With the main issue of public tolerance dealt with, Mozi led several squads to join Xing down to a particular area in the Middle Ring. It was a residential zone placed right up against the walls separating the Middle Ring from the Lower one, nondescript in every way except that it was tucked in deep within a barrier of tightly packed civilian workshops. If not for the map pointing out the false buildings and hidden alleyways behind the industrial block, the colonel wouldn't have expected to find a whole town's worth of people there.
Squeezing through the narrow lanes that often led back out to the main streets, Xing led the group to what was basically a village hidden within Ba Sing Se. Mozi saw children running about and shrieking happily, while their parents looked on and chatted amongst themselves. They were all dressed just like any other Ba Sing Se citizen of the lower classes, and their homes were just like any other in the city. But now that he knew what to look out for, there were signs that things were not completely as it seemed.
The residents froze as they finally noticed the soldiers. It took a second before the adults quickly swooped in to pick up their children and hastily head back to their homes. Mozi felt the concern settle on these secluded folk, and saw the unsubtle and familiar movements of villagers ready to put up a futile fight.
Of course, Xing noticed that as well. "Please, I merely wish to talk with all of you. I do not wish for any violence here."
It took a few seconds before a group of aged men and women walked over, their postures caught between defiance and resignation.
A particularly wrinkled man with an intense gaze spoke on their behalf, putting on a bow with every ounce of reluctance. "What can we do for you, oh prince?" Mozi could feel the veteran soldiers exchanging glances with one another, and if not for his rank and being at the front with Xing he'd be joining in as well.
It'd been a long while since they encountered such insolence. Way before the 11th became truly feared.
Mozi ignored the wave of nostalgia and focused on the conversation that unfolded.
"You do not need to feign deference, elders. I know of this…village's pedigree."
Despite their age, the old men and women tensed. Xing quickly raised his hands placatingly to forestall further escalation. There wasn't much other choice of approaching this matter, unfortunately. Using Yama or Kilin as representatives might taint first impressions with insincerity and distrust, while Prince Iroh was occupied with other tasks Xing had assigned and Crown Princess Azula had already left for the colonies.
With civilian engagements like these, Xing fell back to the 11th's preference of an open and honest meeting. Sungho and his scouts were hidden in nearby rooftops as well, just to further ensure that the meeting was survivable.
"We are just a forgotten slum area, your highness," the old man spoke with no hint of sincerity. He was buying time, either for an ambush or for his people to flee. Brave people, these.
Xing sighed softly. "Please, I just wish for a peaceful conversation. I do not have any intention of endangering the Village of Hidden Clouds."
Unsurprisingly, the elders burst into motion at the mention of their home's name. With dexterity that'd put many of the 11th's best warriors to shame, the men and women lunged forwards with angry warcries.
They were terrifyingly fast, but Mozi and his taskforce had anticipated such a response, and they braced themselves and blasted out fire to weaken the incoming gale. Even then, the gaggle of old airbenders still projected enough force to nearly knock the soldiers off their feet. Planks and bricks of the buildings behind them creaked as the air slammed into them.
"Death to the Fire Nation!"
"As we planned, peaceful pacification!" Xing called out as Koshi stepped in to stop two men thrusting knife hands at him, barely deflecting the blades of air that tore out neat chunks of the masonry far behind them.
It was an order easier said than done. Even with foreknowledge of these people's history, Mozi was far from prepared for just how fast these old folks were. He and his men struggled to avoid the bursts of air sent at them, their tactics and stances specialized for dealing against earthbenders completely useless. It was impossible to get close to these people, they just shot into the air and continued to rain air blasts on the soldiers as they landed.
Trying to trade fire for wind proved to be just as ineffective, as these elders kept running up the walls and soaring through the air, making it near impossible to pin them down with the limited force. The arrows and flames of Sungho's scouts did nothing at all despite the supposed element of surprise. The wrinkled and hunched men and women had a grizzled warrior's preternatural sense of awareness, and they just used their airbending to shunt themselves out of harm's way.
The whole sorry exchange threatened to continue for longer, until Xing opted for the last resort. "Cover me!"
Mozi and the others immediately converged to protect their prince, abandoning the offensive completely and enduring the storm-like winds from every direction, dampening the worst of it with their flames. They didn't have to hold out for too long, and Xing gave the signal once he was ready.
"Drop!"
The soldiers did so as one, dropping to the floor with their hands above their heads. Mozi felt the edges of the biting cold creeping through his armor, while the air visibly froze over as the dust kicked up from the encounter became frosted.
The effects on the airbenders were far more telling, as they yelped in surprise and fell to the ground in shivering heaps. Mozi felt the air around him warm up as Xing focused his heatbending on the now incapacitated targets. Now that they were down, the colonel finally got to see the telltale blue tattoos of the Air Nomads peeking through smudged makeup.
"Wh-What-" an old woman exclaimed with a frosted breath.
Xing looked apologetic even as he walked over and threatened them. "Please cease your resistance, or I'll be forced to either deepen the cold, or reverse it significantly." Mozi noticed the faint wisps of smoke rising from the prince's feet. It was mildly surprising, because up until now Xing said he usually vented through his scalp. Maybe he was trying something new?
The old benders glared defiantly at the young prince even as their bodies rattled, but a younger voice called out to snatch away everyone's attention.
"Stop!"
Xing didn't, of course, and Mozi didn't need to order his soldiers to ready themselves as another group of villagers came out of the houses. They were adults, though far less wrinkled than the incapacitated elders. Their children then?
