Sokka was upset.
He knew he had a tendency to mess things up fairly frequently, but one thing he'd always had confidence in was his plans. Aang and Katara could bend the elements to their will and fight off dozens of firebenders, but it was his ideas that got them out of the sticky situations they found themselves in more often than not.
Not today though. Just as everything seemed like it was about to work out, that she-devil came swooping in like a bat out of hell.
It was a small mercy that she hadn't spotted them amidst the crowd. The moment he'd seen her, Sokka was filled with the urge to storm up and throw his boomerang right at her face.
After everything she'd done to Yue and the North Pole, she deserved a little suffering of her own. Yet Katara had held him back, and they'd slipped into the quarantine zone among the fake infected, and then back to the rebellion headquarters through a secret tunnel.
It wouldn't be long before someone noticed that the 'pentapox' spots were fading from their victims rather rapidly, and at that time Tanya would surely start investigating further. If she discovered that Aang was here, she'd turn this city into a deathtrap. Before that happened, he needed to figure another way to get everyone out of the city. Yet no matter how hard he thought, no answer came to mind.
The atmosphere around the rebel headquarters was tense. Yung had started pushing everyone to take up arms again, and after their failed escape attempt a few more people were willing to listen to him. Opinions were divided, and with division came the seeds of conflict; small arguments for now, but each one with the promise of growing into something bigger if given the chance.
"General Yung!"
All eyes turned to the source of commotion as a woman came stumbling in, her flushed face and gasping breath a sign that she'd been running for quite a while to get here. Yung looked up from a document he'd been reading with a confused look.
"Lin? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be undercover at the governor's palace."
"I managed to slip away through the lockdown. I had to warn you." Lin gasped.
"What do you mean lockdown? What happened?"
Lin took a moment to catch her breath, then continued. "That newly arrived admiral! The Moonslayer! She knows The Avatar is here! She's putting the whole city on lockdown, taken over the governor's palace, and is sending every soldier she has out to track this place down!"
Already! How had she figured out that they were here so quickly?!
Yung growled. "If she wants us, let her come and take us! We'll bury her and her forces in these caves!"
"No! You can't!" Cried Aang, rushing over to stand in front of him with a look of pure panic on his face. "You didn't see the lengths she was willing to go to for victory at the North Pole! Now more than ever, we need to focus on escaping!"
"She's having archers and trebuchets set up all along the walls, with orders to shoot at anything that flies without hesitation." Lin added. "And has doubled the guards at the city gates. Orders are that absolutely nobody leaves without her express permission."
Katara, caught somewhere between Aang's panic and Yung's fury herself, spoke up. "What about underground? Is there no way to dig a tunnel underneath the ravine surrounding the city?"
"The deeper you dig, the greater the pressure." One of the nearby rebels interjected. "Even a master earthbender can only go so far underground, and there's yet to be one powerful enough to dig a tunnel deeper than the ravine."
"That's not true." Yung stated.
All eyes turned to the general as he spoke. "There is a secret tunnel beneath the palace, at the bottom of the crystal cavern where King Bumi had The Avatar face three trials. It is said to have been created by Oma, the founder of Omashu, and is said to connect to a secret tunnel-…"
"… through the mountains! The cave of two lovers!" Aang finished excitedly.
Yung looked shocked. "You know about it?"
"I've been there! We figured out the trick to navigating through the tunnels."
Yung looked surprised, but not disbelieving. After a moment to regain his composure, he cleared his throat. "Be that as it may, to reach the entrance we'll have no choice but to attack the governor's palace. That means going toe-to-toe with Admiral Tanya and no small number of firebender soldiers.
If we're committing to this course of action, I want to be sure that the tunnel hasn't already been discovered and sealed off." He turned back to Lin. "Are you able to return to the palace again?"
Lin shook her head. "No. They'll have noticed my absence by now, and if I'm spotted I'll be detained for sure."
"Then we'll need to find someone else." Yung declared. "Someone capable of sneaking into a heavily fortified area unseen."
Everyone was silent for a second, until one of the nearby rebels piped up.
"You know, I think I might know just the guy…"
...
It was still something of a shock to see Omashu decked out in Fire Nation colours.
It had been a consistent threat for a hundred years: a stubborn dot on the map that refused to give in to Fire Nation rule no matter how many troops were thrown at it. With it gone, Ba Sing Se was the only major city left in the Earth Kingdom that hadn't fallen.
