Three Families

by James Golen

Three Families seek the Avatar. Three Families find the Avatar. Three Families use the Avatar. The story of how three sets of siblings are changed by the Avatar, amidst an endless war. AU, Want of A Nail.

36. Lake Laogai

Toph was beside herself.

It was a state which was so unexpected, by anybody who knew the first thing about her, that it caused all those who did little recourse but to stand and stare. She had, for all of them, always been a bulwark of stability and determination. But seeing her now, so confused, so struck-down... it was troubling on many levels.

"Mom, come on, you can't have forgotten me! I'm your daughter!" Toph pleaded.

"I am sorry. You must have me mistaken for somebody else," Toph's mother said. "I have been told that I have a familiar face. Perhaps it is just that I look like your mother?"

"This isn't funny, Mom! You know I'm blind. What happened to you?" she said, urgency twisting her voice away from its usual low tones and into something almost hysterical. Sokka felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see it was Zuko.

"We should give her a minute," the royal said quietly, softly. And Sokka couldn't help but agree. Sokka grabbed his sister and dragged her away from the room leaving Toph and her mother within. The others, all of them, had gathered in the main room, and were talking quietly. They looked up as the survivors exited, their words falling silent.

"How is she?" Hakoda asked.

"Toph or her mother?" Katara asked. Hakoda shrugged. Katara shook her head, unable to answer the question.

"You shouldn't keep one of those things in here," Qujeck said direly. "I don't know how, but they always know when one of their Joo Dees goes down, and they always drop a fearful hammer when they do. Just kill it, before it can betray us."

"Hey, that thing is Toph's Mom," Sokka said.

"How could you be so heartless?"

Qujeck turned in his seat, facing them rather than the fire as he had before. His eyes were cold, almost the same sort of cold as the North Tribesmen Sokka had fought beside. But not quite as dead. No, there was anger still in those eyes. "You don't know what they do to those things. I don't either. Whoever that woman was, she's not her anymore. She's a hollowed out shell, a person-in-name-only. Something Long Feng will use and dispose of at its most convenient opportunity. You think you can actually talk to one? You can't. They don't think. They just follow orders. This one's orders are to kill the Prince," Qujeck motioned toward Zuko. "It will not rest, it will not relent, and it will not stop until it does that. If you value the Prince's life, you'll kill that thing. If you value your own, you'll do it quickly."

"How can you be so heartless?" Katara asked again, moving up to Qujeck's face to make her point.

"Give it five years in this city, and if you survive, you'd make the exact same decision," Qujeck said. "Long Feng lured you in with high-minded and self-deprecating talk about how the Dai Li are under siege. They're not. They have every advantage. They've got all of the weapons. They can spend them whenever they want, on whomever they want, without consequence."

"They have my mother," Nila said quietly, where she was eating a stew which Dad had cooked in the interim.

"And that means that when he's done with her, he'll have the most lauded military commander of the age at his beck and call. If he has the Avatar, too? Then he'll have the world on a leash," Qujeck finished.

"What happened to you, that made you so bitter?" Katara asked.

Qujeck scowled, and looked away. "It doesn't matter."

"Does it?" Sokka asked. "I mean, did you lose friends? Family? 'Cause you've still got family in the South Pole."

"My family died when Summavut fell," Qujeck said.

"...no... Lana is still alive," Katara said. Qujeck turned to her, and when he did, his pallor grew fairly grey. Not hope and expectation. Quiet dread.

"I... see..." he said. He shook his head, and pointed into the room. "It doesn't matter. That thing is a threat to us, no matter who it used to be. Deal with it now, or don't come crying to me when you have to deal with the consequences."

"Calm down, cousin," Hakoda said, his voice stern. He turned to the others. "I'm both confused and worried. We're down people, and we don't know what happened to them. Nila, I'm told there was another with you?"

"There was," Nila answered woodenly.

"Where is he now?"

"Likely dead," Nila answered, just as woodenly. Sokka winced at that. He'd heard soldiers talking like that. She was probably in a degree of shock. She turned, her now-mismatched eyes managing at least a spark of anger. "After all, they only wanted me alive."

"We need to do something unexpected," Zuko declared. All eyes turned to him. "Uncle had a saying which I don't really remember, but it more or less goes that if your enemy is hitting you where you're weak, the only way to defend yourself is to hit him where he's weak. However much it hurts you to not defend, it will hurt him more by orders of chaos. Everything you have all been doing since reaching Ba Sing Se has just been reacting to what's happened to you. And so was I."

Zuko clenched his fists. Fire wafted up from them. "And look what it got us? I'm tired of waiting for the next hit to land. We need to hit the Dai Li back, and we need to hit them where it'll hurt them."

"Easier said than... done," Qujeck said, barely managing to maintain his composure over the spectacle of a firebender before him. Odd, how Sokka had gotten used to the idea that the guy who'd hounded them most of the way around the world was now on their side. He imagined it had to be much harder for somebody who came out of Summavut, given what happened to it, to accept. He shook his head, obviously kicking down a strong desire to instantly mete out some 'justice', and faced Zuko with renewed willpower. "I've been trying for years to find where the Dai Li have dug their roots. The only thing I can assume is that they're under the sewers somewhere, but Ba Sing Se is huge, and they could be almost anywhere."

"Faulty assumption," Nila said. "You assume since you see them in the city, they are quartered in the city. I was attacked near Lake Laogai. It is far from the city, or its sewers."

"Wait... Lake Laogai? Why were you at Lake Laogai?" Sokka asked.

"He wished to 'wine and dine' me," Nila said in continued neutral tones. "Given I do not imbibe such toxins, and the food was poor, I have to wonder if..."

"Told you," Katara whispered.

"Not the time," Sokka pointed out. Katara nodded, obviously knowing that, but feeling a bratty sister urge to point it out.

"...if they're not based in the sewers, they could be anywhere," Qujeck mused with a look of mild horror.

"Look, you're putting the cart before the Ostrich Horse," Hakoda pointed out. He pointed at the other room. "She might well remember something which might be useful. If Nila's right, and she got captured with Badesh, then she might remember where the Dai Li took them. If she remembers that, she might be able to tell us."

"Impossible," Qujeck contended. "I've never been able to break one of those things open. It'd take monumental willpower on the part of the Joo Dee, and by the time the Dai Li are done with them, there's nothing left in there at all! You're hoping for a miracle which will not come."

"Well, we've gotta do something!" Sokka said. "We can't just let them do that to Aang, too!"

"I know! I just have no idea what to do!" Qujeck answered angrily.

Zuko looked amongst them, and shook his head. "Well, you're going to have to do something. Even if it's the wrong thing. Because nobody else is going to save him, that's for certain."

---

"Send a report to the Grand Secretariat. Badesh is rousing from her catatonic state," the guard said, still facing the woman in question. There were two of them in the cell at all times. And sometimes, that was quite a bit of a disgusting proposition, as she never left the room, even to void herself. But Long Feng – and common sense for that matter – were quite clear. She was a potential danger, and no dangers would be brooked.

He watched the woman, dusky of skin and tattooed of hands, as she slowly started to stir. This was something which the leadership was waiting for with bated breath. He didn't dare take his eyes off of her.

"What was that? I didn't hear you," the one outside the door asked.

He turned, just enough that she was in the periphery of his view, and repeated himself. It wasn't really a mistake. It was barely even an opening. There was another, after all, to keep anything bad from happening. Most of the time, not even the most supernaturally talented human could exploit such a tiny gap. But when the Jade Toe was activated, it guaranteed only one thing; a way out. He wasn't aware of that. So when the glass of the lamp hit him in the side of the face, he hadn't even registered that Badesh had started moving, that she was free of her restraints.

He stumbled into the door, and she was already leaping past him, stabbing the one at his side in the throat with the bamboo which had been used to keep her drugged. Then, still lightning swift, she thrust an arm through the tiny gap into the room beyond, heaving back with her feet braced against that door so that the Dai Li on the other side was pulled face-flush against it. Then, with a mighty thrust, she pounded that bamboo rod into his eye. She then thrust her other arm through, as the guard was unsteadily trying to regain his senses, pulling the keys and bringing them into the lock, twisting blindly until the door opened. He thrust a hand toward her, a stone glove powering toward her. She almost managed to get out of the way, but they were both wounded people at the moment, and his attack wasn't quite up to the task of bringing her down. So she rolled with it, moved past him to the sound of tearing fabric at the shoulder of her shirt, and looped an arm under his neck.

His eyes bulged for just a moment, as he understood what happened. Then, with a shift in weight and leverage, his neck popped, and the light left his eyes.

Sativa leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily as she tried to get her world to stop spinning. This was her only chance. She knew that clearly. With a pant, she slapped herself across the face, the stars in her eyes driving away the confusion for a moment. Then, with her senses for the moment settled – if not completely under her control – she reached through that gap, and twisted, until the door became unlocked, and she stumbled out into the living brain of the Dai Li.

---

Chapter 16

Lake Laogai

---

Katara hated when she was at a loss. She didn't like to say so aloud, but she liked being in control of her own fate. Before, that manifested in trying to out-bossy Sokka, but now, she just tried to make sure that there was always direction for Team Avatar, as Sokka had so imaginatively dubbed them, always a new task, a new step in the right direction toward the end of the war, and the end of the threat that Imbalance posed. Now... without Aang, they were dead in the water, becalmed on flat seas far from home. She bent the water out of the pump, not bothering with the sweaty labor of drawing it up; the pumps had to go very, very deep to find water, these days. She heard reports about wells going dry in the north side of the city. Another way that Imbalance was making itself known, Aang said.

She pulled most of the water into her flask, but part of it she simply drank. It was getting very, very warm, of late. Dad said that the weather actually got a lot warmer toward what these people called summer, but she didn't really believe it until she started to feel it as now. If this was still spring, what hellish dry and heat would summer bring? It was amazing that the East could produce crops at all.

Her ponderings hit a bit of a snag as a grunt pulled her attention to the back wall of the 'yard', as somebody flopped over it. Instantly, water was at hand, a sinewy bolt ready to lash out, to incapacitate as the need would have. "You don't belong here!" Katara snapped, before she realized who had just done the tumbling. He was now sitting on the ground, his green and brown eyes heavy lidded, one of them almost swollen shut. He had a blanket, reddened, wound 'round his head, and his beard had turned to the color of rust. "Wait... Zha Yu?"

"Oh. Good. The last yard wasn't the right one," Zha Yu said with distant tones. "I told Hakoda to meet me. Must have gotten distracted."

"Are you alright?" Katara asked, the water forming onto her hands.

"That depends. Is there something sticking out of my back?" Zha Yu asked, turning it toward her, and she gave a gasp, spotting the knife which was plunged to its hilt into his back. "...I'll take that as a yes. Could you do something about it? I can't quite reach it."

"What happened to you?" Katara asked, extracting the weapon. It turned out not to be as deep as she'd feared, since it'd snapped off part of its length before plunging in. She immediately put a glowing hand to the wound, and with a focus of her will, prevented the blood from pumping out, as she started to heal. It was getting easier, since she saved Toph's life. She could actually multitask, now, when bending blood.

