Platinum Raiders

It had been a week since Katara had lost her brother in the sinkhole, and the pain was still sharp in her heart.

She stood now beside a babbling river in a densely-canopied forest, seeking solace in the Waterbending arts but finding nothing. The movements, the philosophy, the stances- all of it was knowledge given to her by Master Hama in the scorching bowels of Crescent Island, whispered from cage to cage and demonstrated when they weren't watched. Katara had trained in Waterbending for years without ever manipulating so much as a drop of liquid, until the day when she at last escaped her imprisonment-

-until the day when Sokka came to rescue her, bringing her a gift of full waterskins and freedom.

Becoming one with the water of this river now, moving it and fighting with it, just reminded Katara of her missing brother all the more.

It didn't help that there was little to distract her, here in this forest. Long Feng had stressed the dangers of this mission, of the desperate need for diligence and timing, but his briefing had utterly failed to prepare her for all the waiting that seemed be necessary before the Dai Li went into action. She had been forced to find her own distractions, but it never pushed away the aching emptiness for long.

Sighing, Katara turned back to her sparring partner. "So how many are there?"

Ty Lee shrugged. "Too many to count. Here, I'll show you."

The two girls had been filling the time by becoming familiar with each other's fighting styles. They might be fighting as allies soon, and needed to be prepared. Just past this obscuring forest, past Katara's vision where the river met the ocean, a Fire Nation settlement belched smoke and radiated heat. According to Long Feng, it was to that settlement that the Fire Nation was shipping its raw ore from the South Pole and other nearby mines to be melted and cast into ingots. Thankfully, Long Feng's plan didn't require Katara or her friends to infiltrate the settlement or even the forge; she'd had more than enough of Fire Nation installations for a long time, after Tiankeng Fortress.

She had lost more than enough to Fire Nation fortresses already.

But until word came that it was time to put Long Feng's plan into action, there was nothing for Katara to do but wait, practice her Waterbending, be reminded of the brother she had failed, and learn something about the newest Weapon of the Fire Nation to join the Avatar's quest.

Ty Lee stepped over to Katara and grabbed her left arm, and then began tapping spots all up and down the limb. "Here, here, here, and here." She leaned over and moved down to Katara's leg. "Here and here, too. This one is a really good one. And then there's this one, this one, this one, and this one on this side." She stood up again, moved so that she was standing behind Katara, and began tapping up and down her back. "There's lots more spots starting here, here, here, here-"

"Okay, I get the idea" Katara said, hopping away. With each spot Ty Lee had pointed out, she had tapped Katara's skin to illustrate it, and just that much contact had sent shivers racing up through Katara's bones. She couldn't help shuddering, imagining how it would feel to be punched on one of those spots with the kind of strength in Ty Lee's deceptively lean arms. "I never realized there were so many Qi meridians in a body. Can my Waterbending heal the blockage?"

Ty Lee's eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not sure? Your healing works by using a person's Qi to promote the healing right?"

"More or less."

"Then probably not." Ty Lee gave a shrug. "The Qi itself would be disturbed after I hit a meridian, so I don't think your healing could even make use of it until it's restored."

Katara bit her lip. This 'Dim Mak' was a seriously powerful fighting style. It was a good thing it was such a hard skill to learn, or else the Fire Nation wouldn't have needed a hundred years and a comet to conquer the world. "How did you learn to fight like this, anyway?" She moved to the edge of the river and took a Waterbending stance, summoning a small stream to fly up and hover over her outstretched arms, just like she had tried when Sokka first gave her the waterskins.

Ty Lee took her own fighting stance, but didn't close the distance. She was giving Katara a chance to attack first. "Well, there's this hidden temple in the Poison Jungles on Souhou Island that can only be found by the pure-hearted."

"Sure," Katara grunted as she shifted her body and flung her right arm into a slash. The water hovering above the limb snapped forward like the tongue of a turtle-frog, whipping at Ty Lee's feet.

