Chapter 8: Back On Track
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Sirens blared as the group of friends all looked at each other, wondering what they should do. It was pretty obvious that they needed to get out of there, but it would take too long for them all to get back up into the vent before they were caught. Aang looked around quickly, searching for anything that could get them out of there without having to fight, but there was nothing short of jumping out of the building. He could survive such a fall, but his friends wouldn't be able to, and there wasn't enough time to carry them all out of there one at a time.
"Looks like we're going to have to fight," he told them as he pulled out his dagger and turned it into a sword. They all nodded, not very happy with the situation they found themselves in, but they also know that they didn't have any other choice at this point.
Walking over to the door, he motioned for them to follow him as he opened it and started running down the hallway. Just as he suspected, a group of nearby soldiers had come running from their station, ready to apprehend the intruders with any force necessary.
"There!" one soldier shouted. "Those are the intruders! Don't let them leave here alive!" The soldiers grunted in agreement and ran even faster towards the group, ready for a fight. What they hadn't been ready for was a group full of Master spies, ones who had spent their whole lives training to fight. Especially Aang, who came from the deadliest agency in the world. Within a minute, the group had made short work of them as they ran, knowing that if they stopped running, they would likely be cut down.
"Come on guys!" Aang called over his shoulder as he took a right down a long hallway. "We're getting out of here!"
Sokka panted as he ran, not having had to run so much in a while. "Can we slow down for a second? I'm feeling a little woozy."
Toph punched him hard in the shoulder, making him yelp. "We don't have time to slow down, Snoozles! We need to get out of here!" Sokka didn't complain again.
Taking a sharp left, Aang led the way and was relieved to see what appeared to be the lobby of the building. "We're almost out of here, guys!" he told them before running as fast as he could. They were almost there. If they could just make it out the door…
Just as everyone entered the lobby, all the doors closed around them, making everyone surprised as they realized there was no other way out. The robotic female voice came over the speakers again. "Building on lockdown. No one may leave until the threat has been neutralized."
Sokka gulped as he looked at his friends. "That means us, doesn't it?"
Katara would have rolled her eyes at her brother's stupidity if a large group of guards hadn't come from the door opposite to them, wielding everything from pistols to electric batons. "Well, well, what do we have here?" the leader of the group taunted them. "If it isn't the intruders. Looks like we're going to have some fun tonight, aren't we boys?" The soldiers cheered behind him as he grinned and looked back to the group. "Now why would you people be breaking into our humble tower? We're not doing anything wrong." Sarcasm dripped from his voice.
"Not doing anything wrong, huh? You call trying to obliterate the world so you can start all over 'not doing anything wrong'?" Katara asked incredulously.
He just shrugged, clearly not caring about what she was accusing him of. "We're not doing that, our boss is. We get paid to protect this place and keep people like you out of it. And that's exactly what we're going to do." He turned and looked back at his soldiers. "Have at 'em, boys!" The soldiers cheered and rushed forward, ready for a slaughter.
What they hadn't expected was that they would be the slaughter.
Aang didn't hesitate and ran straight into the small army of soldiers, cutting them down so quickly that they couldn't see him. After his friends snapped out of their shock at how quickly he jumped into the fight, they joined him and fought with everything they had, knowing that if they didn't make it out of this, there would be no one to save the world in time.
Sokka pulled out his sword and fought two soldiers who attempted to stab him, deflecting their blows before he kicked one in the shin and hit the other hard on the head with the pommel of his sword and quickly taking their lives with a quick slice of his blade. Even though his fear was at an all time high, he had never felt so alive as he was right now. All of his other agency missions had never been quite like this. He wasn't sadistic, but he was sort of enjoying this. The adrenaline rush he got from fighting was making him feel invincible as he fought.
It proved to be a hindrance, however, as his confidence made him forget to check his back. Fortunately for him, Toph could sense the soldier trying to get him from behind and sent some Earth at him in the shape of a dagger, lodging it in his heart as he was sent back into a wall.
