"Sokka! No!" Katara protested. "It's too dangerous!"
Yung eyed him carefully. "Your resolve is admirable, but are you certain? If you are caught I cannot guess what fate would await you."
Sokka nodded. "I am a warrior of the Southern Water Tribes. I won't fail.
...
"Very well." Yung rose from his seat. "In that case, I have preparations to attend to immediately if we are to begin the assault as soon as possible. Sokka, Blue Spirit, I wish you both good fortune in your missions. May the spirits watch over you."
As he strode away, Aang and Katara rounded on Sokka. "Sokka, what are you doing!" Katara hissed.
"What we have to do to protect the people we care about." Sokka replied resolutely. "Many in the rebellion resent Bumi for surrendering to the Fire Nation. If we leave one of their agents to do this, they may not look for Bumi and claim that they couldn't find him.
Aang needs an Earthbending teacher, and Bumi's is the only one we know we can trust. Plus, Bumi is Aang's-… our friend. We have to do all we can to free him, even if it's a little risky."
Aang and Katara shared an uneasy look, but couldn't refute his words. Seeing that they were coming around, Sokka gave them each a reassuring pat on the back.
"Have some faith in me. I can do this."
Katara gripped his hand. "We'll be waiting a safe distance away. If there's any trouble, any at all, find a way to signal us. We won't let you be captured too."
Sokka smiled mischievously. "Don't worry. With what I have planned, they'll never suspect a thing."
...
Watching Tanya work was like watching a master conductor before an orchestra. Each movement of her hand was a gesture to direct her officers to a new location. Each word, a clear and concise command so authoritative than none even considered disobedience.
Mai had studied the arts of war at the Royal Academy for Girls, and though she'd never been bad at it, it had never been one of her strongest subjects either. Ty Lee had been terrible, and Azula had gotten top marks.
Tanya though sometimes seemed as if she could have aced her exams before she'd even attended the first lesson; like she'd been born with a library of military strategies in her head.
The Academy had taught them to prepare for and lead battles, but had assumed that, being as its students were all from the highest echelon of Fire Nation society, there would be be subordinates to take care of the lesser duties for them: organising supplies, planning guard duties, managing promotions, and all the other little tasks that allowed a military force to move effectively.
It had been more important to hurry them along to their next etiquette lesson than study those sorts of things.
Tanya had studied them. More than that, she had mastered them. Mai didn't know when exactly she'd found the time, but the results spoke for themselves.
She had done in three hours what should have taken days to accomplish: confined the local population to their homes, hidden key supplies in new areas, and organised an entirely new command structure for their military forces that was better adapted for finding and combating the rebel forces.
The sun had not even set since she'd arrived, and already Omashu was like an entirely new city.
"… send a scouting party to all wells and public sources of water. The rebels must be drawing fresh water into their headquarters from somewhere. If we can find it, we can poison them..."
Tanya's voice was sounding notably horse after three hours of barking out non-stop orders at her newly appointed commanders.
Mai knew from plenty of personal experiences that although Tanya would often lecture others on the importance of frequent rest to "maximise working efficiency", she herself would work with an obsessive, single-minded focus whenever a task fully captivated her attention.
She had the borderline dangerous level of discipline one would expect from veteran soldiers: the mindset to ignore all fatigue, distractions and discomfort until the mission was done, and sometimes seemed to slip into that mode on the most mundane tasks without even seeming to realise it herself.
Ty Lee was normally the one who'd coerce her into taking a break when she got like this, but her acrobatic friend had left a little while ago with Azula to investigate the reports of the pentapox victims mysteriously disappearing.
That meant it was left to her to drag her workaholic friend back to reality. Oh joy.
Mai walked over to the tea table, where a pot of that obscure drink called coffee that Tanya was so fond of had been left earlier, and poured some into a fine china cup her mother used for entertaining important guests.
Then she approached the table with the large map upon it that Tanya had commandeered for her planning, placed the coffee down, and butted into the conversation Tanya was having with a nervous officer with a meaningful clearing of her throat. As both their eyes turned to her, Mai fixed Tanya with a deadpan expression.
"Enough. You need to take a break." What was the point in tiptoeing around the subject? Straightforward bluntness worked just well.
Tanya scoffed dismissively. "I'll take a break in a minute. Just let me sort out this strategy first. I reckon if we fill mail carts with explosive powder, we can use the delivery system chutes to quickly and accurately deliver a bomb to any part of the city where the rebellion appears in force, and blast apart their formations right before-…"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure you've come up with a hundred new ways to turn my dad's city into a deathtrap. Well done, we're all very impressed." Mai interrupted sarcastically. "Now sit down and drink your coffee."
"But I-…"
"Sit Tanya!"
Tanya pouted, but even she couldn't last long under one of Mai's deadpan glares, especially when a part of her knew she was right. With a heavy sigh Tanya sat down, dismissed the officer with a wave of her hand, and took a deep gulp of coffee.