But the acrobat was already dodging with a series of butterfly kicks, chattering the whole time. "A mute master lives in the temple who will give visitors a quest to prove their strength."

"Make sense." Katara rolled forward and crossed her outstretched arms, creating a pincer attack with both ends of her water supply.

"Once you satisfy the quest," Ty Lee said as she crouched under the reaching tentacles and then sprang up in a forward-flipping jump, "the master's teaches by movement alone, since he can't talk."

Katara found Ty Lee landing right in front of her, and tried to summon her water back to form some kind of defense, but it was no use. Katara's belly got an idle poke- no Qi-blocking punch, but just a normal poke like one would use in a tickle attack- that sent her tripping backwards to fall into the river.

When Katara resurfaced, Ty Lee was stretching on the riverbank and immediately returned to her explanation with, "It took me about a whole summer to learn the basics from the master, but he gave me some scrolls to take home with forms to practice. Of course, the writing on the scrolls is only visible after meditating on the swirl of the cosmos for about an hour."

"Of course." Katara spat out some water and climbed back up to dry land. "So how many people have managed to do all that?"

Ty Lee paused in her stretching, and her face pinched into a frown. "Just me and one other person that I know of, another Weapon of the Fire Nation. But not everyone would go out of their way to tell people about those kinds of skills, you know?"

Katara was going to ask about this other Weapon of the Fire Nation, but she was distracted by Aang's sudden arrival. He burst from the thick foliage of the forest to skid to a stop just at the edge of the river.

His gaze was drawn to Ty Lee first, and the excitement on his face faded for a moment. Katara had been training with Ty Lee all week, but Aang had yet to so much as spar with her. And he certainly hadn't trained her to make better use of her Airbending.

But Katara knew all too well the kind of pain Aang had to be feeling around Ty Lee, who was supposed to be Mai's most beloved friend. It wouldn't be all that different from what she felt about Sokka every time she used her Waterbending.

Aang quickly recovered once he turned his gaze to Katara, and the excited light returned to his eyes. "Time to get dressed," he said. "Agent Zhuang says the ship is here."

Katara grinned as she used a quick bit of Waterbending to remove all the dripping water from her skin and wrappings and fling it back into the river. It was time to strike back at the Fire Nation after they took her brother and Mai from her.

They would learn the vengeance of the Water Tribe.

Mai knew what was being done to her. Keeping her in darkness, denying her all contact with other people, not giving her enough food and water to satisfy her hunger, waking her up with loud noises whenever she fell asleep, even keeping her in an underground cell with no access to any timekeeping devices or methods- it was all straight out the handbook for preparing a prisoner for interrogation. Azula had discussed such tactics, and Mai had remembered them in case she ever wound up on the receiving end. The Fire Nation wasn't the only group out there in the business of breaking people.

Unfortunately, it turned out that knowing what was happening didn't stop it from happening, and didn't stop it from driving her crazy.

That thought made Mai laugh, maybe a little too loudly, her body shaking enough to rattle the chains that connected her wrists to the floor. Now she knew how Mother Malu felt. Maybe Katara could restore Mai's sanity, too, with a little helpful Waterbending.

If she ever saw Katara again.

If she ever saw Ty Lee, or Aang, or even Sokka again.

Not for the first time, she found herself suddenly breaking out into sobs. This rattled the chains, too.

When the door opened with a loud scraping sound, Mai was so startled that she screamed. Her heart hammered in her chest so powerfully that she was afraid it was going to burst, and she was left gasping on the floor of her cell as dull, eye-searing green light shone in through the opening, and a man in a spiked cone hat and black robes walked in.

"Who-" Mai panted for more breath before she could continue her question. "Who are you?"

The man said nothing. None of them ever did. He simply leaned over, grabbed Mai's chains where they were sunk into the floor, and lifted them out as if the stone ground itself had suddenly liquefied. Her chains turned out to be a single set of links joining her wrists together, the center having been buried in the floor by an Earthbender.

The man then turned and walked straight out of the cell, never having said a word. The door remained open behind him.

