Disclaimer: I own nothing, save my OCs.

Chapter Four

Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom- Outer Ring

Banners snapping in the breeze, Second Company swarmed upon the heights in a wave of tan-green, the waning sunlight glinting off the polished steel of their weapons. Astride his mount, faithful Ging, Jinn organized their deployment; riding amongst them, and directing with pointed jian, he arrayed his platoons in a long line of battle to cover the breadth of the ridge and shield his retreating columns. The benders among them threw up earthen breastworks for their comrades in well-practiced precision.

Wheeling about on Ging, he faced the rear and watched his men dart in and out of the foliage, making for the gate. On the dirt road, kicking up a cloud of dust, was his caravan of supply wagons. Glancing to the sky, he cursed the dry weather: without the damp to keep the dust down, the brown clouds broadcast the wagons' location across the entire metropolis.

Anxiously, he turned his eyes back to the gate leading to the Mid-Ring and saw…nothing. Since abandoning all pretense of discretion, his movements had been blatant- someone had to have noted them. The fact that they had not moved to counter his maneuvers- at least, not in any way he could discern- worried him.

With this thought in mind, he urged Ging onwards towards the rocky outcrop of boulders where his officers had made headquarters in order to prepare his men.

Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom- Middle Ring

The citizens of Ba Sing Se scattered, clearing the road and virtually pressing themselves against the walls of the buildings flanking the wide boulevard leading to the main gate. Through their midst marched the largest concentration of force the Dai Li had ever exhibited. One or two of the mute, imposing agents alone were enough to make anyone, no matter how stalwart, nervous. The sight of hundreds marching as one in perfectly straight columns of eight was absolutely terrifying. At their head, in stark contrast to the mold-made agents, were two, face-painted, Kyoshi Warriors.

Or, at least they seemed to be.

Ty Lee watched the people scattering before them, unnerved. Her normal cheery smile had vanished, unused to being the target of Azula's ire. The looks of obvious fear she was getting weren't helping. She closed ranks with Mai, leaning in and whispering through closed teeth, "Okay. This is really weird."

Mai sighed softly, which Ty Lee knew to be tantamount to a face-palm for her. "No Ty Lee. For us, traveling with Azula, that's normal. What you pulled back there, that was weird."

Ty Lee did a double-take, staring at her best friend.

Sensing no reply forthcoming, Mai forged on. "What you did back there? That was insane! You could have gotten yourself killed!" she hissed, with an edge of urgency evident in her normally-inscrutable voice.

"Oh, don't be silly, Mai!" Ty Lee urged her friend. "You saw him! He couldn't have done anything to me if he'd wanted to. Besides," she said, becoming her consummate self again, "he was kinda cute."

This was clearly not what Mai had wanted to hear. "Not him, Ty Lee. Azula! You've seen her temper, what she can do. You need to be careful: she is dangerous."

Ty Lee could only shake her head, albeit with the slightest of hesitation. "That's ridiculous, Mai. Its Azula! She wouldn't hurt either of us! She couldn't! I mean, we've been best friends for years!" she concluded as if that settled the matter, even though, deep inside, she was not as sure as she'd been that morning.

Mai said nothing, merely turned away to survey the massive gate ahead as though she were able to peer right through it. Slowly, it began to grate open.

"Well," she said, completely normal again, "lets get this over with."

Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom- Outer Ring

Jinn felt rather than heard the towering gate opening in the distance, its laborious movement sending tremors through the ground beneath his bare feet as though it were a distant earthquake.

"They're coming," he said simply, more a statement than anything else, as most of his men had felt the earth's unrest and those who had not were soon able to discern the distant portal's parting with their naked eyes.

As the gate completed its movement, a deathly silence reigned, the only sound being the snapping of the company banners in the restless breeze that came as a presage to the coming upheaval. For that endless moment, the men waited anxiously, with bated breath, for their foe to appear.

And then they did. The earth fairly shuddered under the even, measured, foot-falls of the Dai Li that poured from the gate in a veritable flood. Fifty…one hundred…one-fifty…two hundred…two hundred-fifty at least swept forth from the gate on swift feet and in absolute silence. Even Jinn, who had faced the most fearsome Fire Nation warriors on the battlefield, could not deny that it was an intimidating sight to behold.

But intimidation was no protection from death. "Archers, nock!" he cried. In one, well-practiced motion, each of his non-benders drew a single, meticulously-crafted arrow and laid it across the thick staves of their war bows.

"Stretch!" he called as the enemy closed to effective range and near a hundred bow strings were pulled back to the anchor point.

With a practiced eye, he watched the advance as it surged closer, and closer, and closer still until… "Loose!"

A hundred shafts soared skyward, propelled by dozens of pounds of potential energy released from the powerful yew longbows of the archers. Like a streaking rain, the arrows fell upon the agents with deadly effect, many finding a target. Dozens of agents dropped; even those who managed to throw up shields found their efforts in vain as the iron-tipped bodkins sliced through the earth as though it were water.

No sooner had the first volley hit home was another airborne, the practiced archers adjusting their aim to the decreased range and still more agents dropped, albeit less than before.

