Author Notes: While the progression of the story roughly follows that of the show, many events are changed, arranged in a different order or omitted. This is fan fiction, after all.
The plan was simple. Coerce the leader of the Dai Li, and then take the Dai Li from him and the kingdom from the King. Azula, princess of the Fire Nation almost laughed to herself as she and her two friends had the Earth King alone in his throne room, undefended and with no place to run. She noticed the alone part and laughed out loud, rubbing her Kyoshi make up off.
"Well, well... seems we have a deal to make, eh King of the Earth?" Azula crept forward and lit her blue flame. Ty Lee and Mai stood near her, also dabbed in Kyoshi outfit and make-up.
"What do you want?" Kuei was frozen on his throne.
"Oh nothing, just your kingdom! " Azula flamed his throne to ashes.
"Your Majesty!" Sokka ran up the stairs to the room, huffing and puffing with Toph beside him. "Hey, you're not Suki!" he pointed to Azula, who was wearing Suki' s headpiece.
"Master of the obvious," Mai looked dispassionately at the two.
"Why are all the cute guys on the other side?" Ty Lee pouted.
"Should we waste our time on you? Where's the Avatar?" Azula pointed a flame at the Earth King.
"Coming to stop you," Toph started the Mantis stance, "if we don't get you ourselves!"
Mai leapt off the dais and fired three knives at Toph, who sensed them as she jumped and raised an earthen wall. Sokka threw his boomerang at Ty Lee, avoiding her dangerous jabs but finding her less than willing to fight, as she winked constantly at him.
"I think you all should stop," Azula formed a fire noose around the King's neck. "The King here has decided to abdicate," she kicked Kuei backwards. Sokka and Toph looked at each other and stopped their movements, cursing Azula under their breaths. Aang was down in the caverns where Katara and Zuko were held and beyond communication.
"Fine, you win," Sokka dropped his boomerang, smiling.
"Why is that guy smiling?" Mai opened three stilettos.
Azula's pained cry explained why, the side of her back ripped and bleeding from three massive claw marks.
"Bosco!" Kuei hugged his best friend.
"Let's get out of here, Mr. King!" Toph Earthbended the King and his bear into a sled, gathering herself and Sokka into what looked like a bullet and shot out the throne room. Dai Li rushed to Azula's aid, although the injuries were largely superficial. More agents stood ahead of Toph and fired her bullet back into the throne room, sending the King and Sokka tumbling with the Earthbending master dragged into a platform fight with several of the Dai Li.
"We're stuck here!" Sokka jumped out of the way of Mai's knives.
"Your damn animal hurt me!" Azula leapt right at the king, a massive blue blast shooting down like a comet.
"Your Majesty!" Toph called out from the platform she was using to throw rocks at the agents that had surrounded her.
"The King!" Sokka looked in horror as the flames engulfed the bespectacled man. There were no cries of pain or anguish, but Azula didn't care as she piled on the fire. Ty Lee stopped fighting Sokka and terror also filled her face. Azula was really angry now as she let the fire burn around Kuei, lightning forming around her back and onto the tips of her fingers.
"You should have missed, bear!" Azula launched the lightning into the inferno.
"Azula, stop! You'll burn the whole place down!"
"I don't care!" Azula growled. She now blasted more lightning until the floor was blackened
"Well, I do," a voice sounded from inside the inferno.
"King Kuei!" Sokka ran as close as possible to the bonfire, which was so hot he felt the skin on his arm singe.
"I'm fine, but now I'm a bit unhappy."
"What!?" Azula stopped her onslaught at the sound of the King's voice. Who was there? A Firebender? Some spiritual magician?" What could be blocking her fire? Why wasn't the king screaming as his flesh was burned off his body?
The fire eventually died down, revealing a completely untouched Kuei and Bosco, a clear circle around them burnt by Azula's fire.
"Glass!" Toph leapt beside Sokka, her foot-vision noticing the otherwise invisible barrier.
"Glass?" Azula charged up another lightning blast. "That's pathetic, even for an Earthbender!"
"I'm not a pathetic Earthbender," Kuei took off his hat and let his long hair flop to the ground. "I am the King of Earthbenders! My kingdom is lost, but I haven't!"
