AEWFS Ch 3: Flight
At the last second Shio had a slight change of heart, he changed the angle of his sword so that the flat of the blade hit Azula and not the razor sharp edge. The force of the blow threw Azula into the right-hand wall of the cell; her head rebounded off the wall, leaving a splotch of blood as she dropped to the floor of the cell, unmoving.
Shio quickly sheathed his broadsword and ran to the princess's side and checked her pulse; finding somewhat normal one, he checked her breathing which he found satisfactory. Confident she wasn't getting up anytime soon, he spun away and turned his attention to the three prisoners, two of which were staring at him in shock.
The girl was clearly unconscious, slumped against the wall, blood trickling from her nose; the water tribe boy was conscious but completely out of it, he head lolling up and down, mumbling incomprehensibly to himself. The avatar, on the other hand, was livid; he jerked against his chains trying to free himself.
"Hold on, hold on," the swordsman muttered going to Azula and rifling through her pockets, "gimme a second." He finally found the right pocket and retrieved a set of keys. He went to the boy and unlocked the boy's muzzle.
"Are they ok?!" The boy immediately asked as Shio searched for the key to their chains.
"Just give me a second kid; I can only do one thing at a time. Ah, there we go…" he finally got the right key and undid his chains.
The avatar immediately rushed to the girl's side, the swordsman trailing right behind him. Shio quickly checked her pulse and breathing as the Airbender wrung his hands and fretted; she was definitely alive, judging by the trauma she would be unconscious for a while.
"She's alive," He told the airbender, "but she's badly hurt."
A look of worry passed over the young boy's face.
"She'll be fine if we can get out of here as soon as we possibly can." He rose and went to the boy with the ponytail who was still completely out of it. "Hey," he said snapping his fingers loudly in front of the boy's face, but got no response. He repeated himself but still got no response as the boy continued to mutter to himself, his eyes unfocused. They needed to get out of there as soon as they could so Shio resorted to desperate measures; he slapped the boy across the face and he came to with a start.
"Huh? Wha-? What's going on? Where's the psycho princess?" the boy spat out in one long string.
"We're getting out of here and she's in the corner." Shio replied shortly.
The boy looked confused, opened his mouth then closed it again, seemingly having decided not to question why this stranger was helping them, "Ok," he said, "where are we going?"
"Here's the plan," Shio said, "first, we're goi-"
There was a sharp intake of breath from the cell door, "What's going on here?!" the guard asked loudly, apparently investigating the fact that there were no sounds of torture, "What have you done to the prin- ughgch….." the guard's sentence was cut off with a gurgle, as Shio had just put a sword through the man's esophagus. The man gurgled for a few moments, blood frothing at his lips and then was still.
"Anyway," Shio said, removing the sword and letting the unfortunate guard's corpse fall to the ground; he didn't want to kill, but if they wanted to get out of the prison, much less the capitol, there could be no witnesses, "I'm going to get you out of here, first we nee-"
"Hold up a second." The boy with the ponytail said abruptly, cutting Shio off, "What's the catch? People like you don't do things for free…" he folded his arms and frowned slightly at the swordsman.
Shio gave a small smirk, "Smart boy, I have one condition: you take me with you. I have no life here anymore. I want out."
The boy in blue thought about it for a moment, then nodded and opened his mouth but was cut off by Aang, "No! You just killed that guy! I'm not going with some-"
"Hahaha! He's just kidding," Sokka said slapping his hand over the avatar's mouth, "you're the only way we're ever getting out of here."
Shio nodded, "Ok, here's the plan: your bison is chained up outside in the courtyard entrance and your stuff is in the lockup on the bottom floor; all we have to do is grab your stuff, avoid all of the guards and fly out of here."
"Why do I have the feeling that it's not going to be that easy?" sighed the Water Tribe boy.
The swordsman smirked at him, "Come on, being a pessimist is my job; besides, now that Prince Zuko is back, they diverted a lot of guards to the place to guard him so opposition will be little if any. I'll also need to get some belongings from the palace, but you only have to drop me off and pick me back up, so there's very little risk."
They nodded reluctantly and the water tribe boy picked up the still unconscious girl and carried her piggyback. Shio drew his short swords and they quickly made their way towards the stairs, Shio could feel the young Airbender staring daggers at him the whole way down the stairs.
Surprisingly, they encountered no resistance going down to the first floor. As they approached the lockup, Shio spotted a single guard at the door; he strode confidently down the hall even as he felt the kids drop back warily.
The guard quickly noticed Shio striding towards him and the younger children hiding near the end of the hallway, he pivoted almost into a fighting stance, "What are the prisoners doing out of their-"
He didn't even gurgle as Shio strode up and cut him down with a single slash across the throat.
"Why are you just killing them?!" the young Airbender loudly asked, aghast and disgusted at the older boy.
Shio looked at him sternly, "The fewer people know you're out of your cell, the more time we'll have before we'll have to deal with a crap-ton of guards. Now stop arguing with me and grab your stuff."
