Howdy yall! Sorry, this is being released on Sunday and not Saturday. Life happens sometimes. I've been planning this chapter for a while and I'm so happy to finally be able to publish it! Thank you for all the Reviews! Please keep them coming! Don't forget to Follow, Favorite, and Review! See y'all next week!
I don't own ATLA
While Nu and Je were out searching, the other Snufferes were back at their camp in the forests relaxing or training. There were around 100 of them in total, all spread out in the forests north of the cliffs. Some exercised, some cooked, and others played cards.
"Man, I wish something interesting would happen today," one of the standby Snufferes admitted as he sat down at the camp.
"Yeah, I wish we could do something cool," another said as he shuffled a deck of playing cards.
"What do you think the Delta Duo is doing right now?" another soldier asked as he sat down with the card group.
"Honestly, they left like six hours ago so, honestly, I don't think they could have found anything that interesting that they wouldn't be back here yet," the dealer of the hand of cards said as he passed out cards to everyone.
The game started and everyone continued to play until Captain Zaine suddenly ran into camp yelling and shouting.
"Attention, everyone! We are moving out in fifteen minutes!" he commanded as he immediately started gathering his gear.
"Woah, Captain! What's going on?!" one of the soldiers asked as he stood up.
"Well, Jim, I just got word from Delta that they have Ty Lee on the run. They also wrote that the girl is running towards the Western Air Temple," Zaine recalled to the soldier.
"Wait...that's where we think Azula and her gaggle of traitors are," one of the soldiers who was exercising connected.
"Yes, meaning that if we follow Ty Lee..." Zaine looked at all the soldiers, whose eyes widened.
"We can get the rest of them at the same time."
"Exactly, men! Now, let's move out!" Zaine ordered dutifully.
After ten minutes, all of the Snufferes were ready to go and all stood at attention, awaiting the command to depart and head towards the Air Temple. Zaine walked in front of the group and smiled at them.
"Men," he began as he surveyed the ranks. "I have but one thing to say as the Captain of the 3rd Company of the 501st Special Forces Division of the Fire Nation army." He moved between the rows and columns of soldiers and looked them all in the eyes. He noticed that all of them were bouncing with excitement. They could not wait to get started and go get the traitors.
"We have been at this for a long time, boys," he continued as he came to a halt at the head of the group. "We are fighting the war that our fathers and their fathers fought in. We are fighting in a war that, for a long time, seemed endless. But not today, men! For today, we are at a turning point. What we are about to do has the possibility of changing the tide of this war. As you all know, we currently have Ty Lee: a known conspirator and traitor to the Fire Nation, on the run, and Delta Squad is in pursuit of her. We also know that she is heading to the Western Air Temple, which is where we think the rest of the conspirators are. Right now, men, we have the ability and the strength to finally defeat Azula and her gaggle of supporters! And that's exactly what we're doing today, boys! Our goal is simple: we go in and destroy that damn temple. We give it everything we've got and we will not let them escape, for today is their last day on Earth!"
The Snufferes were certainly fired up and prepared to destroy the Western Air Temple. Their swords and bows were stowed away and their hands were placed rigid at their sides. Once Captain Zaine was done speaking, he raised his right fist into the air and shouted at the top of his lungs: "LONG LIVE THE PHOENIX KING!"
The crowd followed suit with haste: "LONG LIVE THE PHOENIX KING!"
Zaine beamed at his men and turned towards the trees. He formed a closed fist and ran into the trees. "I need 23 of you to go find Delta Squad with Second Lieutenant Akalu leading them. They should be in the forests north of the village. The rest of you, follow me to where we believe the Western Air temple is."
The Snufferes nodded their heads and continued into the dense forest. They had no clue what they were to expect but knew that it was going to be an intense feat. They knew that, though some of them may not make it out of this, they were going to pursue it anyway. They were going to succeed because they did not know what failure was. They were so used to succeeding that they did not know how to lose. They were the best of the best, and they knew that after today, they would be known as the mighty ones who fought the Battle of the Western Air Temple.
