The carelessness of one can be the death of another. I thought of this as I was about to shut the computer down and just had to write it.
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"Hurry up!" The head guard yelled to everyone in the lounge. "The warden wants us out there now! There's a prison riot!"
Stysen, a young guard who had just been recruited, was fiddling with his customary pair of handcuffs. They had broken when he fell against a wall, and being a tinker, he just had to fix them himself. He was halfway through the process when his commanding officer told them all to move out. He loosely screwed in one more screw. "That will have to do. Though they will be quite loose." He thought.
Attaching them to his belt, he joined the fast moving line of guards.
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--
"That's a problem." Zuko said in response to Hakoda's question. "It's my sister and her friends."
He saw Ty lee jump from the gondola docking station onto the metal wires. She started running. "I wonder if she's ever fallen." He thought.
Down below, Azula thought of how she was going to get from where she was up to where the escapee's where. Then she remembered her mentors telling her that she was powerful enough to propel herself in the air. "I wonder if that also works along cable lines…"
She ran over to the nearest guard and grabbed his handcuffs. She heard him yelling something incoherent, but decided it was probably just him admiring her strength.
Jumping in the air, she forced as much fire out of her feet as possible, causing a rocket effect. Once high enough, she slung the handcuffs over the metal wire, and propelled herself forward.
Only when she had reached about halfway out did she realize that the handcuffs she was holding onto were starting to come loose. "What! The Firenation is supposed to have the best equipment! Handcuffs don't just break!"
Apparently, she was wrong. A screw came loose, and the whole thing came apart. She tried to grab onto the actual cable. She was to slow. The fire princess plummeted into the volcanic waters. Her screams bounced from the rock walls, causing her death to sound tenfold more gruesome.
From the gondola, Zuko looked on in disbelieve. Ty lee landed on the roof, and scrambled inside, having seen Azula fall. She slumped down against the wall. They ignored her.
Sokka saw the warden struggle free of his bonds, so he grabbed him before he could do anything and tightened them. The rest of the journey was spoken in silence. The gondola safely reached the other side of the line, and Sokka told Chet Seng to throw the warden back in the carriage.
"Are you coming with us, Ty lee?" Zuko asked.
She nodded.
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