As Zuko advanced on Long Feng with the rest of Team Avatar, his initial reaction to what the man had just said was confusion- until he realized that now only six of them were walking forward.
He turned to see that Mai had halted. Her arms hung limply by her sides, and her face had a vacant expression. Her eyes were wide and unseeing.
"Mai?" He rounded on Long Feng. "What did you do?"
"The Dai Li are nothing if not pragmatic. Do you really think we would have the Princess of the Fire Nation and two of her friends in our possession, and not do something that might come in useful in the future with them?"
Suddenly Zuko flashed back to that night under Lake Laogai, and those creepy women he had seen staring blankly into space in a room- much like Mai was doing now. Then he remembered his father's victory parade, where the Firelord had mentioned the discovery of terrible things being done by the Earth Kingdom. Zuko put two and two together, and did not like what he found.
"You... brainwashed her."
"Well done, I did brainwash her!"
Long Feng addressed Mai.
"Kill these enemies of the Earth Kingdom." He turned back to Zuko. "Enjoy fighting your own!"
And with that he was gone.
Zuko barely had time to register what was happening before a gust of wind knocked him forwards; one of Mai's throwing knives whistled through the space his head had occupied a second before.
"Mai!" Zuko shouted. "You have to fight this!"
The only thing Mai seemed to be interested in fighting at that moment though was Team Avatar. Another volley of knives flew at Toph, who blocked them with a large wall of rock. Everyone was reluctant to attack Mai, who was supposed to be friendly, but some were more reluctant than others.
"Get after him!" Sokka shouted at the rest of the group. "Suki and I will deal with this."
"I'll stay here, thanks, replied Zuko, dodging another knife.
The rest of the group nodded and ran off.
"Mai, it's me! Zuko!"
Zuko saw a flicker of something in her eyes, but then she shook it off and charged at Suki, a knife in her hand. Suki blocked it with her war-fan, the two locking for a few seconds, before they separated and Mai threw her weapon. Suki raised her shield and it embedded itself there, quivering. Sokka charged in with his war-club, but was forced to duck as a knife missed his face by inches.
"Mai! Listen to me!" Zuko shouted desperately. He circled the fight, trying to bring himself to get involved somehow. "This isn't you!"
It seemed to have no effect, as Mai continued duelling with Suki, their blades moving furiously.
"What's going on?" a voice said. Zuko turned around to find Jet.
"Jet! Trust me, it's not what it looks like!" said Zuko, dodging a knife thrust as he did so.
"Really. Because it looks like one of your Fire Nation friends has turned on you and is currently trying to kill you." He drew his hook-swords. "Need any help with that?"
"She's been brainwashed!" Zuko said. "The Dai Li do it to their prisoners, Long Feng spoke a sentence and she turned on us!"
Zuko could see the cogs turning in Jet's head, first as he had to compute actually believing a Firebender and then having to deal with what that Firebender was actually saying. A look of horror came over his face.
"What was the phrase he used to turn her?" he asked.
"The Earth King invites you to Lake Laogai."
Immediately, Jet snapped to attention, the same vacant expression on his face that had been on Mai's.
"Great, now Jet's been brainwashed too. Uh, snap out of it?"
Jet shook his head, expression returning to his face. "I was brainwashed too, wasn't I?"
Zuko could only nod.
However, he had taken his attention away from Mai for too long; he heard Suki's shout of warning, and turned to see it coming, but could not get out of the way in time.
One of Mai's throwing knives embedded itself in his leg. Zuko shouted in pain, clutching the limb and sinking to the floor.
"Zuko?"
The light returned to Mai's eyes, as the sight of Zuko getting stabbed allowed her to break through the brainwashing. "Oh Agni, are you alright? I'm so sorry! I don't know what happened."
Zuko only smiled at her. "You have nothing to apologise for. As far as I'm concerned, Long Feng did this, not you. I'm just glad to have you back."
He grimaced.