"Watch your back, Snoozles!" she yelled over the noise as she resumed fighting. "I'm not always going to be able to save your ass, so you gotta be able to save your own ass!"
Sokka smiled sheepishly when he realized his guard had gone partially down and made a mental note to watch his back as he was told. The fight was going well for them. Suki and Zuko were working together, Suki with her newly acquired fan pummeling soldiers to a crisp while Zuko would burn them to a crisp.
Katara and Aang stood back to back, taking turns killing the soldiers who were dumb enough to dare coming up to them. Aang with a swing of his sword and some bending while Katara would slice at them with the sword of ice she had made. After a little while of fighting, Aang could see that the group was growing rapidly tired, and knew he had to do something to end this fight quickly.
Taking a deep breath, he took his blade and concentrated some electricity into it before stabbing it into the ground, sending an electric shockwave that fried most of the enemies that were left. By the time the dust had settled, there was only one soldier left. The one Aang knew they would need to get out of there and had chosen to spare him for the time being: The malicious leader.
He just stood there in shock, staring disbelievingly at the scattered ashes that had once been his comrades. Never once in his life did he think that he would come across such a powerful group, but as they walked up to him, he knew that he had been wrong to think that he would survive.
Aang grabbed him by the collar and brought him over to the control panel, making sure to hold his sword against his neck. "Now, you're going to open this door and let us walk out. If you do anything else, I will kill you and we'll get out anyway. Okay?" The leader nodded quickly, fear shining in his eyes. "Good. Do it," he commanded. The soldier finally snapped out of his fearful daze and got to work, slowly deactivating all of the traps in the building. Once he was done, the doors opened, revealing their way out. "Thank you," Aang told him sincerely before he knocked him out with the pommel of his sword.
"Come on, we need to get out of here!" Katara yelled at her teammates as she started running out with them not far behind. They finally got out the door and sighed in relief just as a group of soldiers came out of the shadows and aimed their guns at them, two apcs with machine guns attached appearing behind them for back up.
"Oh come on!" Sokka whined as they all got into a defensive position. One soldier climbed out of the apc and made their way to the front, making Zuko look closely at the soldier. Something seemed familiar about the way this person walked. They strode towards them with utmost confidence, like they feared absolutely nothing and knew that nothing could touch them. He had only seen that kind of walk from one person. It couldn't be… he thought worriedly.
His suspicions were confirmed when the soldier took their helmet off, revealing themself to be...
"Azula," Zuko growled, surprised yet also not surprised to see that she was behind this plan to end the world. If there was one thing he knew about his sister, it was that she cared for no one but herself.
"There you are, Zuzu!" she exclaimed with a twisted smile, making Zuko get more angry as he realized that she was enjoying having him at gunpoint. "Took you long enough to get here."
Zuko shook his head in disbelief at her. "Why are you doing this, Azula? What good will it do for you to rule over a world that doesn't have any people left to rule?"
She simply laughed, making Zuko even more angry before he calmed himself down. He knew she was trying to get him angry to make him mess up, and he wouldn't allow her the privilege. "You think I'm doing this for myself?" She paused when he looked at her disbelievingly. "Okay, I might be doing it for myself as well, but I won't rule over this world until Father passes."
"What do you mean-" Then it hit Zuko like a ton of bricks. "Father is the one behind all of this?" he asked incredulously, knowing he shouldn't be too surprised, but being surprised all the same.
Azula shrugged and looked at her nails uninterestedly. "Yes. Does it matter? You could have joined us if you hadn't been such a weakling, but Uncle Iroh got to you. He made you weak, and now Father has deemed that you aren't fit to rule with us."
A low growl escaped his throat, making Azula smirk before he stopped himself. She was a master manipulator, and she knew just where to get him to lose control. Taking a deep breath, he shook his head at her. "I should have seen this coming, but somehow I didn't."
"You really should have," Azula agreed with a wicked grin. "After all, you would never do this. You're too soft to go through with such a thing. That's why Father chose me to carry out his plans."
