Al stared down at his brother, breath ragged. His face was burned and scored with cuts. Every time he inhaled a burning dagger jabbed him in the side. He was covered in bruises, and both of his ankles felt like they'd been dislocated. His hands were a mass of raw, friction-burned tissue. Al didn't really care about all that; Ed was alive.

Chunks of masonry and stone tumbled down around him as the... the thing in the ceiling worked its way further and further into the ruined arena, screeching as it pushed. It was coming after them. It was after Ed. And he couldn't allow that.

He walked unsteadily to his discarded metal shell- not entirely sky-iron, he realized now. Some kind of alloy. Hence the weight. He would have to fix that problem later- and gently touched the mercurial metal. In a shimmering display of static, it enfolded itself about him, and once more he was armour-clad. He knew, deep down, that he shouldn't feel this way. So comfortable. He was locked in a suit of alchemically-destabilized metal which was probably doing terrible things to his skin and nervous system. But he had to protect Ed. So he clapped his hands.

The beast in the ceiling stopped dead, its skin creaking. Its four-pronged mouth was open like a bruised flower, the four 'petals' uneven and twitching spasmodically. The screech changed into a tortured whining, like a power line in a strong wind. Slowly, one of its winged shoulders twisted forwards. And kept twisting. There was a horrific crunch, and the limb popped out of its... wooden? Socket, pulling lines of cord and tubing with it. The ruptured shoulder was- well, it wasn't blood. It was translucent blue mist that dissipated almost instantly- but it was bleeding. As he watched, one of the lower jaws bent outwards at an impossible angle and fell away from the head. The whining became a whimper of agony. It came from a throat that was not even remotely human, but the pain was evident. A huge crack tore its way across the creature's torso, haemorrhaging blue fluid. The gigantic sphere of dull gray metal in the center of the thing's chest was vibrating, tearing free of whatever restraints held it in place. Suddenly it was falling. There was a pop, a brief flash of horrible unearthly light and sound that made Al's ears scream, and it was gone, leaving the twisted and broken corpse of the creature behind.

He shrugged, picked up Ed's limp form, and walked out of the stadium. By the time the Ember Group response team arrived, all they found was a stadium full of severely wounded men and women, the Avatar included, and a badly shaken town full of the remains of half a dozen core-less Tulpa. The Elrics had vanished once more.

Aang awoke very gradually, and had the presence of mind to keep his eyes closed when he heard two unfamiliar voices having a furious argument. Well, the male voice was having a furious argument, while the woman was desperately trying to defend herself. And by the sound of things, he was just getting warmed up.

"Sergeant Sangmu Tsenpo. I think I speak for General Si and the entire Ember Council when I say what the fuck was that? What in the hells possessed you to think that was a good idea?"

"Lieutenant Shou, sir. I thought that, given the presence of the White Lotus-"

"You thought driving a tank into a stadium of unarmed civilians was a good idea?"

"Sir, the time for subtlety had passed, sir. Any tactically aware leader would have-"

The man whistled three notes, and the woman gasped in fear.

"Sergeant Tsenpo. I have been given complete authority to have you executed or psyche-wiped for this flagrant breach of conduct. Now, I don't want to have to re-assert your schizophrenia and paranoid delusions, but if you continue to dig yourself a deeper hole I will have no choice but to trigger the release of your psychological stabilizers. Is that clear."

It wasn't a question.

"Y-yes, sir."

"Good. Now let's review, shall we. You openly demonstrated Ember Group technology in front of uninvolved civilians. You caused severe damage to your materiel in a situation where such damage was not necessary. You forced our most valuable informants in Gaoling to break their cover and almost got their daughter killed. You got Tanker Sergeant Nutarniq killed. Your 'plan of attack' permanently crippled Tanker Sergeant Oi Hara. The Avatar, the Fire Lord, and two citizens of the Southern Water Tribe are in our custody, but seriously injured. Good for you. We didn't even know they were there, but you got 'em. Which just leaves... ah yes, the Elrics."

