"He's coming back," Kyuri said, squinting into the sun.

"Aang, what are you doing here?" Katara asked as Aang flew to them from the top of Ba Sing Se's famed wall. They were close now, a matter of minutes until they reached the wall. "I thought you were looking for Appa."

"I was, but then I saw something," Aang said grimly. "Come on."

They followed him to the edge of the wall. He and Toph worked together to raise Sokka, Katara, and Ying's family up the wall of a platform of stone. Kyuri mounted Sangilak and flew up beside them, landing on the wall.

"What's so big that Appa had to wait?" Sokka asked.

"That," Kyuri said, pointing over the side of the wall. She'd seen it immediately. Some kind of massive drill slowly inching its way towards the wall escorted by five tanks on either side. "Something that could actually get through the wall."

"We made it to Ba Sing Se and we're still not safe," Ying sobbed, clutching Hope close. "No one is!"

"Hey, civilians aren't allowed on the wall!"

They all turned to see a group of guards standing there on the wall, staring at them. They eyed Sangilak nervously.

"I'm the Avatar," Aang said, stepping forwards. He stood his ground, the picture of a powerful Avatar. "Take me to whoever's in charge."

The soldiers were suddenly falling all over themselves to comply. They escorted Ying's family down from the wall, promising to get them settled in the city, while the others were taken to the leader, General Tsao.

"It's an honor to welcome you and your party to the outer wall," the general said. "But your help is not needed."

"Not needed?" Aang said, blinking incredulously.

"Not needed," the general nodded confidently. "I have the situation well under control." He showed them out to one of the battle stations where a group of Earthbenders armed with piles of boulders stood. "Many have tried to take Ba Sing Se's outer wall. None have ever succeeded."

"With all due respect sir," Kyuri said archly. "None of these people ever had a drill the size of a battleship before."

"The Dragon of the West got in!" Toph reminded him pointedly.

"Well, yes," General Tsao acknowledged awkwardly. "But he was quickly repelled! Nevertheless, that's why the city is named Ba Sing Se, the Impenetrable City. It's not called Na Sing Se!" he laughed. "That means Penetrable City."

"Yeah, thanks for the tour," Toph snorted. "But we still go the drill problem."

"Ordinarily, I'd say Sang could simply blast the drill with fire and essentially roast them," Kyuri said, staring at the drill. "But it's built by the Fire Nation. It'd be too well insulated for that."

"I've sent an elite Earthbending force called the Terror Team to deal with them," Tsao said, gesturing towards the edge of the wall and inviting them to watch.

"That's a good group name," Sokka mused. "Catchy."

They did as instructed and watched as a burly team of Earthbenders, twenty strong, went out to face up against the drill. Within three minutes they were all on the ground, thanks to a whirling dervish of pink and a flurry of flying silver daggers.

"Terrifying," Kyuri said drily.

"You're sure snarky today," Toph observed. "Way to go, Poker Face. You let your hair down."

"We're doomed!" the General wailed. Sokka slapped him across the face.

"Get a hold of yourself man!" Sokka roared.

"You're right," the General agreed, rubbing his cheek. "I'm sorry."

"Maybe you'd like the Avatar's help now?" Toph suggested.

The General shuffled over to Aang, slumped over with his head hanging. "Yes please," he whimpered.

"So the question is," Aang said, staring out over the plain. He placed stood his staff against the wall beside him and tapped it with a finger rhythmically. "How do we stop it?"

He turned to look at Sokka, along with Katara.

"Why are you all looking at me?" he demanded defensively.

"You're the idea guy," Aang reasoned .

"So I'm the only one that can ever come up with ideas? That's a lot of pressure!"

"And also the complaining guy," Katara deadpanned.

"Well that part I don't mind so much."

"For now, would you mind helping with the injured men out there?" the General asked weakly.

"Katara, let's go," Kyuri said. "Take us to the infirmary."

It wasn't long before the soldiers from the Terror Team were brought in, unable to move and groaning weakly on cots. Theirs shirts were quickly removed and healers converged on them, but Kyuri got them to back off with an imperious flick of her hand and a glare enhanced by her face paint.

"What's wrong with them?" the General asked worriedly. "I don't see a single mark!"

"Their chi is blocked," Kyuri said grimly as she and Katara picked soldiers and knelt by them, pulling water from nearby buckets and using it to heal them. Their hands glowed inside the gloves of water, moving skillfully over the soldiers and unblocking their chi.

