Worse than feeling weak, Toph hated feeling desperate. But with the worst of the Fire Nation's monsters surrounding her, that was what the girl felt as she fended them off from all angles.
Her seismic sense picked up every painful detail of the Ba Sing Se soldiers falling one by one. For all their resolve, the earthbenders were dispatched with an ease that made it look like they were amateur jobbers in Earth Rumble. The monsters of the 11th had pounced on them and surgically broke limbs and thrust weapons that sent the valiant men littering the ground, barely alive.
Even in the fragile tranquility of Gaoling, Toph had heard of the Defiant 11th from the gossip her parents' guests brought over in their visits. Back when she was kept in a gilded cage, she didn't put much concern to the overblown acts of the infamous fighting force.
Now though, after witnessing their rapid and brutal assault, and being surrounded by them, Toph began to really worry.
She had to hold out for as long as she could, for Ba Sing Se's sake. For her friends' sakes. But with how the firebenders blasted away her earth spikes and columns, and were barely detectable once they launched themselves in the air similar to how Aang did it back in Earth Rumble, Toph didn't know if she could last minutes or seconds.
That these firebenders didn't move in the same manner as the others she faced made it worse. What the girl thought was a leap turned into a barely avoided firebolt that lightly seared her right cheek. When they rushed her, Toph quickly learned to dart out of the way as her earth walls could only take two or three strikes of their focused barrages. Only the sheer amount of earth she threw about kept them away from her, and it was beginning to wear on her to keep repairing the protective dome and walls around herself.
Toph retaliated, of course, when the opportunity presented itself. Initially she managed to break charges and knock unwary soldiers off their feet with earthen waves and pillars, but there were plenty more of the Fire Nation elite to keep her surrounded. Then they settled for putting some distance between them and quickly intercepted her earthbending or scattered away whenever she dropped into a stance.
What made it more annoying was the constant voices calling for Toph to surrender. "Girl, we do not want to kill you. Please cease your resistance." A woman's authoritative tone grated on her nerves, but a treacherous corner of her mind actually considered it, distracting her ever so slightly. She wasn't that stupid though, the moment she stopped resisting, they'd burn her to ash, impale her with spears, or finish her in the myriad of ways she had heard about. Toph didn't want to die just yet. She was still too young.
Something changed barely a minute later, and the enemies around her backed away. Toph gasped as she felt them move towards the wounded earthbenders.
"If you will not think for yourself, then consider doing so for these men's sake," the same woman called out, and surprisingly she sounded a bit regretful about what she was doing. "Stop fighting, and we promise that these men will be taken back to be healed, rather than being allowed to bleed out here."
The demand made Toph pause. She saw through the vibrations the Fire Nation monsters standing above the fallen soldiers. Were they aiming their weapons at them? She could sense several of the wounded men's slowing breaths and heartbeats.
These men were dying, but if she surrendered, Ba Sing Se and its thousands of people would be at risk.
But… But her friends were in the drill, right? They might stop the drill?
But if she stopped fighting, what would happen to her? Would the Scorpion take her prisoner or kill her outright for being a pain in the butt? Neither option sounded good…
"You'll save them?" Toph asked loudly.
The woman didn't hide her relief at getting a reply. "They'll be brought back as prisoners and healed. They will not be mistreated, I promise you."
Interesting. Either these monsters knew how to lie in novel ways like their firebending, or the woman was telling the truth.
A good part of Toph wanted to keep fighting, to defy her enemies and save the fallen men herself. That part of her was optimistic that she could reach the wounded defenders in time, before the enemy could execute even a single one of them. She'd whisk them up with a cunning application of earthbending and they'd all flee back to the safety of the wall.
The ground picked up the shuddering rasp from the Ba Sing Se captain who had keeled over. Another soldier tried to rise despite all his broken limbs.
Her mind made up, Toph dropped her rocky shells and held her breath in anticipation as her enemies warily closed in.
