Come on, almost there. Just this last pair of guards then we're out of here. Suki ran in silence, adrenaline pumping through her. The guards startled as they saw the prisoners coming, but they quickly fell back onto their training, and they each launched a blast of fire at the escapees. Her eyes flickered to the railing, quickly trying to calculate the angle that she'd need to launch herself off of it to take down the firebenders. Zuko shoved Sokka aside and slipped past her, dispelling each blast with a confident kata. Right, firebender. That's handy.
Two more guards ran to support them, and she liked their odds less and less. "Back off." Zuko's raspy voice rang out over the distant clamour of the riot. "We've got the Warden." Chit Sang shifted his shoulder, showing the wide-eyed man almost whimpering in fear. That's just sad.
The opposing firebenders looked at each other before nodding tersely, and stepped back against the railings as the group cautiously walked past. As soon as Giman and Chit Sang walked past them, Zuko turned and motioned them to keep going, acting as a living fireblock in case they decided to renege on their tentative arrangement. He slowly backed towards them and the gondola, and Suki had to tear her eyes away from admiring his figure, standing backlit against the otherwise drab building. Not the time, girl.
She slammed open the door of the gondola, and pushed everyone in. "Everyone in!" She spared the fire prince a glance as he slowly continued to them, opposing firebenders advancing for every step that he took back. "Come on, Zuko!" In a flurry of motion, he rushed to the gondola controls and slammed the lever back, letting the machine begin its journey across the boiling lake. He took a step back and cleanly severed the half of the control stick that extended beyond the cable housing with a single side kick. Damn.
Snapping a wrist out, he deflected an oncoming fireblast from one of the guards as they decided as one to break their deal. Her knuckles turned white against the window frame of the open car as he turned and ran to the gondola. It's too far. He's not going to make it. That's a twenty foot jump, easy, and it's not getting any shorter. He ran to the railing, dodging arcs of flame as he went, and hopped onto the railing before launching himself out and over the vast space below them. A surge of flame burst from beneath his feet and propelled him the final dozen feet as he impacted the side of the gondola with a jarring crash. Sokka was right there to help lift him up, and Suki rushed to his side a second later, both of them helping him up. He leaned against the door frame of the car, grimacing as he rubbed his shoulder.
"What are you doing? You could have got left behind!" Sokka yelled at him, stress radiating out from every line of his body.
"I'm making it so that they can't stop us. Unless you'd like to have them stop us and pull us right back, Sokka."
Sokka raised a finger before dropping it, defeated. "Okay, yeah, way to think ahead." There was an edge to an admiring tone in his voice, and the boys shared a little smile. Okay, storytime can wait.
"We're on our way." She couldn't disguise the relief from her voice, and she didn't care enough to try. "We really did it."
"Wait, who's that?" Hakoda pointed back at the prison that they'd just fled. Stupid. Overconfident. Never assume that you're clear and free until you've reached safety. I'm just glad that Hakoda didn't forget that.
Zuko looked over and swore beneath his breath. "That's a problem." She joined Hakoda at the back and saw the guards bowing to a pair of familiar figures. Azula. And Ty Lee. "That's my sister and her friend."
Ty Lee effortlessly backflipped onto the pagoda standing atop the cable wheel while Azula grabbed a pair of handcuffs from a prostate guard. Ty Lee began literally running across the cable securing the gondola towards them, balance perfect, as Azula simply clipped one side of the handcuffs along the cable and blasted blue flames behind her out of her hand and foot, propelling herself along it.
"This is a rematch that I've been waiting for." Bring it on, Ty Lee. This time, I know your secrets. I'm not going down like a sack of flour this time.
"You're not the only one." She exchanged a fierce look with Zuko, both of them grinning savagely. He blasted away the roof access hatch with a blast of fire, and they pulled themselves onto the roof of the car. Sokka followed them a second later, drawing a dull black blade from his back with a rasp.
Ty Lee ran up ahead of Azula with a burst of speed and jumped over them, flipping and landing gracefully on her feet in a three point landing on the far side of the gondola. Suki turned to face her, but Sokka blocked her with his elbow. He had a questioning look in his eyes, but she shook her head before stepping towards the innocent looking acrobat. I can take her. And I feel like Zuko's going to need all of the help that he can get. Azula landed on the other side of the gondola a heartbeat later, and suddenly there wasn't any more time to think.