"You've got a knack for brewing this stuff." She noted absently.
"I like it." Mai replied. "It's bitter and dark. Just like me."
Tanya smirked at that, and for a few minutes the two sat in comfortable silence as they often had, enjoying each other's company without much need for words.
"Is it true what Azula said?" Mai suddenly asked, prompting Tanya to look at her questioningly. "Is it true that Zuko betrayed us during the Siege of the North? That you tried to kill him?"
Tanya froze, her coffee halfway to her lips, and her expression tightened with anger as a memory flashed before her eyes. "I know this must be difficult to hear Mai, but it's true." She growled out.
"I had ultimate victory over not just The Avatar, but every waterbender on the planet, quite literally. But he threw it all away at the last moment out of some misguided sense of righteousness." She put down her coffee cup.
"I'll admit, in the heat of the moment I wanted to hurt him. Badly. Part of me still wants to do so now. But I won't kill him if it makes Azula suffer." She huffed. "In some ways I'd prefer to bring him back to his father alive anyway. See him face true, legal justice for his crimes."
"I see." Mai said flatly. Her face was as blank as a stone, but something in her eyes narrowed dangerously just a little. Tanya was perceptive enough to notice, and sighed regretfully.
"I'm sorry Mai. I know this must be especially difficult for you, considering…" Tanya trailed off.
Mai stiffened. "I don't know what you're talking about." She snapped woodenly.
"Come on Mai, we all saw the way you acted around Zuko when we were children. How you never spoke a word when he was with us, how you kept sneaking glances towards him, how you looked so nervous whenever he came close to you…"
Mai clenched her fist, looking about a second away from throwing her knives around.
"It's obvious that you were afraid of him."
Mai froze, but this time for a very different reason. Tension bled out of her expression, replaced by confusion. "I-… wha-…"
Tanya nodded self-assuredly, utterly convinced that she was right. "I think it's very brave of you, joining us on a hunt for the very person who so intimidated you as a child. It takes courage to face your fears."
Mai stared blankly at her, completely lost. "Tanya, I-… I was never afraid of him." She muttered.
"Please Mai, you can trust me with this. I won't think less of you for admitting your fears, especially when you're willing to face them head on." Tanya replied seriously. "Zuko was a very boisterous boy, and so easily angered, and you were such a quiet and shy girl back then. I'm sure you weren't the only one who found him scary to be around."
Mai shook her head. "No, Tanya, listen! I really wasn't-…"
Suddenly the doors of the office burst open, slamming against the walls, and Azula strode in triumphantly, with Ty Lee on her heels.
"We found a patch of shifted dirt nearby." Azula declared pridefully. "The plague victims disappeared down a tunnel, no doubt to the rebellion headquarters. I've had the local soldiers start digging the tunnel open again."
"Yes!" Tanya was on her feet, back in military mode in the blink of an eye. "Ty Lee, inform officer Kai to get the extermination team prepped and ready!"
"Aye aye Admiral!" Ty Lee flipped her a casual imitation of a salute and ran off. Azula's eyes sharpened dangerously at seeing her taking orders from someone else.
"Clearly it hasn't dawned on you yet then." She drawled, looking back at Tanya. "Come on Tanya, think! Why would the rebellion want to bring the entire infected population into their own headquarters?"
Tanya opened her mouth, and floundered as she realised that she didn't have an answer.
With a put-upon roll of her eyes, Azula continued. "The infected were the rebels all along. Not one of the guards around the quarantine zone caught this supposedly highly infectious virus. It was a fake plague, designed to try and get the rebels out of the city."
Tanya's face scrunched up in thought as she caught on. "You think their aim is to escape? But then why did The Avatar target Mai in that ambush? That suggests their aim is to fight back." She fell back into her chair, her expression pensive as her mind worked to try and connect the facts she had into a wider picture.
After a good minute of heavy thinking she let out a heavy groan, massaging her temples with her fingers.
"It's no good. King Bumi is clearly a master strategist of the likes I've never encountered before. I can't see the design in his moves. There just isn't enough information to discern his end goal."
Azula sneered victoriously. "Oh? Has the amazing Admiral Tanya finally met her match?"
"Why not interrogate him?" Mai asked bluntly. "He's being held in an iron coffin in the upper dungeons. Perhaps, if you talked to him, you might gain some insight about his plans?"
Tanya hummed thoughtfully, tapping a finger on her chin. "Good idea Mai. One would never aim to become a king if they didn't possess a great degree of pride. Perhaps, if I can trick him into boasting, he'll let slip some useful intel." She frowned.
"Ah, but I can't leave the command room now that a route to their headquarters has been discovered. We need to be able to react to any changes at a second's notice."
"Then I will take command." Azula interjected haughtily. "It's what I'm best at after all."
Tanya beamed at her. "Thank you Azula. I'll leave everything in your capable hands."
...
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