It took two days of flying to reach their destination.
After the bandits and Azula had been driven off, the Earth soldiers had explained that they had been one of several groups scattered across the Kingdom with orders to find the Avatar and bring him to the Earth King. It had been decided that it would be faster to fly there on Appa, so most of the soldiers had stayed behind to guard the village while Wang Lei came with them to guide them to where they needed to go.
Appa had grunted disapprovingly at having to take on another passenger- Wang Lei was now his eighth, and he wasn't exactly light. Still, Aang had assured him that it wouldn't be for long.
Eventually, as they flew north up the coast, a large natural bay came into view, with a few decently large rock formations inside it. Mounted high on a mountain overlooking this bay was a fortress. Aang could see tiny shapes watching them from atop its walls.
"Is the Earth King here?" Toph asked.
"Yes, he is."
"Is our father here?" Sokka asked.
"Yes, he is also here."
"Are the Kyoshi Warriors here?" Suki asked.
"They are here too."
Aang directed Appa over the walls and began to descend over the courtyard. There were quite a lot of men here, he realized; men in the green of the Earth Kingdom and quite a lot in the blue of the Water Tribes too. He saw the Earth King hurry out of one of the buildings to greet them, flanked by a pair of his generals.
"Avatar!" He called warmly. "It's good to see you all agai- what are they doing here?"
And he pointed at Zuko and Mai, who were dressed in the red of the Fire Nation. They both suddenly found themselves with a variety of sharp objects being pointed at them.
"Are these more prisoners?" One of the generals asked.
"No!" Aang said hurriedly. "These are defectors! They joined us a few weeks ago and have repeatedly proven where their loyalties lie since then."
The Earth King was only partially appeased by this statement, but he still waved off his soldiers. "I suppose this means welcome to the cause then. What are your names?"
"I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, and this is Mai."
"A member of the Fire Nation royal family, no less!" Clearly the generals could not believe their luck. "What caused you to turn against your father?"
"We saw them for what they really were. Now can we talk about something else?"
The Earth King was about to agree, but he never got the chance. "Sokka! Katara!" Hakoda had arrived. "Dad!" The two of them ran to hug him.
"How did you get out of Ba Sing Se?"
"There are a network of secret tunnels that run under the city, including under the palace. We used those, but we didn't get everyone out."
"No?"
"One member of the Council of Five was killed that day, and another captured. Many of our troops are gone, and most importantly you saw what happened to the inhabitants of the city itself."
"I heard stories."
"How has that affected the plan?"
"What plan?" Zuko and Mai echoed in unison.
"Are we sure we want to tell them the plan?" The general to Kuei's right asked suspiciously.
"Yes, we are," said Aang firmly. He turned to them. "In two weeks there is a solar eclipse. I'm sure you're both already familiar with what those do to a Firebender, and so we plan to use that date to invade and overthrow the Firelord."
"You know it's standard practice to increase the defences on Solar Eclipse days, right?"
"We do, which is why we do not intend to take them head on."
The other general picked up the spiel. "Before the Sack we estimated we could raise 20,000 men for the invasion, but that number has decreased drastically. We have basically all the manpower available to us coming to around 8,000 men stationed along the coast, including a couple of hundred northern waterbenders sent by Chief Arnook, the Kyoshi Warriors, and Hakoda's men."
That was quite a drastic reduction, which did not bode well.
"We sent messengers to the North Pole after the fall of Ba Sing Se, and given that we share a common enemy the Earth Kingdom has formalised a Triple Alliance with the Northern and Southern Water Tribes against the Fire Nation." Kuei said enthusiastically. "The North could not spare many men, but they have sent some."
Aang could only wonder why such an Alliance had not formed a hundred years ago, but he decided now was not the time for such questions. The general resumed his talk about the attack.
"We intend, therefore, to go around the Fire Nation defences. We will land under the cover of night, march around to the side of the Caldera, an earthbend our way in. Then, with any luck, we'll have got behind the defenders and we can use their own defences against them."
"And how do you intend to get there?" Sokka asked.
"I don't suppose you saw those rock formations in the middle of the bay as you flew in, did you?" The King said.
"Hidden under each of those is a Fire Nation warship. That is how we propose to get there."
They were interrupted by an enthusiastic shout.
"Suki!"
The Kyoshi warrior was engulfed in a hug from her sisters-in-arms, before they remembered their discipline and saluted awkwardly instead.
"It's fine," Suki said. "Come here!" and they went for the hug again, while the rest of Team Avatar laughed.
"What have you been doing since Ba Sing Se?" One of them asked her.
Suki proceeded to tell them, with frequent interruptions from Sokka to change details, and then even more interruptions from the others to correct his inaccurate details.
"So Azula is after you again?" One of them asked afterwards.
"We beat her once, you can do it again!" another put in.
"I don't know, she's clearly been training and she seems more desperate, somehow. In Itsuki she was seriously considering going one against twenty-seven for a minute."
"She is used to fighting at a numerical disadvantage, to be fair," Mai put in. She was after all the member of Team Avatar most familiar with Azula's fighting style. "And she's also relentless at the best of times. What's to say she doesn't find out about this?"
"That's a good point," Toph said. "What do we do if Azula finds out?"
"I say we don't give her the chance," Sokka said. "We should leave and only rejoin the invasion force on the day. That will throw her off the scent because she will be too busy tracking us."
"We've only just reunited with our father, and now we have to leave him again?" Katara asked.
"It will only be for two weeks, and then hopefully the war will be over," Sokka said.
"Fine," Aang said. "In that time I've got something for us to do. I made a mistake a long time ago, and we are going to fix it."