"What happened?" Katara asked gently, her bed-side manner much nicer compared to Kyuri's, who went from soldier to soldier with barely a word to any of them.

"These two girls came out of nowhere," the soldier said weakly. "One hit me with a few quick jabs and suddenly I couldn't Earthbend. I could barely move."

"Ty Lee," Kyuri said grimly. "She looks innocent, but really she is most definitely the more dangerous of the two. She attacks the pressure points of the body, using them to deaden limbs and block chi, preventing benders from using their skills. The effects wear off after a while, but while they last there is no hope of movement. "

"It's like she takes you down from the inside out," Katara said softly, shuddering as she remembered her own encounter with the girl.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" Sokka yelled suddenly, waving his hands around as an idea struck him.

"Yes," Katara said, blinking at her suddenly-demented brother.

"What you just said!" Sokka said, pointing to Katara excitedly. "That's how we take out the drill, the same way Ty Lee took down those big Earthbenders!"

"We hit its pressure points!" Toph said excitedly.

Aang moved to the window, staring down at the drill. "We take it down from the inside out."

It was an easy matter to get down into the abandoned fortifications the Earthbenders had constructed when they first saw the drill.

"I'm going to whip up some cover," Toph said. "Once I get this dust cloud up, you won't be able to see well, so stay close to me."

"Link hands," Kyuri said, grabbing Katara's hand, who in turned linked up with Sokka.

Toph stood out in the open while the other three took cover in one of the defensive ditches. Toph threw out her arms, raising them slowly and grunting as she stomped hard. A line of dust extended out from her, running along the left side of the drill.

"Go!" Toph shouted. Sokka grabbed her hand and followed the young girl as they ran, blinking as dust collected and dried out his eyes, catching in his throat and making him cough. It was a surprisingly long sprint to the drill. Toph let go of Sokka and held out her hands. In front of her, the dirt spun. She punched and it pushed inward, forming a hole.

"Everybody in!" Toph ordered. They followed her lead and jumped in, Toph yanking the dirt back in place over top of them with no evidence left of the quick maneuver.

"It's so dark, I can't see a thing!" Sokka protested. Katara felt around and then slapped him. "Ow!"

"Oh no, what a nightmare!" Toph said with mock fear.

"Sorry," Sokka apologized sheepishly. Katara laughed softly.

Toph created a tunnel in front of them as they ran, closing it up behind them when they passed. They emerged underneath the machine. The air was thick with the smell of engines and exhaust, the noise nearly deafening.

"There!" Sokka shouted, pointing to an open hatch in front of them, highlighted by a bright red bulb. It was presumably for an emergency escape, but in this case it provided an emergency entrance. Aang ran forwards, jumping and flipping, looping his legs around an exposed pipe tightly and dangling. She stretched out his hand, Katara catching them and Aang flipping her up inside. Kyuri ignored the hands and vaulted off a protruding piece of metal, catching the pipe and getting inside on her own. Aang offered Sokka a lift in and reached out for Toph.

"Toph, come on!" Sokka called.

"No way!" Toph snorted. "I can't see inside that metal monster, and I can't bend either! I'm going to stay out here and try to slow it down!"

"Okay!" Sokka nodded, withdrawing. "Good luck."

The four of them edged into the next room. It was run through with a maze of pipes, interspersed with nozzles and dials, spitting out reading that would have made sense to a Fire nation engineer, but held no meaning for them.

"I need a plan of this place, so we can find its weak points," Sokka said.

"Where would we find that though?" Katara asked. "I doubt they'd just leave that lying around."

Sokka pulled out his machete and swung it hard, sheering a valve off of a nearby pipe, sending it flying dangerously fast. Steam poured from the pipe, choking the air and making it horribly humid.

"What are you doing, someone will hear us!" Aang protested.

"That's what I'm counting on," Sokka soothed. "I figure something as big and intricate as this has to have a lot of engineers, and when something breaks-"

"They come to fix it!" Katara said, eyes widening in realization.

No sooner had she said that then a hulking shape appeared in the steam, only the outline visible through the fog.

"Hi!" Katara greeted cheerfully, taking the steam and circling the man in it, turning it to ice and effectively cut off all his movement.

Sokka ran forwards. He snatched the slightly frosted plans from the man's hand and shouted, "This'll work. Thanks for the help!"

They ran off up a set of stairs to an upper level and Sokka spread the plans out over a flat section of metal. The diagram was fairly basic, presumably more for navigation purposes than anything else.

