I was awake through the entire night. Didn't catch a second of sleep. Was too afraid to even try shutting my eyes for over a minute. The wall was finally behind us. The hard part was over. Our intelligence told us the mountains would be a breeze to get through. Our tanks were built for rough terrain and as we went through the mountains, we would be completely out of sight of the city and the sea.
The night had gone by surprisingly easily. The closest we got to being spotted was the sight of a water tribe war ship to the north of us, it's lights shining against the sea. Normally, that would be a dumb idea, shining your lights on a pitch-black night, but this far north, I doubted they had anything to fear. We on the other hand, well, it was quite the opposite for us. We had a constant need to be vigilant and to tread lightly. Hopefully that would be different in the mountains.
We reached the mountains not long after. An hour later, we were travelling through them. The roads were rocky, but at the very least, there were roads. They were untreaded however, didn't seem to have been in a while. We were alone.
Not 5 minutes after that, did we realize how wrong we were. It started with just a few small rocks falling down the side of the cliff. I was taking in the fresh air, sticking out of the tank as I saw those rocks come down. I looked up, expecting to find some a wild puma goat or something along those lines. Needless to say. I didn't. I saw a perfectly round disk of solid earth come rushing towards me. I felt it graze my air as I ducked soon enough, avoiding the selfsame piece of earth that removed the tank's hatch from its metallic body. The fight was about to begin, and I was completely exposed.
The hard rock trail underneath us turned to sand and we found our tank being listing to its starboard side as it went with the now soft ground, falling into the ravine below. Gan, somehow, was quicker than the falling earth and fired off the tank's first grappling hook, sending it digging into the side of the rock face ahead of us. I was now completely strapped into my seat and more conscious than ever of my completely exposed top. As Gan retracted the hook, pulling us closer to the wall we were attached to, I looked above me, which wasn't so much above but to the right considering our tank was still at a sharp angle, I saw rock in the side of the mountain next to us suddenly part like a palace door as an earth bender appeared out of his abode, reaching out to no doubt collapse the piece of ground our hook was attached to. I didn't give him the chance. I sent a blast of fire directly above me, straight towards him. I couldn't see if it hit. We were moving too fast for me to get a look, but our hook held its place in the ground. Even if I hadn't hit him, I had given us the time we needed.
We were completely vertical, bow of the tank facing the sky. The blood was rushing to my head and I braced for the momentary impact I knew was sure to come. "Gi Gu!" Gan yelled. "Cut the hook!"
I saw Gi Gu leave the trance he was in, the same shock he had had last time and shoot into action. He nodded and pulled the lever to cut the hook and we fell onto the path underneath us. We rolled along the edge of the mountain and landed straight on the thin trail with minimal difficulty. Gan readjusted us to continue along the trail and as I raised myself to see the world around us, I saw more and more earth benders appear out of the walls, out of the grounds, out of thin air itself. We were surrounded. There were more earth benders than there were us, all of them trained, all of us not.
That last stand me, and Gan had been talking about. This was it. I lowered my seat, unbuckled my harness as we rolled along the path, taking hits on either side of us from flying projectiles and reached for the crossbow in the back.
"Gi Gu!" I yelled. "You know how to use this?"
"I-uh."
"Do you know how to us this?!"
"Ye-Yes. I do."
"Good. Then get in the back, open the trunk, and cover me."
He nodded. "Got it."
He grabbed the crossbow and rushed to the back. He was ready.
As he left his seat to retreat to the storage compartment in the back, opening the trunk to get a firing angle at those behind us, I rushed up to my seat, strapping myself back in, ready to give the Earth Kingdom a fight before we all went straight to hell.
The tank made a sharp turn on the path we were following, but the benders pursued after us, using pieces of the mountains as mounts, bending them along the mountain sides, keeping us in hot pursuit. When I saw a break in the rocks as they were too busy trying to get ahead of us, I took my chance. I poked my upper body out of the tank, raising my seat, and saw the bender across the ravine to our left and fired. The fire missed him but struck the earth beneath it. To much or the bender to retain focus on, the earth crumbled beneath him and he fell. He would recover quickly, but at least he was off our tail for the moment.
To the mountain wall to our right, I saw another bender, about 20 feet above me, directly atop the tank. I fired straight above me and the blast took him by surprise. He fell, the earth crumbling beneath him. I ducked into the tank, avoiding at least some of the debris as well as the soldier as they fell on top of the tank, promptly sliding off.