Another tactic: the man wanted Mai to follow him of her own free will, to choose to play his game and submit to his authority. And she knew it was only the illusion of choice, that to remain sitting in her cell until she died wasn't really an option, and the door would remain open for as long as it took her to run out of patience.

Just because she knew what was being done to her didn't mean she could do anything about it.

Mai rose with the clanking of her chains and walked out of her cell.

The man was waiting just outside. The corridor around him was made of the same dark stone as the cell, but out here there were green crystal torches lining the walls at intervals, leading off into the distance. Without a word, the man began walking down the corridor, not even looking back at Mai.

She followed, knowing she had no choice.

The man took a deliberate path through the underground complex, turning with confidence down certain hallways. Mai found all the other paths blocked by other men in the stupid hats and robes, all standing silently and denying her ability to do anything but follow their compatriot. Eventually, her guide came to a stop in a room that seemed to be nothing more than a larger copy of her empty cell in construction. A stone chair rose up out of the ground in the back, and some kind of circular metal rigging stood waist-high in the center. No doubt her hosts wanted Mai to sit in the chair and watch a show.

Instead she spun and whipped her chains to her guide's face.

But he was ready for that, no expression on his face as he caught the chains with a single hand covered in segmented black stone, and then the ground itself was moving beneath Mai's feet to spin her around, the speed of it whipping her own chains to wrap around her.

She continued to struggle, but in short order was made to sit in the chair. The man used his Earthbending to turn the segments of his gloves into binding for Mai's arms and head, and then he took a position at the center of the metal rigging.

Another goofball in the robes and hat brought a lantern with old-fashioned, warm candlelight inside of it. The lantern fit neatly into the metal track, and then her guide set it into motion with a wave of his hands. The light moved around him as his friend left, the motion steady and boring.

It went on like that for a while, and Mai grew sleepy. She knew she needed to stay awake, that this was probably part of some kind of crazy Earth Kingdom interrogation, and her mental health was in great danger in this room, perhaps more than even in her cell.

"You ash-lickers," she growled as loudly as she could to chase away the eerie silence, "are all going to die. Someone is going to come for me, and then I'm going to cut my way through every single one of you and mix your blood together."

Her guide didn't react, and the circling lantern didn't stop.

Maybe he knew she was lying.

By the time he began asking questions, she was beyond the ability to hear them clearly, but she nevertheless found herself giving detailed answers.

Aang felt a little weird, working with a complete plan and even some contingency scenarios.

But the fact that he had just lost two friends showed the need for that level of preparation. Sokka and Mai had been captured by the Fire Nation while he had been stuck underground as the result of a poorly thought-out plan. They were the first two people he had met in this strange new world, two people who he-

-he-

-he cared about. Sokka had been Aang's dedicated friend since they left the South Pole, always loyal and always looking out for everyone. And Mai-

Aang just knew that it hurt to think about her being in the clutches of the nation she betrayed for him. Long Feng had said that Mai was too valuable to the Royal Family to kill, but how could he really know for sure? How could he even be certain that Mai hadn't decided to go down fighting?

But those were questions Aang didn't want answered, so he focused on the here and now, on the wind battering at his face, on the reins in his hands and the sky bison beneath him. He glanced back at Appa's saddle, confirming that the Dai Li agents were all settled. Katara hung over the saddle's side, ready to drop down when they were in position, holding her hat down over her eyes.

And beside Aang on Appa's head, Ty Lee sat waiting.

He looked over at her, and her own gold-ish gray eyes shifted to meet his gaze. There was caution in her gaze, but whether it was for the mission they were about to embark on for Long Feng or something to do with Aang himself was a mystery he wasn't sure he wanted to solve. She was Mai's friend, according to what Aang had been told, and wanted to help his cause now that she was a fellow Airbender. She had been on the receiving end of the Fire Nation's awfulness and, like Mai, wanted to combat its worst elements.

