"So, is King Bumi with you guys? Is he leading the resistance?"
Omashu had not quite been what Aang had been hoping for since he arrived. First had come the shock of finding out that it had been captured by The Fire Nation.
Then, in an attempt to save a lady from falling boulders, he'd been mistaken for a member of the resistance and had knives thrown at him. And all the time he still had no idea what had happened to the only friend he had left from before his big freeze.
Yung, the leader of the resistance, angrily clenched his fists. "Of course not! The day of the invasion, we readied ourselves for battle. We were prepared to defend our city... to fight for our lives and for our freedom! But before we even had a chance…" A deep growl thrummed in the back of his throat, his expression morphing into a rictus of frustrated fury. "King Bumi surrendered."
Surrendered? Bumi? No, there must be some mistake. Bumi loved his city! He wouldn't sit back and let it fall into enemy hands without a word.
"The day of the invasion, I asked King Bumi what he wanted to do." Yung continued, sensing his disbelief. "He looked me in the eye and said: I'm going to do… nothing!"
Sokka and Katara stirred uncomfortably behind him, no doubt recalling how Bumi had imprisoned them in candy the last time they'd visited as part of a game. Aang didn't need to look at them to know that they believed it. Bumi was a little crazy, yes, but not completely insane! There had to be a reason for what he'd done.
Yung snorted derisively. "It doesn't matter now. Fighting the Fire Nation is the only path to freedom. And freedom is worth dying for."
Freedom. The core principle of airbending. Aang had a great respect for freedom, and valued it immensely, but the way Yung spoke of sacrificing lives for it so easily didn't sit well with him. As noble as it was to risk your life for a cause you believed in, such a sacrifice should always be the very last resort.
"Actually there's another path to freedom." He said calmly. "You could leave Omashu. You're directing all your energy to fight the Fire Nation, but you're outnumbered. You can't win. Now's the time to retreat, so you can live to fight another day."
Yung looked like he wanted to slam his hand against something. "You don't understand! They've taken our home, and we have to fight them at any cost!"
"I don't know, Yung, living to fight another day is startin' to sound pretty good to me." One of the resistance members piped up softly.
"Yeah, I'm with the kid!" Another agreed more forcefully. Whispers erupted through the underground tunnels as the gathered resistance members began discussing amongst themselves, and though Aang could not pick out any particular conversation, the lack of aggression in the crowd's tone suggested that most agreed with him.
Yung looked back to him with a frown; clearly annoyed at being undermined, yet mature enough to not throw a tantrum or insist that his orders be followed. "Fine. But there are thousands of citizens that need to leave. How're we going to get them all out?"
"Suckers!"
All eyes turned to the source of the outburst: Sokka. The young watertribe man had a wide, devious grin on his face.
"You're all about to come down with a nasty case of pentapox."
...
"Please tell me you're here to kill me."
Azula stared at Mai with a raised eyebrow. Mai stared back, her expression perfectly deadpan. Then, on some unspoken cue, the slight smiles cracked on both their faces.
"It's great to see you, Mai." Azula said, stepping forward to place her hands on Mai's shoulders, only to quickly remove them when Ty Lee bounded forward and enveloped Mai in a huge, boneless hug. Mai patted her pack with one hand with the look of someone who'd become resigned to such grandiose hugs long ago.
"I thought you ran off and joined the circus. You said it was your calling."
"Well, Azula and Tanya called a little louder." Ty Lee replied chipperly as she released her.
Mai cocked an eyebrow and looked around. "Tanya's here too? Where is she?"
"She got a little distracted on the way here." Ty Lee replied sheepishly. Strange, Tanya was never what she would have called an easily distracted person. What could have captured her attention?
As if sensing her thoughts, Azula stepped past them and led the way out onto the palace balcony. "Perhaps you'd better see for yourself." She called, pointing out towards the courtyard below. Mai followed behind her and peered over the railings.
A horde of peasants shambled towards the gates, moaning and groaning with glassy eyes and outstretched arms. Even from so high up, Mai could see huge red splotches dotting their skin in irregular patterns. "Plague! Plague!" Some of the fire nation soldiers were shouting fearfully, hurrying around trying to contain the infected civilians whilst also keeping a wide distance away from them.