Back inside the tank, I could see Gi Gu, crouched in the cargo hold, crossbow trained behind us, waiting for the slightest movement. I raised my seat once more and saw a cloud of dust form behind us as a piece of the mountain shot off like a rocket, out coming a squad of 5 earth benders, moving the ground underneath them, forming a wave of rock and soil, coming straight towards us.
I fired a blast, hoping to break the wave underneath them, but to no avail, they were too focused on it. I diverted my attention to the benders, sending a blast that knocked one of the soldiers off of the wave into the ravine to our left, surely killing them. I prepared to make a second hit, but our tank made a sudden turn and my shot was thrown off. The path was shifting underneath us, I saw then. Gan was giving it all he had to stay on the path that the Earth benders were constantly altering with they're terraforming activities.
I prepared to fire a second blast, but the bender I was aiming for went down before I got the chance. I barely had time to notice the steel crossbow bolt that had sunk itself into his chest. He went down behind the wave, dead at Gi Gu's hands. I couldn't help but smile, but it was short lived. The wave was abandoned, and it crumbled in a pile of dust and smoke. It wasn't the end of those troubles, however. The benders jumped to the sides of the mountains, on both sides of us. The one to our right were the immediate concern. The ones on the other side of the ravine were a concern for later.
They were out of Gi Gu's range, but I still had a shot on them. I fired a blast of fire that the nearest bender managed to avoid, hopping off of his rock transport, sending it directly towards the tank with a direct kick. I unbuckled my harness and ducked into the tank as the rock exploded against the top off the tank, sending dust, dirt, and rock into the tank's interior. The tank shook, nearly sending us into the ravine on our left. Gan, as I saw now in the confined is the tank myself, was fighting the controls, putting down the break as he drifted to a halt, stopping us from going off the edge, only to resume our movement a second after, now back on track. I turned to Gi Gu and saw as he put a crossbow bolt into the earth bender that had just jumped off of his rock. That meant only 2 pursuers left, but that wouldn't be the end of it, not by a long shot. There were still 2 earth benders to our left across the ravine. I got back into my seat, buckled in, and prepared to fire until they stopped first, making my shot miss in front of them, breaking against the solid rock wall. The 2 benders, in one simultaneous movement, made a motion that I failed to understand the significance of until I faced what was in front of us, only to see the earth forming a hole directly in front of us as if leading straight to hell.
Gan brought the tank to a halt, sliding to face our port side directly towards the 2 earth benders that had just opened a passageway straight to hell. Gan fired the reserve grappling hook. The hook flew, across the ravine, straight towards the 2 earth benders who had thought us dead for sure. The hook slammed into their rock platform, breaking it on impact, going right through, digging itself into the mountain wall as the earth benders went falling into their self-made hades. I heard the door to the cargo bay where Gi Gu was slam shut as he knew what was about to happen.
Gan retracted the hook right as the earth failed underneath us in the domino effect of the now deceased earth benders' actions. The tank was then airborne, being pulled to across a ravine I didn't care to gauge the side of. There was a passage down there. A small one, yes, but there was a passage. We slammed against the leftmost mountain and Gan turned around to face me.
"See the ravine down there?"
"Yes!"
"I'm going to detach!"
"The path's too small and the slope of the mountains against us! We'll miss!"
"Then correct us!"
"Wait. What?"
Gan cut the connection and we were falling. I didn't have time to consider what he meant. We needed to hug the left wall and stay as close to it as possible, but we were drifting off and would go flying into the bottomless pit until we could stay as far to our left as possible. There was no time to think. I faced the direction of the ravine and with the fear of sudden death on my mind, channeled my fear and pushed. The fire came out in a brilliant blaze, shooting us to our left, bringing us scraping against the left side of the mountain. I kept the blaze of fire going, keeping us where we had to be until we were down on the path, still alive. I let the fire die and suddenly remembered that I had a heart and it was beating too fast for me to count/
The day, however, wasn't close to being done. On the edge of the ravine, surrounding us, were more earth benders, now gathering on the edges watching us, straight below them. "Shit."
