Princess Azula sat on a throne with Mai and Ty Lee on each side of her. So far, she was unimpressed by this giant metal machine that War Minister Qin was so proud of. He was so certain that this machine would work that he had requested her presence, calling her away from her hunt for the Avatar and her mission to arrest her brother.
"This drill is a feat of scientific ingenuity and raw destructive power," the minister told her proudly. "Once it tunnels through the wall, our troops will storm their city. The Earth Kingdom will finally fall, and you can claim Ba Sing Se in the name of your father."
Azula looked at the weasley war minister flatly. She had never cared for the man, and had always found him to be inept in his duties. But despite her opinions, her father had kept him as the chief war minister.
But she had to admit that this drill might be the way that the Fire Nation finally defeated the great walled city. Ba Sing Se was the last Earth Kingdom stronghold that had refused to fall to the Fire Nation's might. Even her fuddy-duddy uncle, who had been such a legendary general, hadn't been able to conquer the city.
"That's all well and good, but whether or not this device works remains to be seen," Azula replied haughtily.
Beside her, Ty Lee was looking through a periscope that allowed her to see outside of the drill. "And what about those muscle-y guys down there? They look pretty serious."
The war minister's expression darkened before he pulled the periscope away from her. "Please. The drill's metal shell is impervious to any earthbending attack."
"Oh, I'm sure it is, War Minister Qin," Azula said in a way that denoted she was not sure of that fact at all. "But just to be on the safe side…" She looked up at her companions. "Mai and Ty Lee, take the earthbenders out!"
Mai spun one of her knives around her finger. "Finally, something to do."
Azula watched as Mai and Ty Lee left. Then she turned her attention back to the war minister.
"You better hope that your drill works, War Minister Qin," Azula said threateningly. "Or I may be looking for a replacement for your position."
The war minister swallowed hard.
Mai and Ty Lee burst out of the drill through a side hatch, excited for a fight. Mai sent a volley of blades at the team of rugged earthbenders attacking the drill. Her knives were blocked when the benders raised shields of earth to deflect her attack, but then Ty Lee was there in the middle of the fray, all jabs and stabs, laying out the men.
The chi blocker made quick work of the soldiers, leaving them in crumpled heaps in the dust, their chi blocked and their pressure points triggered. Ty Lee hadn't even broken a sweat. She offered Mai a sweet grin.
Mai crossed her arms over her chest as the corner of her lips tugged upwards. "Nice."
Azula looked up expectantly when Mai and Ty Lee returned, although she had watched the scene unfold through the periscope.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Those guys were easy-peasy to wipe out!" Ty Lee chirped as she skipped over to her seat and gracefully sank into it.
"It was so boring," Mai drawled as she flopped down.
"Good," Azula said. "Now there are no more obstacles getting in the way of this drill reaching that wall." She looked at Qin. "Perhaps you'll still have this job by the end of the day, War Minister."
The weasley man looked relieved.
"Hey, look at that dust cloud," Ty Lee said, using the periscope again. "It's so...poofy. Poof." She demonstrated with her hands.
Azula grabbed the periscope from her and peered through it. Indeed, there was a sizable dust cloud coming straight towards the drill. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"Don't worry, Princess," Qin hurried to assure her. "I'm sure it's nothing."
Azula watched the dust cloud. It was never nothing.
But nothing happened. Azula and her companions watched the drill draw closer through their periscopes. When the pointed nose of the drill finally contacted the wall, there was a great shuddering that reverberated throughout the entire machine. The minister made the announcement to the entire crew over the communication tubes.
"Congratulations, crew. The drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Start the countdown to victory!"
Azula allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction, but the feeling quickly dissipated when, twenty minutes after the wall was penetrated, an engineer came over the communication tube.
"War minister! An engineer was ambushed and his schematics were stolen. It's sabotage, sir!"
Qin looked fearful, but Azula couldn't care less. She had suspected that this mission would fail. She was a staunch believer in the adage, if you want something done right, do it yourself, and since she'd had no part in this, she had expected nothing less than failure.
Now, she wondered, who was behind the sabotage? More earthbender soldiers? Possibly the Avatar? She hadn't seen him since the ghost town, although she had come across his Kyoshi Warrior allies a week ago.
"War Minister, a brace on the starboard side has been cut clean through!" a second voice exclaimed.
Azula looked at her companions. "Ladies, let's go!"
She led Mai and Ty Lee through the vast machine, heading for the starboard side. Qin and his men were clearly inept. She would just have to handle this herself.
The trio arrived in the outer shell of the drill, where large metal braces held the massive machine together. Somehow, she wasn't surprised to see the Avatar and his friends were behind this.
Her last encounter with them still stung. Azula never lost. But she had been taken by surprise when the blind earthbending girl had shown up and thrown her off her game. What had happened to the waterbender that traveled with them? She didn't know, but she'd had to beat a hasty retreat. It still tasted bitter on her tongue. She wouldn't mind a little retribution.
"Good work, Team Avatar!" the annoying Water Tribe peasant said to the Avatar and the blind earthbender. "Now Aang just needs to—" Suddenly, he was looking right at Azula. "Duck!"