"Dai Li. More than I expected. Got most of them, though," Zha Yu let out a laugh. He then groaned lightly, rolling his shoulders back into her hand, likely feeling a release from the pain as her waterbending did its work. "Reminds me of the old days. Only back then, I had to live with it if I got stabbed."

"Something terrible's happened," Katara said. "The Dai Li have Aang!"

He turned toward her, glaring with his mismatched eyes. "Are you certain?" she nodded. "Then we've got to find out where they've got him."

"But we don't even know where to start," Katara lamented. Zha Yu rose to his feet, wincing still, but looked into the building, whose door still stood open. "And worse, we're not sure what's wrong with Toph's Mom. She's..."

"She's here?" Zha Yu asked.

He didn't wait for her to answer him, rather, stomping into the building. The door slid open a bit further to let him in, and when it did, all hands leapt to weapons, and all eyes turned dangerously toward him. "Who the hell is this?" Qujeck immediately demanded.

"The woman. The Joo Dee. Is she restrained?" Zha Yu asked.

"To within an inch of her life. Answer my question!" Qujeck demanded.

"I'm the Mountain King. Show me."

Dad waved Zha Yu into the room where Toph was still pleading with her mother, almost looking like she was about to cry. It was a disturbing thing to see on Toph. She was not this... emotional. She turned half way, and her expression grew tight. "What happened to her?" Toph immediately shouted, pointing at her mother.

"Toph, calm down, you're only going to make this worse if you panic," Zha Yu said clearly. He gently pulled her away from her mother. "Yingsue Beifong was a person who came to be recently. Before that, she was Joo Dee. Joo Dee are the tools of Ba Sing Se, they have been for decades."

"What do you mean?" Zuko was the one to ask the obvious question, leaning on the edge of the doorframe.

Zha Yu stared at Toph's mother for a long moment, before waving toward her. "We met Joo Dee about twenty years ago, the first time Sati tried to bring down the Dai Li. She was our 'guide and chaparone'. We thought she was just a spy, so we tried to turn her. Turned out, she, and all of the other Joo Dee like her, are brainwashed and programmed. Perfect sleeper agents, to be activated and disposed of at the Grand Secretariat's leisure," he shook his head. "We don't know her real name. We don't know who she was before Xiahou got his hands on her..."

"Who?" Sokka asked.

"Grand Secretariat Xiahou, back in the day," Zha Yu dismissed. "Long Feng wasn't always in control of Ba Sing Se."

"What happened to her?" Toph asked.

"We... we gave her a name, even if it wasn't hers. We gave her a purpose. And we gave her a choice," Zha Yu said. "She made a life for herself," he shook his head, eyes welling. "I should have never let her go with Sati."

"She's going to come back, though, right?" Toph asked. "Mom's still in there somewhere, right? RIGHT?"

"I don't know, Toph," Zha Yu said. "We couldn't find anything about her before she tried to kill us, and she couldn't remember anything about that time. Her childhood, her youth, all of who she was before us is gone forever. And that means that..."

"No!" Toph snapped. "Mom isn't gone!"

"You have to accept the fact that that thing isn't your mother anymore," Qujeck said, not gently, but at least not cruelly.

"I wonder," Sharif whispered, from the back of the pack. The others ignored him, though.

"I'm sorry, Toph, but we have to be pragmatic," Zha Yu said. "The Avatar is the most important thing right now..."

"To you!" Toph snapped, punching Zha Yu in the gut. And oddly, it was Toph who was the one flapping her hand in pain from the blow. "This isn't right! Mom was the only one who understood me... it's not fair!"

Tears began to leak from her eyes, and she turned away, not wanting anybody to see her like that. Katara moved to give the girl the hug she looked like she desperately needed, but she was forestalled by a pale hand on her shoulder. She looked back, in confusion, at Zuko as he shook his head, and proceeded to supplant Katara as the purveyor of a needed embrace. Toph didn't sob, but her shoulders did shake. At Katara's back, Nila just stared on, her expression wooden. Hollow. Dead.

And Sharif stood beside Yingsue Beifong's bound body, and reached idly through the air around him, as though trying to pick fluff from an air-current.

"...even if we can, we don't know where they're keeping the Avatar..." Dad pointed out.

"...the point. We have to hit them now, before they can..." Qujeck countered.

"...reckless. They're just waiting for us to make a mistake so they can..." Zha Yu piled in. Their words all mushed together in Katara's hearing. And her eyes were locked on a Si Wongi youth, who finally seemed to catch something. No, not seemed. When he did, a spark lit in the air, glowing white like a magnesium fire – and thank you Sokka for almost burning my eyebrows off with that, Katara idly thought – as he lowered himself to his knees at the grown woman's side.

And when he spoke, his voice wasn't the stuttering, slurring mess it was every time he opened his mouth. No, when he spoke, it was with authority, with power.

"Mysterious void, unanswerable question, inescapable answer, Key to the Forgotten Kingdom;

Gear of Memory.

The gates to the Forsaken City stand barred and locked; infiltrate.

The windows which allow the sun stand shuttered; cast open.

The Five-Score-and-Eight keys to the Nation of the Soul, where all are one, free of weakness and death; reveal.

The doom which befell the City of the Keepers; revoke.

The river shall flow, and at its mouth, one shall find the truth of all things, laid upon the sand.

Return what has been taken."

With that, the light burned all the brighter, until all had to turn away from it, and Sharif pressed the glow into Yingsue's brow. Then, the glow slowly died out, until the others were blinking away the afterimage from their sight, and Sharif simply stared into the distance once more, his eyes not on anybody or anything nearby.

"What did you do?" Sokka asked.

"I... do not know," Sharif said. "She needed a... a light."

"Mom?" Toph said, breaking away from Zuko and moving to Yingsue. "Mom, are you there?"

The woman looked to her, and sweat broke out on her face. "I... I know you," she said. "I... my head. I can feel..."

"Yingsue?" Zha Yu asked, squatting down before her, hoisting her up from her hogtied position. "Is that you?"

"...papa?" she asked. Zha Yu gave a nervous laugh.

"Yes. Papa's here," Zha Yu said.

"...I was scared," her voice was small. "There was... A man. And he said something to me. And then, I was... I couldn't hear or see or feel. It was so dark..."

"A man? Bald, green eyes, deep voice?" Zha Yu asked. Beifong nodded. "Long Feng. What did he say? Do you remember?"

"He said... something about a lake. A..."

"Lake Laogai," Nila said from the back of the room. All turned to her. "It is the only lake inside the Reaches. It is where I was attacked."

"They must have a facility at Lake Laogai," Sokka said, with a snap of his fingers. "That's where they'll be keeping Aang!"

"Then that's where we're going," Shadow piped in, and Jet, at her back, nodded grimly.

"This isn't your fight," Katara said.

"They tried to get us to kill each other," Jet shrugged. "'In the enemy of my enemy, I can oft find a friend'."

"Who said that?" Sokka asked.

"Some dead guy," Jet dismissed the question. "This guy's making the city a hell-scape. He's got the Avatar in his dungeon and he doesn't seem to care if the rest of the world burns. He's gotta go down. And I figure I can help."

"I don't need your help," Katara muttered.

"Why not?" Jet asked.

"Because you keep going too far!" Katara answered. "Every time you have a reasonable problem, you come up with an unreasonable answer. If it hadn't been for us, how many people down in that town would have died? Hundreds? Maybe thousands?"

Jet glanced away, shame clear in his face. "I made a mistake," Jet said simply.

"Katara, we don't have enough people fighting on our side to be picky," Sokka pointed out. "Jet, you're with us. We've gotta move fast, though. Between that fight in the Lower Ring and whatever Zha Yu did on his way here, we've probably got a lot of danger coming in real fast. I don't think we'll be safe staying here in the Middle Ring any longer."

"He's right," Dad said. "I'll take Yingsue and – Sharif, was it? – some place safe in the Reaches. Sokka, Katara... save the Avatar. I know you can," he said, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

Katara nodded, and went to gather anything which she couldn't live without. Sokka, though, turned and looked to Nila. "You should go with Dad."

"No. I can stand, and I can fight," Nila said.

"No offense, but you look like hell," Sokka said. "Is this smart?"

"Smart? No. But necessary, yes," she answered. And there was anger in her answer, something deep and visceral, something she didn't seem able to really quantify in herself. "I will get my gun, and I will join you. I might not be as strong as some, but I don't need strength when physics can do my slaying."

"...we don't really do a lot of killing in Team Avatar," Sokka pointed out. She glared at him, with those temporarily mismatched eyes of hers.

"Then you have no concept of justice, Tribesman. Their lives were forfeit the moment they killed Ashan. They simply have not realized it yet," she swore.

---

Dai glanced around the room of the house. There was a smell in the air, one he couldn't immediately place. He slipped through the window, landing silently on the floor, his dark green robes silent in his passage. Many of his fellow agents had tried to get into this building, and were usually driven off with gas and beatings. He would have to be careful not to let the same come to him. After all, Long Feng demanded to know what had happened to this building. To know what treachery had befallen him in this city.

He moved through the room slowly, his every footfall a spider's step upon glass, no sign of his passage left behind. The room, lit by the slanting light of the early evening, was that of a man, obvious by the dark robes and the belt of cutlery left sitting on the stool near the door. Strange. There'd been no word of a man living here. He moved further, opening the door oh-so-slowly, and looking beyond.

The kitchen was likewise empty. Its fire was snuffed. It was also piled high with rugs and carpeting, likely to make it all but impossible to approach from below, without being so obvious as a layer of iron. Whoever was indeed dwelling here was a shrewd one. And one which Dai would have to be wary of. He glanced next into the privy, stone gloves ready to fly in case he'd caught the dweller at a squat. But the privy stood empty. He leaned out the back window, confirming that there was no ambush outside. And the yard to the next house was likewise vacant. Good. He'd be heading there, next.

Dai only had one place left to check. He paused, glancing down at the bed which had been hauled out and set atop the carpets near the door. Strange. But he needed to confirm what was happening here. And the smell was strongest coming from around this door. So, slowly, carefully, he opened the last door in the building. As he did, his eyes went wide, as he beheld an array of alchemical devices, yes, but also what they were making, and what had been left behind.

Ten barrels of blasting jelly, marked in Si Wongi sitting in a puddle of what clearly wasn't water, and a heaping, loose pile of a white, granular substance which even now hissed and smoked. Dai glanced aside, and his eyes widened as he saw a discolored lemon there, mashed by the door's transit. He tried to step back, out of the way of the blast of pepper grease.

Only this particular lemon contained white phosphorus.

---

The shuddering bang which rose up into the air caused all of those nearby to let out a gasp of alarm, all turning back the direction that the group was departing. Even the group itself turned back in surprise and confusion. Only one did not. She didn't miss her stride, her angry glare forward. "What the hell was that?" Toph asked.

"Somebody entered my house," Nila answered. She had her minimalist rifle shouldered, and a leather bow-case rode her hip. "They will know we are moving against them. That realization will be somewhat lost in confusion, for a time."

"You blew up the house?" Katara asked.

"I no longer need it," Nila pointed out.

Toph 'glanced' to Sokka. "I like this one," she said with a smirk.

