Sorry for the delay, folks! Here's your next chapter. I probably won't be able to get the next one out until the weekend again (sorry – I'm a busy, busy person of late). But rest assured, it will arrive!

Scherherazade, Georg is about 27, which means Mai is dating an older man. Go, Mai.

Thanks for the reviews, everyone! :)

Chapter 25

Katara groaned at the sight of the new soldiers pouring in. Why Hari had prepared an invasion force, she'd never know. All she knew was, they had ladders. Lots of ladders. And she and Rui had only just finished taking care of the first twenty. They were feisty, she'd give them that.

Sliding on a wave of ice around the perimeter of the yard, she glanced over her shoulder at the devastation she had caused. Armored men, most still conscious and sorry for it, were trapped by varying degrees in large sheets of ice. If Katara had had more time, she might have tried to make their ice prisons a little more…artistic. But what can you do.

Rui laughed a little. "That was kind of fun, you know? And I finally got this ice sliding thing down! It's pretty easy, once you get the hang of it." At this point he noticed the new soldiers dropping in across the yard. "Oh, crap."

Katara smiled. For Katara's fifteen, Rui had taken out five soldiers. Not a shameful proportion for a student in his first year. "We'll be fine, Rui. All we need to do is fight these guys just like we did the last few, right?"

Rui's nerves apparently got the better of him, because before he could answer, his feet slipped from under him and he fell backwards. He was saved from whacking his head on the ground, though, by a pillow of water that appeared beneath him. Katara glanced at the bender who had saved him from a bruise and smiled.

"Wow, Rui, you really do suck at ice sliding!" Tami giggled, her pigtails bouncing as she did so. Her sisters, Sora and Lina, looked out at the tumultuous courtyard, awed expressions on their faces.

"I do not! I just slid all the way over here from all the way over there!" He pointed to the ice prisms at the other edge of the yard.

Tami blanched. "Are those…people?"

Katara bent the water from her ice slide into her pouch and observed the chaos before her. She had to do something. If Zuko were here, he'd know what to do. The Fire Lord had to have a few tactical tricks up his sleeve. At the very least, his presence at her side – well, not necessarily there, why would he be there? – would make her feel more secure. Where was the man, anyway? Probably off thinking of more ways to simultaneously confuse her and make her want to jump his bones.

She sighed and turned to her students. Time to take charge. "Welcome to the fight, girls. See those soldiers over there?" Katara gestured to the wall, where more and more of the armored men dropped to the ground and advanced on Retzl and Paetr. The two Hertzians were bending madly, protecting themselves and their prey, a very irate-looking Hari, from capture. Katara gleaned immense satisfaction from the fact that the unctuous man was stuck in a slab of rock.

Katara shifted her gaze to Toph. The Blind Bandit was still in the process of fighting the five – make that four – earthbenders. The woman ducked and rolled like a monkey, avoiding flying boulders as if she had better sight than twenty hunters. When Katara noticed the grin on Toph's face, she knew it wasn't that Toph was having any trouble – she was toying with them. Not the time, Toph.

"Are those actually people you froze?"

Rui rolled his eyes, and Katara sighed. "Yes," they said in unison.

Katara continued. "Look. We need to get those soldiers out of this courtyard. As fast as possible. Now I have an idea of how we might do this. See that doorway that's partially blocked by a wall of rock?"

Sora and Lina nodded. Tami was still staring back at the trapped soldiers in awe.

"We need that wall down. Sora, you go with Lina and tell Retzl to drop it. The soldiers are getting in, anyway, so it's served its purpose. Then tell all of them to get to the other side of the pond."

"Where all the ice-traps are?"

"Yes, where all the ice-traps are." Stocky Sora nodded brusquely and grabbed Lina's hand, leading her at a sprint toward far-off Retzl and Paetr. Katara was a bit nervous when two soldiers looked to be obstructing the girls, but a flash of water and the armor-clad warriors were lying on the ground.