But Aang still couldn't be comfortable around her. He had fought her, thinking her an enemy, and found a foe he couldn't beat. If even Mai could betray him, what could this girl do? Had his initial bad assumptions about her planted the seeds for future betrayal? And what did it mean that one of the Fire Nation's greatest warriors had been given the gift of Airbending?

What did it even mean that Airbending had returned to the world?

Most importantly, what was Aang supposed to do about it?

But he kept those questions in the same place where he kept his worries about Mai, and tried to smile at Ty Lee. "Are you ready?"

She nodded, and leaned down to rub the fur on Appa's head. "This is going to be a dream-come-true, up until we get to the part where I have to fight my countrymen. That part isn't going to be as much fun."

Aang decided to accept that at face value and looked to the waters below.

Appa was flying out over the bay, leaving behind both the forest where they had been hiding for the last week and the settlement they had been hiding from. The bay was a natural formation taking advantage of by the Fire Nation for its defensibility; large stone cliffs circled the bay, leaving one lone entrance just large enough for a cargo ship to sail through safely. One such cargo ship bobbed just outside the entrance now, waiting for the tug boat that would guide it through the walled passage.

The cargo ship's arrival had been what spurred Aang and the Dai Li into action. Their objective, as described by Long Feng, was fairly simple- to steal the whole ship and the platinum in its belly.

The execution would be a little more complex.

"There they are," he said, spotting the two Fire Nation destroyers that guarded this bay from pirates and rebels. Those warships were much faster than any cargo vessel, and so had to be stopped from interfering or giving chase. That part was Aang and Katara's job. He handed the reins to Ty Lee, added a quick, "Good luck," and then jumped straight off of Appa's head.

Behind him, Katara did the same.

Rather than using his Airbending to slow his fall, Aang moved into the same Waterbending form that he knew Katara would be using right now. He focused on the bay water below, calling it to him with gathering motions of his arm, and as a wave rose to catch him, he threw his arms out wide. The water, rather than stopping his fall, embraced it, and Aang straightened his entire body to become like an arrow in flight. He sped through the water, angling so that his plunge would turn into a climb, and he popped back out of the bay with enough speed and force to land skidding on the deck of one of the Fire Nation destroyers.

Katara, he trusted, was having a similar experience. Aang had worked with her to develop this plan, planning out everything they would have to do and refining it with some practice in a lake before they came to the area to wait. Now, they each just had to take out an entire Fire Nation destroyer.

It wasn't even going to be a challenge.

Before the sailors and soldiers on the deck even registered who he really was, Aang was launching himself into an Airbending-assisted run, his right hand stretched out to the edge of the deck as he moved. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the water of the bay responding to that beckoning arm, splashing up to follow even as he plunged into the entrance to tower that held the ship's bridge. People gasped at his movement, and some were quick enough to even try to grab at him, but Aang kept pouring on the speed, knowing exactly where he was going and unafraid get there as fast as possible. The wind of his passage buffeted at everyone who tried to get close, and the spray of water following him cut off any attempt to Firebend at his back. He reached the bridge before the crew even had time to sound an alarm, still trailing an arm's length of bay water.

The bridge crew turned to him in surprise, but they weren't ready for a fight. Aang transformed the momentum of his run into an offensive assault, using fists and feet and bursts of wind to knock everyone out of the fight they didn't even know was already over.

Then he got down to the important part. He pulled the last of water he had brought with him up off the floor, and swung his whole body in a movement like the blow of an ax. The water responded, thinning and taking on his strength, serving as his blade as he hacked apart all of the bridge controls.

In just a few minutes, the whole bridge was reduced to a storage room for scrap.

By that time, the alarm was not only sounding, but going crazy. Aang could see, through the front viewports, a stream of soldiers towards the tower, and he heard frantic boot-steps on the stairs leading up to the bridge. They thought they had him trapped, and that he wouldn't be able to fight alone against the numbers they were bringing to bear against him.

They were right about the last part. The first part? Not so much.

