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?"
...
Meaning there were more of them? Great. Aang followed Sokka as the last of the rebels abandoned their positions and led the way down the staircase and into the crystal caverns.
It looked the same as he remembered from Bumi's trials: a wide subterranean cave filled with jutting spears of blue and green crystals. Most of the rebels had fled further in, gathering deeper below around a group of earth benders who were ripping away the crystals covering the escape route.
"Where are Katara and Blue?" Aang asked, realising that he couldn't spot either of them amongst the crowd.
"Blue came through not long after I cleared a path through the dining room." Sokka replied. "But not Katara."
Katara wasn't here yet? But she had been fighting-… A cold, hard ball of despair sunk into Aang's gut. He'd known that it was a bad idea to leave her alone against Tanya. "We have to go back for her!"
"No need."
A fearful chill ran down Aang's spine as a voice he'd hoped he'd never hear again echoed throughout the cavern. All eyes turned back to the staircase, where the first of the fire nation soldiers were rushing in. Leading the pack were a group of girls: Azula, two other teens Aang didn't recognise, and finally the mop of golden hair that never failed to make his stomach clench in dread.
"Tanya!" He spat.
Tanya looked down at him with a mocking smirk. "Hello again Avatar." She called. Then her eyes flicked over to Sokka, and she sneered. "And Wang Fire? You've sold out your own nation? How deplorable. No wonder the rebels were able to predict my moves with you feeding them information from the inside."
"It's no more than you deserve!" Sokka yelled back tauntingly. "And I'm the one who thought up the pentapox too!"
Tanya snarled like a feral wolf. "That was you?! You're the one who's been causing me such a headache?!"
"That's right!" Sokka shot back, grabbing hold of his fake beard with one hand. "For you see I am not in fact Wang Fire! I am-…" He paused dramatically, and tugged on his beard to pull it off.
Yet the hairs held firm.
"I am-… I am-…" Sokka began tugging furiously on the fake beard, but the glue he used was surprisingly tough. "I am-…"
Tanya glared at him sceptically. "You are?"
"I am actually-… gah!" Sokka gave a pained yelp as he tried, and failed, to rip the beard off, but only succeeded in pulling on the skin of his chin painfully.
Tanya crossed her arms, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "Don't try to fool me with any more of your mind games, Mr Fire. I'm wise to your tricks." She raised a hand and, without looking back, made a gesture to the soldiers taking up combat positions behind her. "Bring her in."
Two soldiers stepped forth out of the crowd, holding between them a struggling girl dressed in blue.
"Katara!" Aang and Sokka cried in sync. Even from this distance it was clear that Katara had had a rough time. Her blue robes were singed black in places, and she seemed to be leaning her weight onto one leg. As she was dragged over to her, Tanya roughly grabbed Katara by the hair and pulled her head up, the palm of her other hand glowing orange with the threat of fire as she brought it to point at Katara's throat.
"This rebellion is over! You are to all, immediately, put your weapons down and surrender yourselves to fire nation custody!" Tanya demanded, her tone sharp and clipped with tightly contained aggression. "That is unless you want to see your friend here go the same way as her master!"
...
She had him! She finally bloody had him!
Tanya wasn't quite sure if she wanted to giggle with laughter or snarl with rage. It had been close at times, but at last she had finally got The Avatar and all his little friends trapped in a situation they couldn't escape from without losing. Either The Avatar surrendered now, or he fled to save his own skin and lost his waterbender, which would make it easier to capture him the next time.
"Aang! You need to run!" Katara yelled, but was cut off with a pained cry and Tanya tightened her grip, pulling some of her hairs out at the roots. Tanya pressed her fire-glowing hand closer against Katara's neck, letting the blazing heat of it scald her skin.
"To be clear, I'm not talking about locking dear sweet Katara here away in any sort of jail." Tanya continued, her cool gaze never leaving The Avatar. "Refuse and I will execute her right here, right now. Don't even entertain the thought that I might be bluffing: we all know I've done it before for crimes far lesser than hers."
She sensed Ty Lee shuffling on the spot nervously behind her. "Hey Tanya, isn't this taking things a bit too far?" She whispered.
Tanya ignored her, unwilling to split her attention for even a fraction of a second. There could be no opportunities for The Avatar to escape this time. "What'll it be, Avatar? Make your choice."
To his credit, The Avatar barely took a second to think about it. His staff dropped to the floor with a wooden clunk, and he held his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, we surrender! Just don't hurt her!"