A man led this new group, hands raised as he desperately pleaded with Xing. "Please, stop it! Don't kill them!"
"I wasn't planning to," Xing said evenly, and the elders' shivering lessened a little. "But I do not wish to return to fighting."
"There'll be no more fighting, I promise!"
Xing gave the man a glance, and then to the elders on the ground still staring daggers at the Fire Nation delegation. It took a few seconds before the old men and women nodded shakily.
Minutes later, everyone was seated civilly along the streets. With the violence over with for now, Mozi left the talking to his prince while he quietly surveyed the area from where he stood. The Earth Kingdom engineers had been ingenious in their design of the Village of Hidden Clouds. The way the homes were built and laid out, Mozi guessed that if he were to look down from the walls separating the Middle and Lower Ring, the village probably blended in with the workshops that served as a facade on the ground level.
What was more impressive was that the grandfather of the deposed King Kuei had ordered this Air Nomad refuge quickly built and then expunged from most records. So thorough was his work that even the older Dai Li left not a hint of the Hidden Clouds to their inheritors. If Mozi read between the lines correctly, the old king had purged just about everyone involved in the project and forcibly migrated in new residents to occupy the main street.
It was Xing's curiosity that had him order a small army of officials to piece together the puzzle of subtly inaccurate accounting, sudden rise in palace recruitment, and a rash of coincidental state-announced obituaries. And it was a work that would've gone nowhere if not for someone finding an innocuous scribble in some ledger that, according to Xing, unlocked a cascade of surprising discovery.
The official story was that the old Earth King had failed to appeal for the Air Nomads to stay when they stopped by Ba Sing Se right after the Fire Nation's assaults. The airbending monks had all supposedly accepted the city's hospitality for a few nights at most before moving on to try and reclaim their temples.
In truth, some Air Nomads remained behind. Those monks that were pregnant, the young novices, or the badly wounded… There were various reasons for an airbender to be forced to stay behind. And the Earth King had hid them, not purely out of the goodness of his heart, but because at the time when outrage against the Fire Nation swept through the Earth Kingdom, asking the Air Nomads to settle outside of Ba Sing Se might draw heavy disapproval from his vassals. Yet at the same time, the Earth King did not wish to make his city a target of the Fire Nation's might.
Of course, there was probably a different excuse offered to the airbenders at the time.
So the Village of Hidden Clouds was conceived and built, a hidden sanctuary for the Air Nomads until the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe gathered their strength to push the Fire Nation back. Unfortunately the old Earth King had died quite suddenly, before fully revealing his plans to King Kuei's father and the new generation of Dai Li, who misunderstood his last words.
Long Feng's predecessor quickly gave up on searching for whatever Hidden Clouds truly meant, and went to work on refining the horrors under Lake Laogai.
A whole group of airbending refugees were left forgotten, until now. And judging by how nobody else knew about their existence, they seemed content to lay low.
"I only wish to know whether you wish to remain as you are, or if you have better accommodations in mind," Xing explained with heavy exasperation to his doubting audience.
"Yeah, right," the old spokesman spat out, "You just want an excuse to clap us in chains and send us to the Fire Lord, eh?"
The young prince sighed heavily. "No. I don't… Look, if I really wanted to win the Fire Lord's approval, I would have just razed this place to the ground instead of wasting my time trying to talk to you, and then send him whatever tattooed remains are left."
The elders seemed ready to argue again, but the younger adults (a bunch of which seemed still older than Mozi by a few years at least) stepped in. "Then what are your intentions?" the man from earlier asked. "Why are you here?"
"Because I do not wish to be responsible for snuffing the last of the Air Nomads. The Avatar excepted, of course."
"And you want us to believe that you'll actually do that? Let us be?" an elder cut in derisively. "We might be hidden here, but we're not blind nor deaf to the outside world," she added, jabbing a finger at Xing. "We know you, Scorpion. You'll have us wrapped up as a present to make your royal girlfriend happy."
"No," Xing denied again, with more force this time. "Understand, just by me coming out here to talk, I am risking the Fire Lord's disapproval if he finds out. I am here to see that you and your village are not neglected. If you have no needs to be cared for, then I am happy to leave you alone and forgotten until the Avatar returns."
As expected, that last part caught everyone's attention. Xing didn't bother hiding his smirk. "We made a deal, and he's coming back to Ba Sing Se to master firebending. I'd like to think he'd be elated to find that he's not the last of the Air Nomads."
It gave the villagers pause for all of two seconds before another elder spoke up. "You will not make us hostages."
"For fuck's sake…" Xing muttered as he ran a hand down his face.
Despite the lengthy negotiations, they eventually parted with some satisfaction for both parties. Xing managed to partially convince the Village of Hidden Clouds of his sincerity and Ba Sing Se would continue to leave them alone for now. At the same time, the villagers reluctantly agreed to deliver a list of improvements that they'd like for their homes, as a sort of trial run for Xing.
In the meantime, the false buildings - just hills of raised earth masked by walls, really - would be cleared out to allow the village to expand, while the workshops would be relocated to make space for an administrative office block, to covertly serve as a convenient meeting point for the airbenders.
"Well, on the bright side," Xing remarked with heavy humor as they returned to the palace, and Mozi did not like the look the prince gave him. "At least we know you're strictly just effective against the Earth Kingdom. None of the villagers there stopped to admire your presence."
That managed to bring out some chuckles from the troops around him, but Mozi was far from amused. "Seriously, Xing?"