Aang took a running leap straight through the wide viewport at the front of the bridge, landing in the comforting embrace of the winds to be carried safely on the deck. Two more hops were all that he needed to jump over the ship's side back to the waters of the bay, but this time he didn't let himself sink into them. After all, he had to get over to the cargo ship that Ty Lee and the Dai Li would be stealing right now, and without his glider, the fastest method of travel available right now was a wind-enhanced run.

The water of the bay shot up behind him as he dashed across its surface, and as he moved close to the bay's exit, he saw Katara coming to meet him, speeding away from the other destroyer (which now had some ugly smoke coming from its engine) on a surfboard of ice.

Aang hoped the rest of the mission was going this well.

Ty Lee got to fly the skin bison! Ty Lee got to fly the sky bison!

It was just for a short distance, taking over for Aang after he and Katara jumped off to go sabotage the destroyers, and doing nothing more but keeping Appa steady and then signaling him to land on the cargo ship's main deck. Yet Ty Lee still couldn't hold back a joyful laugh as the wind pulled at her braided hair and rustled her clothes and Appa mooed (or whatever) beneath her and she felt the power of their dive in her stomach. She didn't know what the future held for her right now, but she dearly hoped she'd be able to get her own sky bison. Then she could spend whole days flying around!

But for now, the joy faded as she brought Appa down into a warzone.

The Dai Li agents leaped from the saddle even before the sky bison's feet had touched the deck, throwing punches that sent fist-like constellations of stone flying out at the sailors who were still gaping at the arrival. Ty Lee could see that these were no warriors, no soldiers; they wore simple red tunics and the only things hanging from their belts were tools. Their postures were the experienced solidity of sea-legs, not the loose stances of trained fighters.

The stones of the Dai Li struck them, and then they didn't get up again.

Ty Lee could feel her aura becoming streaked with tarnished silver.

When Long Feng had first formulated the plan with them, back in the large cave the Dai Li were using as a base in this region, Ty Lee had piped up with, "What's going to happen to the sailors on the cargo ship? Are you going to take them prisoner?"

Long Feng had looked at her with an unreadable expression, but she could see that his aura swirl with deep black and painfully bright yellow. "In situations demanding speed and exact timing, taking unnecessary prisoners is not a viable option."

Which was fancy talk for killing everyone.

Ty Lee was about to object when Aang had actually beaten her to it, saying, "You're not going to slaughter those people. They're not warriors, they're people trying to survive and feed their families."

"Avatar, I do not seek to murder anyone." Ty Lee had watched Long Feng's aura for the muddy pink of dishonesty, but instead it was the deep red of strong will and practicality. "I will have no problems taking prisoners if any of the sailors surrender, nor will we cull the wounded. But the fighting forms of the Dai Li are about efficiency and effectiveness, and the results can be fatal. Asking my agents to specifically fight to wound in complicated combat situations will put them in danger and jeopardize the mission."

Katara had put a reassuring hand on Aang's shoulder at that point. "I understand what you're saying- Water Tribe warriors don't hold back, either- but why would the protectors of a city's culture be trained like soldiers?"

Long Feng had offered a shrug that was the most artificial thing Ty Lee had ever seen. "You'd have to ask Avatar Kyoshi. She was the one who established the Dai Li and trained the first generation. Everything we are has been passed down directly from her."

"Avatar Kyoshi?!" Aang had pulled away from Katara to turn his back on the gathering, and Ty Lee could see his aura becoming tainted with a muddy gold shade. "I thought- I was always taught-"

"Avatar," Long Feng had interrupted, "I'd be happy to give you a history lesson on the Dai Li, but I'm afraid it's not a quick story, and we don't know when exactly the cargo ship will be arriving at its destination. If you're going to take it before it enters the protection of the bay and after it has passed beyond the protection of its military escort, then you'll need to be on station and ready to go as soon as possible. This plan has many factors, and you'll need to practice some of it before you'll be ready. Now, if I may continue?"