Ty Lee was surrounded on all sides by Snufferes and attempted to calculate her next plan. She glanced to the left and found a group of five Snuffer archers ready to launch arrows. To her right, ten combat Snufferes were sprinting towards her. Looking up, she spotted ten more archers, prepared to fire.
"Well, this is quite the pickle, isn't it?" she said to the group. They did not respond to her. She reached into her cleavage and pulled out three small balls. "Well, boys, I gotta go. Bye!" She smirked at the soldiers as she threw the balls on the ground, causing a cloud of smoke to appear in the area.
"She's gonna getaway! We can't let her escape!" one of the soldiers cried as they entered the cloud of smoke. Meanwhile, Ty Lee was sprinting as fast as she possibly could to escape the large number of highly-trained soldiers that were on her tail.
"Shit! All I wanted to do was buy some muffins!" she shouted to herself as she hurled through the trees towards the Temple. "And I don't even have the fucking muffins!"
Suddenly, a giant fireball soared past her head and landed into a tree. She turned her head to observe behind her and her eyes immediately widened. "Shit, I thought that those smoke bombs would hold them for longer!" Behind her, fifteen Snufferes loomed close.
"You thought puny smoke bombs were going to slow us down?" one of them called out to her as they ran through the forest. "You'll have to do better than that to take us out!" At this, he launched a flaming knife her way.
Ty Lee skillfully dodged the knife and growled. She knew that she could not stop running to deal with the attackers that were behind her. She also knew that she had no backup to rely upon. She was totally alone in this forest and had at least five more miles to go before she reached the entrance to the temple. "Alright, Ty, all you gotta do is keep them at bay for 25 more minutes. That can't be that hard, right?" she thought aloud to herself as she dodged yet another fireball.
"You're not gonna get away from us this time!" one of the Snufferes called out as he hurled more fireballs at her. The acrobat jumped and dodged all of them with relative ease, but was caught off guard by a flying set of flaming chains.
"What the fuck is that?!" Ty Lee yelled as she tried to keep running, still dodging the projectiles flying towards her body.
"This is a flame chain! It works by using a wrapping chain and lighting it on fire!" one of the Snufferes explained as he flung it back towards Ty Lee. She had to duck just so that her head would not get chopped off.
"Where the fuck do you come up with these things?!" she shouted behind her incredulously.
"Somewhere that you don't need to know!" the man fired back as he flung it once more. This went on for about fifteen minutes as Ty Lee weaved in and out of trees, dodging fireballs until, finally, she had had enough. She caught a glimpse of a vine hanging from a tree.
"Alright, fuckers, I've had it with you!" she yelled as she hopped onto the vine. With the momentum that she had built up, she flung herself onto another vine. She then twisted herself in the air so that she was facing the Snufferes and flung knives at them. They were all dodged by the Snufferes, however, which made Ty Lee groan in frustration. She let go of the vines and continued to run until, at last, she got to the clearing where the group originally set up camp. There, she was greeted by another unholy sight. Gathered around were fifty more Snufferes all ready for battle.
"Aw, mother fucker!" Ty Lee cried out as she readied herself once again to fight. At that moment, a small hole opened up in the ground beneath her and swallowed Ty Lee whole. She fell down the shaft, caught completely off guard, but was then greeted by a familiar face who watched her arrival into the underground room from the ceiling.
"Whoa! Thanks for getting me out of there, Toph! You saved my life," Ty Lee said to the blind Earthbender.
Toph merely shrugged it off. "Don't thank me yet. We still have to get out of this-"
BOOM!
Both girls looked at each other and stood in silence for a few seconds, processing the event: the Temple was being breached. Neither could believe that very soon, they were going to have to fight for their lives. Ty Lee looked at Toph, who was now staring blankly at the wall.
"How bad is it?" the acrobat asked quietly.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Toph glanced back at Ty Lee and took a deep breath.
"We're fucked."