"Sir, there's-"

"We know about the problems with their abilities. We lost five of our Attuned when they tried to scan the combat site and the remains of the Tulpa. Five good men and women, just doing their jobs. But at the moment, they don't matter. What does is that you let the Elrics escape. As far as the Council and the General are concerned, this is entirely your responsibility."

Aang fell asleep at that. As the world faded away, he realized they were moving.

After several hours in a cold, dank and poorly-lit underground chamber, surrounded by armed guards, Mai, Suki and Ty Lee were moved to a warm, dry and poorly-lit underground chamber, surrounded by even more armed guards. That had been... probably three days ago. Thankfully, the earthquake had stopped, and from what she'd seen of the Capital, the Ember Group had destroyed the glacier occupying their prime real estate.

It was a fairly standard Fire Nation cell. Three low, reasonably-soft pallets on the smooth, clean stone floor. A latrine, concealed behind an extremely thin paper curtain. One whole wall was iron bars, about as thick as Mai's wrist, their ends cemented into the stone by the direct application of extreme heat. Her bored reverie was interrupted by a snort from Suki.

"I just realized something. I'm actually getting nostalgic for the Boiling Rock!"

Ty Lee rolled over, clutching her pallet like a full-body pillow.

"I know! They even made the cushions that perfect combination of too soft and too lumpy! I missed them so much!"

Mai stared Ty Lee dead in the eyes.

"Ty... did you just use sarcasm?"

The chipper chi-blocker just smiled back, face open and disarming. Mai snorted and turned her attention back to the ceiling. She was counting the number of bricks. Yep. Seventy-eight. The key was to do it slowly enough that your mind sort of sank into a stupor. With enough concentration, hours would pass like minutes. Mai had always guessed that she was some sort of meditation prodigy, but it was so boring.

"Mai. Got a question for you."

She sighed.

"Go ahead."

"Why, exactly, did we attack the Capital alone? I mean, I get we're all good at fighting, and that no one would ever expect an attack like this, but still..."

There was a rustling of cloth. Mai was fairly sure Suki had just turned to look directly at her, but couldn't be bothered to check.

"Mai, unless you're not telling us something, this was a stupid plan. And you've really, really screwed up. Ty Lee, don't tell me you didn't see something like this coming."

"Well, I do trust Mai! Implicitly! But now that you mention it... yeah, this wasn't very clever of you, Mai."

Mai grinned. Very slightly. No one, except maybe Azula, would have noticed it. But it was a grin nonetheless.

"Suki, let me respond to that question with another question. In fact, several questions."

She spoke in her best 'talking to the upper crust' voice. Clear, smarmy and full of bullpigshit.

"How did Ozai try to burn the Earth Kingdom?"

"What?"

She shifted, ever so slightly, and caught Suki's eyes, nodding slightly.

"Answer the question, Suki."

She resettled herself, uncomfortable under the full force of Mai's intentionally reptilian stare.

"Um, well, he Firebent out of an airship. The comet allowed him to burn huge swathes of territory. Scorched earth, I guess?"

Mai nodded again.

"Good. Now, tell me. How long do you think it would take for Ozai, or even Ozai and a fleet of airships, to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground. All of the Earth Kingdom."

Suki shrugged.

"A-a long time? Like, a really long time?"

Mai closed her eyes, bringing up several mnemonics. For a brief instant, she was sitting in the gardens of the Royal Palace, a list of figures in hand.

"Five months, eighteen days, six hours. Plus or minus about a month. That's without accounting for sleep, food, waste disposal, refuelling, atmospheric disturbances, exhaustion, or acts of the Spirits. Accounting for those aspects yields a total time of well over a year. A year in which, yes, the Earth Kingdom would burn. But also a year in which-"

"In which the leader of the Fire Nation would be completely occupied and unable to rule. Not to mention utterly exposed to attack. It's like dressing up in your most ostentatious clothing and leading an army from the front. You just become a target."

"Not the words I would use, but yes. Now, Zuzu's beloved father may have been a dangerously unstable megalomaniac, but his War Ministers weren't nearly so foolish. The comet would only be around for a week or so. So the Fire Nation needed another way to continue its genocidal campaign. One that didn't require immensely powerful firebenders to achieve."