"Okay," Sokka said, pointing to a large shaded section in the middle of the plans. "It looks like this is the inner mechanism, where we are now. I think it's one of two main structures. From what I can tell, the outer shell is connected by these braces. It we take them out, the shell will collapse under its own weight."

Sokka held up the plans, navigating through the endless rooms of pipes and dials that looked exactly the same. Kyuri kept her swords drawn. She could feel her face paint starting to drip as she went through the room. They were boiling hot, and heat still bothered her more than she cared to admit, especially in leathers.

"Whoa," Sokka said as they passed through the last door. "Uh, these are much thicker in person than they are on the plans."

Kyuri stared around. They had underestimated the sheer size of the drill. The place was completely open, run through with thick I-beams that supported the weight of the outer shell. They were as thick as two people, and there were many of them, rows and rows going off into the distance.

"We'll have to work fast to get through these," Sokka said.

"What's this 'we?'" Katara demanded. "Aang, Kyuri, and I are going to be the ones doing all this."

"I'm the plan guy," Sokka explained. "You two are the cut stuff up with water guys. Together, we're Team Avatar!"

"Girls, predominantly," Kyuri corrected absently. "Come on Katara, Aang. Let's go."

Aang edged around the first brace and called, "Ready!" Katara unstoppered her pouch, bending out the water from inside and sending it flying across the edge of the beam to Aang, who caught it and sent it back. While they work, Kyuri sawed through in a perpendicular path, leaning carefully around the edge of the beams. It became a rhythmic pattern that was easy to get lost in. It was hot and tiring work, and they were all exhausted before they were even halfway done with the first beam.

"Come on team, don't quit now!" Sokka cheered. "We're..."

It was the 'we're' that send Katara spinning on her brother, water ready to attack and growling. Kyuri's thunderous expression spoke volumes as well.

"I mean, you're almost there," Sokka corrected hastily, holding up his hands defensively. Katara sighed and sent the water back at Aang. It took a few more passes, but they managed to get through the first strut. It groaned, and with a great screeching of metal slipped. It caught halfway down the bottom, and held.

"It's no use!" Katara said in frustration. "We can't do any damage before this reaches the wall!"

"I don't know how many more of those I have left in me anyway," Aang sighed, slumping to the floor.

Suddenly, more screeching sounded through the outer shell, like metal grinding on metal.

"Do you here that? We did it, we took it down!" Sokka yelled. "Let's go before this thing comes down!"

They made for the same door they had come in through, but they paused as an official-sounding voice echoed over the speakers.

"Congratulatons troops, we've just made contact with the outer shell of Ba Sing Se's wall. Begin the countdown to victory!"

"Come on!" Aang shouted. Sokka ran at the brace and began shoving. It did no good, his feet unable to find traction on the smooth metal. They slipped wildly as he grunted.

"This is bad," Katara said nervously. "This is really bad."

"I don't get it!" Sokka said. "We put everything into this brace!"

Kyuri's eyes widened. "Of course…"

"Take a fighting stance!" Aang told Sokka.

"Aang?" Katara questioned.

"I've got a point, "he said. Sokka shrugged and assumed a stance, Aang taking his place across from him. "Toph's been teaching me you shouldn't put a hundred percent into any one move," he said, slipping her leg around Sokka's and yanking it out. "You hit your opponent with a series of blows designed to throw them off balance and break their stance." He made a few precise strikes to Sokka's chest and shoulders. "Then, when they real back, you give the final blow!" He punched Sokka's forehead gently and he hit the ground. "Their own weight becomes their downfall, literally!"

"So maybe we don't need to cut all the way through the struts!" Katara understood. "Maybe we just need to weaken them!"

Aang nodded. "Exactly. And we'd better to it fast! Then I go up to the top and deliver the final blow!"

"Then… Boom! It all comes crashing down!" Sokka grinned.

"Everyone in Ba Sing Se… the whole world… They're counting on us," Aang said. "Let's just hurry!"

He, Kyuri, and Katara went from brace to brace, slashing it halfway, sometimes a bit more, through, until it was sufficiently weakened.

"Come on, that's enough!" Aang called. "We need to get to the next one!"

They were on the next to last brace when blue fire suddenly streamed over Sokka's head. Aang turned with wide eyes to look and found another blast headed straight for him. He leaned back instinctively, one leg extending fully to retain him balance. He righted himself and looked to see Azula and her friends standing on a support strut above them.

"You were right Azula!" Ty Lee said cheerfully. "It is the Avatar. And friends, "she added, narrowing her eyes flirtatiously at Sokka, who grinned weakly and wiggled his fingers.

