A/N: Okay! I hope you all like this chapter! Thank you so much to everyone who has supported this story. *gets all teary eyed*

Again, no this isn't the end, I'm just feeling mushy xD. Like always, let me know what you think! If you don't want to do a public review you could always shoot me a PM or an e-mail; it's in my profile and it's specific to this account so it won't be bothering me. n.n

Escape

"I think we can take three," Ty Lee whispered with a smile. Despite herself, she was getting excited too. Soon, they would be free of the Boiling Rock and she could find out how to fix her selfish life.

The men were very close now, nearly to the outside of the door. The footsteps stopped, and Ty Lee could hear one man asking about the mop that SoupGuard had abandoned. Aiko mouthed the word wait…Then held up her hand to still Ty Lee.

"Damn prisoners never put their supplies away," one of the men complained.

"Let someone else get it, that's not our job," another replied as a third one voiced his ascent.

As soon as they stepped around the corner, Aiko signaled Ty Lee to follow her and opened the creaking metal door just enough for two petite women to slip through.

Together, the girls tiptoed up to the next corner and Aiko held up her hand, signally Ty Lee to stop. The men were standing at an intersection at the end of the hall, saying goodbye to one of their number before they went their separate ways. "Okay," Aiko whispered, her eyes lit up with excitement. Her years of training as a warrior seemed to be showing through at last and Ty Lee was only too happy to let her take the lead on their mission, "If we just head on attack them there's no way that we can take all three before they make enough noise to alert someone, so we're going to need a distraction." She frowned heavily and the men laughed about something, "You're going to limp over there like you're hurt and while they're looking at you it gives me a window rush up there chi block one if you can get the other two."

Ty Lee nodded obediently, but one thing was bothering her, "Limp over there?" she asked, "Won't they be able to see through that right away?"

"Well it is kind of overused, but we're running out of time here," Aiko shrugged, a small frown on her lips.

But then, as Ty Lee flipped her braid over her shoulder to keep it out of the way of her hands, she was struck with a brilliant idea, "I have a better way to keep them distracted." She grinned wickedly as she quickly pulled her hair out of the braid and let it fall around her shoulders in a way that she knew from experience made her look young, innocent and adorable.

She took a few deep breaths and mixed her face up into a pitiful and scared expression. After taking a few steps back to give herself room, she came around the corner at tired jog, "Help!" She said weakly, "Oh please, help!" she used her best damsel in distress voice, something she had perfected just as soon as she realized she could use it to make boys bend to her every beck and call.

"What's wrong?" One of the men said, all three of them having halted to stare at the anguished girl.

"T-there was someone after me! This big scary guy; I'm so glad you were here!" She pointed to the hall from which she had come, her pathetic expression faltering for a moment when she saw Aiko's dark hair jerk out of view.

Luckily, the men didn't notice and the one who seemed to be in charge spoke first, "You two go see what's going on, I'll take her back to the yard with the other inmates," he commanded his friends.

Quickly, Ty Lee realized the error of her plan, and did the only thing she could think of. Hey if it works with teenage boys, maybe it will work with grown male guards, she thought as she let out a small, girly cry and fell backwards with her hand over her brow, pretending to collapse in a faint.

"Oh you're so strong," she wistfully told the man who caught her. Between the legs of the other two men, Ty Lee saw Aiko rush into action; her arms pumped as she soundlessly sprinted to clear the five or six meters between them. The face of the man holding Ty Lee had just enough time to start to turn pink, and his friends had just enough time to turn to each other with amused glances. The Kyoshi closed in on the men, silently leaping into the air, pushing off the wall beside her with one foot. She hooked an arm around one of the men's neck and used her momentum to force him to the ground. That man didn't have any time to react before Aiko dug her thumb and forefinger into his neck and he was unconscious. Ty Lee used her small window of opportunity to twist under the arm of the guard holding her and land two small hits between his ribs. He whirled around to grab her, but gasped in pain and clutched at his side. Before he could yell, the young woman punched him in the hollow below his throat, followed by one last poke in between the eyes.

The third man stared at the girls with wide, horrified eyes, frozen in place. His fire bending stance broke and he held up his hands in surrender. Ty Lee's huge toothy grin met Aiko's victorious smirk. With two more quick punches the third man was on the ground with his friends.