Satisfied, Katara looked to Tami. She was still staring off into the distance. "Tami. Have you seen Ty Lee?"

"Present!" Ty Lee popped up to Katara's right.

Katara jumped. "Ah!" She glared. "You always do that!" She sighed and didn't bother to ask Ty Lee where she had come from. "Ty Lee, I need you to help Paetr and Retzl get Hari over to the other side of the pond. But first, can you go help Toph out? She appears to be having trouble."

"Which, in Katara code, means tell her to stop fooling around and beat them up, already, right?"

Katara sighed a yes.

"You got it!" Ty Lee bounded happily toward Toph.

Now for Tami and Rui. "Alright. You two, follow me."

"What are we doing?"

"Gathering all the water we can get."

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Zuko had given up on finding Maka. It was impossible in such a labyrinthine building, and the personnel here were less than helpful. Especially the wiry ones.

But, since he was already here, he had decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to pay this poor Georg fellow a visit. He'd been meaning to speak with him for a while, now, but for some reason had never gotten around to it. As he nodded to the guards and passed through the Hertzian's cell door, he thought it odd that such a long hallway lay before him. What was the point of that? With a chill Zuko recalled that formerly the Dai Li had not been quite so kind with their interrogations. Perhaps the length of the hall kept those outside from hearing the screams of a tortured prisoner.

Zuko stepped quietly along the flagstones, approaching the far doorway. Zuko could almost make out the interior of the cell, and what looked to be bars at the far end. He looked back over his shoulder and realized that he was about at the halfway point of the corridor. Turning toward the cell again, he saw something that set off alarms in his mind. A small ball of flame streaked across the cell opening. In another moment, the very air was laced with the piercing scream of a woman in pain. Forgetting everything, he bolted.

He remembered himself enough not to simply throw his body through the doorway, for although it might resemble a heroic act, at its core it was foolhardy. Whoever had sent that fireball was hidden to his right, and in leaping he would give that person the advantage of identification. So instead, he waited. And saw the firebender herself step into the doorway. Her back was to him, and her shoulders were hunched forward, but he could tell by the outfit she wore and the color of her hair exactly who she was.

She hadn't noticed his approach, luckily enough, because someone in the cell – Georg? – was yelling at the top of his lungs. Using her distraction to his advantage, he stepped through the doorway behind her, his quick eyes taking in the details of the scene. A female form slumped against the wall to his left, her back against the stones, her head sagging to the left, obviously unconscious. He couldn't see her face, but he smelled the sickly sweetness of burnt flesh and knew the woman couldn't be in very good shape.

Then he made out what Georg was saying. For the most part, the man was yelling obscenities – some so obscure Zuko had never heard them before – but they were interspersed with the same, repeated, roaring question:

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?"

Oh, no. It was Mai. Mai was the woman slumped against the wall. And Georg was trapped in a cell, unable to reach her. And this woman, his council member, the woman he had trusted more than many of his subjects, was the reason.

Resolving in his mind the best course of action, Zuko slid his feet silently up behind Maka. She was a head shorter than him, and he could now clearly see Georg's form pressed against the corner of his cell, his hands reaching out toward Mai's still form, tears of anger mixing with the sweat of fear on his cheeks. Georg was now mumbling incoherently, probably assuming that his death was imminent, as Maka had him under her thumb.

But he looked up, and his eyes flashed with surprise as they caught Zuko's form. Maka noticed the sudden change in expression, and before Zuko could slip his arms around hers to immobilize her, she spun, her hand slicing the air and sending an arc of flame around toward Zuko's face. The heat nearing his skin was so familiar that Zuko forgot to flinch and instead dropped to a low crouch and in one practiced motion spun his right leg around and under Maka's feet, swiping them out from under her.

Once his leg swung free from Maka's falling body, he brought it beneath him, using it to propel himself up and over her until his right knee simultaneously pressed her stomach and left arm against the ground. At the same time, his left knee was on her throat and his weight rested on his hands, both of which held her free arm still. He glared into her eyes as she struggled for breath. "Yield, Maka. Your fight is over." He didn't intend to kill anyone today, but she didn't have to know that. He stretched his face into a vicious, heated leer.