"I've never seen glass bending before," Sokka and Toph got behind the King, whose glass walls blocked all shots of stone, knife and flame. Kuei and Bosco seemed to do a little dance as they both raised rock corkscrews that spun large clouds of dust into the room. Ty Lee was the only one of the aggressors that got close but slammed right into the glass wall.
"Earth into glass, glass into clay," Kuei formed a stance and flicked his finger. The Dai Li fell into suddenly created clay holes that swirled viciously. Mai and Ty Lee flipped back to Azula's side, as the obsidian rock wouldn't be turned to clay.
"Clay, into sand!" Kuei spread his fingers and turned the walls to sand, looking ruefully at the beleaguered city he called home. "I trusted the Dai Li too much," he looked at Bosco. "Come on, guys we have to get out of here!" The sand fell on Azula's group, which were unable to bend sand, or even rocks their former king rooted to the ground with a simple foot stomp.
"How?" Sokka pointed outwards ,"the whole place is up in flames!"
"Him!" Appa dived into the hole they were looking through, though he was surprised by Bosco getting on first. Kuei helped Toph and Sokka up and took one last look at his station for 16 years. "Goodbye, Father, Mother, forgive me…the Earth Kingdom has fallen."
"Look at that!" Sokka pointed to the ground. Toph couldn't, but she heard gruesome cries of pain from the ground, so chilling that she curled into a corner of the saddle.
"It's not the Fire Nation, it's Mitsu! He's… he's…what is your brother doing!?" Sokka hid behind Bosco.
Mitsu's eyes were bright red, standing between the palace door and a combined Dai Li and Fire Nation force. To Sokka's horror there was a giant pool of blood between Mitsu and the front line, with Dai Li and Fire Nation uniforms. Kuei hung his head and touched his face. He then shouted out his brother's name loudly many times, though there was no reply. Sokka took another peek as Mitsu focused his power through his palms, thousands of bones cracking as spines collapsed through sheer force of will. One Dai Li leapt above the others and launched his rock glove, which Mitsu easily shattered. Reaching out , he grabbed a space where a skull would be and squeezed his hand into a fist. The Dai Li agent fell to the ground headless. Kuei was aghast and his eyes nearly in tears ,but steeled his nerves and took a deep breath.
"ISHI! ISHI!! I'm up here, brother! I'm safe! Bosco is safe!" Kuei called out as loud as he could .Bosco waved with his hands but his bear howls fell on deaf ears.
"Kuei…?" Mitsu's eyes returned to their original golden colour when he finally heard his brother's voice. He force bent a tower behind him, hooking it with an imaginary line like a fish. The tower slammed into the confederate lines, the cloud of dust operating as an escape shroud. The brothers embraced each other tightly, Mitsu gripping his brother tight.
"You're safe! We have to go now, before the whole city is burnt!"
"I can't leave like this! The Avatar is down there!" Kuei ducked a flying fireball.
"Guys, I have to take Kuei and Bosco out of here, you have to help Aang!" Mitsu turned to Toph and Sokka.
"Hey, where are you going?" Toph flailed helplessly to Mitsu, who she couldn't see in the air.
"Kuei has to live, so does Aang. It's destined that we part for now here. I have friends in the East, but you have to go west and south. The elements will protect you," he kissed Toph on the forehead. "Don't listen to stupid snob girls," he whispered in her ear.
"Sokka, take my hawk and send me messages if you can. I can't join you in your next madcap plan, I'm afraid. Take care of your sister; she's more vulnerable than you think."
Mitsu leapt off Appa with the King and his bear hanging on his arms, force bending eastwards. Sokka and Toph turned to a gaping hole in the floor, where they could see flashes of fire, which usually meant trouble.
"Save the Avatar!" Mitsu was heard as the sounds of war overpowered his voice. As he turned , however a blast of flame brushed past his cheek, forcing him into a downward spiral. Kuei and Bosco let go of him and Earthbended the floor into sand as he crashed.
"Leaving so soon, desert rat?" Admiral Chan's all too familiar voice boomed. "What do we have here, the Earth King and his…what is that?"