---

It was a remarkably simple task to blend in, once she had secreted a corpse somewhere nobody would look for it and taken the robes from its back. The steep cone of the hat on her head made it not-immediately-obvious that she didn't belong there. Most Dai Li were men, after all. In fact, all but a handful were. It was that handful which were the most dangerous of them, however. She walked, her head tipped down and her hands mostly covered by her sleeves, passing by others as they ghosted through the halls. She was in the very heart of the beast. And she had to know if she was here alone.

"Tiva, you useless child. You should be ashamed of yourself," her mother screamed in her ear. She ignored her, though. Mother was decades dead. "I taught you better than to trifle in what is not your concern!"

Perhaps. Mother had wanted Sativa to be a 'good girl', which was to say, a meek and pliant girl. She couldn't say whom she would have been had Nassar not suddenly and mysteriously been struck down, but she was sure meek was not it.

"You are a stupid child, and you're paying the price for it now. All of your friends, dead. Everybody you ever loved, lost, because You. Did. Not. THINK!" Mother continued.

The worst part about that was that she wasn't entirely wrong. Not that Sativa could answer her hallucination. Both because she was fairly sure that would mark her instantly as an intruder and because the drugs in her system would fade eventually. She needed to focus. She needed to think like a power-hungry sociopath; she needed to know where they kept their records. So even as she walked, she forced herself to think. This place was very damp. Close to water, and in great abundance. That meant that they had to be under a lake, since she couldn't detect the slightest hint of salt. And the nearest lake was Laogai. She also knew that whatever documentation would be in a safe, dry place. That meant deeper, near the bottom but not quite there. Far enough away from the lake that the roof wouldn't drip, high enough off the foundation that the water wouldn't pool.

The hallways were all laid out as a maze. Likely so that those like her would become mired and lost in it. She had no desire to indulge that design philosophy. While her hearing was compromised by the rantings of a ghost, she could, somewhat, trust her sense of smell. Water, standing water in the dark, had a funk. And she could follow that funk. So she followed her nose, down into the complex.

She had made such a mess of this. Her pride demanded she place the blame on Joo Dee, for betraying her. But honestly, the fault could only fall on her own shoulders. Zha Yu had warned her. Bato warned her. Even Piandao had warned her. But had she listened? No. She knew better than all of them, after all. And see what came of it; she didn't even know if they were alive or dead. If the latter, they would only be the first of a great many. Her hubris had made a fool of her, and now she needed to atone. Not for herself. For those who believed in her.

And it made a fool of her again as she blundered into a green-robed man coming 'round a corner. He didn't snarl and shout 'watch where you're going', as it was not the Dai Li's way to do such things. Instead, as he turned to view her more carefully, his eyes shot wide. Her disguise would work from casual viewing, yes, but nothing more involved than that. So she had to act faster. She flicked a hand up, and hurled her only weapon. It was a shard of obsidian, taken from the iron pouch of one of those that had been guarding her. She'd specifically selected the largest one, one only about the size of her thumb, and wrapped half of it in cloth so she could carry it without cutting herself to ribbons. And as it was a poor weapon, she only got one stab with it, and she had to make it count.

Her aim was not ruined from her time in captivity, and the shard lodged straight in the Dai Li's larynx. Unable to cry out with his vocal cords severed, he could only back away, his eyes bugging out and his hands closing around the razor shard, trying to stem the blood which wasn't yet truly flowing. She'd missed the veins and arteries. Still, he was defenseless enough that she could push off of the far wall and use the momentum to slam him against the nearer, stunning him and causing his head to drop enough that she could knee him in the nose.

As he fell to the floor, she grabbed his shoulders, and ardously dragged him into a threshold, marked by a heavy stone door, pausing only to slam it against his head twice before bringing him the rest of the way in. She quickly checked him for a useful weapon to a non-earthbender. Of course, she found none. She glanced behind her. The room was one of the brainwashing chambers, such as the one she'd awoken in. This one, though, was not in use. There wasn't even a lamp on the track.

No weapons, endless supplies of enemies, and an angry figment of her imagination trying very hard to distract her. Not the best of situations. But Sativa paused, looking down at the man once again. Perhaps... She reached into the man's sleeves, and pulled out the prospector's chains which ran up to a loop near his armpits. Not a weapon... but it could be useful. And she didn't have much else going for her at the moment.

A minute later, she slipped back out in silence, and continued down.

A door was open, though, as she carefully navigated that maze. She knew she was at least one level lower than she'd started, but beyond that, she hadn't a clue. And she could feel dry air ahead. She peeked through a cracked doorway, and saw a lifetime's worth of reading within. It was almost a library. She glanced behind her, and seeing none to stand in her way, she ducked in. As soon as she was in the room, she knew that this was no library. The symbol of Ba Sing Se, the three-level ring, was inlaid on the floor, and the fireplace and sconces burned with green flames. This was a dry place, alright. She looked to the table which rested in a corner. A notice journal.

"You're a worthless child, and you'll be a hopeless mother. Better you'd died in Nassar than be inflicted on the world! You are a failure in all things!"

"This is not the time, Mother," Sativa indulged the fantasy a moment, flipping the journal back a number of pages. They all seemed to date to today, talking about some Tribesman, and the gaggle of fools sent to assassinate him. Not relevant. She almost turned away from the book when she spotted a notice, scrawled in haste.

The Dragon's Daughter cannot have gotten far. Find her!

Sativa paused at that. Surely they couldn't mean... And yet, it seemed that it was the only likely answer. "Nila, by the sands what are you doing in this city, you stupid girl!" Sativa whispered. She then paged back, and her eyes widened. Three agents dead, a dozen injured. And at that, a smile slid slowly onto her face. "...But I see you have learned well what I taught you," she said.

She had two problems, now. Her own followers, and her daughter. What Nila could possibly be doing in Ba Sing Se baffled her, but it would be dealt with apace. She didn't even pay close attention to the 'other Si Wongi', who had been quietly incinerated. After all, Sativa had only ever known Ashan ibn-Ali in the most passing of terms. And the living were much more urgent than the dead. So she started to read, one quickly skimmed volume at a time, before feeding it to the fire.

Even if she failed again, today, she was going to give Long Feng a wound which would fester until it claimed him. She swore to gods she didn't believe in anymore that she would achieve if nothing else, that.

---

"This is the lake," the Fire Lord's son pointed out. "It's... less imposing than I'd expected."

Nila, though, was glaring at a building in the distance, almost lost in the waving air over the water. The building where that ambush began. The site where Ashan was struck the wound which doubtless claimed him. She didn't even know where his body was. And that caused her an incredible sort of pain. But she had tasks to perform and a duty to her Mother. She would not abandon either lightly. "We must find an entrance," she, as had Zuko, pointed out the obvious.

"I feel something just over there," the blind girl offered, pointing to her right. With a sweeping stomp, the water bucked out and rippled toward the shore, as a pillar erupted from its surface. Then, another shift, and a stone path lurched out toward that pillar.

"This feels too easy," Zha Yu said. "Where are the guards? Where are the defenses?"

"This is obviously a trap. We must simply take pains to spring it harmlessly," Nila said.

"Good eye," Sokka said. Toph flicked a thumb, and the 'cap' of the pillar flipped off and into the water, showing a descent path which plunged into some faintly green-lit path below. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Jet, you're with me."

"Feelings mutual, Sokka," Jet replied, and descended after the Tribesman. Zha Yu turned and gave Nila a glance.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" he asked, quietly.

"I would not forgive myself were I not," Nila answered.

"That's not what I asked."

"Yes, it was," Nila said. As soon as Jet was out of sight, Nila carefully lowered herself down the ladders. Instantly, she went from dry and baking to wet and cold. If nothing else, the juxtaposition slapped some clarity into her. She needed focus. She'd lost a fair amount of blood, after all, and could use any edge she could find. Zha Yu, the waterbender, the quiet one, and the blind girl followed after her, giving her just a moment to clear the ladder before feet started treading on hands. Good to see they weren't slowing down for her, at least. The last down the ladder were the Prince and the Mountain King.

"This place is spooky," Katara noted.

"You're afraid? Good. Remember that. This place is probably the most dangerous place on Earth right now," Zha Yu said, flexing his hands. While the waterbender's healing had righted his wounds, she could tell he, like she, wasn't at his best.

"I don't see anything threatening," Jet noted, his swords nonetheless in hand.

"Hope that continues," Sokka added. The lot of them moved forward, and as they did, they could hear something ahead. The clatter of footsteps. But not headed toward them, at least it didn't immediately seem so. They started to decline after a minute, and the group let out their collected breath, and started to move forward once more, with two warriors holding the walls, the others moving up after them.

"How are we going to find Aang in this?" Katara asked at a whisper.

"We'll find a way," Toph pointed out. "I can feel him from a mile off, remember?"

"Oh, right," Katara said with a note of relief. It must have been handy having such competent people around. For a certain degree of competence, anyway. They passed an almost unnoticeable threshold in the tunnel, and most of them passed without issue. But one in particular didn't. Since the swordsman and the Tribesman were both keeping to the walls, they avoided the trigger. Since Katara, and Nila were all light-framed, they passed over it – one at a time – without activating it or even noticing it. But when two hundred and ten pounds of Zha Yu stepped onto a finely balanced pressure plate, it sunk in with a click.

That click was followed by a ping, and a rushing of descending metal. Zuko had somehow either foreseen it, or otherwise simply had the preternatural reaction speed to react to it, grabbing Toph by the back of her collar and hauling her back before the thick iron shutter could smash her in half. Nila spun to see a bulkhead slamming into place, separating their party in two. Locking the half which could 'detect' the Avatar on the wrong side.

"Tui La! That almost hit her!" Katara exclaimed.

"I'm alright. You can let go of me, Sparky," Toph's muffled voice came through the metal. "It'll take more than that to get the better of Toph Beifong. I'll just... Huh."

"What is it?" Zha Yu asked.

"Just a second," Toph continued, almost inaudibly. There was a rumble. "Oh, hell no."

"What's going on?" Sokka asked.

"Toph and some of the others are trapped," Katara said.

"Mai?" Jet said, instantly moving to the metal slab. "Are you alright, Mai?"

"Wasn't even close when it fell," the bored voice barely managed to get through.

"We've got a problem," Toph announced. "That metal goes as far as I can 'see' in all directions. That place is coated in it! I'm stuck on the outside!"

"We'll find some way to open this thing from the inside," Sokka said. "You just keep anybody from capturing you or blocking us in."

"Aye aye, Captain Boomerang," Toph's answer came sarcastically.

"Hardly an auspicious beginning," Nila noted. She turned. "And it will get worse. I hear men approaching."

"We should hide," Zha Yu said. "There's no point fighting our way both in and out of this place."

"Indeed," Nila said, and with that, they all plunged into a side room, and away from their companions and friends behind them.

---

Toph gave the bulkhead another solid kick as she growled with almost feral annoyance. "Come on! There's gotta be another way into this place!"

Beside her, the slender National gave a motion which Toph interpreted as a roll of the eyes. "There would be, if the waterbender wasn't stuck on the other side of the bulkhead," she pointed out, her tone low and raspy, and somewhat bored.

"We'll have to find another way in," Zuko pressed. "They must have other entrances."

