Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.

Chapter 9: Rescue

Getting to the prison was pretty easy. There were very few people in the streets at this time of night. The only people we saw were three drunken men coming out of a nearby bar. They were leaning on each other and singing loudly and very off key. We snuck past them easily, but they were so wasted I doubted they would have noticed us even if we had walked right in front of them. The words to the painful and crude song faded into the night as we made our way closer to the prison.

The night air was cool and a light breeze seemed to whisper a quiet warning as we neared the prison. The prison was a little ways past the main town and surrounded by trees. Apparently the people whom had built the prison hadn't wanted to worry the occupants of Ember Island with a big, ugly, steel building that held "the enemy's of the peace", or just anyone who stood up to the tyrant they called the Fire Lord.

We hid behind the trees and watched the prison. I didn't see any guards from where we were, but Ashi climbed a nearby tree just to make sure. I wished we had Toph with us. She could tell us with the utmost certainty where the guards were and we would never be taken by surprise.

Ashi descended the tree branches with the agility of a monkey. He swung down onto a branch just over our heads to deliver his report.

"It was very hard to tell, but I did see four look out towers facing North, South, East, and West. The towers were dark, but I'm assuming that there is someone in each." Ashi continued to crouch on the tree branch after he was done talking.

"Ok, so how do we sneak into the prison without those guys in the look out tower spotting us?" Zuko said to the rest of us. I noticed that the Tempest Troup all turned to Mimi instinctually. A small crease appeared on her forehead as she furrowed her brows in thought. I smiled remembering all the times Mimi had made that same face back when we were kids.

"Ashi, do you still have any of those smoke bombs you made last week?" Mimi said turning to the kid in the tree. Ashi beamed and nodded pulling about eight small smoke bombs out of his pockets.

"Good," Mimi said. "Did you see any doors or any way to get in?" Ashi shook his head.

"But, I'll go look," he said and swung from tree to tree until he was out of sight. Energy and agility seemed to run in the family I thought looking at Taz who was crouched and rocking back and forth on her heels. Does that girl ever stop moving?

"Okay, so here's the plan," Mimi said as soon as Ashi had swung off.

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Ashi had located three possible entrances. The front entrance was immediately ruled out because of the number of guards posted there. According to Ashi most of the guards were hidden but he had a good view from the top of the trees, and he seemed to have amazing eyesight.

The remaining entrances had fewer guards and were going to be a lot easer to get in. There was a back entrance and a small door on the left side that was well hidden. Even Ashi had almost missed it. It also had even fewer guards then the back entrance. We decided to go through the small concealed door because the guards were least likely to be expecting us.

The majority of our group moved silently through the trees into a position closer to the small door. Ashi, Yasa, Kori, and Nasu had broken away from our group and had positioned themselves each by one of the lookout towers. They each held one of Ashi's smock bombs. At the same time the four of them flung the bombs towards the towers with amazing force and accuracy.

The smoke embraced the towers as we quickly headed towards the hidden door. Ashi had told us where the four guards were hiding and we took them by surprise. The twins quickly knocked out one guard with the hilt of their swords. Taz wiped around another guard and left him tied and gagged in a matter of seconds. Mimi swung a gust of air at a third guard sending him crashing hard into the door. The door was forced open and the guard was out cold.

I took a different approach. With a slash of my arm, my newly found white fire tore through the fourth guards chest leaving him sprawled on the cold, stone ground. He twitched as blood gargled out of his mouth for a few seconds. Then his body stopped moving, and I knew deep inside myself that it would never move again. The rest of our group stared at me in horror.

"What?" I asked. Their stares were really unnerving. They all had a mix of shock and fear plastered on their faces.

"Did you just kill him?" Mimi looked at me like I had died and come back with horns.

"Yeah," I said. I used the back of my hand to wipe off the blood that had splashed on my face. Mimi continued to look at me in horror as she took a few steps back.

I tore my eyes from their horrified faces and headed through the open door. "Let's go," I said over my shoulder. "We don't have time to waste." I couldn't stand to see the looks of fear in their eyes, especially Mimi's. We had always been close and I had missed her the years we had been apart. The last thing I wanted was her to be scared of me.

My face was calm but my heart clenched painfully as I thought of my own sister being scared of me. I knew many people feared me already. The fact that I was an assassin was supposed to be a secret, but because of the way people acted around me I had a feeling more people knew then were supposed to. Of corse my parents were always oblivious to my "assignments". I could never decide if that was good or not.

I sighed. The others had followed me and were keeping quiet about what had happened, but I had a feeling that I would hear more about it when we got back to the vacation house.

The door led into a small narrow corridor which met with a larger hallway horizontal to it. I peered cautiously into the hallway. It was lit by a row of torches attached to both walls giving the corridor a reddish tint. No torches lit the short corridor from the door.

I could see that to the right the lit hallway soon gave way to a cafeteria of some sorts. These walls were also lined with torches. The empty tables were also bathed in the eerie red light of the torches. The cafeteria appeared to be where the guards ate and hung out when they weren't on duty. There were three dark doorways leading out of the cafeteria, but these didn't concern me. We were looking for the prisoners not the guards.

I turned left and quietly headed down the red hallway. I checked over my shoulder to see if the others were following me. They were, and I saw that Ashi, Yasa, Kori, and Nasu had also joined us. We crept down the hallway in a single file line. I've always had to be silent on my jobs, but it surprised me how quiet the rest of them were. It was then that I realized how quiet the prison was.

"Shouldn't the guards be sending out some kind of warning signal?" I whispered over my shoulder. "I mean those guys in the look out towers didn't see where we went, but they must have figured out that someone's trying to break in."

"Ashi's bombs were also laced with a sleeping powder." Mimi whispered back. She was the closest behind me and the only one who had heard my question. "They'll be out for a few hours."