"Where are you going with this?"

"Next question. What is the largest artificial flame in the Fire Nation."

Suki shrugged.

"Hells if I know."

Ty Lee was positively bouncing up and down.

"Ooooooh! Oooooh! We learned this in the Academyyyy!"

"Go for it, Ty Lee."

"The Great Gates of Azulon! Intended as a last-ditch anti-ship harbour denial weapon! Built in-"

"Okay. The Great Gates. So how do you use a gigantic flaming net to burn a whole kingdom? That'd be a hell of a lot of net."

Mai closed her eyes, visualizing again. This time, she was holding a set of blueprints and several thick scrolls, all bearing various 'Top Secret' labels.

"Imagine you have a pipe, covered in many fine holes. Through that pipe you pump liquid fuel, which sprays out the holes. If you ignite one hole..."

"The rest catch and you've got a burning metal bar that will keep burning until you stop pumping fuel through it. I get it. That's how the Great Gates work. Get to the point."

"What if this pipe only had one hole. And the fuel moving through it wasn't liquid, but air. And you could find a way to compress and heat that air such that it ignited by itself. What would you have then?"

Suki was silent for a while, pondering.

"A weapon that could burn a continent. If you made it large enough."

"Precisely. Now. Next question."

Ty Lee giggled.

"Oh, this is gonna be good! I can tell!"

"Hold on," Suki protested, "What about-?"

"Did Aang ever tell you about what happened in the Foggy Swamp?"

"Yeah. The whole 'everything alive is a web' thing. But what does that have to do with anything?"

Mai picked idly at a narrow crack in the stone floor, examining her nails carefully. As she'd suspected. There was earth below this. Not much- probably just a thin layer between the floor of the cell and the metal reinforcements that held the bunkers below the Capital together. But enough.

"Suki, what is the current status of the Fire Nation airship Phoenix Lord Ozai?"

"Haven't the faintest.", Suki said, looking bewildered.

Mai smiled, letting it show. Suki's expression went from confused to worried, and possibly a little scared.

"You get this one for free. It is- or, rather, was in a secret hangar beneath Ember Island, only a short distance by air from the Capital. Zuko ordered it decomissioned. I ordered it launched. The Phoenix Lord is of the same design as the un-named flagship Ozai used. With several... major modifications. In fact, it was originally intended to be part of his genocidal strike force, but it was... delayed for testing."

Suki growled angrily, rubbing her temples.

"So we've got an airship. And we're underground. That leaves us with what, exactly."

"Next question.", Mai said, utterly without emotion. "If you were to capture the consort of the Fire Lord, one of the Princess' personal bodyguards, and an Earth Kingdom war hero and personal friend to the Avatar, where would you imprison them?"

"Close to me. Where I could keep an eye on them, I guess. Will you tell me-"

Mai sat up, reaching into a deep fold of her dress. The guards had been thorough, but they hadn't strip-searched them. Their mistake. She withdrew a small package of tissue paper and dampened cloth, carefully unfolding the wrappings to reveal a tiny spot of green- a single minuscule clump of moss.

"Let's review what we've learned, Suki. One. The Fire Nation has developed a weapon that can single-handedly burn a continent. This weapon was never used. Two. The Fire Nation has a functional military airship not far from where we are now, one which was designed for the express purpose of burning a continent, and it has been mobilized on my orders. Three."

She shoved the moss deep into the crack in the stone, then sat back, watching it carefully.

"You can locate anyone by communing with the web of life. More specifically, the plants that make up that web. Four. We are close to the leadership of the Ember Group. Can you guess what it all means?"

The earth began to shake. From outside came a strange keening wail, as if the living rock was in pain. Suki's eyes widened.

"I guess... I guess it means we duck, and hope they don't miss?"