"I wouldn't, if I were doing this," the National pointed out.

Toph answered the both of them by giving the bulkhead another kick. She had to focus, and right now, she was too angry. Her mom was... they'd done something to her. She hated that it affected her like it did. She was supposed to be tough! She was supposed to be harder than rocks! But no, as soon as Mom forgets Toph's name, the girl just breaks down and cries. There were precious few times in the earthbender's life where she felt girly, and that was one of them – it was not a sensation she enjoyed.

The funny thing was, there was a rational part of her mind, a quiet little voice trying to whisper over an avalanche, which told her that it was alright to hurt. Mom was awesome. The loss of awesome was a thing to be lamented and mourned. And that quiet voice pressed a bit further, and said, even were Mom not awesome, it'd still be alright to cry for her. Needless to say, Toph wasn't listening to that little voice right now.

"She's... not giving up, is she?" the girl whom was called either Shadow or Mai – likely the latter – pointed out.

"She doesn't tend to," Zuko said. There was a hiss as he pulled out his twin dao. "Keep an eye on the entrance. We can't afford to get surrounded down here."

"Because there's every reason they'd fall short of just removing the roof and drowning us," Mai said, tone laden with dry snark.

"It won't be their first option, but we're going to make them regret using it so late," Zuko said with what Toph imagined to be a smirk, as she continued rock-stubbornly kicking that bulkhead. There had to be a way through. It was just a matter of persistence. There was too much on the line for impossibility right now.

And honestly, she was in no mood for reality to get in the way of her punching a hole through this iron plate. The frenzy of kicks and punches was pretty much the only catharsis which kept her from dropping into open weeping. That was something Toph would not allow.

"How did you survive, Mai?" Zuko asked, watching that path to the outside world, as Toph pounded away on the metal.

"I could ask you the same thing," Mai returned. Zuko's flat glance was obvious. "I got smuggled out. Even Ozai's trained killers didn't have the heart to kill a wide eyed, sniveling little girl."

"You? Snivel? I don't believe it," Zuko said.

She sighed, as was her custom. "That was the most afraid I've ever been in my life. Ever since then... Things just don't frighten me as much. I've seen the bottom of the abyss. It has golden eyes. No offense."

"None taken," Zuko answered.

"After that, some servants of my family bought me a liner ticket out to the colonies. Money ran out pretty much immediately, and I ended up stealing in the streets so that I could eat," Mai continued. She turned to Toph. "Are you seriously going to punch that plate all day?"

"If I have to," Toph answered, ignoring the sore sensation which was beginning to seep into her limbs with each blow.

"Whatever," Mai shook her head. "A town I was squatting in got burned to the ground by the Fire Nation. I ganged up with a couple of other orphans to survive. Jet was with them. The rest is history."

"I'm just surprised," Zuko said. She glanced toward him. "I never thought you'd be a 'freedom fighter' against your own nation."

"Says the Crown Prince who pals around with the Avatar," Mai pointed out.

"That's... not the same," Zuko muttered.

"How isn't it?" Mai asked. "We've both grown up, because we had to. And part of growing up was both of us finding out that your father's an asshole."

"Don't talk about my family like that," Zuko said. Toph punctuated his sentence with a really massive kick.

"What, you're defending your father?" Mai asked, anger lighting into her tones.

"I..." he shook his head. "Force of habit, I guess."

"You are some piece of work, Zuzu," Mai said with a roll of her eyes.

"Don't call me that. Only Azula calls me that," Zuko's tone became distant toward the end.

"What's up with her, anyway?" Mai asked. "I know she was sick when... everything happened. I haven't exactly kept up, and I couldn't get the..."

"Ow! Damn it!" Toph interrupted Mai's train of speech as one of her knuckles popped painfully. Both turned to her, then back to each other, and Toph continued pounding away.

"It's a complicated story. Some of the parts are... kinda hard to believe," Zuko said, staring ahead. "She was sick for a long time. I... took care of her. Helped her get better. For a given amount of better, I guess. And it wasn't like before, when we were at the palace. Azula was actually a sister, instead of 'my rival for the throne'. There were times when," Zuko broke off with a distant chuckle, "when even when she was being an absolute brat, I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be, or anybody else I'd rather be related to."

"...I wasn't aware," Mai said.

Zuko seemed to slump, just a tiny tiny bit. "But that changed when the Avatar appeared. Instead of being content to wander the seas, she got obsessed. First with the Avatar, then with Katara. I'm pretty sure that Azula... and this is the craziest part... might be able to see the future."

"That does sound fairly crazy," Mai noted.

"The thing was, everything she predicted turned out pretty much as she said it would. Kyoshi Island. Crescent Island. Bomei. Summavut," Zuko gave a shrug. "She even knew just when the Avatar would be reaching Ba Sing Se! But since Summavut... something changed. She seems so much more angry. Hateful, even," his head dipped a little bit more. "I feel like I'm losing my sister again. I can't stand it."

Mai didn't have an answer to that, and Toph continued kicking at the bulkhead, ignoring the pain in her body since it helped her ignore the pain in her soul. Zuko quickly flinched erect, and reached out, tapping Toph on the shoulder with a blade. "What are you?" Toph demanded, before he cut her off.

"Quiet for a second," he said. She ceased her kicking for that second.

"Did you hear that?" Mai asked.

"I did," Toph agreed. "We've got company," she then turned back to the bulkhead. "Keep them off me. I'm making a hole if it kills me."

"You do realize bending metal is impossible?" Mai asked.

"Don't care."

"You're wasting your time," Mai pressed.

"Don't care!" Toph shouted.

"Let her try," Zuko said. There was a hiss of steel over steel as his blades flicked forward. "And we can deal with these Dai Li."

"You do so know how to show a girl a good time," Mai said with a dry tone.

"Yeah, he does," Toph agreed, before her foot slammed into the bulkhead again.

---

The passage through the underground fortress was harrowing, as they had to avoid every whisper of stone against stone so as not to give away their position. It was obvious to Sokka that the place was on high-alert, since the trap had been sprung and the Dai Li all knew it. Sokka, Katara, Jet, Nila and Zha Yu all passed through that hallway as silently as they could, because the alternative was grim indeed.

"Where do you think they have Aang?" Katara said at the barest whisper.

"Some place well guarded," Jet offered equally quietly. "Someplace near the center."

It was as good a place as any to start. Given the labyrinthine nature of the facility, in was as good as any other direction. If only the only issue was the guards. As Sokka passed by rooms, he could hear things. Unpleasant things.

"What are they doing?" Sokka asked, pausing to press an ear to a door. It was Nila who pulled him away from it.

"It does not matter. You must find your Avatar. I must find my mother," she said pointedly.

"Nila's right. We can't save everybody today," Zha Yu said, his eyes hard and his expression grim.

"What do you mean?" Katara asked.

His question was answered as the group passed by one room, lit from within by green, ethereal light. From out the cracked door came voices.

"Hello, my name is Joo Dee," a man intoned.

"Hello, my name is Joo Dee," a chorus of women's voices answered, hollow and emotionless.

"It is so good that we have the walls creating order."

"It is so good that we have the walls creating order."

Sokka peeked into the room, and Nila moved beside him. There were at least twenty women in there, all staring forward unblinking, assuredly unseeing. They stood like dolls, stared like dolls, and spoke like dolls – if dolls could speak, itself a disturbing notion. He could see Nila looking in with him, and her expression was murderous. The only thing which kept her from barging in, gun blazing, was Sokka being in her way. "Come on," Sokka whispered, guiding her away. Her eyes remained locked on that scene within, though, until the line of sight was broken, and she finally returned her glare forward.

"Long Feng needs to die," Zha Yu's voice was as angry as it was quiet, barely reaching from he to they. Nila nodded once. Up, down, stop. Sokka turned his attention to other things.

"There is no war in Ba Sing Se," the Dai Li agent coached.

"There is no war in Ba Sing Se," the women mimicked.

If only.

---

"Where are they?" Long Feng's voice was low and angry, but then again, considering the events of the past few hours, he had every right to be angry. An explosion which rocked the Middle Ring, leveling two houses, both of which were supposed to be under his scrutiny. Now, they would only ever find the barest fragments of whatever treason was brewing behind those closed doors.

"We're not sure," Han said. "Their trail ends almost immediately, since they turned into a bath house and vanished from our observation. We have to assume they're using the Zutara understructure to move unnoticed."

"Then they could be anywhere. Even under the Upper Ring," Long Feng said. He snapped a glance toward his subordinate. "Quadruple the guard and cancel all of the Earth King's appointments. I will not have the Avatar's cronies turning that hopeless child against me. It's a complication I do not need."

"It will, before the top of the hour," Han gave a nod. "What about the prisoners?"

"Prepare to lock down the facility and keep both the Avatar and the Dragon under utmost security. The last thing we need is a breakout," Long Feng said, turning the corner to his personal study, here in the guts of the Lake Laogai facility. And as soon as he opened the door, he was knocked onto his back by a billow of flames, which lapped with golden light, consuming every scrap of paper within. For a moment, Long Feng stared dumbly at it. But only a moment.

"We have infiltrators. They aren't heading for the Earth King. They're coming here," Long Feng said.

"I'll secure the Avatar," Han said, before outright running 'round a corner. Long Feng, though, moved upward, bending the stone out of his way to make it swifter, and strode with haste and purpose to where his first valuable prisoner was kept. It took him only a moment to unlock the heavy door, but even as he did, he smelled blood and death. Opening the door confirmed his suspicions. The chair which had contained the Dragon of the East stood empty, and three guards were all piled into a corner.

"No. Not today," Long Feng swore. He would not lose Ba Sing Se to these anarchists! He turned on his heel, and strode away, green eyes glaring as the darkness draped around him as a cloak.

---

The six-legged beast let out a bellow of fear, chained as it was to the floor at the center of the room, as the great doors into its chamber slid open slightly. But that fear reaction, however justified as it was in a prey animal who was in a terrifying environment, was short lived. Because the person who stood before it was about as physically unintimidating as a human could be. She tipped the hat off of her head, letting it fall aside.

"Not who you expected, I presume?" Sativa asked dryly. The beast let out a snort, then lumbered forward to sniff at her. "Yes, I was somewhat surprised to read that you were he-ack!"

She was interrupted by the bison leveling a tongue upside her face. She couldn't help but let out a laugh at the absurdity of it.

"You must be desperate for company. And I need a way out," she muttered to herself, if only to keep the voices which ranted in her mind at bay for a little while longer. She knew what it was to be drugged. This was worse. But she would endure. She'd endured worse. So she started hunting for a way to burst the bison's binds.

---

"Hold on, I hear something," Sokka called them up short. Impatient eyes fell upon him, as he gestured them close to a vent located close to a ceiling. "Did any of you hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything," Katara said.

"Shut up for a second," Jet said, which drew a glance of ire from the waterbender. "Yeah, I hear it, too. A voice."

"We are in a facility run by the enemy. Of course there are to be voices," Nila pointed out.

"No, I've heard this one before," Sokka whispered.

He leaned up on his toes, getting an ear as close to the grating as he could manage.

"I don't suppose you could bring me a pillow? The cell floor is quite hard. Good for the back, murder on the neck," the voice said with dry sarcasm.