Aang saw that this conversation wasn't going to go anywhere, so he decided to do something about it. Raising a hand to the air, he summoned a small thundercloud and threw the hand down, frying several of the guards and kicking up a large cloud of dust.
"Get them!" Azula roared over her coughing. His teammates covered their mouths and activated their camouflage before running away, knowing that if they stuck around for too long, they would die. They ran as fast as they could, aiming for the gate that they had come in. Fortunately for them, one of the soldiers had left it down for them.
"Come on!" Aang whispered loudly to them as even more sirens started blaring. "We need to get back to the safehouse!"
No one argued with him as they all got out of the fence and started running for the base, not daring to look back as the fortress became a frenzy of soldiers looking for them. Before long, they were finally back at the safehouse. Once they were all inside, Aang closed the door behind him and let out a sigh of relief.
"Well, at least we made it out of there," Suki attempted to point out the bright side of things.
Sokka nodded, still breathing heavily from their long run. "Yeah, but now we have to worry about the leader of an agency and his insane daughter coming after us. How do we know that they won't find our base? They might already know where our base is!"
Katara shook her head. "No, there's no way, Sokka. They don't have the technology to be able to find it. Only the Winds have technology that can detect our equipment. Right, Aang?" she asked as she turned to look at her love.
"Right," he agreed as he sat down at the table in the kitchen, feeling his adrenaline quickly leave him and tiredness take its place. "The only reason why we have that technology is because we've made sure to be one step ahead of everyone at all times in case anything ever happened." He looked over to Zuko who looked more than a little annoyed. "Are you okay, Zuko?"
Zuko finally snapped out of his thoughts and nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm just a little surprised," he admitted. "I knew my sister could be crazy sometimes, but I didn't think that she or my father would be crazy enough to try something like this."
Aang smiled apologetically at him, not really knowing what to say. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. But we don't have any other choice now. They'll have to be taken down if we want to save the world." Then a thought came to mind. "If your father runs the agency, how do your people not know that he's not there."
After a moment of thought, Zuko simply shrugged. "He's there most of the time, but every once in a while, he'll go away on his 'business trips' as he calls it and won't come back for a week or two. I guess this is where he would go."
"Yeah, I guess so," Aang nodded in agreement thoughtfully. Looking around the room, he could almost see the tension that was between the four agents, reminding him of the feeling that he had gotten earlier. "Okay, what's going on with you guys?" he asked seriously.
Sokka gulped a little. "What do you mean?"
Katara decided to speak up. "Sokka, don't try to play games right now," she chided him. "You all are acting weird, and if we're going to get this mission done, we can't have anything that might throw us off."
Everyone was silent for a second before Suki decided to talk.
"Fine. There's been… kind of a mix up," she admitted, her eyes glued to her feet to try to hide her embarrassment.
Aang raised a brow at her. "What do you mean? What kind of mixup?"
The group again lapsed into a strange silence, making both Aang and Katara wonder what could get them all to be so anxious and quiet.
"Guys," Katara started seriously. "If we don't know what the problem is, we can't fix it. And we need to fix it, because we can't have anything holding us back while we're trying to complete this mission and make it out alive."
Silence overtook the room for a good few moments before Toph couldn't take it anymore.
"I like Snoozles but I also like Sourpuss," she told Katara, taking her by surprise. "Snoozles likes me, but he also likes Fan Girl. Fan Girl likes Snoozles and Sourpuss. Sourpuss likes Fan Girl and Me."
"Sourpuss?"
"Fangirl?"
Zuko and Suki asked at the same time incredulously. Toph would have laughed a little had the situation not been so serious. Normally she would be the one to try to ease the tensions by making fun of someone further, but now was unfortunately not the time.
Katara and Aang tried to process this for a few moments, but found that all they could think about for the moment were the nicknames that Toph had selected for the group. "Sourpuss and Fangirl?" they asked Toph at the same time.