"Thank you, girl." There was no sinister meaning behind the words as the woman cautiously walked up to her and placed an unexpectedly gentle hand behind Toph's back to usher her. "Come along. We'll get you someplace safe."
Toph felt relief at sensing the Fire Nation soldiers kneeling by the bodies to carefully lift them up. More worried about the fates of the men who had so briefly yet bravely fought with her against the Fire Nation, Toph didn't notice that she was left unbound, with only the woman and some loosely arranged soldiers around her to secure her.
"You're not going to tie me up?" she had to ask, and she could hear the smirk in the woman's reply.
"We asked for your cessation of hostilities, not your surrender."
Huh?
"Don't worry, we'll keep our word; the men we've taken prisoner will be taken care of… Not in the dark innuendo way, by the way."
"You're not taking me prisoner too?"
"Nope," the woman replied, popping the 'p' at the end. "You're technically not a soldier, so taking you prisoner is going to be a headache for us, especially Xing and Mozi," she said with a chuckle, as if that explained everything. "Besides, you're the Avatar's companion right? Can't have that sort of terror chasing us. So do us a favor and just stay quiet for now, alright? Whether the drill breaks or does its job, I'd prefer it if we part ways peacefully. Well, peacefully enough."
Toph remained speechless as she let herself be led towards one of the lighter tanks of the Dreaded 11th, her confused mind struggling to find the angle they were aiming at. They paused in their walk for a soldier to run up and deliver a report.
"Captain Ping, the healers are on the way."
Toph felt the woman - Captain Ping, smile from how the muscles of her feet shifted. "Good. So, while we wait, you want some tea or something? I think we have rice cakes too?"
*****
Wandering through the labyrinth of the drill's inner workings made Sokka appreciate the vast advantage of Fire Nation engineering. The group was surrounded by endless tangles of pipes and gauges, and somehow there was enough light leaking in from cleverly angled vents to give the tunnels a reddish tint. Not to mention how comfortable the air was around here; somehow it wasn't as humid and sweltering here as Sokka thought it would be.
The soldiers bravely protected Aang, keeping their blades and spears in front and behind him, Katara and Sokka. Sergeant Kho carried himself not unlike a Water Tribe warrior, which Sokka respected.
For all their sneaking about, they managed to come across a few engineers who were busy looking at their clipboards and the gauges, occasionally rapping on a pipe with their knuckles. The ambush was quiet enough, with Aang simply slamming them into the pipes with a powerful gust of wind and knocking them out. Sokka approved of his friend's move; trying to capture and interrogate one might risk him yelling and alerting the Fire Nation to their presence.
Conveniently, each engineer carried schematics to the gargantuan machine, complete with labels for the pipe networks. Interestingly, there were several water lines that were intended to carry broken up dirt out the back of the drill. Convenient escape routes, if anything. Other pipes were not so useful for the saboteurs, carrying water to boilers or steam to exhaust vents.
Once more Sokka was awed at the sheer scale of the Fire Nation's siege engine, but urgency kept him from reeling too much and forgetting about why they were here. "Hm… It looks like the drill is made up of two main structures. There's the inner mechanism - where we are now - and the outer shell. The inner part and the outer part are connected by these braces… If we cut through them, the entire thing will collapse."
"Good to know," the sergeant grunted. "We should have enough blasting jelly to deal with them."
"Aang and I can help as well, with water blades," Katara added.
Their morale bolstered by a solid plan, the group navigated towards the nearest brace. They quickened their pace when echoey, muffled voices were heard coming through some open-ended conical pipes.
"This is Engineering Team 59 to all stations. We've found Team 43 knocked out in Front Sector 2, Deck 3. Their schematics are missing. It looks like we have saboteurs on board."
"This is Chief Engineer Gunsou to all stations. Stay alert for any unusual activities, and report them immediately. Guards are being dispatched to sweep the decks."