"Silence, criminal. You're coming with us."

"Torture again, is it? I thought you'd gotten bored with me."

"Bato?" Sokka asked. "We need to get in there! They're going to move him somewhere."

"How? Those voices could be coming from anywhere," Katara pointed out.

"Keep going, I'll get Bato," Zha Yu said.

"What? What are you..." Jet asked, but Zha Yu hurled himself through the grated wall, and began to slam through the walls after it, bending each one to a crumble with his passage, and causing a veritable cacophony of noise, which left the teenagers baffled.

"I thought we were being quiet," Sokka muttered.

"Not any more, it seems," Nila said, and then gave him a shove with her rifle.

"They'll be coming for us," Katara said, water at the ready for attack.

"Then we must surprise them when they do," Nila answered.

"Where do we go from here?" Sokka asked.

"That place looks as good as any," Jet pointed ahead of him with his blades, to a door which seemed slightly larger than those around it. As they approached, Sokka could see a green-robed figure entering the same hall as they, not very far, and facing them. There as a moment of confusion on the teenagers end, which lasted a bit longer than on the Dai Li agent's. So it was the Dai Li that launched his fists one after the other toward the group. But they were aimed at Nila, who was the only bearer of a ranged weapon. Jet twisted before them, slashing each fist in half with his hook-swords and saving Nila from a pummeling nobody was sure she'd be able to handle. Sokka, though, pulled out a rock.

It was a perfectly normal rock, just about the size of his fist. Nice and dense, good shape. Which made it ideal for hurling at people's heads. Sokka didn't need to think twice to know the angle, the way his arm would wheel through the air. That rock launched like poetry, like science itself, describing a perfect arc as muscle power worked in synergy with gravity to brain a man from across the room.

All of that, interrupted by an ear-splitting boom, and the Dai Li being hurled back off of his feet, a red hole opening in the center of his chest. The stone clattered past, skittering down the hall since its target was no longer in its path. Sokka glanced back. "I had him! You didn't need to..."

"You were wasting time, and he would have arisen," Nila said, biting another bullet and shoving it into place. Katara gave Sokka a concerned glance. Jet, though, nodded, then swiftly shouldered open the door, showing a room with a cage built into one side of it. As soon as he entered, he was yanked from his feet. Sokka had to move quickly, grabbing Jet by the back of his shirt to arrest him, which had the lamentable consequence of tearing one of Jet's sleeves off. Katara was next into the breach, sending out a flurry of shards of ice, which pinned the Dai Li back in his cubby-hole, unable to move, while another hovered ominously before him.

"Where do you keep the prisoners?" Sokka asked him, pointing a club in his direction.

"Or what, you'll melt at me?" the Dai Li asked without humor.

Sokka gave a glance to Katara, who seemed to be at a bit of a loss. "Jet, try to..."

Once again, Nila interrupted them with a gunshot, which slammed into the man's knee to the sound of a scream of agony and a steady reddening of his robes. "The Dai Li have captured the Dragon of the East. Where is she? If you dissemble, I will favor your other knee. I have many bullets. You have fewer joints."

"Nila, this is cold blooded. You're better than this," Jet said, concern in his voice.

"Apparently, I am not," Nila said coldly. She bit a new bullet and loaded it, rocking back the hammer with finality. "Where are you keeping the Dragon? Your answer or your other knee."

"Down in the subbasement. She's one level below the Avatar," the man said, panic clear in his voice. Nila nodded, and shouldered her weapon.

"Nila, what was that?" Katara asked, getting into the Si Wongi's way.

"Step aside."

"You just shot somebody in the chest! And another one in the knee! What is wrong with you?"

"They hurt my family. Directly. Their order is implicit in Mother's torment. I can do no less than this," Nila said.

"Nila, calm down," Sokka said. At his back, Katara was healing the Dai Li to staunch the bleeding, and Jet was breaking into the cage. "It's going to be alright. You don't need to do this."

"Who are you, Tribesman, to know what I must or must not do?" Nila's voice grew hot. "Were it your mother, would you do any less?"

"I... I'd still try other things first," Sokka said. "You can't fix murder. You can't take it back."

Nila glared at them. "If properly done, no fixing would be needed. Some threats are not reasonable. Some will not relent or surrender. What then? No, ignore that. We are wasting time!"

"This look familiar to you?" Jet's voice came from the cage, as he brandished a short spear which was lined with fur and etched with carvings.

"Bato's spear!" Katara said.

Sokka, though, looked near where Jet was standing, and his eyes fell on a pair of long, slender swords which had been stacked carefully in a nook. He leaned past Jet and pulled them out. Then, with a flick, he unsheathed one, showcasing a blade as black as midnight. "Piandao's swords," Sokka said. He glanced to Nila. "We can't waste any more time. We need to find Aang."

"I need to find Mother," Nila said.

"One will find the other. Come on!" Jet coached with a wave of the arm. And with that, and a icy glare back at the Dai Li which was now supine on the floor, they departed from the storeroom. Only now, a black blade rode Sokka's hip.

---

Another stone exploded as it rebounded off of steel, but the hurler of that stone was not so easily dispatched. A blast of flame, cast from Zuko's heel sent the green robed Dai Li staggering back, but it wasn't until Mai flicked forward with both hands, and a net of blades trapped the man to the wall, did they pause.

"I'm starting to run low," Mai pointed out dryly, her bright eyes focused coldly on the path behind them. There were others in this ruin. At least they couldn't approach from behind, as Toph, who was still rock-stubbornly pounding away at that bulkhead, wouldn't give the space. Zuko wanted to ask her to stop, to point out that there was no use, that they would have to come up with an exit strategy on their own. Not just because she was punching her fists bloody, but because the noise was distracting. But he didn't. Because this gave Toph hope. And like Uncle said, he refused to be the one to take away somebody's hope.

"So. You and Jet, huh?" Zuko said, trying to drown out the pounding of flesh into metal.

"So. You and the earthbender, huh?" Mai countered.

"We're not..."

"He and I never..." Both he and Toph managed to say at the same time.

"That's what I thought," Mai said with her eyes rolling, before turning her attention back to the path before them, where their enemies would appear. "How long do you think 'till they say 'hell with it, let's just drown them'?"

"Don't give them any ideas," Zuko said flatly. "Seriously, though. What's up with that boyfriend of yours? He doesn't seem your type."

"And you'd know my type?" Mai asked.

"Good point."

"I might have been into tall, dork, and handsome when my parents got killed, but things change," she said, with a significant glance toward Zuko at the second adjective.

"Are you calling me a dork?"

"You were when we were kids," Mai said with a smirk.

"That was years ago!"

"And you're not denying it," Mai continued.

"I was not a dork!"

"I know you're lyyying," Toph said around the grunts of pain from her punches.

"I like her. She doesn't let you get away with anything," Mai said. "You're a cute couple."

"We're not a couple," Zuko contended. Then, he tilted his head just a bit. Because he heard something. The rasp of stone against stone. So that when the wall burst away from beside him, he was already moving, cleaving the incoming stone gloves and bursting the stone shoes before they could crush either he, Toph, or Mai. Then, with a twist, he flicked fire down those swords and used them to lash at the Dai Li, driving him back into that hole he'd emerged from. A blade zipped over Zuko's shoulder, its spin seemingly timed perfectly to crack him between the eyes with the hilt of the dagger. He staggered back, and Toph buried him with an off-hand motion, before returning her full attention to punching and kicking the bulkhead.

"You're just good friends," Mai confirmed, not even breathing hard. "Guess how it started between Jet and I."

"Must have been rough," Zuko said.

"...Not as much as you'd think," Mai said quietly, rubbing her arms. Not because she was cold or nervous. She was likely checking to see how much ammunition she had left. And from the way her scowl lit briefly onto her face, that answer was 'not very much'. "I miss my parents. I wish they weren't gone. But because of their death, I got to be free for the first time in my life. I wasn't who I am until they were gone."

Zuko gave a nod, his hand clasping on the girl's shoulder in sympathy. "I know how that feels. If it wasn't for Azula, I'd probably have gone crazy out here with Uncle and Aunty Shou..."

"Well, speaking of..." she trailed off, which caused Zuko a moment's alarm. "More."

"It just never ends, does it?" Zuko asked, flicking his blade into his other hand, and preparing for another wave to break over him.

---

Bato glanced over his shoulder, listening as the booms came closer. The Dai Li who were practically holding him up paused in their exodus, but a third, who was wearing a slightly fancier badge, shot them a glare. "Don't stand there. Keep moving."

"That's getting awfully close," the one on Bato's left commented. The next boom rattled the stone in the wall near them, and caused both to drop Bato to the floor, raising fists in a simultaneous show of defense. Dust still drifted down from that boom, and the Dai Li all stood with utmost focus, waiting for literally anything to come through that wall and attack them.

And the booms stopped. There was a moment of silence, one Bato took to roll his shoulders and limber his shackled wrists. And then, nothing. The Tribesman glanced back at the Dai Li, who were now starting to sweat, their gazes going a bit wider, looking up and down the hall, trying to find out what had become of that demolishing force.

It – or rather he – tapped one of them on the shoulder. As he turned, it was to be met by an incoming, meaty fist. The blow spun the man like a top, his eyes already rolled up into his head from the jarring impact. The one opposite him flew into a flurry of action, casting out both gloves and shoes, but the attacker bruted through them, only allowing them to impart rotation with their jarring impacts, so that when he reached the Dai Li, it was with a back-elbow into the jaw, which landed with a terrible crunch of dislocating bone. Another block was hurled at the attacker's head, which he ducked under so it caught the Dai Li he was assaulting in the forehead. But he was out of position, and out of time.

The officer of the Dai Li was already leaping into position, doubtless to send forth a spear of sharp rock into the brick-like infiltrator. Bato wasn't entirely helpless, though; he caught the landing foot of the officer between his ankles and twisted hard, causing the delicate balance to be thrown completely overboard, causing him not to land with momentum and power, but rather, face first at high speed. Bato then twisted his body sideways and hammer-punched the officer in the back of the head, which caused him to fall still on the ground, just as the first Dai Li struck finished his spinning and fell unconscious near Bato's feet.

"I had him," Zha Yu muttered.

"Sure you did," Bato answered. "Mind giving me a hand up?"

Zha Yu lifted the Tribesman to his feet, then bent up a pillar of stone which he set between Bato's wrists. "You don't seem surprised to see me," Zha Yu opined.

"I know you," Bato answered, as Zha Yu twisted some especially hard stone in a brutal arc, and slammed it down on Bato's manacles. The first blow dented them, but it wasn't until the second that they parted. "I know you wouldn't leave Sati behind."

"This is bigger than Sati," Zha Yu said. "And it's bigger than Long Feng. Get that into your head right now or I'm leaving you behind."

"Whoa, calm down," Bato said with a placating gesture. "I'm obviously a bit behind. What's happened during my little stint in the durance vile?"

"Much," Zha Yu summed, and started guiding Bato down a corridor. "And it'd take too long to explain it right now. We need to find the Avatar and get out."

"The Avatar is here?" Bato asked. "You weren't kidding."

