VI: The Drill

"Aang, what are you doing back so soon? I thought you were going to look for Appa." Katara said upon the Avatar's return.

"Appa's going to have to wait."

"What's so important that Appa has to wait?" Sokka asked.

"There's something big approaching the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, like a massive drill, and it's got the Fire Nation Emblem on it." Aang told them.

"I'm willing to bet that Azula's overseeing it then." Zuko stated.

"Are you going to come with us?" Aang asked.

"I'd love to, but I don't think that now's the right time for me to try and bring my sister down." Zuko replied.

There was no time to wait for the ferry to dock, Aang took Sokka, Katara, and Toph to shore on his glider, and Toph and Aang used Earthbending as an elevator to reach the top of the wall. There they met up with General Sung, leading the defense against the drill. Aang offered to help them, but was told that he was not needed. He showed them his team of Earthbenders, the Terra Team, as they made their attempts to stop the drill from the outside, while Sokka decided to come up with a team name for themselves, settling on 'Team Avatar'.

However, to support Zuko's suspicions, Azula was somewhere within the machine. Although she didn't come out, Mai and Ty Lee did. May threw her knives and shot mini crossbow bolts, nailing a few guys to rocks, and Ty Lee proceeded to knock down several other guys with some quick jabs. Now that they were all down, Toph asked: "Now would you like for us to help you?"

"Yes please." General Sung spoke weakly.

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Once the ferry docked, Zuko and Iroh decided to wait for the others in the station. They met up with another ticket master, and brought the others' tickets and passports to get them taken care of too. Iroh had to sweet talk her in order for her to stamp their tickets and passports without any trouble, and she became quite flirtatious with him as she welcomed them to Ba Sing Se. They decided to wait for the others in the station. They sat down and Jet decided to join them for a moment.

"I saw the Avatar take off with the rest of your friends. Do you know what's going on?" He asked.

"There's a problem at the outer wall, and he's off to fix it." Zuko replied.

"Well why didn't you go with him, Lee? You're pretty good with those swords and you're quite stealthy."

"It was best that I didn't get involved. The problem requires benders and Sokka, he's good at coming up with ideas on the fly." Zuko told Jet.

"So, you're just going to stay in the station until they return?"

"Yes, so you go on and get to the city. Perhaps we'll find you once it's all over."

Jet shrugged his shoulders and got up, saying: "Who knows, perhaps I'll find you first." He then got on the next train when it arrived.

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"So the question is how are we going to stop that thing?" Aang asked. Everyone looked over to Sokka.

"Why are you all looking at me?" He asked.

"You're the idea guy!" Aang told him.

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

"You're also the complaining guy." Katara added.

"That part I don't mind." Sokka told her.

The Terra Team brought in their downed Earthbenders to the infirmary, where Katara set to healing them. General Sung remarked that they didn't look injured, but the Earthbender elaborated that a young lady hit him with a few quick jabs, locked his chi, and then cartwheeled away. Katara knew he was talking about Ty Lee, and remarked that when she chi blocks, it felt like she takes you down from the inside. That gave Sokka an idea: "That's how we're going to take down the drill! Just like Ty Lee did with these big Earthbenders!"

"By hitting it's pressure points!" Toph announced.

"We'll take it down from the inside!" Aang declared.

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A tea vendor passed by and Iroh ordered a cup of a jasmine brew, only to find it stone cold.

"Ugh, coldest tea in Ba Sing Se! We'll have to make a few changes around here." Iroh grumbled. Zuko caught him about ready to use Firebending to heat up his tea and knocked it out of his hands, and snarled: "Don't be a fool, Uncle!'

"I know you're not supposed to cry over spilled tea, but… *sniff, it's just so sad!"

Zuko just slapped a hand over his own forehead. Iroh got up and told him: "I think I'll take the next train into the city, but I'll be back in a while." So when the next train came, Iroh stepped inside.

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Outside the drill, Toph created a large dust cloud to cover them as they infiltrated the drill. Only Toph stayed outside to do what she could to slow the drill down.

Once inside Sokka knew that they'd need schematics of the machine, and so he came up with the quick idea of breaking a steam valve with his machete.

"What are you doing? Someone's going to hear us!" Aang exclaimed.