Toph rolled her eyes and kicked her feet up on the table, revealing her horribly bruised feet. "Focus here Twinkle toes and Sugar Queen. We need to figure this out."
"What's there to figure out?" Sokka asked stupidly. Everyone glared at him. "What?" he questioned them shrilly, feeling attacked by their gazes of disbelief.
Katara rolled her eyes at her brother and decided she had enough. Standing up, she looked them all in the eye with the most serious and frustrated look she ever had, making them all worry that she might try to beat them up. "Okay, you guys obviously have some issues to work out, so go work it out!" she ordered while pointing to the living room. "You have one hour to figure this out, or we'll decide who gets to be with who for you."
"You can't do that," Sokka argued with a cross look on his face.
"I can when you all are acting like children despite being adults!" she exclaimed in obvious annoyance. "Now go! Sort this out, or we'll sort it out for you!" The anger in her voice was enough to make her teammates run for the living room as they all sat down and began talking. Smirking a little, she looked over to Aang who was looking at her dreamily. "What?"
He snapped out of his stupor and shook his head. "Sorry, but that was… kind of hot," he admitted with a blush, making her smile.
Scooting closer, she smiled and leaned into his ear. "We've got an hour for them to figure it out. How about we go upstairs and have some more alone time?"
"Sounds good to me," he grinned and laughed as she grabbed his hand and dragged him upstairs. Meanwhile, the four friends were trying to figure things out, knowing that this needed to be settled once and for all.
"How did we even get in this mess in the first place?" Sokka wondered as he laid back in his recliner that he had insisted on keeping.
"You can thank Twinkle toes and Sugar Queen for that, Snoozles," Toph snorted while laying back against it with him. "But it doesn't matter now. What matters is that we figure this out." She 'looked' at Zuko. "So, to make things simpler, whoever you have stronger feelings for is who you should be with. Who do you like more, Sourpuss?" Toph asked him bluntly, not sure whether or not she wanted him to say her.
He thought about it and shrugged. "I know I still love Suki, but I know that I like you," he sighed. "But I guess love is stronger than 'like', so I guess Suki."
Toph registered that for a moment and realized that she was okay with that. If there was one thing Toph hated, it was when things got complex, and Sokka was far from complex. He was the most simple guy she had ever met. Nodding slowly, she turned to Suki. "What about you, Fan Girl?"
Suki thought about it for a few moments, still not really sure. She really liked Zuko, but she also liked Sokka. But, as she thought about it, she knew Zuko more and had more in common with him. Besides, she didn't really know if she could handle Sokka's stupidity, so she made her decision. "I like Zuko more."
Sokka was both a little relieved and disappointed, but he shrugged and decided to just go with it. "And I like Toph more."
"Okay, then it's settled. Nothing's changing, and we're all done with this. Agreed?" she asked all of them. They nodded, but then remembered that they couldn't see it.
"Agreed," they said perfectly in sync.
"Good," she sighed in relief, finally feeling at peace from their stupid… She didn't even know what to call it. "Now, let's go tell Sugar Queen and Twinkle Toes that we're done."
Sokka looked over and was surprised to see them not there, thinking that they would be watching them like hawks. "Where did they go?"
Toph read her surroundings and found them in Katara's room, heavily making out. At the rate they were going, if no one stopped them, they would do something that Sokka would kill Aang for. "They're… busy. I'll be right back," she promised before she ran quickly upstairs, leaving everyone in confusion.
Toph picked up her pace before she reached Katara's room, knowing that it was getting closer and closer to the point where they would lose control of themselves. "Katara? Aang?"
Katara and Aang stopped kissing when they heard Toph call them. By their actual names. They knew something was up if Toph was saying their names. With one last kiss, they got up from the bed and walked over to the door, finding Toph with a disgusted look on her face.
"What's up, Toph?" Aang asked curiously, wondering what would make her say their actual names.
"We figured it all out, so you guys can come back now," Toph told them.