The avatar glared at him but went inside and began gathering their bags as the other three stayed outside. After a few minutes they were back on their way. They quickly made their way to the front gate where Shio called them to a halt.
He studied the courtyard, noting the positions of all of the guards who had thankfully not spotted them yet. "Ok let's go, if they challenge us, I'll see if I can't talk us out of here. If it gets nasty, you run back here, shut and bar the inner and outer gates while I deal with the guards."
"How are you going to deal with them?!" the boy with the ponytail asked, waving his arms dramatically, "There's like 50 of them out there!"
Shio rolled his eyes behind his glasses, "There's six of them, and trust me, I can handle them." And without another word, he strode out, the younger kids trailing behind.
It wasn't long before a guard called out for them to halt. "Where do you think you're going?" the guard asked approaching with two of his fellows and stood blocking their way to the chained up bison who's ears perked up at the voices.
"Ozai has ordered the prisoners to be brought to the palace, princess Azula is dealing with the paperwork."
The guard looked at him skeptically, and opened his mouth and then glanced up as an alarm bell started ringing from inside the prison.
Shio's shoulders slumped, and he sighed "Of course they would find her now…" he muttered to himself.
"Yeah, I don't think so," the guard said drawing his sword and motioning to the other three guards, "We're taking you guys in."
Shio glanced behind him and saw the kids running for the doors leading back into the palace. He began to backpedal as the guards advanced on them. "Come on guys," He said holding his hands out to either side, "Let's be reasonable here, let us go and no one gets hurt."
The guard snorted, "There's six of us and one of you, what chance do you think you'll have?"
"One last chance guys," Shio said, his hands slowly drifting towards the hilts of his short swords, "just walk away." He heard the gate clang shut behind him and he stopped, they were in the middle of the courtyard and seeing that they couldn't get to the children with him there, the six guards formed a ring around Shio.
Shio, knowing they wouldn't back down, Shio quickly assessed his opponents, the six men were all fairly new guards, he knew this because he had trained them two weeks earlier. Three of them wielded swords and the other three were fire benders, which worried him somewhat. The swordsmen he knew he could take on rather easily, but benders had always been a weakness of his; he was a close quarters combatant while most benders tended to fight from longer distances.
The head guard smirked rushed at the sixteen year old swordsman. Shio quickly shed his coat and broadsword, unsheathing his two short swords as he did so and tossing them in the air; the coat fell to the ground with a thud and he caught his two swords just in time to block the guard's attack.
Shio smirked to himself, that was totally unnecessary on my part, he thought, but it rattled the guards so it was worth it.
All three of the swordsman engaged him at once, it was all he could do just to block and dodge all of the swipes and blows they were aiming at him. Meanwhile, circling around the edges, the three firebenders were firing jets of flame at him, preventing him from mounting an effective offensive against the other three.
As he was dodging yet another blast of fire and parried another blow from a sword, one of the other swordsmen got behind him and managed to inflict a shallow gash across his back. Damn! He cursed to himself, I need to deal with them or I'm going to get killed; and if I die these kids don't stand a chance.
He quickly swiped one of his swords along the ground throwing dirt and rocks into the faces of the swordsman; while they tried to get the dust out of their eyes he broke away and launched himself at the nearest firebender. The man didn't even have time to react as he shoved a sword between his ribs and through his heart. Pausing only to pull the sword out, he quickly ran at the next one; in his peripherals he could see the three swordsmen regaining their composure and were trying to locate him. The second and third firebenders began to pelt him with blasts of fire as he advanced on them. He deftly spun and dodged, he managed to avoid all but one which caught him in his left shoulder, leaving a singed second degree burn but he ignored the pain, getting in close to the two benders. He battered through their weak close quarter defenses, first slashing the throat of one, then sliding between the other man's legs, slashing a major artery near his groin as he went through leaving him to bleed out in the dirt.
By this time the three swordsmen were hot on his tail and they were angry, having just watched as he cut down their friends in a matter of thirty seconds. Shio whirled around just as the first swordsman made it to him; he quickly planted a strong front kick right in the man's chest, sending him flying backwards as the other two engaged him.
With no distractions he was able to quickly overpower the two and killed them with little effort. The last man stood from the ground, fear in his eyes but rushed at the red clad teenager anyway. Shio sighed and spun out of the way slashing the back of the man's neck as his momentum carried him past, cutting into his spine and severing his spinal cord, the last guard dropped like a ton of bricks.
The swordsman stood for a second, catching his breath; he could feel warm blood seeping slowly down his back from the slash between his shoulder blades and the blowing wind stung the burn on his left shoulder. He heard the gate clank open and the kids emerged and began running towards the bison. He picked a ring of keys off of one of the guards and tossed them to the Airbender so he could undo the beast's chains. Still breathing heavily, he gingerly put on his sleeveless coat and broadsword, trying not to brush again either wound. He sheathed his two short swords and went to help them load their luggage.