Only a couple of minutes later the guards were safely locked in one of the cells, and the girls were left to creep through the now empty main block, everyone having gone to dinner. Each girl clutched a somewhat oversized helmet tightly under her arm, I guess helmets are helmets even if we couldn't get women's sizes, Ty Lee thought. Another two minutes later the acrobat stepped out of her cell, fully dressed in her stolen uniform.

"This is so weird," she told the dark haired female guard waiting for her outside.

Aiko flipped up her visor and glanced nervously around the empty cell block, "I know!" she whispered back as the visor fell closed again. She groaned, pushing it back up, "If anything goes wrong we'll have to ditch these helmets ASAP; I can't see a thing."

"Now you know how I felt in all your silly Kyoshi armor," Ty Lee whispered back, eliciting a small giggle from her friend, "At least we're out of those prison outfits though. Red is so not my color." Aiko rolled her eyes with a smile that was returned by the acrobat as she twisted her hair up and secured it into a bun to hide beneath the helmet; the young lady had yet to see a single woman guard with a long braid and she figured it would make her too noticeable.

"Come on!" Aiko motioned for her to follow and let the visor slam over her eyes. After trying to race up countless flights of stairs without being too conspicuous or too loud, the girls finally reached their destination: the gondola deck. Ty Lee did her best wipe her brow without raising the face plate too much and as Aiko stood heaving beside her she scanned the platform for their other two friends.

"We should have picked a spot to meet," Ty Lee whined. The platform was full of guards milling around and waiting for the gondola to meet them and if Mai and Nishi were indeed wearing their stolen uniforms, there was no good way for the girls to recognize them. The acrobat sighed heavily. The girls were among the minority of guards who were actually wearing their full uniform along with their helmets, but Ty Lee breathed a sigh of relief that the others weren't already in their street clothes.

"Yeah we should have," Aiko agreed, eyeing the crowd. "I guess all we can do now is wait, though."

"Yeah," Ty Lee replied softly, but the girls didn't have long to stand around.

"I haven't seen you around here before," a girl's voice came from behind them. It was one of the laundry guards; she had taken off her helmet, and it was propped up under her arm as she examined the other woman in front of her.

"Yeah, I'm kind of new," the girl replied. The tone was one that Ty Lee recognized instantly. Mai! she thought, maybe it wasn't too hard to find them anyway. Her face spread into a grin but she at least had the good sense to stay put instead of rushing over to her friend; just knowing that Mai was there made her heart feel lighter.

"Wait, where's Nishi?" Aiko asked in a panicked tone.

"I'm sure if Mai's here she is too," Ty Lee reassured her as she eavesdropped on Mai's conversation. She felt her own heart sink back down, worrying about the second Kyoshi; now that Mai was there for the girl to focus her distrust on, she had warmed up to Ty Lee. She also knew that, however mean Mai acted, she would never leave Nishi behind if she had any choice in the matter. The gondola was slowly approaching and Ty Lee felt a strange mixture of fear about Nishi and anticipation of her own freedom.

"I haven't even seen you in the cafeteria though," the laundry girl said with raised eyebrows.

"I like privacy," Mai replied trying to keep her tone level, but Ty Lee's ears, which were trained in the art of Mai's feelings, caught a tiny timbre of fear.

"Is that why you still have your helmet on? It's so hot out here," the girl teased, though her joking voice hid a hint of suspicion.

"There you are, Ming!" a cheery voice called from behind Mai. The trapped mock-guard, as well as her two friends, watched another girl stroll up, helmet still firmly on. Nishi slid her arm under Mai's as though they were the best of friends, "I've been looking all over for you! Remember that guy I was telling you about?" she rattled on as she led Mai away from the sullen laundry girl, "Well I can introduce you on the gondola!" she motioned to the newly arrived teetering, steel savior.

Mai nodded minutely at the other two prisoners as the other guards began filing onto the gondola and they, near the back, had to wait their turn. In Ty Lee's constant thoughts and imaginings of the hulking metal beast, it had transformed from menacing location of one of her worst memories, to achieve almost supernatural, symbolic meaning. The gondola was now her way out as opposed to the reason she was here; it was the way back to her life, the way to help the world. The gondola was her salvation and she was about to step inside.

Then, it seemed to Ty Lee that the Universe decided to conspire against her and her friends. She figured that she had helped Azula fight the Avatar and his friends, thus disrupting the balance of the Universe, one too many times for the Spirit World to look kindly on her, and although her heart was broken, she somehow hadn't expected much different.