She could see flares of orange and blue out of the corner of her eye from the firebenders duelling behind her. Was that green in there? No, you're seeing things. Ty Lee smiled at her and Suki couldn't reign in her temper any longer. You're mine. She moved and tried to knock her out quickly with a simple throat punch, but the acrobat was as fast as ever, a zephyr in the open air as she caught her forearm with her own and deflected it wildly to the side. They exchanged a half dozen blows, the speed increasing between them until she couldn't process countering moves at all, merely reacting instinctually. With her new training, she actually found herself able to nearly keep up with Ty Lee before she back flipped away and over the edge of the gondola. She heard startled gasps from Hakoda, Chit Sang and Giman and realised that she was happy that Ty Lee hadn't fallen, that their match hadn't been cut short.
Her eyes twitched as she spun slowly, trying to figure out which direction Ty Lee would emerge from below in a new angle of attack. She isn't sure what guides her, but at the last second her body moves and she sees Ty Lee's hand out of the corner of her eye, somehow having gotten to behind her. Another half dozen blows made and blocked before they're forced apart by an arc of cerulean flame, and she nearly bit her tongue preventing herself from yelling at the boys. I can't deal with Ty Lee and Azula at the same time. Hop to it.
"Cut the line!" The Warden's voice rang out from underneath her. Spirits. He must have struggled free of the bindings. What in Koh's name are the adults doing down there? Both her and Ty Lee are thrown off of their balance a minute later when the gondola jerks to a stop, swaying from front to back precariously. Ty Lee flipped away and hopped back onto the cable, squinting her eyes as she looked to see the issue. Her eyes widened as she saw a guard slam the remains of the handle that Zuko had broken into the cable wheel to stop it, while another pair of guards grabbed a thick hacksaw from a nearby compartment and began to saw back and forth..
"They're about to cut the line!" Fear and concern colour her voice as a quiver of fear enters it. Suki sympathizes; it's one thing to be bested in combat, but by circumstance? That's terrible. Wait, I'm on the gondola. And I'm not nearly confident enough to run across the cable like her all the way across the lake. Kyoshi's tits, this is bad news.
Azula turns her head, looking both ways with a shard of dread in her eyes. "Then it's time to leave." She turns and blasts the ground at her feet, a torrent of flames coming from her hands and feet as she leaps over to the other gondola, heading back towards the prison with a full complement of guards. "Goodbye, Zuko."
Suki turned to look at the boys, only to discover to her horror that Sokka had nearly fallen off of the gondola, caught only by Zuko's pure strength of arms. Ty Lee backflipped over to join Azula in a high arc, landing easily beside her. The two groups of teens stared at each other across the divide, silence filling the air. She turned and saw that while Sokka was relieved, there was pain and conflict in Zuko's eyes. He shook his head and flipped back over the side, flinging himself into the passenger compartment. She could hear him shout at the adults as he landed. "They're cutting the line! The gondola is about to go!"
Hakoda's deadpan voice managed to cut above the distant bubbling of the lake below. "Well, I hope that this thing floats. Sokka grinned at the joke, while Suki could only sigh. Really?
All of a sudden, the gondola swung back into action as it started to move again. Suki could only look on in awe as a woman in dark clothing single handedly took down every guard on the platform. "Who's that?" Sokka asked, as everyone narrowed their eyes, trying to figure out who had saved them. She heard Zuko gasp.
"It's Mai..." His voice trailed off, and he was giving the far off figure an indecipherable look.
It didn't take much longer for the gondola to arrive at the far side once Mai had gotten it started again. Suki dashed out first, kicking the single guard who'd been left on this side into the cliff wall and into unconsciousness and she cringed. She bent down to check his pulse as the others rushed out of the gondola, Chit Sang tossing the Warden back into the gondola as Hakoda quipped at him.
"Sorry Warden, it looks like your record is officially broken." Suki couldn't express how relieved she was to find a steady pulse on the fallen guard, and she followed the others as they ran for the cutbacks that led back to the water outside the caldera.
Zuko stopped at the edge of the rim, and looked back at the prison. She followed his eyeline and saw him looking back at the group of figures barely distinguishable on the top of the prison. Right, his sister and Ty Lee. And Mai, who was fighting against them? I wonder what that's all about.
She tugged on his arm. "Come on, Zuko. There isn't anything else that we can do. Mai chose to do what she did. Wouldn't it be dishonorable to cheapen her choice and get recaptured?" She could feel him waning, resisting her pull less, before he suddenly stiffened. "Zuko, what's wrong?"
"My sister was on that island." He said, a dawning recognition that she recognized as a Plan.
"Yeah, and she's probably right behind us. So let's not stop and let Crazy Blue Fire catch us. Sounds good?" Sokka burst out, clearly annoyed and on edge by Zuko's pause.
"No, what I mean is that she must have come here somehow." He walked to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea, away from the switchbacks to the docks. "There. That's our way out of here." Suki and the others joined him at the edge and saw the elaborately decorated zeppelin, fit for a crown princess of the Fire Nation.