Aang had sighed and faced them all again, but Ty Lee could see that his aura was still troubled. His gaze found Long Feng as he said, "I understand that not everyone has the respect for life that I do, and I try to accommodate the differences of other cultures. But I'm going to be watching to make sure your agents keep to your word."

"As you say, Avatar." Long Feng had bowed low. "Discipline is the primary weapon of the Dai Li, and I have every confidence that you will have no cause for disappointment."

Except now Ty Lee was standing on the deck of the cargo ship looking at the bodies of some of the sailors while the Dai Li agents moved ahead of her to continue their piracy, and she knew that no one had actually made any out-loud offer of surrender. Long Feng's agents were keeping to his word, all right, but that still didn't seem to be leaving much room for life.

Ty Lee wondered if this was what Aang's people had been like. He seemed like a good person, but he couldn't control Long Feng. He wouldn't have been able to control his elders in the Air Nation, either, as they prepared to invade the Fire Nation.

Ty Lee took a deep breath and moved into a run. She raced ahead of the Dai Li, dancing right across the vectors through which they were launching the small black panels of stone they were wearing under their robes like armor, and threw herself in amongst the sailors who were trying to mount some kind of defense of their ship. She threw her fists out and found weak, yielding flesh. Each person she struck cried out first in pain and then in panic, horrified when their limbs would not respond to their commands. Then it was a simple matter to shove or trip them to take them out of the fight. She struck hard and didn't hold back.

If the Dai Li creeps were going to be all rough and mean about this, then was going to see how many of the 'enemy' she could disable before the Earthbenders had a chance to kill them. After all, Long Feng had promised that no one who was unable to fight would be executed, and Ty Lee's fists were really good at taking the fight out of people.

She raced down into the bowels of the cargo ship, ready to personally capture even nook and corridor if she had to.

Aang reached the ship just ahead of Katara and summoned a tornado ball to sit on while he waited for her. He watched as she surfed in a circle right in front of the ship's bow, crouching and rising again on her ice-board with arms outstretched, and the water at the center of her motion began coiling and pulsing. When she rode out into the center of it, Aang hopped over and grabbed onto her back, giving a quick, "Hi," that earned him a blue-eyed smile.

Then the water exploded like a spring and shot them both up into the air.

The sailed up parallel to the massive cargo ship's hull, and Aang used his Airbending to make sure their angle kept them going straight up, rather than smacking into the ship like a bug against a flying bison's teeth. They soared up and over the deck of the ship, and Aang shifted as they reached their apex so that he was now carrying Katara, and it was his winds and legs that took the brunt on the landing.

As soon as he set Katara down, Dai Li Agent Zhuang marched over. "Avatar, we've captured the ship. My people are establishing a skeleton crew right now, and as soon as we've confirmed that no vital equipment has been sabotaged, we can be on our way."

Aang reached out a hand, Katara smacked it in triumph. He looked back to Zhuang and said, "Great! Katara and I took care of the destroyers. They'll have to completely replace the bridge equipment before mine can run again."

Katara nodded. "I flooded the engines on mine. I think one of the boilers exploded."

Zhuang didn't smile, but the tension around his eyes loosened a bit as he nodded. "Good work, kids. Now we just have to sail this thing to the rendezvous. The Fire Nation shouldn't have any assets nearby that they can redirect to pursue us before we're gone, but diligence is the key to survival. If you're up to it, I'd like you to take your sky bison up and keep a watch for any threats."

Aang was going to agree and get going, but then a shout of, "Avatar!" echoed across the deck.

Aang turned to see Ty Lee stalking over. The bounce he could usually see in her step was gone, and her face was twisted in a serious expression.

He bit back on his nervousness and tried to smile at her. "Yes?"

Ty Lee threw a look at Agent Zhuang, and then she put her arms around Aang's shoulders and guided him away. "I wanted to talk to you about these Dai Li. They're meanies."

Meanies? Even after they helped capture this ship with such finely tuned plan? He wondered if one of the agents had been harassing her about her Fire Nation blood. "Ty Lee, is this something important? We still have some work before we can get away."