The laundry guard's lip was poked out in a pout and her glare was suspicious, "Wait, Ming is your name?" she called, grabbing Mai's shoulder and twisting her around. Mai's helmet slid around to block her vision and the morose young woman stumbled awkwardly into Nishi whose shoe caught on one of the loose rivets. The young Kyoshi warrior fell backwards, waving her arms in a windmill. She caught herself, but not before the oversized men's helmet she had stolen tipped off and rolled across the steel floor to land at the feet of the senior guard who was directing traffic onto the gondola.

Everything froze. The guards were staring straight into the green eyes of a clearly Earth Kingdom inmate. Ty Lee glanced at Mai, looking for a hint of what she should do; she was torn between tearing off her helmet and rushing to Nishi's rescue, or keeping hers and Aiko's cover intact. Mai's deep gold eyes glistened and her lips pursed together. She gave Ty Lee an apologetic kind of shrug and stepped into a defensive stance.

"Mai…" Ty Lee whispered, and she figured by Aiko's distressed face that she was as worried for her best friend as Ty Lee was for Mai.

"I knew you were an imposter," the laundry girl said with a cruel smile.

"Good call," Mai said dryly. There was another half a second of frozen time, before Mai interrupted it by ripping off her heavy steel helmet and launching it at the laundry girl. The helmet caught the girl in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her and destroying the eerie tranquility. Nishi executed a quick roundhouse kick to the throat of the man closest to her, one of the few exposed areas of the guard uniform, just as two other guards were pinned to a wall by jagged homemade stilettos through their sleeves.

I can't leave without them, Ty Lee told herself as she watched the men struggle with the knives. She pulled off her own helmet and tossed it to Mai to use as more artillery. Her own thoughts were evidently mirrored by Aiko who had already pelted her headgear into the face of the senior guard who was now kneeling on the ground nursing his bloody nose.

Instead of throwing Ty Lee's helmet, Mai used it as a weapon. The young noble woman spun in a small circle to gain more force, cracking the helmet into the hand of the closest fire bender before he could execute his move. He let out a small exclamation of pain and clutched at his broken hand, rage flashing across his face as Mai used her final shuriken as a dagger, slashing through the upper arm of a fire bender as he lunged toward her and she ducked out of the way. He skidded to a halt and executed a sweeping kick which Mai easily avoided with a jump.

The girl's normally blank face was twisted into a small smirk of enjoyment with determination sparkling behind her eyes. Mai kicked the closest man in the knee to break his stance with a sickening crunch, and then with another rapid twist, smashed the steel helmet into the ribs of the enraged, injured bender behind her. With another grunt, he collapsed at her feet and helmet in one hand, jagged bit of metal in the other, Mai took a defensive position to ready for the next onslaught.

Ty Lee cartwheeled around fire blast after fire blast with each twist inching closer to the guard who was attacking her. One fire ball came a bit too close to home, singing the end of Ty Lee's loose hair. Her vanity fueled her anger and the girl dashed behind another guard, grabbing onto his outstretched arm at the wrist and by pushing her palm into the pressure point on the back of his upper arm, just below the shoulder, she twisted him around to use him as a human shield for the fire blasts. He screamed as, not only his arm was dislocated, but his opposite hand which was outstretched to defend himself was engulfed in fire.

"LI!" the woman bender yelled, panicking at having hurt her friend. Ty Lee pushed the injured man forward and flipped over him, pushing off of his back with her hands and landing on her feet in front of the distraught woman. With a well-aimed kick to the ribs and a chi-blocking jab to the chest the woman collapsed, and Ty Lee hand-springed over her fallen form to land beside Mai, standing back to back.

"Ugh, Ty Lee, I did that to distract them, you were supposed to stay incognito and get out with Aiko," Mai scolded, but her voice sounded more than a little grateful and Ty Lee could feel the Orange coming off of her in waves.

Ty Lee laughed nervously as she and her best friend were surrounded by a small circle of guards. "Hey, I didn't let Azula kill you, why should I let these guys?" she said, looking over the guards' shoulders to see both Kyoshis fighting fiercely; they were dodging, jumping, ducking, kicking and punching, combining their own training with the chi blocking that they'd learned from Ty Lee. Mai shot a small, thankful smile over her shoulder at her friend.