I wondered if they would bury us alive, break the path beneath us, having us fall to our deaths, or close the ravine above us and let us figure out which way we preferred on our own. Those thoughts, however, were interrupted by the explosion that erupted directly on the edge of the ravine, sending tens of them flailing and flying into the darkness of the ravine.
"The hell?"
Then a second explosion came, then a third, and a fourth. Explosions everywhere. Some hitting targets, some not. Nonetheless, it was what we needed. The Earth benders were pulling back, some hiding inside the mountains, some leaving altogether, and Gan took the chance. He accelerated forward, hugging the left wall, afraid to have us all fall to our deaths, and went up the path getting us out of that ravine back onto solid land.
Now, it wasn't the Earth Benders we had to avoid, it was the fire. Explosions sounded of all around us as we and earth benders alike fled for cover, too busy to engage one another in combat. Our vehicle sped along the cratering ground, seeking to leave the kill zone of the artillery fire that I was still busy debating over whether or not it was meant for us.
I was ducking down into the tank, wary of a god's wrath that was making itself more than known in this very moment. I felt a shake in the tank as we lurched to the side and I felt the tank list to one side. I expected an imminent recovery, but we were angled, nearly lying on our starboard side. Our right treads were gone. I was wondering whether it had been artillery or an earth bender and got my answer when I looked above me and saw the fully armored Earth Kingdom serjeant approaching us, gathering earth in his hands, pulling it up from the ground, preparing a weapon to end our lives. I shot a blast of fire directly at him, but he used his newfound possessions to create a shield directly in front of him, absorbing the blast.
"Guys!" I yelled. "Get out, now!"
I fired another blast, hoping to distract the bender, giving Gi Gu a chance to open his door and sneak out, but when he tried, the earth bender sent a disk of earth directly towards the rear doors, knocking them straight off, indicating he very clear fault in attempting such a thing again. Now, though, we were trapped. Gi Gu leaned out to take a shot, but another shot of rocks knocked the crossbow straight out of his hands, giving him a rather large gash across his arm in the process.
The next attack was aimed directly towards me. I readied a blast of fire to try to break his weapon in his hands before he got the chance to use it. He fired, and I fired. My blast of fire hit his boulder in the air, exploding it on contact, sending the shards of earth directly towards me. I lowered my head, covering my face, but the shards still hit me, cutting me along the arm and torso, sending me back against the side of the tank that was now completely resting on its right side. I made one final effort to gather my strength and make a stand, but to no avail. I readied myself for the last attack and hoped it would be quick.
I tried to close my eyes but couldn't. I could only stare death straight in the eyes. I saw it approach me, lift its rock, smile, and get hit by the shell of artillery that blew him into a thousand tiny pieces. That very next second, I was covered in blood, who's, I couldn't know. He was dead.
I leaned back into the seat and sighed as the sound of the explosions around us finally came to a halt. Was it over?
I heard Gan cough to my left from the driver's seat as he crawled out, coughing fiercely. "You all okay?!" he yelled.
I looked to Gi Gu who was looking at his future scar and finally looked at my own injuries: a gash across my right shoulder, a cut on my left forearm, and multiple smaller cuts form debris on my torso and legs. "We're alright. Is it over?"
Gan crawled next to me and out of the tank's hatch, looking around, listening for the next artillery blast that never came. "I think. I think it's over."
I leaned back into my seat and gave a sigh of relief. We were alive.
"Didn't they say the mountains were fucking safe?!" I finally asked.
I didn't know if it was a cough or a chuckle, but soon enough, the three of us were laughing at the extraneous possibility of 'unreliable military intelligence.'
Soon enough, the laughter had died down, when we suddenly heard the shifting of rocks to our left followed by "Oh shit. Did we hit them?"
I followed Gan out the tank, ready to fire a blast at the new approaches as Gan and Gi Gu gabbed their short swords. I was out of the tank, facing the newcomers, flame ready in hand when the leader of the group, a Fire Nation Lieutenant Colonel, raised his hands saying "Woah. Take it easy. We're your guys. Who the hell are you?"
I tried to talk, coughing first, sending a fresh cloud of dust off of my face and said "We're the messengers. I assume you're the recipients?"
He chuckled as the rest of his men came over the hill in front of us, a full battalion of Fire Nation soldiers, and said "I guess we are. You just made our job a hell of a lot easier. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Lu Ten. Congratulations. Your mission was a success."