She started to say, "I-"

"Incoming!" came Katara's shout.

In an instant, Aang was beside her at the rail, looking back at the bay. The destroyers he and Katara had sabotaged were still floating there, seemingly helpless, but as he followed her pointing finger, he spotted a line of foam across the water, and spotted a speedboat at its head. It was heading straight for the cargo ship, and was definitely of Fire Nation manufacture.

Agent Zhuang was came over to take his own look. "Get rid of it. It's an attack of some kind."

Katara nodded and extended her arms in front of her, and then swung them up to her right as she shifted from standing straight into a reverse-arrow stance. The ocean rose up with something like an explosion at her command right in front of the speedboat, but the craft swerved and avoided the hazard.

Katara tried again and again, but failed to stop this strangely small attack. "I can't get it," she gasped, pounding fists lightly against the rail. "It's too fast, and I'm too far away."

That's when Aang realized something. "It's not slowing down. Even if it cuts its engine, it's not going to be able to stop in time. It must not be coming for us after all."

Ty Lee said, "You mean it's just going to go around us?"

"No." Agent Zhuang's voice had gone cold. "It's going to ram us."

There was a moment of silent horror amongst the group as the craft drew close enough to be lost from their view.

Then the speedboat slammed into the cargo ship and exploded.

It wasn't a large explosion, but Aang distinctly felt the force of it traveling up through the ship's hull. "Was that enough to sink us?"

Agent Zhuang shook his head. "Not immediately, but there's a good chance we're taking on water down there. I'm not sure what level that would be on, but-"

"On it," Katara said, turning and running across the deck. She called back, "I'll keep it iced up," as she plunged down the stairs and was lost to sight. Agent Zhuang followed her.

That left Aang alone with Ty Lee. Should he go down and help with the damage, or was this a good time to talk to Ty Lee about whatever it was that was bothering her? The whole matter of the speedboat was still bothering him, but it seemed to be over now.

On the other side of the deck, Appa let out a roar. The sky bison seemed just as uneasy as Aang, and Momo flapping above his horns in an agitated state. They must not have liked that explosion.

That got Aang wondering about the boat. Someone must have been steering it, if it avoided Katara's attacks. Had the pilot been on a suicide mission?

Or was this not about punching a hole in the hull after all?

Aang stepped back over to the railing and looked over-

-and jumped back just in time to avoid the plume of blue fire that heralded the flying arrival of a girl in black armor. She flipped in midair and landed on the deck of the ship, and Aang spotted smoke coming from the bottom of her boots (had she used Firebending to fly?) just before she kicked a leg out to shoot more blue fire to arc around Aang and cut him off from the rest of the deck. In the distance, he heard Appa roar in fear.

Wait, what had happened to Ty Lee?

Aang looked around and found himself alone with the Firebender girl. She stared back with shining golden eyes, but she didn't seem to be talking to him when she said, "Come on up, Zuzu. I've found your little friend."

Beside the girl, a hand came up to grasp at the rail. A second followed it, and then their owner pulled himself up into view.

The scarred face of Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation looked straight at Aang and scowled.

Aang took a defensive stance, missing Mai more than ever.

There was no transition. One moment Ty Lee was seeing the blue fire flaring through the air in front of Aang, and the next she was below deck, crouched under the staircase leading outside and holding her head in her hands. She was struggling to breathe, trembling all over, and her heart was hammering in her chest so hard that it was almost painful. She wondered if she was dying, if her fear was about to kill her, and the new terror brought on by that thought made her dizzy enough to fall over.

Azula was here.

Azula was here.

Azula was here.

Ty Lee loved Azula because they were friends and the princess had offered so many opportuntities and she was such a perfect, beautiful person.

Ty Lee also feared Azula more than anything else because she would do anything and there was no force on this planet that could stop her from getting what she wanted.

And now Ty Lee was an Airbender and had sided with Mai and now was helping the Avatar and she hadn't gotten Azula's permission for any of it.

Azula was here.