Jinn watched in grim satisfaction as his bowmen took their toll. Predictably, the Dai Li succumbed to natural instinct by increasing the spacing between themselves, thereby breaking up their powerful formation and interrupting the force of the charge.

They had ceded the advantage to him and his men and they would pay for it.

Only a pitiful fifty yards away now, Jinn and the Earthbenders leapt into action against the Dai Li, who suddenly seemed far less unstoppable than they had been at the start of the assault. With sure motions, Jinn and his fellows became the equivalent of artillery pieces, launching immense boulders that smashed into whoever lay in their path, casting them roughly aside like so many ragdolls.

The Dai Li saw fit to respond in kind and Jinn's men saw their first casualties of what would doubtless be many that day. For whatever else they were, the agents were superb Earthbenders. Their stony gauntlets came in a hail, peppering the ground and the soldiers' barriers with an intense barrage. All along the line, men dropped.

The Earthbenders from Second Company quickly collapsed back into the works as their footmen comrades drew swords and leveled pikes. Then the wave hit.

The force of the charge bent Jinn's perilously thin line, but did not break it. Their harassing fire had robbed the assault of its momentum and given the outnumbered defenders a fighting chance.

"Hold them! Stand firm!" Jinn bellowed as she strode along the line, exhorting his men to the fray, adding his own blade to the defense wherever he saw it pressed. Hacking, slashing, smashing, and stabbing, the two sides tore into each-other with a bloodthirsty, reckless abandon.

Dozens on both sides fell to the steel and stone as the clamor of arms built to a climax. Without warning, then, a gaping maw opened in the earth, swallowing up a half-dozen of the Company's soldiers, holing the center of his line. Out of the pit emerged an octave of hard-bitten and determined agents who made directly for the now-exposed command post.

Pulling his sword from the body of his latest adversary, Jinn started off in that direction to help repel this newest breakthrough but, before taking a half-dozen paces, he was confronted by a Dai Li officer wielding a pair of wicked-looking swords.

Back-peddling and throwing up an earthen shield, Jinn watched as a mighty stroke of the swords sliced through his hasty defense, encompassing where his head had been just seconds ago. Grimly, he swept up his own sword and went on the offensive with a combination of bending and sword-work. The agent, his grin feral, matched him stroke for stroke. He parried Jinn's thrust with one sword and with a lightning twist of his arm, struck Jinn a blow in the head with the hilt of his second sword.

Head spinning, Jinn fell heavily to the ground, his jian clattering some feet away. Disoriented, he hardly registered the agent standing over him and barely managed to roll out of the sword's trajectory as it arced towards his head. He grasped for his dagger, only to have his hand crushed beneath the agent's foot. Crying out in pain, and acting more on instinct than anything else, he kicked out with his feet and felt them connect.

The agent gave a howl and the weight was suddenly gone from his hand. Looking up from the ground, he saw the agent several paces back, down on one knee and curled over in a position that indicated precisely what Jinn's feet had struck. Pure hatred reflected in the agent's eyes as he mastered the pain and rose. Gripping tightly both swords, the agent came on like a charging elephant-bull…and, in one smooth motion, Jinn drew his dagger with his good hand and threw.

As it struck its target, the man toppled as he had lived: in silence.

Having collected his sword first, Jinn quickly rolled the corpse over to retrieve his knife and replaced it in its sheath. Well, he thought, you can't always win fighting the way you're expected to. His…unorthodox maneuver was proof enough of that.

Gripping his jian one-handedly, he turned towards the center again expecting impending disaster. Instead of a fallen banner surrounded by bodies in light green armor, the flag still flew. All around were the crumpled bodies of Dai Li agents. Beside the flag, breathing heavily, stood Captain Gee, the commander of Second Company, and a few of his men.

Sprinting the last dozen or so yards, he drew up next to Gee, who sketched a salute. "You look like hell, Commander. Don't tell me one of these jokers got the best of you."

Jinn let out a bark of laughter. "Ha! Not a chance. Just catching my breath, that's all."

"Well, if you've got it back now, sir, what do you say we put these bastards back on their heels?"

Jinn grinned shortly. "Follow my lead, Captain."

Together, the two leapt forward, their bending seamlessly combining to create a veritable hail of rock and earth, felling a dozen agents and giving the rest pause. Sensing the turning point, the ragged survivors of Second Company summoned up their last reserves of energy and advanced.

This last push proved too more for the exhausted Dai Li and, at last, they broke. Without any of the cohesion that made them famous, they scattered and fled, leaving over a hundred-fifty of their comrades to litter the ground.

The survivors on the line, no more than forty men, let out a ragged cheer and Jinn allowed himself to join in. They jeered their vanquished foes as they fled…but only so long as it took the next wave to appear from the gate.

Shaken, Jinn and Gee looked up and down their battered line and then to each other. Their conclusion was obvious: they could not hold another one. "Captain Gee," Jinn said quietly, "order the retreat. Every man for himself."

In the intensity of the moment, as every man on the ridge turned immediately for the rear, no-one noted fifty figures cloaked in dark green slipping through the tall crops to the right flank, figures led by a pair of Kyoshi Warriors.

Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom- Outer Ring

Leaving a Captain from Fourth Company in command and ordering the gate opened, Major Liu Bao sprinted towards the tiny convoy of wagons, winding their way along the dusty pike. Everywhere he looked he could see soldiers as flickers in the trees to either side as they made their own way to freedom.

Bao slowed to a stop, heaving for breath, just yards in advance of the wagons and was quickly met by one of the escorts in the vanguard. "Major Bao, sir, are you alright?"

Bao nodded mutely, finding his voice. After a minute, he managed: "Who's in command here?"

The mounted soldier glanced backwards. "Umm, well, Captain Chang, I think. He's back there, Major."

"Show me," Bao said.

Inclining his head, the soldier wheeled around his ostrich-horse and led Bao towards the rear. They hadn't gone more than a few steps, however, before a stifled cry echoed from the back of the convoy: "We're under atta—!"

Bao and the soldier locked eyes for an instant before the man was stricken from the saddle, unseated by the force of a three, razor-sharp shurikens. As the lifeless man landed heavily beside him, Bao strafed right as more bore blades chewed up the ground where he had just been standing. Coming out of his dive, he hurled a barrage of stones into the shadowy foliage from which the deadly blades had come from. Then, from out of nowhere, one of the three wagons was launched skywards, unseating its driver at its apex to plummet to the ground seconds before his charge.

It was chaos. Bao ran among his scattered men, launching stones one way, then the other, al the while trying to direct his men's fire. A second wagon was smashed by a flying boulder, pieces of it flying in all directions and felling five more of the convoy guards. He ran up to one soldier who was confusedly pointing his bow in the wrong direction, beginning to physically turn him about, only to have the man collapse in his arms, pierced in the neck by a single, metal shuriken.

Too overwhelmed to even drop the body, Bao took in the scene as the third and final wagon vanished into the earth without a trace. All around him were bodies, at least thirty men in soldier's green. A few, confused clusters looked about, firing in all directions and where slowly whittled down by their unaffected opponents. Those that tried to run were ruthlessly cut down before they made it a hundred yards. Bao had a fleeting impression of how High General Ito must have felt at Garsai all those years ago, seeing his men ambushed and annihilated.

This was his last thought as a crushing blow took him in the side and he crumpled into an inky blackness from which he would never awaken.

Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom- Outer Ring

The Dai Li finally moved out of the cover of the trees when the last Earth Kingdom soldier fell. Mai and Ty Lee followed. Before them was a scene of absolute devastation: The remains of wagons and men lay strewn about the road. Carnage. Ty Lee watched curiously as an agent strode up to a screaming soldier and then recoiled in shock as dispassionately crushed his skull with a shot from his stone gauntlet. Eyes darting, Ty Lee saw many of the agents around her preparing to do the same.

"Stop it!" she screamed, horrified, but they hardly spared her a second look. "Mai…" she beseeched, turning to her friend.

Something in Ty Lee's voice jolted Mai into action. Wordlessly, she whipped a single dagger from the folds of her robe towards the nearest offending agent, sending it neatly through his hand. His pained cursing got the attention of his comrades. "You heard her," she said.

Glancing from the still-cussing man to the two women, the one who seemed to be the leader shrugged and dropped from his bending stance. The rest followed suit and began rounding up the prisoners and herding them away.

Ty Lee looked at her normally-stoic friend and saw a single tear make a track down her cheek, but when she spoke, her voice was normal. "Its war, Ty Lee," is all she had to say before clearing her voice. To the awaiting agents she announced, "There are more out there. You know the Princess' orders: spread out and hunt them down."

Ty Lee nodded, losing her cheery self in the knowledge that Mai was right. It was war and many more would die before it was finally over but for now, she turned to her best friend and echoed what she had said before:

"Come on. Lets get this over with."

Author's Note: Well, that's it for this chapter, everyone. It feels good to be back: hopefully I'll be able to start updating again with some semblance of regularity. Lord though, that was a brutal chapter and I don't just mean the typing of it!

I did my best to try and communicate the blunt brutality of combat and that's one of the reasons I made this story a T-rating. I don't know, what do you all think? Should I ease back? And what do you guys have to say about Mai and Ty Lee's reactions? I figure that Mai, being an expert with the Shuriken, would realistically have killed before. She might not be proud of it, but she has. Ty Lee…I don't know. I'm sure her Chi-blocking abilities would allow her to be lethal but really, how often would she choose to be? I really want your input on this one, dear readers, because I am truly conflicted on it.

Anyhow, thank you for reading, as always. I am sorry for the LONG interlude, but a series of unfortunate events (no relation to Mr Snickett) such as school, a job, the breaking of my flash drive, etc. prevented me. I hope, in spite of my misgivings, the chapter was satisfying for you.

Also, for anyone who was wondering, the Battle of Garsai was a decisive defeat suffered by the Earth Kingdom in the early stages of the War. I just expanded on it a little bit to fit the situation.

Thanks again for reading and please review!

-The CAG