Azula narrowly missed them with her fireblast. She sprinted along the catwalk before she jumped nimbly onto another brace, followed by Ty Lee and Mai. She kicked another jet of fire at them, but the squirrely Avatar cut through her attack with a gust of air.
"Wow, it's the Avatar!" Ty Lee gasped from beside her. Her eyes landed on the Water Tribe peasant, and she offered him a flirtatious smile. "And friends."
The Avatar and his friends took off, sprinting across the brace they were standing on. Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee hurried down to their level, shimmying down the braces. Azula quickly realized that all of the braces had been cut through, but only partially. What was the Avatar planning?
"Follow them!" Azula commanded, gesturing in the direction that the Water Tribe peasant and the earthbender had gone. "The Avatar is mine!"
Ty Lee and Mai followed after the earthbender and the Water Tribe guy. He was holding onto the girl, pulling her along behind him. They ducked through an open doorway, with Ty Lee and Mai quickly catching up to them.
By the time the two of them made it to the room, the earthbender and non-bender were disappearing down a hatch.
"Go, Toph!" he yelled.
There was a small shriek and then a splash. Ty Lee grimaced, afraid to think about where that hatch went. Mai threw a set of blades at him, but the guy dropped down into the hole, and her blades uselessly pierced the lid of the hatch. The two girls ran over to the hatch and looked down, observing an awful brown sludge coursing beneath the opening.
"Ugh, disgusting!" Mai exclaimed as she pulled a face.
Ty Lee pulled herself up over the hatch entrance. "C'mon! You heard Azula. We have to follow them!'
Mai shook her head. "She can shoot all the lightning she wants at me. I'm not going in that wall sludge juice."
Ty Lee shrugged before she dropped down into the pipeline, holding her breath. It smelled awful. She looked up and saw Mai close the hatch behind her, and then the current was carrying her through the machine, following after the earthbender and her companion.
But to her surprise, when she reached the end of the pipe, the earthbender stood up to her ankles in slurry on the ground below.
"Now, Toph!" the Water Tribe guy yelled.
Ty Lee gasped as the earthbender raised her hands. All of the slurry, and Ty Lee along with it, stopped flowing out of the pipe.
"Why don't you try to block my chi now?" the girl, Toph, called up tauntingly.
Ty Lee struggled against the slurry, trying to reach the ground. But it felt like a giant invisible hand was holding her at the mouth of the pipeline, rendering her immobile. Azula was going to be so upset.
"Buh-bye!" Toph yelled up to her.
She shoved her hands towards the pipeline, and suddenly, Ty Lee was forced backwards into the pipe. The slurry washed over her, and darkness swallowed her up.
Azula burst through a hidden hatch in the roof of the drill, her eyes combing over the area for the Avatar. The sneaky little monk had nearly given her the slip, but she wasn't going to be bested by him again.
She spotted him along the top of the drill near the wall. Azula's jaw tightened in determination, and she went sprinting towards him.
She punched blasts of fire at him when she drew near enough, but he managed to block all of her attacks with water whips. Finally, she managed to evaporate it, but of course, he still had his airbending.
Suddenly, huge boulders were raining down on them, thrown down uselessly by the earthbenders standing on top of the wall. Azula and the Avatar fought while evading the rocks, with more than once close call. He was a formidable opponent. She was starting to understand how he had evaded Admiral Zhao and her brother. But she was better than both of them, and she would succeed where they had failed.
Azula finally caught him off guard as he tried to deflect a boulder. She sent a bright blue blast of flame at him from the soles of her feet. He used the broken bits of boulder to make a shield, but it wasn't strong enough. He flew back into the wall and collapsed in a crumpled heat.
She smiled victoriously as she strode towards him, one hand coated in flame. But suddenly he woke up, calling the chunks of rock to himself again. A pillar hit her hard in the stomach, throwing her backwards. She hit hard and rolled, pushing herself up onto her feet.
Suddenly, a geyser of foul brown sludge erupted from the gouges in the drill's surface that he had made, slicking up the metal and drenching her and the Avatar. She tried to attack, but her boots slid on the sludge, sending her windmilling helplessly towards the Avatar.
The force of the collision sent them both sliding backwards. Azula grappled for purchase as she slipped off the edge, but it was useless. She dug the heels of her boots against the metal and finally managed to stop her fall, barely hanging on. She looked up and saw the Avatar leap into the air. She punched a fireblast at him, narrowly missing him. He landed hard on something out of her line of sight, and there was suddenly a shuddering throughout the drill.
The force knocked her off the side, sending her plummeting towards the slurry-coated ground below. She broke her fall by jetting flames from her boots, and landed gracefully in the sludge. Suddenly, the drill gave a horrendous groan, and slurry began to erupt violently from its seams. Azula was swept away by a deluge, careening towards the end of the machine. The drill creaked and groaned, and suddenly, the Fire Nation's greatest military achievement crumpled into a pile of scrap metal.
Azula came to a stop at the rear of the drill. She watched as Ty Lee pulled herself to her feet, gasping for air and covered in slurry from head to toe. Azula wasn't looking much better. There was a creak, and a hatch above them opened. Mai's pale face appeared.
"We lost," she said dryly.
Azula closed her eyes and exhaled hotly. This wasn't over.