Azula was here.

Ty Lee curled up on the floor, crippled by fear, of no use whatsoever to her new friends and allies. She had failed them, as she was always destined.

Sokka listened with his ear to the cold stone ground, unmoving so as to avoid rattling his chains, eyes closed pointlessly against the darkness of his cell. All of his concentration was on detecting the sounds carried through the stone.

He could detect the irregular beat of stumbling footsteps, the whispery sound of a swinging door, and the louder and unmistakable sound of rattling chains. Another prisoner was being brought back from one of the Earthbenders' crazy "interrogation sessions." Sokka winced in sympathy, remembering- or mostly not remembering in a way that made him feel sick- his own sessions, of being bound in the chair in the darkness to watch that moving light for hours on end. He had steeled himself to resist like a true Water Tribe warrior, but that hadn't gone well at all. It wasn't until the second session that he discovered his best defense was not resistance, but distraction. Letting his mind wander to thoughts of chemistry and physics and other abstract matters was the best antidote to moving lights and droning voices, but even that only worked for so long.

It was with no malice that he assumed Mai would be especially vulnerable to the whole ordeal. She was a person of fierce attacks and defensive walls, exactly what the hypnosis was designed to combat.

And he knew Mai was here, somewhere. He had seen the weird Earthbenders capture her, using him as bait.

He was thoroughly offended by that.

He put those thoughts out of his head, though, and focused once again on what he could hear through the ground. As enjoyably guilt-ridden as the sounds of what was probably Mai's return were, that wasn't what he was trying to hear.

He was more curious about the vrssssshhhhhh sound he had heard while trying to sleep earlier. It had gone away when the-prisoner-who-was-probably-Mai was brought back, and now was starting up again. That indicated that whatever was causing the sound was trying to avoid the attention of the guards here, which meant it was either a skittish subterranean animal of some kind of enemy action.

Sokka was hoping for enemy action.

But he still wasn't prepared when the ground beneath his ear opened up and someone's nose poked up into it.

Hissing in surprise, Sokka scrambled back as far as his chains would let him, and then a burst of green glare exploded in his face. His poor, light-deprived eyes took a while to adjust, but he eventually realized he was being spotlit by a shuttered lantern, and the light was being generated by those green crystals the Earth Kingdom liked so much.

And the lamp was being held by the first of three strangers who were climbing into his cell.

Well, this was either very good or a disaster in the making.

They had to be Earthbenders, given their mode of entry, but not the same kind of Earthbenders who had captured Sokka and Mai. These people- two men and a woman- wore simple green tunics. Returning the inquisitive glare they were giving him, Sokka noticed that they all had a cloth tied somewhere to their body- hanging from a belt, or tied around one arm- that bore the circular symbol of the Earth Kingdom, the same one it used for the shape of its coins.

Rebels?

Sokka decided to cut to the chase and whisper, "Who are you guys?"

The one with the lantern (the one who Sokka suspected had given his ear a nose-poke) scowled. "The Earth King will be the ones asking the questions, boy."

The who now?

Wasn't the Earth King supposed to be dead, burned along with Ba Sing Se on the day of Sozin's Comet?

Then one last shape climbed up out of the hole in the center of Sokka's cell. It was a small form, almost child-like, and when it stepped into the light of the lantern, Sokka couldn't immediately tell if it was a boy or a girl. More concentrated examination revealed what he thought was a slightly feminine outline to the body and chin, but the savage grin the newcomer was displaying was a bit distracting.

Then he noticed the newcomer's eyes.

They were dull and unfocused. This girl was blind.

He started to say, "What-"

The girl immediately cut him off with, "You are in the presence of Earth King Toph Bei Fong, first of her royal line and incarnate goddess of the earth itself. I order to tell me, right this instant, who the mud you are and what you're doing in Old Man Long Feng's basement. If your explanation satisfies me, I might not leave you here to rot in your own stinking breath."

Oh, really?

Sokka put on his most ingratiating smile.

TO BE CONTINUED