"That's our cue to go faster," Aang said rather unnecessarily.
Unfortunately, the corridors took the group straight into a patrol. Aang's quick thinking bowled them over, giving Katara time to freeze up a wall and allow the saboteurs to clear some distance. Sokka could hear the downed Fire Nation soldiers yelling an alert, which didn't help his growing anxiety. Sokka kept an eye for the conveniently placed signs as well as the schematics in his hands, guiding them as best as he could.
"Right down here. Two more left turns and a right, and the next corridor will lead to the exit."
They barely made it past the first junction when they heard the growing clamor of armored boots. Since no one could tell if trouble was headed towards or away from them, they legged it even faster, all but abandoning stealth.
It might have been a mistake, because on the next fork in the corridors, they ran into trouble.
Sokka almost broke his face slamming into the swordsman in front of him who had skidded to a halt. As he nursed his nose, he heard gasps from Katara as well as the soldiers around him. Sokka peered past the shoulder in front of him and saw a lone figure, smaller than the usual Fire Nation grunt and armored in red with a face veiled by mail.
"Ah, there you are."
The voice fully confirmed Xing's appearance, and Sokka instinctively backpedaled as he drew his boomerang.
"You." Aang seemed more angry than afraid, which was good for him, though it wasn't good for the current situation. There wasn't much space to dodge fireballs or fire breaths here.
"The Scorpion…" the sergeant in front of Sokka muttered, his hands visibly tightening around his sword to control the slight trembles.
Said Scorpion gave a nod in acknowledgement. "I take it you're headed out to compromise the braces?"
"You're not going to stop us," the Avatar declared, lowering his glider staff hostilely at Xing.
"I'm not?" White fire sprang to life in Xing's hands and he took a casual step forward.
Sokka heard a gulp from Kho before the man looked over his shoulders to Aang. "Avatar…find another way through. We'll…we'll slow him down."
Katara was immediately aghast at that idea. "What? No!" She slipped into her bending stance and drew out a blob of water. "Aang is right - you're not going to stop us."
Strangely, Xing's fires flickered out and he didn't seem too concerned as his chain-covered face regarded the sergeant. "Brave man. I hope Ba Sing Se awards commendations for such courage."
From around the corner, four more Fire Nation soldiers appeared, all attired in a similar fashion to Xing. Sokka did a quick glance behind, and found another four blocking their retreat.
"If I might ask for your weapons to be lowered?"
Katara answered the Scorpion with a defiant shout, lashing out with her water whip with all the ferocity of a porcupython. To the gang's horror, a good portion of it burst into a cloud of steam that harmlessly washed across the Scorpion's head.
"How-?"
Aang acted immediately after, putting his body through a quick spin that sent out a strong gust of wind. Xing flicked a hand and the torrent crashed against a wall of white fire, which melted some of the metalwork around it. With flame and wind dissipating, the Scorpion laconically raised a hand.
"Secure them."
His soldiers surged into action, and the brave soldiers of Ba Sing Se yelled defiantly as they charged out to meet them.
Aang quickly blasted a few Fire Nation men off their feet with his gusts of air, disrupting the oncoming rush a little. Behind them, Katara turned the remains of her water whip into a spear of ice that spun down the corridor, though Xing's soldiers simply shattered it into droplets with their firebending.
The firebenders crashed into non-bending infantry, and despite being outnumbered, their savagery saw them almost literally run down the saboteurs. Sokka saw two men in green being tackled to the ground by a lone firebender who propelled himself with bursts of fire. Another spearman had his weapon burnt through before another blast of flame sent him denting the wall behind him.
Sokka danced away from another firebender, evading fists that trailed smoke before the air in his lungs was blasted out by a kick he didn't see coming at all.
"Sokka!" Katara's concern was nice, but she was facing her own problems. Xing's firebenders were keeping their distance from her, happy to whittle away at her water whip even as she drew in steam from broken pipes to maintain her water whip's integrity. Judging by how short her blob of water was getting with each pass, the waterbender was slowly but surely losing.
