Dawn was creeping along the western coast of the Earth Kingdom and the fleet of Fire Navy warships had been gliding silently through the water for three hours, preparing to attack. They had been ordered to secure the coast by any means necessary and provide support for captain Tycho, who would be going inland. The four ships in the fleet had spread out just before dawn came and were making their way to separate ends on the coast.
The first two ships dropped off their troops without a hitch, but on the third one something spooked a rhino and it charged off inland. It could be heard thundering through the trees. Tycho winced, their cover may have been blown, but nothing happened after that. Tycho and his forces unloaded and started their dawn trek.
The rhinos were being unruly. And the men were talking while marching. They needed better discipline.
'Well,' Tycho thought, 'At least the tanks aren't doing anything wrong...'.
The second he thought that one of them veered left and crashed into another tank.
'Why do I even bother?' he sighed to himself. "What happened?" He bellowed from his Rhino. Men were crawling out of the two crashed tanks. One of them looked up.
"Sir, the driver fell asleep..."
That was the last straw.
"Alright!" he shouted. "The next Earth Kingdom town we see, we going to take over! OK? Just to wake everybody up." There were jubilant cheers from the ranks as they saw chimney smoke in the distance.
"Hey, what's the big idea? You trying to rip me off?" A voice from behind the fruit stand half yelled. Mae walked around to the front of it to see a young water tribe girl accosting the man behind the counter.
"What d'you mean?", the large man sneered at her.
"What do I mean?", she repeated. "I mean you sold me rotten fruit!". The man's eyes furrowed and his voice got gruffer.
"I only sell the finest fruits around here, missy! Nothing rotten!" he added, his moustache flickering with the wind, looking very much like an angry walrus. She stuck a moldy looking apple under his nose.
"Look at it! Tell me it's not rotten!". They proceeded to get into a shouting match about it, disturbing the otherwise quite town. Mae was watching with mild interest, scratching the head of the kitten that was perched on her shoulder.
Quite suddenly a shooting star wailed overhead and crashed into a large house, instantly setting it ablaze. She looked around and saw Fire nation troopers rushing into the town. As she got into a fighting stance the kitten scurried up into a nearby tree. The water tribe girl stopped arguing when a fireball whizzed past her hair. She looked around at the chaos that was once a sleepy little village.
A man with long black hair on a rhino rode purposefully to the center of town, and next to a little pagoda and shouted.
"This town is now under Fire Nation control!" he bellowed. Panic was rampant in the streets as people rushed to put out fires and get away from the soldiers and into their homes.