When Azula opened her eyes, she was pissed at what she saw. Surrounding her were fallen bookshelves and dust clouding up the room. She stood up and quickly moved to the door when the other explosions went off.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Growling, Azula promptly headed out the door, slamming it on her way out, and charged down the hallway towards where the common area was. When she arrived, she scanned the area and noticed large chunks of rock everywhere.
"What the fuck?" she growled to herself as she observed. All around the floor, rock and other parts of the temple looked to have been blown off by the explosions. "What could have done this?!"
"What in Agni's name was that?!" Mai shouted as she and Suki sprinted to the common area.
"You think I know?!" said Azula. "I was talking to Aang when, all of a sudden, I get thrown out of the Spirit World by fucking explosions!" Suki and Mai backed away slightly at Azula's volume.
Suki stared at the Princess with widened eyes after hearing this. "Wait, you TALKED TO AANG?!" Suki cried incredulously.
"While that sounds like an interesting story, I think we have bigger problems on our hands," Mai reasoned. Suki nodded her head in agreement. "We need to figure out what the fuck those explosions we just heard were."
"I agree with Mai on this one!" Sokka called out as he ran into the area. He had been using the bathroom when the explosions went off and were still attempting to fix his pants. "Does anyone know where Ty Lee, Toph, Katara, or Zuko are?"
Toph and Ty Lee barged in suddenly, catching everyone off guard. "Ice Brain, Ty, and I are right here, and for the answer to your question-"
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Toph stomped her foot and pointed to one of the doorways. "Zuko and Watergirl are over there; they should be coming out soon. To answer the question that everyone has on their mind-"
"Snufferes!" Ty Lee yelled, which made everyone's eyes narrow dangerously. "Almost 75 of them. And the worst part is that these aren't the same Snufferes from Boiling Rock. These ones are different: they're older and more powerful!"
"Wait, when did Toph and Ty Lee get here?" Sokka asked, but was instantly interrupted by Azula.
"No time for that, Sokka. Ty Lee, what division of the Fire Nation Army were they?" The Princess pried as she rubbed her temples to stir her memory.
"Oh, there's no need to try and figure that out, Princess."
Everyone turned in the direction of the rogue voice to find Captain Zaine and 80 other Snufferes standing behind him in position. The 6'6" man stood firm with his red cloak and black mask. He proceeded to remove the mask to show off his scarred cheek.
"Zaine," Azula grumbled angrily as she balled up her fists.
"Oh, so you do remember me? I'm surprised. I thought you would have forgotten about that loss and thrown it away like the rest of the Fire Nation!" Zaine spat at the Princess with venom.
"See, I told you she wasn't perfect!" Zuko criticized as he entered the room with Katara by his side.
"Wait...Azula has lost in combat before?!" Sokka asked out loud, floored at the concept
The Captain chuckled heavily. "I see you haven't told them about the time where you lost to me, did you?" he remarked snidely. "Don't worry. I do a much better job at telling it than you would." He smirked at the now-seething Princess. "You see, when Azula was much younger, she was training with her father, Fire Lord Ozai. She was said to be a 'prodigy' at the art. People even said she was someone who could possibly be better than Agni himself! So what happened? She got arrogant. Cocky. When Ozai saw this, he put her into a tournament with all of the up-and-coming cadets in the Fire Nation Military school. She beat them all, except for one: me! I was the final person to fight her and she turned sloppy. So sloppy, in fact, that I was able to defeat her." He bore a wide smile on his face. "I went around to everyone declaring that I had ended the mighty Princess Azula's reign in the fight. Everyone began to doubt her and proclaim that I was the next Firebending prodigy."
Azula, by this point, was filling with anger. However, she showed none of it. She knew that these tactics were going to be used against her, so she did not worry about it much. She smirked at him in response. "And I took that fight personally and beat you so badly that they had to reconstruct your entire face after the fight. In fact, if I recall correctly, you got booted out of the Military Academy and had to enlist as an actual soldier. It took you FAR longer to get back to the level of prestige and power you were at before our rematch due to how broken and mangled your body was. Imagine that all coming from an 8-year-old little girl. How old were you again? 21 years old, I believe? A senior at the academy as well." She smirked at the man in front of her.