Sokka was abruptly lifted by his collar by rough hands, but Aang came to his rescue with a wordless shout, blasting the enemy into the duo harassing Katara. The three opponents fell in a crash of armor and limbs, though that still left six of them - Xing included - to deal with.
Six against… Five? Sokka almost gaped as he saw the battered bodies of the soldiers joining him, several with limbs bent at wrong angles. Sergeant Kho was still standing, somehow, despite most of his armored suit blasted away and his body trembling from simply trying to stay up.
Aang didn't waste any more time and opened with another powerful blast of air that sent Sokka down to his knees, but also forced the firebenders to brace themselves. It left them open to the Avatar flying in with his staff, knocking three men down instantly with lightning fast jabs.
Xing intercepted the next blow, catching the end of the glider staff and causing Aang to grunt and jolt from the sudden stop. "Could you reconsider?"
"No!" the airbender retorted angrily, a surge of wind knocking the Scorpion back a few steps before the staff lanced out again. Once more Xing caught the weapon, but this time he yanked on it hard, pulling a surprised Aang towards his waiting knee.
"Oof-!"
"Aang!" Sokka and his sister cried out with concern and the beginnings of despair, as Xing grabbed their friend by the neck and slowly lifted him up. By now, the rest of the Ba Sing Se soldiers were down on the ground, and Katara and Sokka were surrounded by armored firebenders.
Xing lifted Aang up for a second, and then flung him back towards the Water Tribe siblings with something approaching dismissive contempt. "Now, before you break into a fight again, could you at least wait for a moment to listen to me?"
"Why should we bother?" Sokka asked defiantly. "It's all going to be stupid bragging anyway."
Xing's head tilted in amusement at that. "Not really." He looked around, nodding to his soldiers that were picking themselves up. "All good there, Yan? Koshi?"
"Nothing broken, sir," came one annoyed reply.
"Good," the Scorpion said, nodding. "Secure these prisoners and some of you keep the corridors clear."
The gang tensed as the armored monsters around them suddenly dispersed down the corridors with the wounded soldiers, seemingly leaving them and Xing alone.
"Now, as I was saying-"
"What do you want with us?" Aang cut in.
Xing let out a sigh, and then removed his helmet. A show of trust? Or was he going to break into a self-aggrandizing monologue? Sokka swore he'd hurl his boomerang if it was the latter. The Fire Nation boy's smirk further pushed him towards that decision.
"I just wanted to tell you that there's a better route than trying to compromise the braces."
"What?"
Xing shrugged at Sokka, and then nodded down at some pouches dropped by the saboteurs. "I see you got blasting jelly with you…"
"So you better be careful or we'll all go up with a bang," Sokka threatened, futilely, judging from the Scorpion's grin.
"Eh, I don't think I'll have to worry about that. Anyway…" He looked about for a moment, and then casually walked towards a conical ended pipe and spoke into it.
"This is Colonel Xing of Princess Azula's Fire Lancers." It startled not only Sokka, but Aang and Katara too at how sharp XIng suddenly sounded, yet his eyes still held light amusement. "I've found some saboteurs in my area, Front Sector 24, Deck 3. My men have captured some of them. The saboteurs are carrying blasting jelly and I suspect the Avatar's among them."
There was a second's pause before a hurried reply came through the pipes. Sokka recognized it as the Gunsou guy. "Blasting jelly?!"
"Affirmative. Looks like they wanted to head for the braces, but decided to turn back." Xing looked at the walls around him, and then gave the trio a light shrug. "Any idea why?"
Another pause, and this time the reply came back with a more definite tint of panic. "They must be heading for the drill's rotary systems! You have to stop them, colonel!"
The Scorpion broke out into a victorious grin for a second, and then put on his serious voice again. "And where's that?"
