Snippet #2410727

Avatar Zhi

The Avatar considered Wei's plan, briefly, before dismissing it. "Yun Shi is right. I must be seen by the mercenaries. If just so that they know I am not hiding it out in the Temple, and thus they won't go after the Sages."

Zhi considered his options once more, and bit by bit, he felt a plan slowly coming together. Gao's advice helped all the more.

Finally, he looked back over to his military adviser.

"Yun Shi, I think I have a plan." the Avatar stated, a confident tone to his voice.

"I agree with Gao that we should use Harumi to try to scout out the enemy positions. Once that is done, I propose that Gao, Kai, and myself make up the distraction team. Bo, Zira, Akara, yourself, the Badgermoles, and Wei shall make up the ambush team. My team will go into the forest to trigger the trap set up by the mercenaries....but the moment they strike, we spring a trap of our own. With our combined earthbending power, Gao, Kai, and I should be able to uproot the trees that the mercenaries are no doubt using for cover.

"Once they forced out of such a hiding, the ambush team can strike. Assuming we can find a blind spot from their arrangement, the ambush team can charge in from there. We might be outnumbered, but some of us possess much more skill and experience than those low-grade soldiers, which gives us an advantage. And, of course, the mercenaries won't be seeing the ambush team coming. Then, toward the fight's end, we can use Kun and Wei's badgermole to trap the mercenaries."

The Avatar paused, letting his allies mull the idea over.

"How does that sound?" Zhi inquired.

He thought it a good plan, himself. It might need some refinement and additions, of course, but otherwise it seemed like a workable template. Though he was unsure if Gao's idea of not killing the mercenaries would fit in that well...after all, it would be na intesne and heated battle, and fatal injuries might be unavoidable. Not to mention, of course, that some past Avatars had killed indiscriminantly, for the greater good. Of course, those had been during brutal wars and the like...which the current chaos in the Earth Kingdom was now, too.

Still, that didn't mean that he wanted to kill those bandits just for the sake of it. He didn't want to turn into some sort of bloodthirsty monster.