"Holy crap," the swordsman said eyeing the great beast as he handed bags up to the avatar, "I didn't think they were so big, I've only ever seen pictures of them in textbooks."
The avatar merely grunted, deliberately ignoring the swordsman. He jumped down off the saddle and grabbed the still unconscious girl and lay her down in the saddle. They all climbed into the saddle and with a "Yip yip!" from the Avatar, they were off.
They flew towards the palace at Shio's direction. As they approached the walls surrounding the palace, Shio ducked down over the lip of the saddle so as not to be spotted. "Alright guys," the swordsman said to the two, "My window is right there, drop me off and hide for five minutes then come back and pick me up."
The watertribe boy nodded as the massive beast pulled up beside the window; Shio quickly clambered through the window as the guards on the wall began blowing the warning horns and bells.
He quickly began to pack a large bag; he grabbed some clothes, his spare set of short swords, his extra set of sunglasses, throwing stars, small explosives and every single other small weapon could fit.
As he was shoving several small knives into the bag, the door to his room burst open revealing prince Zuko with a smug grin on his face. "And where do you think you're going?" the prince asked, his voice dripping with superiority.
"None of your business." Shio said, closing the bag up.
"Where's my sister?"
"I don't keep track of her." Shio knew he had to stall for time; he had only been there for three minutes.
"That's your job, you moron." The prince scoffed, "besides there are multiple witnesses that saw you leave with her for the prison; suddenly the prisoners escaped and you're here and Azula is nowhere to be found…I figured I'd find you here…" he let the sentence trail off.
"What exactly are you implying?" Shio said dropping the bag on the ground and puffing himself up, trying to look bigger than he really was.
"That you're a traitor." Zuko spat at him.
Shio grabbed the hilts of his short swords, "Ok look," he said cracking his neck, "let's stop beating around the bush, and if we're going to do this then let's do this."
Shio drew the swords and saw fear flash in the prince's eyes, he thought the firebender was about to attack him but instead he whistled, and ten royal guards poured through the door.
There was no possible way to win this fight; making a split second decision, Shio scooped up his bag and sheathed his swords and quickly ran for the window. He had lost track of time, he didn't know if they were there or not but this was the only way there was even a chance of making it out of this alive.
He tensed and threw himself out the open window, seeing no massive bison waiting for him. Silently cursing he fished in his coat pocket and pulled out a small explosive; if he was going to go out, he was going to go out with a literal bang. He pulled the cap off the top, the built in mechanism lighting the fuse, and threw it through the window to his room. He closed his eyes, and braced for the inevitable impact.
He hit a lot sooner than he had expected, as the air was driven out of his lungs, his eyes snapped open and he found himself hovering two stories under his window having hit the bison's saddle. He gasped for air, trying to yell at the Airbender.
"G-g-g-GO!" he managed to choke out between gasps of air, "NOW!"
No sooner had the words left his mouth when the explosive detonated, blowing chunks of stone and wood out of the wall. It rained down, straight through the area where the bison had just been.
They soared away from the palace, catapults launching flaming boulders at them. Shio breathed a sigh of relief; they were out of danger for the most part. Suddenly, the great beast gave a bellow and flicked his massive tail, sending a red clad body flying through the air and crash landing in the saddle.
Prince Zuko, who must have jumped and clung to the beast's tail as they flew away from the window, sprang to his feet in a firebending stance. The weak and injured children huddled close to the front of the saddle, the two boys using their bodies to shield the still unconscious girl from any attack that might come; Shio scowled and slowly rose to his feet.
"As I said," the prince hissed, steam coming out of his nostrils, "You're not going anywhere."
The two fire nation teenagers stood mere feet apart on the small saddle, both breathing heavy.
"Do you really want to fight me this close?" Shio growled, putting on his most intimidating voice, attempting to unnerve the cocky prince, he slowly drew one short sword from its sheath, "I've killed a lot of people to get these kids out of here, I will not hesitate to do the same to you if you try to stop us now. I have nothing to lose anymore."
Rage covered Zuko's face for a moment then he relaxed slightly. He scowled at the swordsman, eyeing the blade of his short sword which Shio knew was caked with the drying blood of the guards.
"Here's the deal." Shio said lowering his sword slightly, "You have two choices, one: we drop altitude and you can jump into the harbor, and that's the end of it, you swim to shore and we go on our merry way; or two: you try your luck and fight me, and we'll dump your corpse in the ocean instead."
The prince looked down, thinking for a moment, then slowly lowered his hands to his sides, his face still seething with anger.
"Good choice." Shio said as he darted forward and shoved Zuko over the side of the saddle. They had just passed the docks and were low over the shallow water. The prince hit the water with a massive splash; Shio continued watching until he saw Zuko bob to the surface, treading water and screaming unintelligible obscenities at them.
Shio breathed a sigh of relief and then slumped against the side of the saddle, exhausted from the ordeal they had just been through.