"I seldom am," Zha Yu answered.

"Fei hua, you lie all the time."

"...yeah, but don't let anybody know that," Zha Yu said with rolled eyes and a nod.

---

Things had gotten much easier, since she was given leave to abandon skulking about. Then again, when one was in the company of a ten tonne, irate beast, one had little remaining room for subtlety. While there was scarcely enough room for the bison to traverse the halls, it was enough that it cleared a path for Sativa to follow, usually by bodily running down Dai Li. It was beyond stymying that these people didn't carry a single weapon which could be used by a non-bender. She was fast running out of tricks she had any faith would work.

She had little recourse but to follow, after all. The passage was only the proper size to allow the bison in one direction, which she had to assume lead to an exit. Lucky she had an easy path to follow, in her condition. It was hard to focus any sort of distance with whatever was flowing through her veins at the moment. Every corridor she passed, though, felt like a betrayal. She was leaving behind Bato and Piandao and Joo... No, she had left Joo Dee behind long ago. It had only taken her twenty years to realize it.

The bison stopped, after having flattened and pinned another Dai Li under a massive foot, and pawed with its foremost paw at a door, as though trying to find a way to squeeze through a hole a fraction the size of its own head. Sativa raised a brow at that. The bison wanted something. She squeezed past its bulk, to the frame of a tetrahedral door wrought in stone. It didn't take much strength to shove it aside, which was for the best. Inside, she only had a moment to react before a stone glove hit her in the face. Luckily, for all her diminished strength, she was still every bit as quick. She ducked under and wove into the room, casting out the prospector's chain which she'd looted from another Dai Li a dozen bodies back. The loop first twisted around one Dai Li's arm, then another's neck. She pulled and twisted tight, causing one to punch the other. There were two more, though, and Sati was now surrounded.

With hands like lightning, she tore the iron pouch of obsidian shards from the belt of the neck-wrapped one, and cast them in a ballistic fan at one encroaching Dai Li, putting out his eyes in pain and anguish. The other, she hurled the empty pouch at, but he batted it aside and moved in on her. She dodged back, wrapping his fist too in that chain, and hauling him down and into her rising knee. It was then that she felt a pressure slam into her chest and neck, slamming her back.

She still held that chain, though. And because of that, her new position was choking the life out of one Dai Li, even as the other dizzily pulled himself back upright. "You won't escape, Dragon."

"Release me or your companion dies," Sativa hissed.

"You are in no position to make demands."

"Physics and anatomy make demands. You ignore them," Sativa pointed out, a smirk on her face even with her dire situation. The one on the ground let out a gagging sound, his eyes bulging from his head, and his fists tight on the chain which was digging into his neck. The one standing flicked a glance between his companion and his target. He started to sweat.

And Sativa threw the chain to him. He caught it in mild bafflement, but because of that, his grip on his own stone fist fluttered away for a moment, giving Sati the moment she needed to push off of the wall, her fist driving blunt-fingered into his adam's apple. She then caught a lamp which was slowly circling a track and smash it into the face of the almost-choked one, which sent him to the floor as well. Only then did she feel the pain of her injuries, as the adrenaline began to pool out of her. That lamp was very hot.

"Whatever you sought, beast, it had better be worth..." Sativa trailed off as her vision cleared enough that she could make out the insensate boy upon the seat in the darkness. And most importantly, make out the blue arrow tattooed upon his brow. "...it."

Sativa turned, and could see a large eye peering into the room with her. "You are a faithful companion. You do service to your master," she said to the bison, before turning to free the Avatar from his bondage. The bison, for its part, let out an almost pleased sounding bellow.

---

The Great Divide was no more.

Once the longest canyon in the world, now it was no longer part of the world. It was an elsewhere-place, something outside the rules and bounds of reality. Corroded by the fetid blood of something which had no place in existence, the waters carried it throughout the long reaches of the canyon, to its very center. The vessel of that blood had walked almost the whole length, from west to east, and every place her feet fell, death followed with her. Death of beasts. Death of the world.

There was very little left of her. Just some flesh, held together by an alien will, which drove her towards food, towards something which could abate its never-ending hunger. So she walked. And as she rose out of what was once the Great Divide, she looked up, into the distance. It was over the horizon, but her eyes could see beyond distance, now. They could see what lay outside space. And they could see... bison.

Mothers and calves. Floating and cavorting over the ruins of a destroyed temple. The temple of what had once been her people. There was other meat. Closer meat. More convenient meat. But what was left of Malu wanted... to go home. To see the places which were once hers. The places which once mattered to her.

Malu wanted to go back to the East Air Temple.

And with her last real iota of strength, she started walking toward it.

---

Sokka shook his head, trying to clear his vision. He could feel the water on his temples, as his sister worked her bending to counteract the concussion he'd been dealt by the ambush. Two Dai Li working together was a beast quite unlike dealing with one alone, especially when they had the element of surprise.

"I'm alright, help Jet!" Sokka waved his sister off. He'd probably only been down for a matter of moments, but those moments had swung the fight against them. He was on his feet quickly, advancing on the nearer of the two Dai Li, the one which was grappling with Nila trying to wrest the rifle from her grasp. He had only reached a kneel by the time the Dai Li beat the blood-deprived Si Wongi girl, and then twisted it back around and caught her in the teeth with her own weapon. While Nila fell back with a cry of pain and anger, Sokka was hurling himself up. The black blade hissed from its scabbard, as it was the only weapon he felt comfortable using; while the white counterpart was a very nice weapon, it just felt... off... and the club was shattered about a dozen rooms ago.

That Dai Li was perceptive, and he was quick, and his parry deflected the slash along the metal of the weapon's back end. The black blade also peeled a shaving a quarter of an inch thick off of it in the process. The Dai Li's eyes flashed to that, then kicked a block at Sokka, doubtless trying to get range, to get room. A flick of water, flash freezing the man's feet to the ground, denied him that option for a moment, but even as Sokka had cleaved the stone and was trying to get close once more, the Dai Li bent the path enough to shatter the ice, and kipped back, just ahead of a beyond-razor sharp tip. Sokka only managed to slice green silk. But most important, he had the Dai Li sweating.

With Nila down, Katara had to divide her attention between two hostile and elitely trained earthbenders, to keep both off of their balance, since she hadn't the materiel to do more at the moment. Jet was doing as Sokka was, fighting the bender without bending, and doing a fairly passable job of it. Sokka pressed forward, twisting the blade back. It wasn't the sort of elegant movement that the sword's real master would have employed; then again, had the blade's master been here, both Dai Li would have been cut down in seconds. Still, Sokka was a more-than-gifted amateur, and his practice with the machete bordered on masturbatory, so some of the skills passed over. Like the importance of where Sokka put his feet.

It wasn't elegant; it was ugly. It wasn't civilized; it was brutish. It was the swordsmanship of the South Water Tribe, and like all the things of the South, it might not have been pretty, but by the gods, did it ever do the trick. The Dai Li had no option other than to try to block the incoming blows with his earthbending, since he knew with certainty that his weapon wouldn't do. And even then, the stone barely slowed the blade down. And Sokka was cutting closer and closer to the man's throat. He had to dodge both Katara and Sokka's blade. It was something for which, for her prodigy skill and his wildly unpredictable improvisations, he was not up to task.

One cut which would have taken him in the neck had he not dodged aside managed to still cut, if very lightly, along the jaw of the Dai Li. While that did paint the man with his first blood of the day, it also had the side-effect of cutting the strap which held on the man's protective pan-hat. It slid off his head almost instantly, with the way he had to weave and dodge. Sokka's swings then moved up, trying for his eyes, with the intention of causing him to duck back from those cuts. The Dai Li retreated until there was a wall at his back. Then, Sokka pulled a cut, and sent the pommel straight into the man's sternum, driving him back into that wall, and his chin exposed from the unexpected impact. Thus, it only required a flick of his other hand to slam the consciousness out of the Dai Li, skull to stone.

Jet, on the other hand, was practically toying with his. It was less a matter of finding the opening so much as building momentum. While the swordsman had started back-footed, he was quickly adapting to the logistics, the realities of fighting against earthbenders, and particularly ones as subtle as this. His blows never seemed to land as he'd want them. So he changed up, using the hook points to tangle in clothing, to trip him up, to slow him down. He pressured the man, shattering obsidian claws and tearing robes. But he was only biding time. He couldn't put the man down without killing him. And that had been driven into Jet's head ten-thousand times, that there was no killing civilians, nor Easterners. Even Eastern civilians as evil as this man, and those that believed as he did.

It was a matter of seconds after Sokka smashed skull to flagstone that Katara turned her full attention to Jet's target. And when she did, it was effective, brutal, merciless, and swift. The pummeling, gout upon gout of almost rock-hard water, drove the Dai Li flat onto his back, trying in vain to rise through it, before she finally finished with a blast which caught him at a kneel and sent him careening down the hall, only to land in silence and near stillness a dozen yards behind them. "Is that all of them?" Katara asked.

"It seems like," Jet said. Katara nodded, and then did her healing-trick on Nila, which brought her to her feet with what Sokka incorrectly assumed was a litany of swears in her native tongue. She turned to Sokka, then to her weapon on the ground. When it reached there, they became wide, and she shoved Katara aside, lurching to grasp her weapon to her bosom. Jet gave Sokka an aside glance. "I guess we know where her heart lies."

"Give her a break. She's had a really rough past couple of days," Sokka pointed out. He then turned to the door where they'd been ambushed, as it was still open.

"I am very impressed. Please forgive me for not applauding," Piandao's weary voice came from within. He looked like hell. He likely hadn't shaved in months, and those months must have been filled with regular beatings. The most stark and crippling degredation had to be that his right arm ended one hand shorter than it used to.

"We're here to help," Sokka said, moving to the man's manacled wrists and with a heave, severing the chains which held the man aloft. He dropped to his knees, themselves bloody, with a grunt. "How did you get captured? Did the Dragon, too?"

"Where is my mother?" Nila interrupted, shifting her weapon back behind her.

"Where's the Avatar, is a better question," Jet pointed out.

"One at a time," Piandao said, even as Katara started working on him as well. "We were outfoxed by Long Feng. Sati was his primary objective. Me, Bato, and Joo Dee were just... collateral damage. If they're keeping your mother or the Avatar here, they'll be a few levels down, through the atrium."

"There's an atrium?" Sokka asked. "How big is this place?"

"Oh... There's nothing I can do about..." Katara said mournfully.

"It's alright," Piandao said, pain clear in his expression, even as Nila helped him to his feet. "I have a spare, and am almost as proficient with it."

"These belong to you," Sokka said, handing forward the two blades. Piandao stared down at them, and then took the white blade in his one remaining hand. "Could you help fasten this?" he quietly asked the Si Wongi girl. Nila scowled at him, but tied the belt which held the scabbard in place. Sokka offered the other, but Piandao waved it away.

"I only have one hand to fight with, Sokka of the Water Tribe. It needs a new master, after these harrowing years."

"...What?"

"This is a waste of time which would better be spent locating Mother!" Nila pointed out harshly. Piandao nodded to her.

"She's right. We need to move quickly. The Dai Li will be returning in greater numbers sooner than we'd like."