"But of course I'm not alright, I've just been stabbed!"
Katara, Toph and Aang ran through the maze of passageways that ran through the palace, with Toph in the lead. She was tracking Long Feng using her seismic sense, and as they ran Aang was immensely grateful for it. Whatever trickery the Dai Li might try, it would be that much harder with Toph here.
"He's down there!" Toph shouted. "But he has a lot of friends there!"
"Dai Li agents."
They burst through the door, and were confronted by about 25 agents of the Dai Li. They were all in battle stance.
"We have you now, you rat-snake!"
"My agents in this room with us right now would disagree."
"Then let's prove them wrong."
The three benders sprung into action. Aang blasted a few of them into a nearby wall, knocking them out, while Katara froze her water around one of their waists, locking his arms in place to prevent him from earthbending and smashing him into his colleagues several times. Eventually, the ice shattered under the strain of one of these impacts and Katara swiftly recalled it to her. Toph, meanwhile, was fighting five of them at the same time, and completely outclassing them. She used a pillar of rock to knock one of them out, entombed another in the floor with only his head visible, and turned another's rock hand against him, latching it on to his face as he staggered around trying to pry it off.
Then, when all the Dai Li agents were disposed of, they looked around- and realized Long Feng was gone again.
"Where is he?"
Toph immediately took the lead again. "He went that way!"
Long Feng sprinted down the corridor, trying to stay ahead of the Avatar and his companions. That Earthbender of theirs was good, but he knew everything about this palace. He turned a corner to see two figures ahead of him. One of them had two hook swords, and the other he recognised as that friend of Azula he had directed to attack the Avatar's friends just now.
Before Long Feng could react, or ask if they were dead, he suddenly found his sleeve pinned to the wall by a throwing knife.
"What is the meaning of this? The Earth King invites you to Lake Laogai!"
Nothing happened. The two of them began to walk towards him. How was the brainwashing not working?
"You made me stab my boyfriend," the girl said dangerously. "You hijacked my mind and made me do things I would never have done otherwise. You have done the same to thousands of others."
"The Earth King invites you to Lake Laogai! The Earth King invites you to Lake Laogai! What's happening?" Long Feng was beginning to panic, and in desperation he flung a rock at them. They easily dodged it.
"What's the matter, your mind games not working?" The boy taunted him.
"The Air nomads used to have a policy of non-violence and held that all life was sacred. I'm sure the Avatar upholds this tradition to this day. But just because I am on his side does not mean you will find me so merciful."
Aang, Katara and Toph clattered around the corner to find Mai and Jet standing there, fiddling about with their ears.
"Are you still brainwashed?" Katara asked suspiciously.
"No, I'm not."
"She's telling the truth."
"Where's Long Feng?"
"He's no longer a problem. Come with us, something's happened to Zuko."
Mai filled them in about the events of the fight as they had been told to her, up to when she had stabbed Zuko and discovered that Jet, too, had been brainwashed.
"Suki was able to provide initial medical care to his leg, but we need you to do your water healing and soon."
They found Zuko leant against a pillar, his leg outstretched in front of him and a a pained expression on his face.
"Are you OK?" Aang asked, as Katara knelt next to him and bent the water out of her pouch. She held it over the wound and concentrated. The water began to glow, and Zuko's expression eased.
"Can you walk?"
I'll try."
Zuko struggled to his feet, and almost fell over again immediately. Mai and Sokka grabbed him under his arms and helped him limp.
"What do we do now?"
"I think we should leave Ba Sing Se now," Mai suggested.
"Why?"
"We came here to defeat the Dai Li, and we've done that. There's nothing here for us any more."
"Where to next then?"
"There will presumably be a big Fire Nation presence over here looking for us after we've been sighted in Ba sing Se, as well as in the Earth Kingdom more generally." Sokka said. "So I say we go to the last place they would expect to look for us."
He looked around.
"Who fancies a trip to the Fire Nation?"