I smiled. Mimi really had thought of everything.

"Ask Zuko if he knows anything about the layout of this prison." My request was quietly passed down the chain as we turned to the right and stopped in front of a strong but simple spiral staircase.

"He says he never had any reason to learn before," came my sister's reply. Great, I guess we're wondering blind. Not that I mean any offense to blind people. Toph was amazing even without her vision.

Without anything else to do we ascended the stairs keeping close to the center railing just in case someone happened to look down. The staircase was unlit so the climb was dark. However the light from the hallway down provided enough light to go by. There also was some light coming from up above which I assumed was from a hallway or room that the stairway led to.

As the light grew brighter I noticed a noise coming from where, I assumed, the light was radiating from. As we got even closer I realized the noise was the grumbling of a guard. The others seemed to have recognized it too, because they had crouched down and were crawling on all fours up the steps.

Joining them, I continued to lead the way slowly up the steps. We followed the curving of the staircase around and stopped when we could see the guard and the room behind him. He was leaned up against the wall grumbling to himself about night duty and his lack of sleep. Occasionally he would yawn so big that it seemed to take up his entire face.

I felt fabric brush up against me and turned to see Yasa beside me. She placed a finger to her lips and slowly took out a small paper bag. Don't ask me where it came from because I was pretty sure that skimpy dress didn't have pockets.

Yasa crept quietly up a few more stairs, being careful to keep close to the ground and out of the light. The guard was obviously distracted by his struggle with sleep and his conversation with himself that he didn't notice her until she was almost right in front of him. When he did notice her however, he had barley enough time to stumble up straight and reach for the hilt of his sword before Yasa had stood up, pulled out a pinch of whatever was in that bag and thrown it into his face. The man sneezed as the contents of her bag filled his nose. He blinked sleepily three times before collapsing to the ground with a soft thud. His heavy breathing signified that he had fallen into a deep sleep.

The rest of us straightened up after Yasa had given us a thumbs up and we walked to where she stood. Behind her was a long torch lit corridor lined with doors. The torches were placed in intervals between each iron door.

The doors were solid except for a small rectangular hole filled with bars a few inches from the top. The hole was about eye level for me and I looked into the closest cell. It was too dark to see anything so I lit a small flame on my hand and held it close to the opening. With the light from my palm I could see a woman in tattered clothing curled up on the cold floor. I studied her face but didn't recognize it so I moved onto the next cell.

Zuko was mimicking my actions on the other row of cells. Those of Mimi's group who were tall enough had each taken a torch from it's rusting handle and were looking into other cells. The two who weren't tall enough, Ashi and Taz, had turned over the guard's body and were checking it for keys.

The row of cells was long and seemed endless, but eventually I came across something I recognized. In one of the cells sleeping with her arms wrapped protectively around her knees was Ty Lee. My heart lept with joy and a small smile found its way across my face. I hadn't seen Ty Lee in so long. Ever since she had been thrown in jail for protecting Mai from Azula I had been worried about them. Although she could get really perky and girly sometimes she and Mai had been my only real friends for a long time. She was wearing an outfit similar to what the prisoners of the Boiling Rock wore. The light was bad but I think it was some shade of gray.

"I found Ty Lee," I said just loud enough for the others to hear me. "Keep looking for Mai." I saw Zuko nod and then get back to his searching. Taz scampered up to me with a ring of what looked like a million keys with her brother close behind her.

I sighed at the sight of the keys. "Do I really need to try every one of them?" I said mostly to myself but was answered by Ashi.

"I don't think so," he said grabbing the key from his little sister who had been craning her neck to try to see into the cell. "Put the light closer to the key hole." I did as he asked, and he squinted at the hole for along time, examining it thoroughly. Then he turned to the key ring and shifted quickly through the keys.

"It's one of these," he said as he held out three small, slender keys. I thanked him and tried the first one with no luck. The second one however produced better results and the lock opened with a soft click.

I heaved the heavy door open and stepped into Ty Lee's cell. She looked so sad curled up like that, not like her usual perky self. I laid a hand on her shoulder and shook her softly.

"Ty Lee," I whispered, "it's time to wake up."

"I'm not hungry," she said groggily as she started to stir.

"You need to get up Lee. This isn't about food." My voice was soft but urgent. She begrudgingly rolled over and sat up. Whipping the sleep from her eyes she yawned widely and then she caught sight of me.

"Kimi?!" She screeched clenching her hands by her face in a typical Ty Lee manner. "Is that really you?"

"Yeah, it's me," I whispered, "but you have to keep quiet we don't want to be caught."

"But what are you doing here?" Ty Lee seemed somehow able to carry the squeaky high pitched noise into her whisper. "If Azula finds you she'll put you in here too!"

"I'm not working for Azula anymore," I explained. "I joined the Avatar and intend to help him take down Ozi." I liked not having to use his title anymore. He didn't deserve it anyways. "You don't have to help us if you don't want to, but we're getting you out of here either way."

"Are you kidding me? Of course I want to help. Without Azula I can finally go back to the circus and be happy again." I smiled and remembered how she took pride in being called a circus freak. Azula had pulled her out of what she loved to do and forced her to help hunt down the Avatar. And Azula expected us to call ourselves her friends?

"Come on," I said offering my hand, "let's get out of here." I helped her to her feet and we exited the cell. Another cell door had been opened a few doors down and it looked like Zuko was talking to someone inside. It was probably Mai.

Before I could walk towards them however I heard an alarm sound high above us and the sound of doors opening and feet pounding against the ground.

A/N: Wooo! Sorry it took so long guys. I've been busy. Well I'm going to go to bed now. I'll edit it in the morning. Please review!