It occurred to Sokka that on the times they had run into Xing, he'd been smug, taunting, and annoying. Worse, there was always a sense that he was holding back, even when he fried Zhao. It never crossed Sokka's mind to imagine what an angry Scorpion would look like.
Well, now he knows.
After blasting down the doors to free the bruised and malnourished Kyoshi Warriors, Xing fixed a cold, furious gaze on the gang and the generals that froze everyone in fear.
"Miss Beifong, follow me, please." The words were brittle and measured. "I want…need to make sure nobody escapes." Toph simply gulped and nodded.
A trio of Dai Li appeared down the corridor, hurling boulders before them. Xing scowled and flashed a hand in a cutting gesture, his white flames blasting the projectiles into clouds of smoke and pebbles, and briefly stunning the charging foes. His other hand flew up in a fluid motion, and a stream of glowing hot metal chopsticks flew out in succession, propelled by blasts of flame and dropping the Dai Li as they pierced through the hasty rock walls. The utensils lodged into shoulders, thighs and bellies, sizzling angrily as their victims writhed on the ground.
The Scorpion's restrained fury returned to the party, this time turning to Katara. "Katara. See to the Kyoshi Warriors' health, and the other girls I'll be sending your way. Ignore the Dai Li." Thankfully, Sokka's sister also just nodded dumbly at the order.
Xing's head shifted, regarding both Aang and Sokka. "I need a message sent up to my troops."
Aang gulped, his eyes barely able to tear away from the curled Kyoshi Warriors on the ground. Even with the dim lighting, Sokka could tell that he'd gone a few shades paler. "I-I'll do it."
Xing didn't seem to care or notice, merely nodding curtly. "Ask for Ping. Damaged victims. She'll understand."
Then he turned to the shocked group of soldiers. "Generals. For the girls' sake, you and your men wait up on the surface. This…should not take too long. You are still my prisoners. If the 11th arrives, you will transfer yourselves in their care."
Again, nobody said anything, settling for nods instead before they immediately turned to leave the way they came.
And finally the attention turned to Sokka. "Back up my tank, there's a sack of supplies. Bring them down here. The warriors require food and water." Sokka too bobbed his head, not trusting himself to speak at the clearly angry Fire Nation colonel.
With his orders handed out, Xing turned about and began to stalk down the corridor.
"Orochi. Quai Yin."
To Sokka's surprise, the dragons unfurled out from under Xing's cloak, their wings spreading with audible flaps. A significant part of Sokka wondered how the guy managed to hide two dragons, even when he saw that the cloak looked so much thinner and deflated now.
The two dragons were larger than when Sokka had last met them, maybe the length of a small-ish hound by now. Their heads were fixed towards Xing as they hovered in place in a hypnotic swirl of their serpentine bodies.
"Go. Remember, I want them alive."
With raspy yips, the flying reptiles darted off into the darkness, and Xing followed after them. Sokka remembered his duty, and, after sharing a look with his friends, turned to follow Aang and the soldiers back up to the surface just as the screams really started filling the narrow corridors.
*****
Toph was not exactly afraid for her life, but she was openly apprehensive about being alone with Xing. She wasn't worried about being picked off by the Dai Li, but she didn't exactly trust the Scorpion right now. He was angry. Very angry. And if the Fire Nation had any stereotype, it was that they made poor decisions when they were angry.
Poor decisions like maybe deciding to say 'screw it' and flood the whole underground dungeon with fire.
Also, Toph was spooked by the creatures Xing had summoned. She'd thought he had been carrying a strange-looking backpack, but it turned out to be two winged things that were invisible to the earthbender right up until they landed on some poor Dai Li and the tremors from the ensuing struggle gave her a clearer picture of the dragons. Aang and the siblings did mention the dragons at one point, but Toph had been skeptical back then.
Her doubts flew out the window now, as her senses picked up the screams of panicked men fleeing or shooting rocks into the sky, only to be tackled down as the dragons swooped down on them talons first. There was a definite sense of predatory glee in their movements. They almost always tackled their prey from the back, and their attack patterns didn't vary much. Talons would bite deep into the backs of the Dai Li victims and tear away at flesh with a few harsh yanks to ruin shoulders and hips, effectively crippling them. Occasionally, their maws would clamp down to crunch on wrists and elbows, or the claws would rake down to gouge out chunks from the men's thighs.
And then they leapt off, and Toph had to strain her ears to try picking their wing flaps amidst the screams and flames.
It was mostly screams though.
Toph was glad she was blind to the full, bloody experience.
Xing was holding back his fire, mostly content with hurling chopsticks at his targets with ruthless precision. He did wield his invisible flames though, and Toph picked up the vibrations he left that showed him yanking back a curled hand, or sending an arm sweeping contemptuously sideways.