Mai spotted her father on the scene, surrounded by a ring of guards and flapping his hands around animatedly as he tried to gain control of the situation. "Drive them out of the city!" He shouted "But don't touch them! We have to rid the city of this disease!"
"Belay that order!"
Ah, there was that familiar tussel of gold hair. Tanya was hovering above the crowd like a miniature star, fire blazing at her feet as she observed the situation from above. "Keep the gates closed. Direct all infected to Guoxun Hill; we'll use it as a quarantine zone until the plague has passed."
"We can't keep them here!" Ukano protested. "What if it spreads across the city?! We'll all be in danger!"
"If we let them leave, the infection will spread across the entire Earth Kingdom. Which, as you may have noticed, we are currently trying to conquer." Tanya shot back acidly. "Better this be confined here than be allowed out into the wider world."
The fire nation soldiers on the ground looked around awkwardly, stuck between their duty to obey an admiral and their own desire to not get infected. Sensing their hesitation, Tanya fixed them with a cold glare. "I swear to Agni, if one of you opens the gate so much as a crack, I'll have you hung, drawn and quartered faster than you can say pentapox."
Compared with certain death at the legendary admiral's hands, suddenly pentapox didn't seem quite so dangerous anymore. The soldiers snapped to work, using their spears like shepherd's staffs to literally herd the infected down another street, while Tanya took charge of directing them.
"As perfect a soldier as ever I see." Mai drawled.
"Indeed." Azula replied, a hint of venom lacing her tone. "She's grown very comfortable throwing her rank around."
Slowly but surely the crowd of infected began to thin out from the courtyard as more of them were syphoned away to the quarantine zone.
Mai's father and his guard began to retreat back to the palace, and once the local guards seemed to have full control of the situation, Tanya broke away and flew over to join him as they entered through the palace doors.
As the sounds of their raised, arguing voices drew closer, Azula led her and Ty Lee back inside to sit at a nearby table just as the door burst open.
"- strange about it! I've heard about it before! One of my guard's brothers caught pentapox!" Ukano yelled.
"I understand that! What I'm saying is that it's strange for this disease to suddenly pop up so quickly, and here of all places!" Tanya fired back.
"What's that supposed to mean? The reformation of Omashu is going perfectly!"
"That's the problem! It's all been going too perfectly. I've fought Earthbenders plenty of times, and if nothing else I have to admit that they're stubborn bastards.
I've never heard of them surrendering territory without putting up at least a token resistance before. Yet here, in the second most defensible city in the Earth Kingdom, The Fire Nation was allowed to just waltz in and take over without any problems. It doesn't make sense!"
"Bah! You're being paranoid-…"
"Well, I wouldn't say that there haven't been any problems." Mai interrupted blithely.
Tanya finally looked away from Ukano, and her expression softened as she lay eyes on her final childhood friend. "Mai! It's good to see you again." She approached, all thoughts of Omashu temporarily pushed aside. "And you look so dignified. Life in the colonies has been good to you."
"I have been bored out of my mind every second." Mai deadpanned. "If you want to swap jobs, I'm game."
Tanya let out a quick laugh, mistakenly seeming to think that she was joking. However it quickly turned serious again. "What were you saying before? There's been problems in Omashu?"
"A rebellion." Mai explained.
"A minor rebellion!" Ukano butted in. "Nothing serious. Just a few angry peasants throwing a few rocks around. The city guard has it perfectly under control."
Tanya did not look impressed. "Perhaps so. But I'm pretty sure that any signs of an active rebellion cell, no matter the size, should be reported to military intelligence. I don't recall seeing Omashu on the map of potential insurrection sites."
"There's no rebel cell here. Just a gang or two of angry teens. Why, the last one we saw wasn't even a teenager yet. Just some little bald child."
Tanya went ramrod straight in an instant, her face stricken with panic. In a flash she whirled around to point at Ukano. "What! Bring me whoever witnessed this attack!" She demanded.
"That would be me." Mai cut in.
"Did the perpetrator have blue arrows tattoos on his head and hands?!"
Mai raised an eyebrow curiously. "Airbender tattoos? I couldn't see; the sun was in my eyes."
"What about his clothes?! Were they orange coloured?! And was he holding a wooden staff?!"
Mai thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Yes."
Tanya's face morphed into a horrible scowl. "It's him! He's here!"
Azula was the first to catch on. "The Avatar? You think he's here in Omashu? But why?"
...
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