan who was never helped in life. A creepy guy who takes off heads for a single skewed glance. A daredevil who doesn't like to study and wants revenge on the Firebenders. Happy now? You made a young girl say hurtful things..."

"Hah," I said, hiding a smile behind my palm and making the girl blush.

"What are you grinning at?"

"I never tried to take revenge on them. I just drive them off the land so that there are fewer casualties," perfectly aware of the fact that if I were to kill them, the hypothetical number of casualties might even be fewer. But I didn't say the latter out loud; the frowning girl had already received enough cognitive dissonance.

Soon the basic training was over, which practically drove the girl crazy. She still didn't know that I was drawing my knowledge from ordinary science books and works on architecture, so everything gradually shifted to practice. I headed out in search of Firebenders, who probably thought I had bolted somewhere, and tested the durability of various structures. When necessary, I would set up an outpost in advance and, going against my usual fighting style, wait and defend.

The greatest joy for me was designing an integrated, operational set of armor. My knowledge prevailed here, while Liu assisted, refining the technique I needed. We had developed armor for multiple situations. With great joy, I would have even created an entire golem around myself, since limiting myself to a human form is foolish and impractical! You can create a four-legged creature that would be easier to accelerate than a normal humanoid, but maintaining such a shape for a long time would be a complicating factor. All the choices I had made so far didn't involve using massive amounts of earth, and I didn't rely much on brute force anyway.

Armor variety was the most important detail for my survivability. It wasn't always possible to use only sand, so I had a sand-based one, the fastest, and a stone-based one, which had the highest impact potential, and even a crystal one. The latter, as you can guess, was the most durable.

"Ready to test it?" Liu looked at me, hiding behind a rock and listening to a platoon landing on the shore. I nodded quickly, pulling sand from my gourd and breaking it down, surrounding myself and taking on a combat form. The particles clung tightly to my muscles, outlining their definition, but because of this, I could use each individual segment of my armor to "accelerate" my limbs. Now, brute strength didn't empower the bending; the bending itself enhanced my strength.

Exhaling, I abruptly bolted, so fast that I left a cloud of dust behind me. Running out from cover like a torpedo and appearing before the soldiers who hadn't expected my arrival, I formed a sand orb in my hands and threw it right toward the enemies. A lightning flash that appeared for a second made the sand orb glow.

Bang!

A whole two people were knocked off their feet and sent flying a couple of meters back. As soon as the rest of the group realized what was happening and raised their hands, I was already ten meters away from my previous spot, kicking up a large sandstorm. Fast currents of sand swirled around my legs, accelerating me on the principle of a sand scooter, which gave me such speed; you could say I learned to move quickly and defend myself not only in the air, but on any surface.

Harassing the enemies didn't happen that often, but during such moments, I had the time of my life. Besides, as long as those same ships that had once attacked Liu and me hovered around the shores, and as long as the same captain was on them, any skirmish against the usual fodder was meaningless.

One day I left the house without saying anything to my "teacher". As usual, I came to the shore waiting for the passing ships and started building. The enemy always visited roughly this area, so I knew I could provoke them and distract them from attacking other outposts by using just one of my structures.

******

A depressive mood hung over the deck of the iron ship. The unit out on its regular patrol seemed already exhausted. Soldiers armored in steel cuirasses walked with drooping shoulders, half-heartedly inspecting the available armaments and steel machinery; others looked at the shore with fear, trying to spot the possible enemy.

Not too long ago, they felt relatively fine, harassing the local unit from Shen Guan with mixed success. Yes, they couldn't fight properly on enemy territory; the traps wore down the soldiers' mental state, but they weren't being hunted like now. Lately, they hadn't even been able to disembark on the shore, and outposts that seemingly materialized right in their path prevented them from advancing inland or at least engaging a large group of benders. No, a single person was stopping them all by himself!

"Captain Masaru, are we going ashore today?" a dejected man approached the man with a small mustache. "After all, there is a heavy downpour."

"What, do you suggest staying on the ship while the enemy regains their strength? Do you understand that the orders state to cripple the Earth Kingdom's economy, and we haven't even laid eyes on Shen Guan for days?" he replied angrily. "I will get such a reprimand that I'll be stripped of my rank. Besides, maybe he won't even show up right now, as sand should stick together in the rain. We have the advantage."

"Captain!" at that moment, a strange cry came from the observation post. The man seemed to be in deep shock. "Look at the shore!"

The frowning captain instinctively pulled out his spyglass and focused on the point where it was easiest to launch a raid; there were few traps, and it wasn't that long of a trek... well, or so he thought. Now, bizarre, tall sand walls stretched along the shore, capable of preventing even the most standard landing, and in the middle of this horror stood a massive, genuine sandcastle.

"What in the..." Captain Masaru expressed out of turn. Approaching and positioning themselves parallel to the shore, the soldiers nervously examined the incomprehensible object of art. Soon enough, the culprit behind it all appeared on a balcony of one of the towers, a stern man dressed in tightly fitting clothes. "...Fire, damn it! Mix this place with the sand."

"Captain, the castle is made of sand already."

"Fire, I said!"

The loaded catapults aimed at the tall castle on the shore. On the gunners' orders, all catapults fired a simultaneous volley that could have obliterated even the best fortress of the Shen Guan architects. This castle was no exception, even though it managed to withstand several projectiles without cracking, all the subsequent impacts left gigantic holes. A little more, and the castle would have collapsed under its own weight; at least, that was exactly what Captain Masaru wanted to see.

But instead of the expected collapse... he saw it heal itself. The sandcastle patched its wounds with quickly gathering sand, which, unlike stone, was much easier to put back into place and then reinforce again.

And then…

"I don't give a damn about your rain, you damn failure!" The monster the common soldiers imagined the Sandbender to be roared across the area.

"…Let's get out of here. We have no chance."

******

"And where did that gloomy guy run off to?" the tired Liu looked around, while her personal beast, chewing on a whole chicken, as usual, stepped through the large puddles left behind by the rain.

Her companion, who had gone missing in this kind of weather, could be in great trouble, which the girl feared greatly as she headed toward the shore, the presumed location of her ally. She was already picturing an unpleasant scene: the Firebenders could easily attack in this weather, even if the fires they loved so much wouldn't spread their destructive power as usual.

"What?" But what she saw on the shore could not be described with calm words. The girl's widened eyes blinked, and she rubbed her eyelids to make sure this wasn't an illusion. Meanwhile, Guzzler walked through the big gates unbothered and moved inside a massive hall woven from reinforced sand. Huge carved columns reached all the way to the ceiling, and at the other end of the large hall stood a sand throne.

And there, to her even greater surprise, sat Dagoth.

"My intuition told me we'd meet again. Or is it because we agreed to it? I prefer the intuition option." A smile appeared on his face. "You said enemies could be driven away after building a new outpost, right? Well, I've done it."