"The war is coming to a close. A few more years and we'll have won." Zuko thought to himself. A proper prince would be joyous to know that victory for his nation was nearly at hand. Instead, all he could think was that time was running out. If the war finished and The Avatar had still not been captured, would father still let him come back home?
By birthright, he should be lying in the finest room of the governor's palace right now. He should have the local soldiers at his beck and call. Instead, he was hiding from those same soldiers, squatting away in a peasant's home.
He'd snuck into the city clinging to the bottom of a cart filled with cabbages, and had given the wooden medallion to the staff at The Gritty Crown. They'd given him the room for the night, promising a meeting with a rebellion member in the morning. Only the next morning there had been a delay. Something about a pandemic that had quickly spread across the city.
Zuko had considered leaving, but wisdom had counselled him to stay. Leave, and he'd be wandering around aimlessly hoping to stumble across The Avatar by pure chance. Even if this rebellion couldn't give him more than a general idea of which direction The Avatar was heading in, it would be worth a day of waiting.
A knock at the door caught his attention, and Zuko sat up from the stiff bed he'd been given and grabbed his Blue Spirit mask from the side table, fixing it securely over his face before standing up and going over to answer. The moment he opened it, he nearly jumped out of his skin at the tanned face waiting there.
"Whoa! Cool mask!" The water tribe peasant, Sokka, greeted cheerfully. "Where'd you get it?"
Zuko's brain stalled, unable to process what was going on.
When the silence dragged on for too long, Sokka tilted his head to the side. "Are you alright there?"
"He's a mute. Can't say a word, but his skill with swords does the talking for him." Michi, the owner of The Gritty Crown and secret rebellion supporter, introduced. "Made a name for himself facing off alone against every thief, bandit and ne'er-do-well around this part of the map. Folks called him The Blue Spirit."
"The Blue Spirit!" Oh great. The other water peasant, Katara, was here too. "Aang, isn't that the same guy who rescued you from Tanya and Zhao back at the fortress?"
Zuko looked past her and Sokka, past Michi, past the stern looking man dressed like a soldier, only for his eyes to land on the form of a bald child in orange robes.
The same child that he had devoted his life to capturing, and that had now once again appeared right in front of him at a time where he was alone, outnumbered and weakened from his long journey. The spirits really did love to torment him. One word from The Avatar, and he'd be swarmed by more rebellion soldiers than he could handle at once.
Aang was looking right at him, clearly just as surprised as he was. Behind his mask, Zuko grit his teeth. One word from him and it was all over. If the rebellion didn't throw him in a cell themselves, they'd hand him over to the Fire Nation and let them do it for them.
For a moment Aang said nothing, staring directly at him with those wide, annoyingly bright eyes of his. The others looked at him in confusion, wondering why he wasn't saying anything.
Then, with the gentle smile of one greeting an old friend, Aang put his hands together and bowed gratefully at the waist.
"I never got a chance to properly thank you last time." He said respectfully. "Thank you Blue Spirit, for saving my life that day."
Zuko unconsciously took a step back, now completely thrown. Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? Why was The Avatar of all people not exposing him? Had he forgotten everything that Zuko had done while pursuing him?
Aang straightened up from his bow. There wasn't a hint of hostility about him: not the slightest tension in his fists, or a flicker of anger in his eyes. He seemed genuinely happy for some reason. Before Zuko could figure out why, Aang walked forward to stand right in front of the doorway and held out a hand, as if offering a handshake.
"Could I ask for your help one more time?"
...
While proofreading this chapter, I noticed how many times I had accidentally misspelt Ty Lee's name as "Tai Lee", and one occasion where I accidentally wrote "Tai Lung." I'm not sure that even The Avatar State would have been enough to allow Aang to escape the real dragon warrior.
Yes, Team Azula is all back together. Azula is the brave and noble hero, Mai the stoic knight, Ty Lee the quirky rogue, and Tanya the wise old wizard. Together they shall embark upon a dangerous and heroic journey to save the Fire Nation from the reincarnated demon Avatar.
I've put a fair bit of thought into how I want their relationships to grow and develop along their journey, and hopefully you can see the beginnings of the relationship I have planned for Ty Lee and Tanya in this chapter. Next chapter will spend a bit more time with Mai.
And holy moly, look at all these followers and favourites! It's amazing to know that this story has received so much positive attention, and we're not even half way through yet! Thank you so much to everyone following this fic. I hope you continue to enjoy it.
...
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