Maka was undone by it. She squeezed her eyes shut as she struggled for breath, emitting a few tears in the process, and nodded as best she could. Zuko eased his knee up slightly but kept her arms contained so she couldn't bend. Georg started shouting again. "Zuko! Or whatever your name is! Let me out of this cage so I can help her!"

For a millisecond, Zuko glanced up at the pleading Georg, losing his focus on keeping his prisoner locked down. That millisecond was enough for Maka. With considerable strength, likely backed by desperation, she actually flipped her legs up, kneeing Zuko's ear and pushing him enough to the side that he had to shift his weight or crush her throat. He chose the former, but rather than gratitude, she tumbled into a crouch and gave him a fireball to the head. He was quick enough to duck beneath it, but not quick enough to prevent her next move.

Zuko saw her eyes shift toward Georg's cell. She rose to her feet, one arm held out straight, fingers pointed toward Georg, the other balled into a tight fist at her shoulder. He knew that form. Azula had used it more than once in his presence. In a moment, before he could possibly stop her, she would send a stream of flames toward her victim so wide that there would be no possibility of escape. Feeling in his bones the futility of his act, Zuko gathered his strength and leapt at her, feeling the breeze of her fist as it flew forward, gritting his teeth at the flames, those horrible, unstoppable flames, from whose greedy, licking fingers he was powerless to protect the innocent king.

As his shoulder sank into her side and she fell with him to the ground, Zuko glanced again toward Georg, mourning his death even as the man's eyes widened and mouth went slack, his brow glittering in the light that would soon consume him. As his last act, Georg glanced over to Mai, a sorrowful, resigned expression on his face.

But just as Zuko was about to cry out in frustration, the flames disappeared. They just ceased to exist, as if Georg was shielded from the fire by some invisible wall. Zuko gripped the struggling assassin before him and used his weight to hold her to the ground. Her face pressed into the stone floor and Zuko held a heated hand to her head. "Make one move and I will blast your head from your neck." It was the worst threat he could think of, and it appeared to work, because she stopped struggling immediately.

But how? How had Maka's flames, so true to course, died out just in time? Zuko had an idea as soon as a certain skinny, presumptuous airbender entered the room, maintaining an airbending stance as if ready to attack. Zuko raised an eyebrow. "So now you can just blow fires out?"

"Not quite. Localized vacuum. Sokka suggested it to me awhile ago. Glad it came in handy."

"No air, no fire…" Maka muttered. Zuko pressed her into the ground a bit to remind her of his threat.

Georg gripped the bars and yelled again. "Aang! The keys! PLEASE!"

"On it." He jumped deftly over Zuko and his prey to the wall, caught up the keys, and raced over to Georg's cell door, unlocking it. Georg threw the door open and leapt to Mai's side.

"Mai. Mai! Wake up, please. Wake up." His arms were around her, lifting her head to rest on his shoulder.

"Don't move her too much. I'll go get help."

"Aang, could you, uh?" Zuko gestured with his head to Maka beneath him.

Aang nodded and lifted his hands, bending a mound of earth up and over Maka's body. Zuko jumped out of the way just as the earthen cage closed over her back. "That should hold her until we get the Dai Li to lock her up." Aang paused and considered Mai and Georg. "I may be able to soothe her burns with waterbending," he said. "But she needs a healer."

"Katara." Zuko made to run but Aang held him back with a blast of air. Zuko glared at him and he smiled innocently.

"At least let me tell you where she is. She's in the school courtyard. And, just a heads up, she's fighting a battalion of Hari's soldiers."

All Zuko could get out in response to this sudden revelation was a strangled sound of annoyance, confusion, and worry. She was fighting what?

He ran.

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Yeahhhhh Zuko. Taking Maka out without any firebending. Will he get to bend before the day is out? Only time will tell.