Aang and Katara looked at each other, clearly not wanting to be done with their 'alone time' just yet. "Um, okay. We'll be down in a few minutes," Katara promised before she tried to close the door, but Toph stuck her foot in, making it stay open.
"You two need to come down here," Toph insisted. "If you two had any more time kissing each other, you would have…" she trailed off, not wanting to say it but knowing that they had to hear it.
"Oh…" they both blushed heavily as they finally realized what she was hinting at, looking at each other nervously. They would have done… that. Did they want to do that? Sokka and Toph had done it, and considering that they continued to do it the day after, she could only assume that it felt good. Katara shook her head at herself. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about having sex. That would be for later when there wasn't a threat against the world. "Right," she finally composed herself. "Let's go."
Aang nodded in agreement and they all went back downstairs to find Suki and Zuko cuddled up together on the couch while Sokka waited for Toph to take a seat next to him on the couch he was now occupying. Aang and Katara decided to sit on the floor, knowing that if Katara sat on his lap in the recliner, it likely wouldn't end well.
"Okay, now that you guys worked out your issues, we need to figure out what to do," Aang told them as he thought about their situation. "We need to get back in there and destroy that machine, but how are going to be able to get in without anyone knowing?"
Sokka looked at him in disbelief. "We just need to use our suits again. No one will be able to see us, so if no one bumps into us, we'll be fine."
Aang nodded slowly. "Yeah, but I'm talking about getting in there. I doubt that the guards let that section of the fence stay. We'll need another way to get in." He thought about it for a moment when he realized something. "Wait, I'm an airbender!"
Everyone looked at him in confusion. "Yeah, so?" Sokka questioned curiously.
Katara rolled her eyes at him, having figured out what Aang was getting at. "He can lift us over the fence with his airbending, Sokka."
"Oh," Sokka said in understanding before he motioned for Aang to continue.
"Anyway," Aang laughed a little. "If we can make a distraction to keep most of the guards occupied, then I can get everyone in and shut this thing down." He looked over to Toph and smiled a little as an idea came to mind. "Hey Toph, how would you like to be our distraction?"
A wolfish grin spread over her face as she cracked her knuckles. "I'd love to, Twinkle Toes." Aang grinned back and nodded before he returned his attention to the rest of the group as he took out his schematics of the place.
"Okay, so here's the plan. Over here on the East side of the fortress, there's a large amount of rocks that Toph can use to cause a diversion. While she distracts the soldiers, we'll sneak in through the West entrance and make our way inside. You can get yourself inside, right Toph?" Toph nodded. "Good. We're going to need you when we destroy the machine."
"Sweetness," Toph smirked and leaned back with her hands behind her head.
"What about my Father and Sister?" Zuko spoke up.
Aang thought about it for a moment, not really sure what to do. On one hand, he wanted to take them alive and bring them back to their agency to be tried for betraying them, but on the other, he knew just how dangerous they could be. It would probably be better if they just killed them, he decided.
"When we see them there, we can try to take them alive if you want, but I know they're not going to let us take them in. They're probably going to fight until they die."
Zuko pondered this for a few moments. Of course he was a little hesitant. Even if they were evil, they were his family. He shook his head at himself. They obviously wouldn't hesitate to kill him, so why should he? "No, they need to go down. If we took them alive, they would just escape. They need to die," he told Aang confidently.
Aang nodded in acknowledgement. "Okay then, if you say so." He looked at all of his teammates around the circle. "We're only going to get one shot at this, so let's make this count. Are you guys ready?" They all nodded. "Good. Get your gear and meet me by the door. This ends tonight."
Everyone got up to get ready, knowing they would need to be well-prepared for such a mission. Aang sighed a little as he thought about all that had happened in the past few days. He certainly hadn't been expecting to have to go through all of this, but it was worth it since he got to meet Katara. Even if he died tonight, he would die happy, knowing that she loved him as he loved her.
"Hey, are you okay?" she asked worriedly.