One man lunged forward, thrusting a fist of flame at Aiko, who swerved lightly to the side and gave a little tug on the man's arm, using his own momentum to pull him forward and onto his face. Nishi ran past her, stepping on the man's back and she and the other Kyoshi grasped arms. Aiko swung her friend around like a human pendulum to kick another man in the jaw. She landed on her feet beside her friend, both of them with fists up to prepare for the next attack.

"Surrender now," one of the guards commanded the surrounded Fire Nation girls as those from Kyoshi did their best to withstand their attackers.

"Ready?" Mai asked. Ty Lee nodded firmly and Mai tossed the helmet she still held high into the air. Unwittingly most of the guards' gazes followed the projectile. Mai rushed forward, sliding along the steel floor between the legs of the man directly in front of her, and slicing along the inside of his calf with her last shuriken. He let out a cry of pain, kneeling down at exactly the right height for a 15 year old governor's daughter to dropkick him in the side of neck.

Vaguely, Ty Lee's brain registered his scream, followed by another grunt from the man the sturdy helmet landed on. She placed both hands on the shoulders of the man who rushed her, performing her best circus leap into the air and flipping over his head. As she was directly above him, time slowed down and the astonished guard looked directly up into the chocolate eyes of the girl above him and registered the feeling of her hair brushing over his face. The small moment of peace only lasted as long as it took for Ty Lee to dig her thumbs between the muscles in his shoulders. His arms collapsed, suddenly made of jelly and the acrobat landed gracefully behind him. Then, with two more quick movements, she thrust her knuckles into the muscles above his hips on each of his sides. He teetered precariously before, with a side kick, she tipped him into another guard who was rushing to his aid.

One thing that did register in Ty Lee's brain was the sound of a female scream from behind her. She whipped around, fists still raised, to see Aiko being roughly shoved to the ground by one of the guards. He was handcuffing the warrior when Nishi landed an elegant, chi blocking punch to his deltoid. Her tactic worked, but only just in time for another guard to wrench her arm behind her back.

Ty Lee let out her own cry of pain when a fireball brushed her right arm, distracting her from the Kyoshis' plight. She clutched at her burned elbow and turned to see a man, probably not too much older than her, in a fire bending stance. Immediately, Ty Lee could tell that he was more of a threat than any of the others had been. Unlike most of the bending guards who had probably learned from a hole in the wall commercial street dojo in some small town or the colonies, this boy's raised fist and strong stance were more reminiscent of Zuko's elite training.

Ty Lee completed a quick one-handed cartwheel to avoid his next attack and landed in a crouch, still nursing her hurt arm. Out of the corner of her eye, Ty Lee saw Mai awkwardly try to dodge a punch to the gut, instead absorbing it in her kidney with a small cry. Ty Lee's eyes welled up with tears. We're losing, she realized, but she pushed herself into a sprint towards the fire bender. She ducked, leapt, twisted and flipped around fireball after fireball, and with a sweeping kick, knocked one of his legs out from under him.

He let out a mumbled, "Woah," swinging his arms to catch his balance. Ty Lee couldn't help but be reminded of one of her former best friends when the man shot a fire blast out behind him, propelling him away from the ground and into a standing position. The acrobat looked on, surprised, and gasped when he shot one swift kick of fire at her heel, knocking her off balance. She tried to catch herself but only twisted awkwardly, straining her burned arm. The girl let out a small cry when the boy apparently rushed forward and a burning hand grabbed her from behind, stopping her fall. The hand grasped Ty Lee's neck and she froze. The young woman quickly tried to decide how long it would take her to block the arm's chi, and if that would be before or after her head was scorched off.

Mathematics had never been her strong suit and she wasn't done with her calculations when Mai let out another small scream as her legs were knocked out from under her, her arms stretched behind her back and the shuriken ripped from her hand; she was handcuffed and wrapped in a similar hug as Ty Lee. All at once the chaos seemed to die down. The guards who weren't too chi-blocked to move were slowly climbing to their feet, clutching at knife wounds or broken bones.

"Bring them back in," a cruel voice said from somewhere behind Ty Lee, but that was the last thing she had time to process before something very hard and seemingly metal smacked her in the skull and the acrobat's consciousness slipped away, along with all the hope she had left for escape.