"Hi," he said sheepishly. Katara grabbed his sleeve and yanked him away.

"Quit flirting with her!" Kyuri snapped, peeved as she ran after them. She had a very large grudge against Ty Lee for taking her down. That would not happen again, she swore.

They came to a T in the path and Aang ordered, "You guys get out, I know what I have to do."

They all started off, but Katara suddenly called, "Wait Aang!"

Aang turned curiously, eyebrows raised. Katara yanked off her water skein. "You need this water more than I do!" She threw it to Aang who caught it, yanking it over her head and nodding sharply in thanks before they all took off again, sprinting through the drill. They hall they had taken ended with a sign and a round hatch leading down.

"Slurry pipeline," Katara read. "What does that mean?"

Sokka grunted with effort as he spun the wheel locking the door shut. He pulled it open and stared down. A brown, muddy river flowed below them.

"The rock drilled from the wall, mixed with water," Kyuri said. "Of course. They have to get it out of the way somehow."

"It's our way out," Sokka realized. He turned back and his eyes widened as he saw Mai and Ty Lee coming for them. "Incoming!"

"In," Kyuri said, forcing Katara down the hatch and following her quickly. Sokka jumped in after them. Kyuri came up gagging on a gritty paste of rock dust and water. She grabbed onto both Sokka and Katara, keeping them all together as they were swept along in the current.

They came flying out of the back of the drill and were washed across the plain in a lake of sludge the drill was depositing in its wake.

"Urgh," Sokka groaned, wiping slurry off his face. Kyuri flicked her hands out, pulling the water out of the slurry. She was left covered in a layer of caked dust. She just cracked it off in chunks. Katara saw what she was doing and did the same thing for herself before turning to Sokka.

"Ty Lee!" he said, pointing. Katara and Kyuri turned and looked. Sure enough, Ty Lee had followed them. Katara raised her arms to strike back, but Kyuri put a hand on her arm.

"She's mine," she said. Katara nodded. From the first time they had met, when Ty Lee reduced Kyuri to a useless lump, Kyuri had held a personal vendetta against her.

Kyuri raised her arms, palms flat. Ty Lee gasped as the slurry suddenly bent around her, coiling endlessly at the mouth of the pipe. She was trapped in it, struggling in vain.

"Helpless when you can't cartwheel your way to a safe distance, aren't you?" Kyuri said casually.

"Kyuri, keep it up!" Sokka cheered. "The pressure will build and when Aang delivers the final blow this thing will pop!"

"That was my intention," Kyuri said, smiling slightly at the struggling Ty Lee.

"Keep it up Kyuri!" Sokka cheered. "Look at that form! Keep going!"

"Sokka, I will quite happily drown you in this stuff if you don't stop talking," Kyuri threatened.

"Just bend the slurry woman!"

Kyuri's wrist flicked out, slurry shoving Sokka and sending him flying back. "Consider it bent."

"You guys need some help back here?"

"Toph!" Katara greeted. "Help Kyuri plug this hole!"

Toph splashed into the slurry. Working next to Kyuri, they sent Ty Lee and the slurry flying back up the pipe, backing up the entire system throughout the drill. They held it for a few minutes, and Sokka was mercifully quiet. They had no idea how things were going with Aang until slurry suddenly exploded at the front of the drill, spreading up the wall all the way to the top. It burst from between the segments of the drill in a grand display.

"Here it comes!" Toph grinned. She stomped and they were raised up on a round platform of earth just as slurry burst free and pooled around them. Smoke hissed from between the segments as they collapsed. Ty Lee slammed against the wide pillar they stood on. The grinding noise from the drill stopped.

As the sun set, the stood on the wall, looking out over the city.

"You did well. Although you may have been a bit hard on the poor pink girl."

"She irritates me."

"I just want to say good work out there today Team Avatar!" Sokka grinned.

"Enough Tem Avatar stuff," Katara groaned. "No matter how many times you say it it's not going to catch on!"

"How about the Boomerang Squad!" Sokka suggested. "See, it's good cause it's got Aang in it. Get it? Boomeraaaaang?"

"Let's just get into the city," Katara sighed.

"The Aang Gang?"

"Sokka."

"The Fearsome Fivesome?"

"Technically, that's a quintet."

"Aw, you're no fun Kyuri!"

Well, I got this out faster than expected. I also did a new one-shot in Amaya's Snippets, for those who read the Avatar Amaya series. You should go look at it. It's a modern, high-school setting as was requested by Lady of the Spirit.