Sokka nodded at that, and at Piandao's direction, they began toward the 'atrium' which promised access to the lower levels of the compound. The path was obvious, in that it was the largest that the facility had to offer. And it ended abruptly at a closed bulkhead, which caused Sokka to howl at the air. "WHHYYY! DOEEES! THIIIS! KEEEEP HAPPENNING?" he shrieked.

Then, there was a massive 'whump', and the bulkhead deformed. That cut Sokka short, even before he clued in that he had a sword that seemed to cleanly cut metal. The second drove he and all with him back a step, as the bulkhead deformed further, bowing out and toward them.

"What is that?" Katara asked.

"It does not matter. Be prepared for anything," Nila said, shouldering her rifle.

The third bang echoed through the complex, as the infiltrators and the saved backed away just a little bit further. The fourth came with a calamitous crash of shrieking metal being torn from metal. And staring them down, from the other side of that bulkhead... was Appa.

"Appa?" Katara asked. The bison gave a light bellow, and then trundled over the deformed bulkhead to give her a lick. "What are you doing here, Appa?"

"Saving its master, it seems," a familiar, raspy voice came from the bison's flank. Pressing around the ten tonne beast came the a woman who Sokka hadn't seen in months. But now, as he'd gotten to know her daughter well, he could see the descent from one to the other. Sativa and Nila, for example, shared a pronounced – even sharp – nose, and a wide mouth, and green eyes. Nila's hair, though, was wavy where Sativa's was straight. Oddly, mother and daughter almost had a symmetry of injury at the moment, as well, as one of Nila's eyes was discolored, and one of Sativa's was swollen shut. The biggest difference between the two, really, was that the older was shouldering the slumping form of Aang as she advanced. She turned to take in Piandao. "I see you have survived. Good," she said. But there was something in her eyes beyond what was in her words. Almost an unbreathed sigh of mortal relief. She turned her attention toward her daughter. "And what in gods' names are you doing here?"

"Hello, mother," Nila said sarcastically, as she pulled the leather bow-case from her hip and idly tossed it to her mother. The Dragon of the East caught it with a scowl.

"Don't take that tone with me, child," she said. Katara was already pulling Aang off of Sativa's shoulder and running the glowing water over him as well, but he didn't immediately perk up as the others had. "I never told you to come to Ba Sing Se. This place is dangerous."

"You gave me a duty. I am here to discharge it. I have found Sharif," Nila said.

"Really? You came to this city of murderers and intrigue for that?" Sativa asked. "You are a girl obsessed!"

"You told me not to return until you had! And when I did, my house was destroyed!" Nila snapped. Sativa reached out and slapped her daughter at that, which caused all to turn and stare wide eyed at her.

"I told you not to take that tone," Sativa said with heat. "I had to make a point."

"To a dead man," Nila answered, not rubbing the welt on her cheek which had to sting. "Sentinel Rock is a ruin. It was destroyed by..."

"Khatun Noyan?"

"No, she is a crippled woman," Nila answered. "By Imbalance Itself."

Sativa blinked for a moment, then turned to the others. "I suppose I am somewhat out of context. And we are in no place to hold this conversation. We must leave."

"Wait," Katara said. "You're just going to walk out of here after abusing your own child?"

Nila scowled at that. "What abuse has she leveled? She is right. We must leave."

"What about the Mountain King?" Jet asked.

That was his cue to 'surf' through a wall on the far end of the corridor, mostly by dint of having tackled a Dai Li through said wall and sliding with him when they landed. That Dai Li didn't look in the best of shape when Zha Yu was done with him. He looked up, and then offered a moment of grin.

"I suppose I do still know how to make an entrance," the Mountain King mused, getting to his feet. He looked the newcomers over. "I'm disappointed in you, Sati. You should have done better than this."

"Disappointed? You abandoned us."

"I couldn't join you then. And if you'd had any sense, you would have held back until everybody was ready," Zha Yu pointed out. Bato, looking almost as haggard as Piandao, limped through the hole in the wall. That was everybody, it seemed.

"What's wrong with Aang?" Jet asked, pointing a hook-sword at him.

"I don't know; he won't wake up!" Katara said.

"And he would not. He was doubtless kept deeply sedated," Sativa said. "And he will return to such unless we liberate him quickly."

"So, less talky, more runny?" Zha Yu asked, casting a thumb over his shoulder. Sokka felt no desire to disagree.

---

Toph was punching almost as fast as her heart was beating. The skin on her knuckles, itself almost as hard as the rocks she bent, was splitting, bleeding, howling in pain with every blow. But she wasn't going to give up. Not now. If she failed this, then she... She didn't want to think about it. So she fixated on the nevertheless wildly irrational belief that somehow, if she made a hole here, she would get her mother back.

How pathetic that sounded in her own head. Her focus was so locked before her, on the bulkhead, that she could barely 'see' behind her. Barely see that Mai was trying with her own torn-off sleeve to garrotte a Dai Li which was still fighting to finish a bleary, exhausted Zuko. Could barely see the bodies of the unconscious earthbenders beyond them. Or of the dead bodies outside the passage, weighted and buried in the lake. She didn't see that. She didn't see anything, except for the bulkhead.

"Why!" she screamed, with a punch into the metal.

"Won't!" she continued, with another blow. This one seemed to reverberate in a way which was familiar, though.

"You!" she pressed harder, an even mightier punch. This time, she was sure she could 'see' the metal, feel the shockwaves moving through it as she struck it. Feel that... metal wasn't something outside of earth. Metal was of the earth.

"BEND?" she shrieked with her final blow.

And under that blow, the metal plating deflected almost a foot with the impact. There was a moment of silence, which was punctuated by a startled gurgling sound as Mai finally got purchase and choked that son of a bitch out. Toph, too, was slightly shocked by it. So she did it again, with that same sensation, that same understanding, that same drive. That same power.

And the metal yielded under her grasp like putty. She stared in awe, and her gawking expression slowly turned into a grin, as she slammed both fists forward into the center of the dent she'd made, and then tore in opposite directions, a motion accompanied by the shriek of tearing metal, as the bulkhead was ripped apart. By Toph Beifong's bending.

"...I must be unconscious, because I thought I just saw Toph bend metal," Zuko said with his tones lightheaded and slurring, as he tried to get back to his feet. Mai just stared in outright confusion. The Dai Li who was still pinned to the wall nearby looked like... yup, he wet himself. Toph pumped both fists into the air, then cast a finger at those behind her.

"I am Toph Beifong!" She screamed. "And I am the GREATEST! EARTHBENDER! IN THE WORLD!"

Mai gaped for a moment longer, then shrugged, nodded, and glanced back to the Dai Li who remained conscious. "And don't you dunderheads ever forget it," the glum-toned woman added with obvious sarcastic delight.

"Come on, you crazy bastards. Let's go save the Avatar!" Toph said, more confident, more assured, more powerful than she'd been since that horrific discovery.

If an earthbender could bend metal, then Toph could have her family back.

Impossible was nothing.

Right?

---

"Now the tricky part," Sokka said. "How do we get past that bulkhead?"

"We either go around it or we open it," Zha Yu answered.

"Around?" Jet asked.

"Did you really think that they encapsulated this thing on all six sides with metal? That'd bankrupt an entire kingdom!" Zha Yu pointed out. "They let water keep out most of the interlopers. And who among us, I wonder, could make something useful with that?"

"We can't just leave. Toph's in the tunnels behind us," Katara pointed out.

"Also Zuko," Sokka chimed in. Katara offered a moment of scowl at that, but was otherwise quiet.

"And M...Shadow," Jet offered.

"We all know who she is, you can stop with the pseudonyms," Zha Yu said peevishly as he led the bison – and by extension, all of them – toward freedom. "If we go back, they'll be waiting for us."

"I'm not leaving Toph behind," Katara said, her eyes cold and her tone stubborn. Bato patted Zha Yu on the shoulder.

"She's got that look on her face. There's no convincing her otherwise," Bato pointed out, his voice raspy and slightly hoarse. "Which means 'around' is now out of the question."

Zha Yu glanced to the others, who all gave nods, save the Dragon and her Daughter, who just seemed tired, and pointedly not watching each other. "Well, I guess that's decided. Out the front door then. And the gods have mercy on us."

"What do you think's going to be waiting for us?" Jet asked.

"Probably Dai Li, and a lot of them," Sokka answered. "I'd say the best option is to cut through, then run like hell."

The corridor opened into a chamber which Sokka didn't remember coming through the first time. Probably because they'd stuck to the side paths so much on their way in. This one, though, was vaulting, wide, and bounded by some sort of 'sewage system', which at the moment was shut off leaving the perimeter essentially dry. The far side of the room was host to a small knot of green robed men. One of them, notably not wearing any hat, turned to face them. Green eyes blazed with outrage and malice, as the 'mild mannered' dignitary whom Sokka had been led around by the nose by moved away from his ilk and stared the group down.

"You have proven yourselves enemies of the city of Ba Sing Se, the Earth King, and the peoples of the East Continent, collectively and individually," Long Feng pronounced. "Surrender and you will not face immediate execution for your crimes against us in this time of war."

Sokka gave a glance to his sister. "...Did you really think somebody was going to agree to those terms?"

"I am not finished," Long Feng continued. "If you surrender, then you, Sokka of the South Water Tribe, and you, Katara of same, and you, Jet of lost Roanapur, you will be permitted to leave, provided you never return to Ba Sing Se as long as you live. This offer extends to your earthbender Toph Beifong, as well."

"I notice you have not given such freedom to me," Nila pointed out from Sokka's back.

"Or Aang," Katara added.

"The Avatar, the Dragon of the East, and her lackeys are all enemies of the state and must be dealt with appropriately. This is your solitary chance to escape your demise. I suggest you take it," Long Feng said with finality.

Sokka gave a glance over his shoulder, to the people he'd fought with, against, besides, occasionally atop or below. The people he'd known for months, or years, or weeks. There were no words said. There didn't need to be. Sokka turned back to Long Feng. "Nuts."

Long Feng stared, confounded.

"He means no," Zha Yu clarified.

"Then this will be on your own head," Long Feng raised a hand. Sokka looked up, and his eyes widened as he saw that the high ceiling of this room was playing host to dozens of these green demons. "Kill everybody but the Avatar and the Dragon of the–"

He was cut off by the blast of a gunshot. Time seemed to slow even as Sokka unconsciously recoiled away from the sudden noise beside his ear. Of course, Nila cut off his tirade by shooting him. He couldn't see the bullet, since it traveled entirely too fast, but he knew that it was flying, if not directly at, then very close to Long Feng's head. Long Feng managed to tilt his head aside as that bullet approached, but not quite enough – as there was too little time and not enough distance – to clear it completely, so it burned a red line along his cheek-bone under his left eye. He also spun into motion, slamming up with both fists as his footing solidified, causing a ripple to return toward Nila almost as fast as the bullet she'd fired. Aimed directly at her, and doubtless, large enough that even a small discrepancy in aim wouldn't amount to a miss. And Nila was in no position or condition to dodge.