"That's the idea. I figured that a machine this big needs engineers to run it; and when something breaks…"

"They come to fix it!" Katara interjected.

Sure enough an engineer came to look at the team problem, and Katara bent the steam to freeze him where he stood, while Sokka stole his shematics. Looking at it they saw that the drill had an inner mechanism and an outer shell held together through braces. They decided to collapse the drill by cutting through the braces, but once they reached the braces, they found that they were massive structures, proving that their task would be daunting.

Sokka cheered Aang and Katara on while they bent the water from Katara's pouch to slice through the brace… However, it took too long just to cut through one brace, and a lot of energy. To make matters even worse, the drill made contact with the outer wall.

"Maybe we don't need to cut it all the way through!" Aang told them after a moment of realization. He gave a demonstration on Sokka saying that Toph has been teaching him not to put his full strength into one strike, but to break an opponent's stance, deliver a final blow, and his own weight would be his literal downfall!. So they agreed to just weaken the braces. So they sliced only a little over halfway through. Still it took quite a bit of time.

By the time they reached their last brace, they had been discovered. The Fire Nation found the frozen engineer, and the brace cut clean through. So Azula and her posse made their move to capture the vandals.

"Alright Team Avatar, now Aang just needs to… DUCK!" Sokka cried out as Azula threw a fireball at him.

Team Avatar split up Aang going one way, Katara and Sokka going the other. Katara tossed Aang her pouch and she escaped through a sludge pipe with her brother, with Ty Lee pursuing after them; Mai refused to get in, utterly disgusted at the thought of swimming in 'wall juice'; as for Azula, she went after the Avatar.

When Katara and Sokka landed, Katara saw that Ty Lee was after them! So she bent the water to plug up the drain and keep Ty Lee trapped so she couldn't chi block her. Sokka told her to keep it up so pressure could build up in the drill so it would be ready to burst when Aang delivered the final blow. A short moment later, Toph caught up with them to help out, and Sokka told her to help Katara out by bending the earth in the water. With her help, Ty Lee was pushed out of sight.

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Aang made it to the top of the drill and carved an X to weaken the shell, having to duck General Sung's boulders, and eventually Azula when she started throwing fire at him. He had his companion, Momo, fly off as he dealt with Azula, and a burst of sludge sent them sliding down the sides. Momo flew in to help Aang climb up the drill again by running with the speed of the wind, while Azula had to catch herself and climb back up slowly.

A boulder fell into place for Aang, and he carved it into a wedge over his X and scaled the wall in order to deliver the final blow, but on his way down, Azula managed to get to the top. She prepared a fireball for him, but just as she tossed it, Aang missed it and hit his wedge with such a percussive blast of air that she was sent to the very back of the drill!

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"Here it comes!" Toph called out, and she built a pillar for them to stand on while the sludge drained from the drill. Ty Lee crashed into the pillar, and was pinned there by the flow. Azula slid down the back of the drill, into the sludge, as the drill collapsed and shut down. Mai looked out through a porthole, and told her friends dryly: "We lost."

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Iroh had returned from his trip to the city with a vase of flowers and a big grin on his face. When he found Zuko, he found him almost asleep in his seat. Iroh clapped a hand on his shouder and gave him a little shake to wake him up.

"Oh, hey Uncle; so, how's the city?" Zuko asked rubbing the drowsiness from his face.

"It's lovely, and I managed to find us some jobs while we stay."

"Uncle, are we even going to need jobs now that we're traveling with the Avatar?"

"If we are treated as honored guests, we might be seen to that we're given everything we need, but what we can earn for ourselves can be saved up for when we leave, or to spend on having a little fun." Iroh replied.

A little while later, the others returned, Zuko met their eyes and got to his feet, asking them: "I take it that everything went well, but what happened?"

"We took the drill down from the inside, and gave Azula a taste of defeat." Sokka told him. Zuko sighed, blissfully and told him: "I've wanted her to have a taste of failure for some time now. "

"I get it, sibling rivalry." Sokka stated. Zuko nodded.

"Shall we go to the city now?" Iroh asked. The kids nodded and they got onto the next train, where someone awaited the young heroes at their next stop.

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I'm curious, what events do you guys think are going to go down once they reach the city? Please feel free to answer that question in the reviews.