Zaine gritted his teeth and balled up his fists. "Oh, shut up, you fat whore!" he blurted, which made the temperature of the room rose several degrees. "You can't be talking about power when you look like a bloated whale that we eat! This is what happens when you become the Avatar's whore! You're a disgrace to the Fire Nation you fat, filthy used cock sleeve."
Typically, Azula remained very calm in situations where she was being belittled and insulted. Unfortunately for Zaine, right now was not one of those times. She had not been able to touch Aang in the Spirit World. She could not even say 'I love you' to Aang, and now she had to deal with one of her rivals from the past insulting her and the love of her life. Azula bubbled with so much rage that the positive and negative energy in her body was constantly being split apart and rejoining. If one looked closely, they could spot small sparks of lightning travelling through the air and around her hands and body.
"In fact, I hear that they're torturing him on the way to Ba Sing Se as we speak. You were the one who advocated for prisoner torture, after all. I mean, after reading all the things you did to him back then, I'm surprised he would fuck a monster like you."
As soon the words left his mouth, even he knew he was in danger. He glanced over at all of her friends and noticed how all of them had backed away from the Princess. Azula herself had both fists balled up tightly and cast a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"I...am not...a...MONSTER!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, causing the lightning in the air to spark and the thunder to crash. Azula's fists were engulfed in lightning as she hurled herself towards Zaine. She sprinted the distance to him in a fraction of a second and launched her glowing hand into the Captain's chest, piercing straight through his heart and out the other end.
This action caused a chain reaction of events. The 80 Snufferes who just watched their Captain go from unscathed to a hand through his heart were furious and sent a giant 40 foot tall wall of fire towards Azula.
Still in her fit of rage, Azula removed her hand from Zaine's chest and sent a wall of blue flames of equal height back towards the soldiers. The walls clashed with each other for a few moments before both walls fizzled out.
"Snufferes - attack!" Lieutenant Shell cried, which sent everyone sprinting towards the others to commence the fight.
Azula threw up a wall of fire and sprinted back to the group, who was still mystified that Azula could move that fast or kill in that way. When she finally returned to the group, she immediately began to bark out orders.
"Listen up! This is gonna be an uphill climb. This is the 3rd Company of the 501st which means they are the best of the best! If we are going to get out of this alive, we need to have each other's backs! I know your power and skill levels and I know theirs. Toph, Katara, and Ty Lee, you're with me! I want Suki and Sokka to prepare the Sky Balloon and grab HALF of the rations and maps for the Earth Kingdom. I want Mai and Zuko to get Appa ready and grab the other half of the maps and food. We are not going to kill them all; the point is to get the fuck out of here! When I say leave, you get the fuck out of here and head towards the Capital. When you get there, retrieve as much information as you can about literally anything. I will send you a letter when we find Aang. Go now!"
Sokka and Suki nodded their heads and sprinted away to grab the items they were assigned. Mai and, surprisingly, Zuko, did the same.
"Alright ladies, there are a hundred of them and four of us; we each get 25. Sorry Ty, I know you're probably exhausted," Azula added as she headed towards the battlefield.
"Nah, it's fine. Gotta have the endurance to outlast Mai," Ty Lee responded slyly.
"Do I even want to know?" Katara asked as she pulled water out of the air in order to fight.
"Nope," Toph mumbled as she stomped on the ground, causing builders to rise into the air.
"Let the battle begin." Azula smirked as she aimed herself towards a group of Snufferes, charging up the lightning in her hands. "You guys are gonna wanna jump in 3...2...NOW!" Azula slammed her fist into the ground. Lightning spread, electrocuting at least seven Snufferes. Luckily, the three girls heeded the Princess's advice and jumped.
Toph was busy taking out Snufferes when she got an idea. "Zula, let's practice some of those moves we made!" she called to her, which made the Princess smirk. She sprinted over to the Earthbender, who launched her into the air with a stone pike. While midair, Azula launched as many fire balls as she could towards the Snufferes. This caused a good chunk of them to be hit and burned by the blue flames.