"Just one deck below you, Sector 14. If you're lucky they didn't use the service ladder just down the right of the fork. Hurry!"
"What about your men, chief engineer?"
"They're too far down the wrong end to intercept! It'll take too long! Hurry colonel!"
Annoyingly, Xing waggled his eyebrows before speaking again. "Can I have the crown princess' confirmation?"
The pipes let out a curse, but a girl's voice quickly drowned after it. "As the War Ministry's security is clearly not enough, you have free reign, Xing."
"Thank you, my princess," the boy replied with a grin.
Sokka thought he heard some sputtering on the other end, but otherwise silence followed. Xing stepped away from the cone-ended pipe and nodded down the corridor. "I'll give you…say, a couple of minutes head start before I start getting distracted by noises on the other end for a while more and then finally come down to chase after you."
Aang asked the question all three very confused teens were wondering. "Why are you helping us?"
Xing gave a nonchalant shrug. "Our goals happen to run parallel for the moment." He bent down to one wounded soldier and plucked his pouches of blasting jelly. "And now you'll owe me another one."
"Another one?"
He looked up to flash a smug smirk. "The moon and ocean spirits?"
"We could just tell everyone you helped us. Even the Fire Nation."
Xing nodded at the fact. "You could. But that'd mean I'll cancel any and all future peaceful encounters with you and your friends."
"Yeah, as if we'll need or even want your help anymore," Katara scoffed.
His smirk appeared again. "Well, the Avatar will need a firebending master, no? One that might even have useful information about the Fire Nation?"
Aang and Katara froze at that, but Sokka was frowning hard at the Scorpion. "Why are you doing this, really?" There was something really off here. "You could've captured or even killed us by now," Sokka pondered aloud, ignoring his sister and Aang's glares.
"True..." Xing stopped himself for a second, and then exhaled aloud. "Let's just say that I have someone else I need to stop, like with Zhao. Except I probably need you alive, Avatar, to limit the mess somewhat."
Before any of the stunned gang could muster a response, Xing began walking down the corridor - the one without the service ladder - juggling the pouches in his hands. "Now I suggest you three hurry up. I can only investigate so many mysterious explosions before I come running down to the all-important rotary systems."
Reminded of their objective, they reluctantly watched the firebender leave, and then hurried down the other corridor, finding the ladder. Dull whumps of explosions echoed their way as they climbed down.
It didn't take long from there to reach the rotary systems, a massive set of engines powered by furnaces and boilers, that spun the drill head and, if Sokka read the schematics right, also powered the tracks on the front section of the drill. Putting a stop to the drill from there was easy enough. Sokka broke off the valves to the pipes leading to the boilers, overloading them while Aang and Katara bended the water in them to burst their metal containers and at the same time, formed a massive water whip out of them that crashed against the gears and drill shaft to irrevocably break the whole system.
Xing appeared just as the shaft was sheared in two and the whole massive structure shuddered to a jerky halt. "Well done," he complimented with a slow clap. "Exit's that way. Don't worry about the soldiers that came with you - I'm sure they'll be able to find their way out amidst all the chaos."
Too busy to be annoyed, the trio quickly left through the hatch Xing had helpfully pointed out to them, and to their surprise they found Kho and his men supporting each other as they stumbled out.
"The Fire Nation brutes left us to die the moment you broke the drill and things started shaking," the sergeant said with a pained chuckle. "Fucking cowards."
Sokka exchanged quiet looks with Aang and Katara, uncertain whether to tell the man about their little meeting with Xing.
With the crew of the drill hastily evacuated their crippled machine, the battered group found their return to Ba Sing Se's walls unimpeded. They came across a rather chipper Toph waiting for them, looking a bit dirtied but otherwise alright. "Come on, let's get out of here in case the thing decides to explode or something."
There was no argument from Aang, though judging by the weary look he gave, the three of them would have to figure out how to discreetly tell Toph about their encounter with Xing.