He nodded with a small smile, touched by her concern. "I'm fine. Just a little worried," he admitted.
She smiled and kissed his cheek. "Hey, don't worry about it. We're going to be just fine. Okay?" He was silent for a moment before he nodded again. "Good. Now come on. We've got a world to save." Taking his hand, she led the way over to the door and they waited for their friends to get there. Before long, they were all suited up and ready to go, though not without the battle jitters that had invaded their systems.
"Okay guys," Katara started as she interlaced her fingers with Aang's. "Here's the deal. We all know the plan, and we all know what we need to do. Are you guys ready?"
They all nodded, ready to go through with their mission, whether they lived or died.
"Good. Let's go!" she ordered and walked out the door. Sokka rolled his eyes at his sister. He would have made a comment about how bossy she was, but he knew now wasn't the time. Taking a deep breath, they all followed their leaders and made their way back to the base, knowing that this might be their last night.
Aang admired the beautiful night sky as he waited for Toph to get into position. Although he was nervous, he was also excited. This was their chance to save the world. Even if he had never expected to have to save it from the leader of one of the four agencies.
"Alright, Twinkle Toes. I'm in position," Toph told him over the earpiece.
"Good. Go ahead whenever you're ready," he instructed. Before long, there was a loud sound as a landslide of Earth took out a large section of the East part of the fortress. Looking at it, Aang was relieved to see most of the guards run off towards the diversion, giving them the perfect opportunity to sneak in.
"Showtime," he told his friends who nodded in response. Running over to the gate, they activated their camouflage and stood in a line, each person getting picked up by Aang and carrying them over the fence. Before long, they were all in there and followed Aang as he led the way towards the secret bunker that was near the back of the fortress. It was where the storm machine was kept, and where their mission would be completed, one way or another.
They crept their way through the grounds, expecting to see at least some guards, but most of them had moved to check out their diversion.
"Twinkle toes!" a voice whispered from his right. He looked toward the voice and recognized Toph's outline.
"Good. You made it," he sighed in relief. "Good job, by the way. You really made a mess over there."
She smirked smugly. "You know I did. Now come on, we've got a doomsday device to destroy!" she whisper-cheered. Aang laughed a little and nodded before leading them over to the spot that he had seen on the schematics. There appeared to be no entrance, but Aang knew better. Looking around, he noticed a tree stump that was somewhat out of place, as it was the stump of an oak tree. He shook his head at his enemies. They clearly weren't that smart if they thought professional spies wouldn't think of that. Taking a deep breath, he made his way over to the stump and flipped it open, revealing a stair ladder that led down into the bunker.
"Come on, guys," he gestured for them to follow him as he started climbing in. Before long, they were all inside and gasped in amazement as they witnessed the machine they had to destroy. It was huge. Spanning almost the size of the bunker, it appeared like any other machine that Aang had seen, but he could tell there was something different about it. It seemed to hum with power. Was it… was it charging up?
He shook his head. It didn't matter if it was charging up. All that mattered was that this thing got destroyed, and that was exactly what they were going to do. Leading the way, they made their path down to the machine, occasionally stopping to take out a guard and hide the body. Before long, they reached the platform that the machine was on, making Aang's mind think that something was up. It was easy getting to the machine. A little too easy. Almost like it was…
"Finally. You all took forever to get here," a voice said from behind them. They looked up behind them to see Azula, Ozai, and a group of soldiers behind them on the catwalk, peering down at them with malicious eyes. "And to think, I thought that you were Master spies," she mocked.
Zuko growled at her. "At least we aren't traitors. We didn't betray our agency, our family."
Azula clucked disappointedly at him. "Oh, Zuzu. Will you ever learn? Father and I never cared for you, and you shouldn't have cared for us. You are weak, just like Iroh. Now you and your friends will die, and no one will stop us from ruling the world."
"You're going down, Azula," Zuko threatened as he ignited his gauntlets with fire.
She smiled evilly and pointed at them. "Soldiers! Leave none alive!"