Luckily, she didn't have to, as Jet pushed her bodily out of the way, and the impact took him in the chest instead of her. Jet was hurled back, rolling to a stop near the entrance of the chamber, and a black blade seemed to fly into Sokka's hand, as he roared a traitor's name. Katara, on the other hand, called out his victim's, and ran to the teenager's side, hands glowing.

"Deal with these anarchists!" Long Feng shouted, clutching his face, before turning and departing from the room.

The Dai Li began to drop, landing with grace and poise, before hurling stone fists and feet. The first wave of such was caught in a wall which Zha Yu pulled up into being. He cast it down on the Dai Li with a crash, even as Sokka was wading forward through the onslaught to get a bead on Long Feng himself. Sokka wasn't the most wrathful person in the world – possibly not even the most wrathful in the room – but he hated being played for a fool, almost as much as he hated watching those that he cared for getting hurt. And Aang, it was apparent, was hurt badly.

One fist caught him in the upper chest, spinning him around, but he used the momentum to sweep the leg from under a Dai Li so that he fell over a railing, before dropping a stomp onto the knee of that man so that it bent in the wrong direction. He ducked under a second, and slashed a third to dust. But every step he took saw the impacts leveled against him increasing a dozen fold. At first, it seemed it would just be a hard slog. But with dozens of yards left to traverse, it was proving patently impossible. Between the earthbent blocks and the gloves and the shoes and everything else, Sokka could barely keep his footing.

Salvation came, as it often enough did, in the form of a bison. Appa, either enraged that it was under attack, or else simply sickened that it was still under ground, bounced over the weary, battered men who were holding the Avatar, and landed in the midst of the Dai Li's grouping. With a slam of its heavy tail, half of that cluster was cast into the walls, if not hurled down a drain-pipe. Sokka was moving forward again.

An arrow snicked past him, but not in the direction he expected. It wasn't passing his face from the fore, but rather from his back. The target was clear, as a Dai Li spun and fell, his neck pierced through. Sokka could guess that was the Dragon of the East's work. The Mountain King was busy, trying to keep three of the Dai Li from overwhelming them outright; as it was, he had one in a headlock while his earthbending kept the others from helping the first. No, wait, other; one of the Dai Li who was circling Zha Yu fell to his knees as a shaft erupted from his thigh. The Dragon's handiwork.

Sokka twisted through the space, trying to cut a path to the exit on the other side. Black metal cut through stone, exploding it into dust. Through flesh, exploding it into thin shocks of blood and alarmed cries of pain as the Dai Li couldn't quite get out of his way. So far, he wagered none of it lethal. Yet. But the Dai Li were massing, and the going would only get harder.

"Do you think the beast can push through all of this rabble?" Nila shouted at him, as she closed her gun once more.

"We're going to find out in a second," Sokka shouted over his shoulder, and for his trouble, got a slash across the face from an obsidian glove. It wasn't nearly as painful as he'd expected it to be, but then again, he was quick, and wagered it didn't get him very deeply. Not true, but it calmed his mind for the twist and slash to get some ground. It was bizarre that the would-be hunter and would-be warrior found himself the tip of the spear which cut into the green flesh of the enemy. It was even more bizarre that the Dai Li gave him just as much concern and attention as anybody else. Didn't they know he was just a peasant from the South Water Tribe? Didn't they know he was just a romantically hopeless teenager with more intellect than sense?

Obviously not, as two Dai Li in unison launched attacks. He dusted one of them, but the other slammed him horribly in the shoulder, causing an explosion of pain as the joint was popped out of his socket, and he twisted, and fell. Only by the sword biting into the ground did he arrest himself from being flat on his face, and even then, it was to another explosion of pain as his weight was being supported by a dislocated shoulder. It was less than a second before another glove latched onto his neck, and began to squeeze.

And then, an explosion, and the squeezing reversed, crumbling away. Sokka felt himself being hauled up to his feet by his good arm. His first instinct when he saw a dark hand in blue pulling him up was to thank his sister, but the green eyed glare out against the foes was definitely not. "I owe you one, Nila," Sokka said.

"You owe me several. To repay them, you must not die," she countered, before ducking a brick and smashing her rifle-butt into the chest of a Dai Li, driving him off of his assault for a moment.

"We need a better plan!" Zha Yu said, as he smashed a Dai Li face into his knee.

And in Sokka's pain and confusion, the solution became obvious.

"Appa! Yip yip!" he shouted.

The ten tonne magical flying behemoth, which had been encroached into the passage in, let out a bellow and surged forward, bursting the aegis of Dai Li who were trying to contain it. With an almost savage roar, it landed just before Sokka, side on, and twisted further in its landing, slamming its broad tail to the ground. The blast of airbending sent the Dai Li before them scattering to the proverbial winds. Proverbial, only because they were currently under a lake, and thus lacked wind.

"I think we can move Jet," Katara shouted from her place at the back of the pack.

"Then we had best do so quickly," Nila said, pausing only to bite a new bullet. Less than half of the group could fight, and of that half, only a portion of it could now fight effectively. They were running out of time, even with a remarkably angry bison doing the brunt of the heavy lifting.

They were getting overwhelmed.

Then, there was another crash. This one sounded like metal on stone. Sokka had only just gotten his black sword settled into his other hand when a bulkhead came hurtling out of the exit path, leveling several of the Dai Li who were trying to be rear-guards. They broke back, trying to prepare for what siege engine had somehow infiltrated their secret facility, only to be presented with a small, pale, blind girl.

"Toph! You got in!" Katara exclaimed, even as she tried to manage to both drag Jet and flick whips at any Dai Li who got too close.

"And you won't believe how I did it," Toph said with a huge grin, which was a mistake, because it allowed no less than four Dai Li to send forth streaming prospector's chains, tipped with a devious manacle to each, which clamped around one of her proudly posed extremities. But when they heaved, it was not Toph who was cast off her feet. She turned and twirled, and the Dai Li found themselves yanked onto their chests. Toph swirled her hand around, gathering up all the chains and then with a move which almost looked like bending, she flicked it at one of the corners, sending all four spinning away. "Oops. Secret's out I guess."

"Enough of that. Get out before you're overwhelmed!" Zuko shouted, twisting his arms through a form as he stormed past the earthbender. As he did, lightning followed his splayed fingertips, which caused the Dai Li who were capable of seeing it not only a moment's pause, but a moment's panic. But only a moment's, because after that, he cast out both hands, fingers wide, and a net of exploding lightning seared through the room, raking along unfriendly bodies and stone alike. No beam was immense enough, to Sokka's estimation, to cause fatal damage, but the effect of saturating a room with lightning was pretty spectacular.

And most important, it opened a door. One that the group took without a moment's hesitation.

---

Long Feng tapped a finger to a cheek, and winced as it came away red. Not because he had any particular vanity. No, the reason he dreaded having that mark upon him was that he'd need to find some way to explain it. And there weren't many excuses which would fly with this sort of injury. Bruises? Surely even a minister has a few stumbles. Broken bones? Sometimes those stumbles happen as one mounts a staircase. Stab wounds? An unfortunate mugging, and yes, the constabulary has been notified. But a gunshot? Considering the global rarity of the weapon, no excuse would do. Not with Dun.

"You got out, Grand Secretariat?" Han asked, looking a little worse for wear as he quickly matched step with his master.

"The facility has been compromised. Remove the Joo Dees and stave the roof," Long Feng declared.

"But... sir, that facility is three generations old. It houses..."

"Ashes," Long Feng cut him off. "The Dragon of the East saw to that. The Dai Li have recovered from greater setbacks than this. It shall again."

"As you command, Grand Secretariat," Han said with a short bow. Long Feng glanced back to the shoreline, and was greeted by the sight he wanted least to see. A bison, with the dark dots of people clinging to its back and flank, paddling away up toward the night sky. No doubt, it would vanish into the Reaches, until the Avatar returned for his revenge.

"Find out where the Avatar is going. If he cannot be taken alive, then so be it," Long Feng added.

Han glanced back, his one eye filled with concern, but he didn't voice them, whatever they were. He nodded once more.

Long Feng continued walking, toward the Lake House and the tram which lead there. He had to regroup, and the oldest facility was currently still situated in the Zutara Ruins. It hadn't a fraction the innovations Lake Laogai had, but it would do. He had scarcely made it to the edge of the square when he saw somebody he didn't expect. Joo Dee, the definitive edition, running toward the Lake, heedless of whomever could see her. It was a strange thing indeed to see the older woman at a sprint. She glanced his direction, and slowed to a stagger, and then stopped entirely, hands upon knees, as she caught her breath. Long Feng came closer.

"What is the matter with you? Don't you know that this sort of behavior..." Long Feng began, but paused as he saw that she was drenched in sweat, and not all of it was, obviously, from her run. Her eyes bespoke terror.

"I don't know how," she said, between gasping for air, "but the Fire Lord is here!"

"WHAT?" Long Feng shouted.

"He's in the Earth King's Palace right now. I don't know how this is possible!" Joo Dee seemed flabbergasted.

Long Feng glared at her, then to the west, where the Impenetrable City lay. Well, apparently not as impenetrable as he would have hoped. "I will deal with this personally," Long Feng said. Dun was wrong. This place would crumble if he took a day off.

---

The mumbling was distracting. Kori glanced over to where two of them were sleeping, the larger wrapped 'round the smaller, in their back-alley hovel. He knew the sound of his perhaps-sister's nightmares. They were out in force tonight. She muttered something, under her breath. He wanted to call it gibberish, but some old and almost forgotten part of him half-recognized it. He couldn't say what it was but... And he wouldn't say it aloud, in the wakeful day, but...

Yoji had just muttered something in Yqanuac.

With a great flinch, she jerked free of Omo's arms with a clipped yelp of "No!" which caused the beast of a man to rouse. She lay there, one of his arms still on her shoulder.

"Whuh? Something wrong, Yoj?" Omo asked, blearily.

"No. No, nothing is wrong," she said, and to her credit, she sounded it. But Kori could see the sweat which covered her face, even though it was only out of the corner of his eye. Somebody had to prepare for tomorrow, and of the lot of them, Kori – for all his constant accusation of laziness – needed the least sleep. At night, anyway. She needed rest to get back onto her game.

He didn't comment, as Yoji shifted back into Omo's beefy embrace, but she didn't go back to sleep for quite a while. Kori could imagine why.

That imagination bordered on treason.

---

Welp. The finale for 'season two' took about as long as I could have expected it to. Big chapter. Much shenanigans. Less lightning than I expected, and not from who I expected. But that's an issue for another day.

Iroh's repeated words to Zuko in Book 2 were "Destiny can be a funny thing," and while he's not here to repeat them as he usually would, not to Zuko at least, the sentiment continues as it should. Bear in mind, also, the 'tagline' for the season. A house divided against itself will not stand. There's a lot going on here, and very little of it is to the Gaang in general or Azula in particular's benefit.

I'm not going to lie, it gets a bit tricky juggling... everybody. There's certainly enough of them to work with. I'll be glad when Book Three is in its swing and I can trim down the storylines I need to follow again to just... three-ish. Simplicity is a trademark of good writers, as it forms a momentum all its own despite its lack of elegance or complication. So let's see where this goes, now that everything is absolutely flying to hell and there's no chance of Season Three happening as listed because they can't even land on the Eastern Shores.

---

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