In either case, either a lone victim or a group of Dai LI would promptly fall to the ground screaming as their skin were seared. Xing or his dragons would then cause the screams to spike as they broke arms and legs before moving on.
One Dai Li saw what had happened to his colleagues as he appeared from around the corner and quickly bended a cavity in the tunnel's walls to slip inside and hide from Xing's flame. The Scorpion didn't hesitate to thrust his hand out at the protective bubble of rock to instantly heat it up. Toph was sure that the man's agonized screams as he was baked alive would haunt her for a long time, especially after a blast of fire broke apart the impromptu oven to let the man fall out and scream his burnt lungs out.
"Anything in there?" he asked as they came across a massive sealed door.
Toph reached out with her senses and shook her head. "This one's empty too."
Xing nodded, and as he did with past empty chambers, he melted down the door to quickly peer inside before moving on. They had initially found several rooms filled with unmoving girls, Toph could pick out their uniform dresses and eerily statue-like stillness. "Brainwashed," Xing had simply said. "We'll find a way to undo that later."
"That's why you need the Dai Li alive?" she finally dared to ask, earning a curt nod from him even as he sent another group of Dai Li tumbling from the ceiling and walls as the tunnel walls glowed hot.
"Among other things," he answered with fragile calm. "They do not deserve an easy end."
Without Aang here to argue the point, Toph didn't feel so guilty agreeing wholeheartedly with the Scorpion and followed along, carefully avoiding the writhing and sobbing bodies along the way. As horrible as the carnage, it paled in comparison to what the Dai Li were doing, or what she had picked up earlier near the entrance.
She'd almost missed the Kyoshi Warriors, with how close to death they were. Only the Dai Li running out of the otherwise hidden tunnel revealed that the cells were of some importance, and the overwhelming stench of shit and piss had clued everyone into the potential of prisoners still worth saving in each cell.
The more she thought about what the girls here might have to endure, the more she wanted to offer Xing her aid when he went back up to conquer the city. Ba Sing Se was a den of monsters, Toph decided. For this to go on, at such a scale, it seems that it was not only its walls that were once impenetrable, but its secrets.
As if sensing her thoughts, Xing slowed his walk and fell beside her during a short pause in the violence, managing to inject some levity in his voice. "It's all the Dai Li's fault…directly anyway. I'm pretty sure that the Earth King is oblivious to this."
"How do you know?"
The thin smirk in his voice was obvious. "Supposedly, the spirits guide me on things like this."
Ignoring the half truth, Toph nodded and then pointed at a wall. "There's seven people hiding behind that wall. It's a tunnel that goes deeper in."
"Much appreciated."
And the violence resumed.
Toph discovered several more hidden entrances, mostly desperately caved-in tunnels by the Dai Li cornered in them. Xing didn't even ask for her help when she pointed them out, instead checking with her to make sure if there were bodies right behind the obstacles before he blasted holes through them. He really didn't want any of the Dai Li to die just yet, and Toph began to wonder if she should start pitying them.
Eventually, they came into a cavernous chamber, one large enough to hold Appa. Not only was Appa in the middle of it, chained down to the ground, but he shared the space with the last of the Dai Li, and a small horde of brainwashed women. Women who loosely gripped daggers in their hands.
All but one of the insidious men had control of earthen spikes just inches away from the struggling air bison, while a lone man dared to stand behind a few ranks of unmoving women to face Xing.
"One more move, and I give the order for these girls to stab themselves in the heart!" he boldly declared, and Toph felt Xing's fury rekindle again. "I'll kill the air bison as well!"
She actually felt the Scorpion's rage emanating from him, and strangely, the air and ground around him grew cold. Xing took a step forward, his face fixed onto the Dai Li leader. A tremor of doubt rippled from the latter's position.
"I mean it! Stay back and surrender, or the blood of these girls will be on your head!"
Xing took another step, and Toph's 'vision' of him began to blur as ice obstructed her tremor sense.
"Y-You asked for it!" the man shrieked. "Joo Dees! G-AAAHHGK!"
Unsurprisingly by now, the Dai Li as one dropped to the ground, clawing at their faces and throats. The ringleader gasped hoarsely, rolling awkwardly about, pinned between the legs of the still unmoving ladies.
"I'm told that waterbender healers can heal a lot, including damaged voices." Xing walked up to the man, parting the brainwashed prisoners with surprising gentleness to reach him. "I'll have to trust Elder Kilin's abilities to heal a muted man."
The Scorpion promptly jammed the last of his chopsticks into the Dai Li's wrists and ankles, while his dragons swooped in to cripple the rest of them with shredding talons.
With the fresh screams mingling with the fading ones in the back, the last of the Dai Li in Lake Laogai had been subdued, all maimed and none killed.