Yes! Finally! As slippery a little bastard as he was, even an airbender like The Avatar wouldn't be able to escape an entire garrison! A savage grin broke out across Tanya's face. "Smart choice. Keep your hands up and come over here."
"I'm afraid I can't allow that."
Tanya's eyes darted around the room, looking for the person who'd spoken. Her eyes eventually settled on the face sticking awkwardly out of the metal coffin halfway dragged across the ground, and her grin turned into a condescending smirk of amusement. "King Bumi?" She replied sarcastically. "Your objection is notes, but I think you're a little… weighed down, to have a say in this."
"Oho, puns eh?" Bumi shot her a crooked smile. "You may find that an old dog still has a few tricks up their sleeve."
Tanya snorted dismissively. "Unless you happen to also be a master of escapology, I don't think so."
Bumi chuckled, and then quickly threw his head backwards. A number of small rocks and pebbles suddenly rocketed towards him like bullets from a gun, smashing at high speeds into precise points in the coffin and warping the metal. Like a tin can being crushed the coffin buckled and bent, until with a metallic twang the lid of the coffin snapped open.
Tanya stared with wide eyes, ever so slightly dumbstruck, as the old king pushed the lid aside and stood up, stretching his arms and cracking his neck to the side as if just getting up from an afternoon nap.
Had he been able to do that the whole damn time?! She didn't get it: if he could have freed himself at any point, why had he waited this long to do so?! "How did-… But why did-…" No! Don't get distracted! Tanya redoubled her grip on Katara's hair. "Stay back! Take one step forward and I-…"
Bumi took a pointed step forwards, planting his foot onto the solid ground.
Tanya only distantly remembered what it felt like to be hit by the train that brought her first life to an abrupt end. For the merest shard of a second something large, rock solid and very, very quick had pressed up against his side, and then like a TV screen switching off everything had gone dark.
She never expected to feel a sensation even remotely similar to that again, but as Bumi stepped forwards and she made to bring her burning hand to Katara's neck, at the bottom of her vision she saw the rock beneath her shift as something came shooting up at her faster than she could possibly react to.
The next thing she knew she was on her back, staring blearily up at a cluster of shiny green crystals clinging to the ceiling. Why was she in a cave? Who was she for that matter? And why did her mind feel like it was floating just above a ball of bone-deep agony?
A pretty face popped into her vision. She was too blurry to make out clearly, but something told her that this person was familiar to her. The girl was talking to her, and so reluctantly Tanya tried to focus on what she was saying.
"…-ear me? How many fingers am I holding up?"
Well that didn't seem fair. How was she supposed to answer that when the girl kept making her fingers wobble and swim like jelly? "Bleugh?" Tanya replied eloquently.
The pretty face frowned in concern. Wrong answer then. "Do you know who I am?"
Know her? Her instincts said that she did, but thinking was a little too difficult right now, so instead she just mumbled out the first name that came to mind when she thought of pretty people. "Vissshaaa?"
The pretty face looked away. "I think she has a concussion!"
"-… rget her Ty! You're needed over here!"
The pretty face shot her one last look of concerns, and then darted away. Slowly Tanya rolled her head just a little bit to the side, ignoring the spots that swam across her vision, to see where the pretty girl had gone.
There were a lot of people in shiny red armour firing pretty fireworks out of their sleeves at an outrageously buff old man, who was throwing gigantic boulders at them while some people dressed in green behind him ran away down a tunnel. Something about the scene made her gut clench in panic, and so for a few minutes Tanya blankly watched the fight, entranced by the colourful displays.
Slowly however her mind and body began to start clicking back together again, and with it Tanya's memories came rushing back in, alongside the throbbing pain.
That's right, she was the one who was supposed to be commanding this battle! And everything had been going so smoothly, until King Bumi had shunted a stone battering ram up from the floor right into the face. Tanya could still see the offending rock lying discarded about a hundred feet away, and shuddered to think how far she'd been sent flying.
Every muscle in her body begged her to just stay down. Her neck in particular felt like someone had stabbed a few knives into it, and if she lost focus for even a second her eyes would cross and go out of focus.
But among the crowd of rebels who hadn't managed to flee yet, Tanya could still spot flashes of orange and blue robes. The Avatar and his water peasant friend were waiting to get everyone else clear! There was still a chance to catch them!
...
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