"He's a bear!" Kuei bent the sand into a wave, pushing several of Chan's men into a house. Bosco stomped the ground and flipped two Fire Tanks on top of another, beating his chest and roaring like mad.
"Come quietly, dear King or suffer!" Chan closed his fists and made two green whips of flame.
"You can suffer for me," Kuei rushed towards the Admiral with two Earth gloves. Chan avoided the attack and leapt over the King, swinging his whip. Kuei raised a wall of glass and shattered it with his fist, resulting in an explosion of shards. The Admiral stepped back and wiped the blood and glass out of his cheeks, grinning.
"I had heard you were a sniveling coward who couldn't even bend," Chan mockingly pointed at Kuei. "I'll make sure you fulfill the first part at least!" Chan raised a humongous wall of fire, the sharp trajectory of the flames separating king and bear.
"I'm not as strong as some people, I'll admit…but what you're doing is real cowardice!" Kuei doused the flames with sand. "Come on, Bosco let's teach this guy!" Bosco roared and copied the King's stance.
"Did you think I'd be an Admiral without an army?" Chan raised his hand and several archers and Firebenders quickly surrounded Kuei and Bosco. Some Dai Li came with ropes, which would sever the Earthbenders' contact with the ground and make them useless in theory.
"I'm not a King without subjects," Kuei held his stance as he spotted a glimmer of green in the sky. The archers fell from their battlements and tanks almost immediately as rocks pelted their armor and broke their bows. The Firebenders also turned to face not Earth Kingdom troops but ordinary looking people, some in ornate robes and others barely clothed. Chan and his troops were forced back by the crude but effective assault, as were the Dai Li who received the brunt of the falling stone and barely stopped the rock rain. The people were no army, however and Fire reinforcements started streaming in.
"My King! You must leave now!" one of the noblemen called out. "The Fire Nation is coming, and we have been betrayed by the Dai Li! Please, you must leave!" the man was struck by a fireball the very next moment and lay unconscious on the ground. Kuei saw more of his people fall and cursed his own ineptitude as king, as well as his ancestors who let the officialdom run the country. Bosco seemed to understand him and put a paw on his master's shoulder. Mitsu crawled out of his crater and put his hand on Kuei's other shoulder.
"You're right; you are a King as long as there are people to call you King. But we must go!" Mitsu grabbed both of them and blocked out all other thoughts as he sped over the Inner Wall and past all the carnage below him. Both brothers felt a painful dagger in their hearts, seeing their childhood home burnt or crushed. Bosco made mournful sounds as they crossed the Outer Wall, ironically in the same place Aang and the others came through the other day. The wall's large shadow kept them out of view, together with Kuei raising a reflective mirror above them.
"How did you learn all that?" Mitsu dabbed some ointment on his facial burn.
"Bosco taught me," Kuei took an apple from Bosco's hip pack and gave it to the bear.
"Bears can bend Earth? I've never heard that before," said Mitsu, as Kuei took over transportation duties with a large platform that glided over the landscape and around the marauding Fire Nation armies.
"He's what you might call a Pure Land animal. There aren't that many around, if you think about it." Kuei shunted them towards the port town.
"A Pure Land animal? I've seen a few…a turtle here, a cat there…wow, big buddy, I didn't know you had it in ya!" Mitsu punched Bosco in the arm.
Kuei looked at the burning city one last time and hung his shoulders. "The Earth Kingdom…has fallen." He sunk to his knees and punched the ground.
"Azula will pay for this in the worst way possible," Mitsu put on his war mask. "I will make her suffer several lifetimes over."
"She is the enemy," Kuei got up. "But Long Feng is the one who will suffer, as will the Dai Li. I don't understand Azula but I do understand Long Feng. Listen, I don't want you to go all red-eyed anymore… you remember the last time?"
Mitsu hugged his brother. "I remember…"
"You're smarter than that, which why I let you live outside and never looked for you. It seems I finally get my chance after all, though I wish I didn't have to lose my kingdom to do it. Mitsu, I'm glad you're here. We can finally take that long walk you promised me when you left."
"Where did you want to go, the last time?" Mitsu spotted the port town looming ahead.
"Your place, of course."