The Blue Spirit was turning out to be unusually hard to kill.
That was as close to a compliment as Mai gave. She didn't meet many people these days who could handle having so many knives thrown at them, but the Blue Spirit was doing an admirable job. Every knife she threw was deflected at the last second by a slash of his blades, and something about the way he moved struck her as oddly familiar, though she couldn't quite place how.
She threw a trio of knives at him from amidst the crowd, only for him to sense them coming and dive away into the mass of bodies, vanishing from view. The Blue Spirit certainly was a slippery one. Mai wasted no time moving away, knowing that the Blue Spirit would be searching the area her knives had just flown from. Sure enough, when she looked back a few seconds later she saw glimpses of a Blue Mask snaking through the crowd after her.
She slipped a crescent shaped knife free of her sleeve and threw it down towards the Blue Spirit's feet, knowing that the way she threw it would cause it to curve upwards towards his chin.
Yet the Blue Spirit swiped out with his dao blades again right as it began to curve, seeming entirely unsurprised. Strange. That knife was a custom-made piece of her own design. The only people who should have been able to predict its unusual movements were people who were either also trained to use knives, or those who had seen her fight before.
Suspicion began to worm its way deeper into her gut, but she shook it off. This Blue Spirit was some kind of assassin or secret operative, so it wasn't unfathomable that he'd been trained to fight with knives and other weapons as well as his swords. It just meant that she had to watch out for any hidden weapons he may have concealed.
The Blue Spirit had nearly caught her now, and so Mai switched tactics. In one swift movement she stopped running and doubled back, charging towards him and drawing two long, skewering blades from the folds of her robes, then thrust them out to try and impale him.
But the Blue Spirit was quick to react, and his twin blades fanned up to push the skewers away. Mai drew her hands back and tried to stab again and again, falling into a rhythmic flurry, but each and every time the Blue Spirit deflected them.
But he never tried to strike back. Did he have something against hurting girls? Or was something else staying his hand? Something was definitely off about this guy.
"RETREAT!" One of the rebels suddenly cried out over the din of the melee. "ANOTHER WAY IS OPEN! FALL BACK!"
Another way? That suggested that the rebels were trying to get to a specific place, and they'd already broken through the defences that stopped them getting there. The earth rebels began to run back the way they'd come, a few of them pulling up walls of earth to cover their retreat, and the moment he was able to do so the Blue Spirit disengaged and began to retreat as well.
"Oh no you don't!" Mai hissed, throwing a knife that speared through the hem of the Blue Spirit's trouser leg and pinned it to the floor.
However strange this guy was, it didn't change the fact that Tanya considered him too big a threat to let escape. He'd already been able to sneak through an entire fortress and free The Avatar once; as long as he lived, the chances of The Avatar escaping whatever prison he was kept in after he was finally caught rose significantly.
She threw another volley of knives towards him as the Blue Spirit made to kneel down and pull out the knife keeping him pinned, forcing him to use his blades for deflection once again. Now all she had to do was keep him trapped here until the rebels all ran away, and the soldiers would be able to surround him.
The Blue Spirit realised that too, and began to tug his leg against the knife keeping it pinned, hoping to rip it out. But Mai's accuracy had been excellent, and the knife was lodged in too firmly to be removed without a good grip. Realising that, the Blue Spirit flicked one of his blades down, slicing cleanly through the fabric of his trouser leg to cut himself free.
But in that split second he'd left an opening. Without both blades focused on deflecting, one of Mai's knife's was able to finally slip past his guard. He tilted his head to the side at the last second, but it was already too late. The knife cut into the left side of his mask, carving off a large chunk of it.
Enough to reveal a heavily burned ear.
Mai froze. A burned left ear. Knows how to use dao swords. Wanted to stop Zhao from capturing The Avatar. Reluctant to fight me. Wears a mask from Love amongst the Dragons play.
The evidence came clicking together in her head, but Mai refused to accept it. It couldn't be true! It must all be one big coincidence, or a mistake on her part! There was no way that the Blue Spirit could be…
"-... Zuko?" She whispered.
The Blue Spirit froze.
"Get him!"
A fireball came whizzing past Mai's shoulder toward Zu-... towards the Blue Spirit, breaking the moment of stillness between them. The Blue Spirit swung his swords, batting the fireball away with the flat of his blades, and then turned and dashed to join the last of the rebels as they fled. Instinctively a knife slipped between Mai's fingers.
But for once she did not move.
A few seconds of hesitation was all it took for the Blue Spirit and the last of the rebels to disappear back the way they came, chased by a few of the more foolhardy soldiers. Mai sheathed the knife and turned away.
She couldn't tell Azula or Tanya. Not yet. Not until she knew what Zuko was thinking, siding with The Avatar against his own people. That little boy she remembered so fondly would never betray his nation like this, and Mai refused to believe there wasn't more to this until she heard the reasons why from Zuko himself!
...
"Aang, I don't think this is such a good ide- aaaggghhh!"
The iron coffin rattled and shook as it slid down the flight of stairs, banging against the handrail like an out of control bumper car and jostling the elderly occupant contained within. Unfortunately Aang was a little bit too distracted trying to avoid the blue fireballs being hurled at them by Zuko's psychopathic sister to pay attention.
A pair of guards stationed at the bottom of the stairs yelped in panic and jumped away to safety as the coffin came barreling towards the bottom of the stairs.
Aang waved his arms, adjusting the positioning of the wind sphere so that the coffin continued to surf straight forwards as they reached the floor with only a slight bump. He could feel Azula quite literally hot on his heels as the uncomfortable warmth of her blue flames crashed against the last step right behind him.
It wasn't easy moving something so heavy at such high speeds, even if over such a short distance. Aang could feel the chi in his body rapidly running out; his technique lacked the efficiency of true mastery, but he kept pushing on regardless. All he had to do was get Bumi to the rebel forces and they'd be safe; he had no reason to fight Azula.
Unfortunately, Azula clearly didn't feel the same way.
Lashes of burning blue flashed behind him as he rode through the hallways towards the crystal caverns, hoping with all his heart that the others had cleared the way there already. If not, he really had no idea how he was going to get out of this one.
Fortunately the spirits were on his side.
As he turned the next corner, Aang was relieved to see a crowd of figures in green robes ushering people down the stairway to the basement. Some had taken defensive positions, either shepherding the others rebels along or pulling up barriers of stone to halt the firebenders. Aang's eyes immediately caught a figure in blue leading the evacuation, who had also spotted him.
"Aang!" Sokka called, looking overjoyed at first, then terrified when he noticed the woman riding a sea of blue flames chasing him. He barked commands at some of the rebels, and a few seconds later a volley of rocks came whizzing down the hallway, curving around Aang to hone in on Azula.
The princess was insanely skilled, but even she couldn't take on a small army by herself. She was forced to back off, summoning a barrier of blue flames to obscure her as she retreated back down the hallway.
The wind sphere crumbled as Aang was finally given the opportunity to relax, and Bumi's coffin skidded the last couple of feet across the floor before finally coming to a rest at the rebel's feet.
A few of them ran forwards to pull it the rest of the way into the crystal caves while the others continued to open fire at Azula's retreating form. Sokka meanwhile ran forwards to give Aang a quick hug, and glanced warily back over at the smouldering corridor he'd come from. "I'm guessing I'm not the only one who was attacked by a scarily competent teenage girl today?"
...
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