Xing let Toph have the pleasure of freeing Appa, while he dragged his crippled prey away from the insensate crowd. The dragons helped in melting the chains off the air bison, though Appa was understandably nervous by the gouts of flame so close to him.
"Do you think there's a lake above us, or is it open air?" Xing asked, and Toph rose up on a column of rock to feel the ceiling and find out.
She didn't feel any water above, so Xing allowed for an Appa-sized air vent to be made. Toph then flew the antsy mountain of fur out of the lake, trusting in Appa's intelligence to understand her commands to seek Aang out.
The reunion between the Avatar and his furry friend was heartwarming, soured only by the work that remained. With the tanks of the 11th making all haste towards Lake Laogai, Toph flew back on Appa with Aang to the dungeon, finding the Earth Kingdom soldiers milling about with nervous uncertainty by the shore.
"Excuse me," General Yiu asked as Toph landed. "But I must know. How…how bad was it?"
He truly didn't know what went on down there. They all didn't.
Somehow, that made Toph's face screw up with disgust. "Very." She turned to Aang, who was still struggling with the string of shocking realizations. "If it means anything, I say we should sit back and let Xing take Ba Sing Se. He couldn't do any worse than what they did to themselves."
More than a score of firebenders of the Defiant 11th arrived, dropping from the skies very much like how Xing did back at the Outer Wall. All women, Toph noted. All carried sacks of supplies, too.
"I am Captain Ping," came the familiar voice, colder and angrier than when Toph had first met her. "Where are the captives?"
Not knowing who she meant, Toph was thorough with her answer. "Xing is done breaking the Dai Li. I think he's waiting to gather them up. The Kyoshi Warriors are with Katara and Sokka, take the first right once you go downstairs. There's groups of brainwashed ladies in various rooms."
"Thank you." The captain nodded and quickly led her women down into the darkness.
They reappeared later, carrying out the Kyoshi Warriors, and then the slack, brainwashed women. When the Water Tribe siblings came out, Toph was concerned at how distraught they were. Katara was practically shambling along, while her brother was keeping a wide berth from the Kyoshi Warriors, likely out of guilt.
Aang swiftly joined them in devastation when Katara relayed what she had discovered. "Suki… Suki found Appa in the Fire Nation colonies. She and her Kyoshi Warriors freed him and flew along with Appa to protect him as they searched for us. And then…"
With the way he was swaying, Aang looked like he was about to faint. "They're…they were… B-Because of me?"
Sokka tried to pull the Avatar out of the pity party before it could begin. "No Aang. The Dai Li captured and tortured them. Not you."
"But-"
Surprisingly, Katara stepped in before Toph could. "He's right Aang. The Dai Li are responsible for this. For all of this. They captured Appa and the Kyoshi Warriors."
"And brainwashed their own people," Toph helpfully pointed out, drawing a reaction from General Yiu and his men. "According to Xing, the Earth King doesn't know about this."
That elicited a greater response from the captive soldiers around her, and once more disgust crept into Toph at the fact that such a horrible thing could've passed under all these men's noses. For a supposedly great city, its people seemed rather unimpressive.
The rest of the 11th arrived not too long after, and the gang were surprised to see Water Tribe members disembark from the tanks. An old woman led them, though her voice was far sterner than the supposed frailty of her body. "Clear some space, you twits. I want the water barrels here, here and here. Uki, Kina, heat up the cabbage soup. The rest of you, triage. You know how it's done."
The old waterbender fixed her eyes on Katara, and dragged her along with her commanding tone. "And you. You're a healer?"
"Uh…y-yes?"
"Good. You're with me. Come along, these girls need further attention."
Some of the gloom and despair lifted as the waterbenders tended over the Kyoshi Warriors. The brainwashed captives remained unresponsive as they were brought up, and the Fire Nation soldiers generally ignored them.
Not so the Ba Sing Se ones though.
"Hey, Bator, isn't that Shiruk's sister?"
"Li Yan! Li Yan! It's your brother!"
"....thought you were dead, Hori! Why don't you answer me?"
Some of the men recognized the women, and were shaking them by the shoulders, embracing them tightly, or simply bawling in front of them to no results. It was a pitiful sight, and the Fire Nation troops were courteous enough to only intervene when it looked the the more hysterical men might harm themselves of the literally doll-like prisoners.
Amidst all of that, a few soldiers of the 11th met with Xing, who had climbed out just minutes ago with his cloak all heavy again. The news they reported out loud sent a ripple of nervousness among the captive Outer Wall soldiers.
"The defenders at the Inner Wall have sallied out and are headed for us in force."
"Good. Saves me some time."
*****
Long Feng knew he was too late when he saw the massed congregation of the enemy at the shores of the lake. They were probably in the midst of clearing out the complex by now. And they had some prisoners from the Outer Wall with them…probably to use as propaganda pieces.