Ty Lee and Katara were back to back dealing with the Snufferes that kept on coming. The acrobat had developed a steady rhythm as she was locked in multiple hand-to-hand fights with the Snufferes. She ducked and weaved all the time, allowing Katara to crack her whips and take out the enemies while Ty Lee was being evasive.
"Ty Lee, I want you to take a deep breath!" Katara shouted as she swirled her arms together. A giant sphere of water encased the duo, along with 14 other Snufferes. After a full minute under the water, the Snufferes had officially drowned, allowing Katara to drop the water encasing.
"Good tactic with the water," Ty Lee panted as she gasped for air to get her breathing back to normal.
"Thanks for listening to me when I said take a deep breath," Katara responded as she resumed attacking more soldiers.
BOOM!
The girls had been fighting for a solid 35 minutes and were threatening to get fatigued when they heard the explosion. Azula looked over to find the Sky Balloon up in the air due to a large amount of oil and a giant flame. She saw a bruised and battered Suki and Sokka waving their arms, along with an equally bruised and battered Mai and Zuko sitting on Appa, who looked to be grumbling about something.
"We won't let you four escape, right boys?!" one of the Snufferes shouted as he launched himself towards Ty Lee. Azula saw this and brought a lightning bolt through her arm. She cracked the soldier in the back, causing him to drop instantly to the ground.
"Girls, it's time to leave!" Azula called as she pointed to the modes of transportation above them. "Katara and Ty Lee, head to Appa!" They both nodded their heads and headed towards Appa. Azula looked at them, then at the remaining 65 Snufferes, and frowned.
"They aren't gonna make it!" Toph yelled as she summoned a rock wall out of the ground in an attempt to give them some cover.
"I have an idea, but I need you to take down that wall when I say so!" Azula shouted as she started to gyrate her arms around in two circles. Toph nodded her head and kept a firm grasp of the wall.
Azula took a deep breath and prayed to Agni that her idea would work. She accelerated the rotation of her arms and channeled lightning through them.
"Now, Toph!" Immediately after shouting this, she conjured out a massive blue fire dragon. She sent the two giant lightning bolts towards the dragon and hurled it towards the Snufferes, who were in the midst of readying their attacks on Katara and Suki.
"Did it work? Are they at Appa?!" Azula panted at the Earthbender as she continued desperately to try and hold back the Snufferes. They continued to launch volley after volley of fireballs towards them.
Toph notices the duo finally approaching Appa. "Yes, they made it! Now we need to get the fuck out of here!" she yelled back as she started to run away. She gets 50 feet but then stumbles and falls.
"Toph!" Azula cried out as she sprinted towards her fallen friend. At that moment, the Snufferes began to evacuate the temple. She looked around frantically and wondered why everyone was leaving. Suddenly, a series of explosions were heard under her.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Azula's eyes widened as she propelled herself towards Toph before the explosions could get to them both.
"Hurry!" Suki pleaded from the metal body of the balloon. "You can make it! I believe in you! Do it for Aang!"
With those words, something in Azula snapped. She grabbed onto Toph and bended as much of her most powerful fire into her feet as possible, rocketing herself and Toph off of the crumbling platform and onto the ship seconds before the entire platform and subsequent Temple collapsed into the rocky depths below.
Azula hovered in the air for a few moments as she watched the Western Air Temple crumble apart into the water. As she watched, she let a few tears fall from her face. She lowered her head, offering a moment of silence for the fallen Temple. Her reflection would have been longer if she were not startled by Toph, who was still in her arms.
"Hey, can we, ya know, go somewhere where I can see, please?" she politely asked the Princess, whose eyes widened. They then immediately flew to the ship and landed on the balloon. As soon as her feet touched the metal floor of the balloon, Azula collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion.
"You both made it!" Suki squealed as she hugged the Princess.
"Yes, we did," Azula stated as she stood up and looked back at where the Western Air Temple used to stand. "But at what cost?" she added in a whisper.
None of them had an answer as they hovered in the air and faced the cliffside.
"But at what cost?"