No matter. The Dai Li with him knew what was at stake, the Royal Guard that led the way (as meat shields) were too blindly obedient to orders, and the rest of the soldiers and conscripts were kept far enough back to not catch all the important details.
It shouldn't be too hard to pass off the Fire Nation prisoners as traitorous turncoats or an attempt by the enemy to disguise themselves using salvaged uniforms.
To the citizens of Ba Sing Se, it'd look like the palace guards were bravely leading the vanguard to break the enemy formation. In truth, Long Feng had seized the opportunity to quickly cull the Royal Guard and grind enough of the enemy down with attrition before the rest of the sallying defenders came in to witness the Dai Li avenging their fallen comrades and claim a heroic victory.
After that, controlling the narrative would be easy. The Joo Dees under Lake Laogai would serve as fitting casualties to further rile up the cityfolk and throw their support behind Long Feng. If he was lucky, they'd find a few surviving girls to be programmed into pliable living martyrs. With their words, they might even help win back the reluctant aid of the neglectful southern vassals, though that'd take some extra planning…
Long Feng's musings, as well as the march of the whole formation, came to an abrupt halt as streaks of smoke shot up from the distance and arced towards them.
Incredibly, several hundred firebenders dove down from the skies, roaring bloody violence. Stuck in marching formation, the combined Dai Li and Royal Guard formation didn't have enough time to space themselves out, and in such cramped conditions few could utilize their earthbending and pole weapons effectively as the firebenders landed among them. Chaos rippled out, and bursts of fire soon punctuated the screams of Dai Li and Royal Guard alike.
Long Feng immediately bended up a wall of earth to shield himself, uncaring that he flung four Royal Guards off their feet as a result. The wall lasted all of two fireball impacts, and then the Grand Secretariat was forced to rely on his rock gloves to block descending daggers.
A hasty kick pushed his attacker back, and the following backhand with the rock gloves rang against the opponent's helmet to send her sprawling to the ground. It also bought him enough time to realize that he had to get out of here.
Long Feng stood straighter to look behind him, finding the rest of the sallying force rushing in to aid the beleaguered vanguard. It was both heartening and panicking at the same time. If they got too close to the front, the risk of the Joo Dees and the other prisoners being exposed would be immense. Yet, it was clear that the Scorpion's elite force was slowly but surely breaking the morale of the Dai Li and Royal Guard despite being heavily outnumbered.
A loud boom sounded, and Long Feng saw a cloud of dust kick up as another figure landed just behind the fighting. A young Fire Nation soldier, full of wrath and the promise of a painful demise, marched out, hands aflame with blinding white fire.
The Scorpion Dragon turned and made his presence clear with a ludicrously massive torrent of flame towards the arriving reinforcements, sending them stumbling to a frightened halt. It even caught the attention of those in the vanguard not stuck in combat like Long Feng.
"Defenders of Ba Sing Se!" the Scorpion roared at the stunned conscripts and garrisoned troops. "My fight is not with you today, but the Dai Li!"
Oh no. Long Feng's eyes went wide, immediately realizing what the monster was about to do.
"They've kidnapped the Avatar's animal companion!"
As if to punctuate the point, the air bison dropped right beside the Scorpion, and there was no mistaking the presence of the Avatar standing atop it, wielding spinning orbs of water and earth in either hand.
"It's true! The Dai Li captured Appa, and Xi- Colonel Xing helped me free him!"
Long Feng despaired as he saw the confusion spreading through the listeners. Even some of the usually dense Royal Guard nearby were lowering their weapons in doubt.
Before he could urge them to keep fighting, Long Feng found himself being yanked back as armored hands grabbed him. He screamed as blinding pain stabbed into his head, following after the loud snaps of his arms and legs being broken. Despite the agony, the Scorpion's voice continued to ring in his ears.
"Not only that, the Dai Li that are supposed to protect you have been imprisoning your womenfolk! The Avatar has witnessed it, and can attest to my words! Your own generals, that I've taken prisoner, can attest to it!"
It was not supposed to be like this…
"They've kidnapped your daughters and sisters and mothers, and rendered them into docile, unthinking slaves! My men and women are tending to them right now, and yet the Dai Li still ordered you into battle, risking your women's lives!"
As Long Feng was dragged away, he absently noticed other Dai Li agents in similar broken states lying on the ground. There were more Fire Nation soldiers running around now, either dragging down or herding stubborn combatants. The damned Royal Guard were useless, most were groaning on the ground, while a few stood about to keep stupidly listening to the Scorpion's venomous words.
"I've come to take Ba Sing Se, so that I may properly right these wrongs! Let me deal with the Dai Li! Let me return your captured women back to you safely!"
As more armored figures surrounded him, Long Feng knew then that he had lost Ba Sing Se.