Si was, all in all, moderately pleased with himself. The BOOM Serpents had broken the cloud layer through the liberal application of high-altitude explosives. The Screaming Dragons had completely disabled the White Lotus' attack force of Earth Tulpa. They'd succceeded in melting the glacier by literally burning through half their total supply of flame weapons. But the Lotus was holding, and they'd done some monstrous damage to their enemy. The Fire Lady had been captured. So had the Avatar. The loss of the Elrics was unfortunate, but acceptable as long as they were not under White Lotus control. Just as the sun was dawning in the north, so was the Ember Group's star r-

Si blinked. Once more, he was atop his observation platform, gazing out at the destruction below. It was late in the evening. And the sun was dawning in the north. That- that wasn't right. He hurled himself at the largest deck-mounted telescope, centering the bright point of light in the viewfinder then dialling the machine to maximum magnification. First, he saw three words, hastily painted on an unfinished hull. Phoenix Lord Ozai. Next, he saw the airship, a skeletal oblong the colour of unpainted metal. Most of the lower hull was unfinished, leaving a framework bridge and engine setup attached to an exposed gas bag. Finally, he saw the weapon. It was a huge tube, running most of the length of the airship. The hull of the ship was mottled with huge air intakes, all leading in to the base of the tube. It looked like a gigantic steam projector. But steam projectors didn't glow. The bow end of the tube was covered by a rough metallic fairing, which, Si guessed, was supposed to look like the head of a dragon. Except they hadn't finished it. The entire structure was melting off the bow of the ship, the metal glowing brilliant red-orange.

"What in the world...?"

The airship shook, the tube glowing brilliant purple. He staggered backwards, blinded, as the hillside below him burned brighter than the sun.

A second keening detonation rocked the cell. Suki stood, hand against the stone. She looked more than a little terrified.

"Mai, are you sure this is- um, safe?"

Mai just nodded and waited. It took about half an hour. Once, a pair of guards rushed by, but they didn't stop. After the tenth concussion, a rain of stones fell from the ceiling, and with a creak, the grating fell free from its moorings, crashing to the floor.

"Well, ladies? Shall we?"

Mai led the way as they piled into the hallway outside. The corridor was canted at a peculiar angle, the metal floor warped and distorted. The gas lamps had burnt out, the only light provided by the luminescent stones that protruded here and there from the ceiling. It looked to Mai like the hallway sloped upwards to the left. Judging by the number of other cell doors, they were in one of the prison areas in the bunkers deep beneath the Capital. Wordlessly, she led the way. The hall was completely free of guards, and there was a peculiar acrid smell in the air, like hot rock dust. They rounded a corner, and a looming pit of blackness opened up before them. The hall had been bisected by a blast from the Phoenix Lord; a vertical cone of melted stone, plunging straight downwards. The adjoining walls of the hall were rippled and glassy, and she could feel the heat radiating off the metal floor. Ever so carefully, she leaned into the pit and looked down. Deep below was a pit of glowing semi-liquid stone. Above were distant stars, and the ruins of several other hallways that had been laid bare by the jet of superheated gas. A thin rain of ash descended from above. The air was unpleasantly hot and bone-dry, with a strange acidity to it. Her nose wrinkled as she inhaled- it smelled like the interior of a glassblower's workshop. There was a flash of purple light from above, another shrill keening explosion, and the earth shook.

"Okay. We need to get to that hallway two levels up. Ty Lee, can you make it?"

The acrobat quickly took stock of the scale of the crater.

"Well, the walls are nice and sloped so I should be just fine! Suki, do you still have that rope?"

The Kiyoshi Islander nodded, pulling a sash off her waist. After she'd picked a few seams free, it unravelled into a skein of thin, strong cord almost thirty meters long. The acrobat quickly tied one end about her waist, securing the other to a bracket in the wall that had once held a gas lamp.

"Great! Wish me luck, everyone!"

With that, Ty Lee had thrown herself into the corridor, legs pumping furiously as she ran around the circumference of the crater, slowly spiralling her way upwards. She leaped across the door of one ruined hallway, barely losing any momentum as she continued her upwards path. Then, abruptly, she'd disappeared into the hallway Mai had indicated. The rope went taut, and she poked her head out of the ruined doorway high above.

"Everything's secure on my end! Climb on up!"

Mai had had her doubts about Ty Lee, especially in a situation this uncommonly risky. Now she supposed she needn't have worried.

Al stopped pedalling, wincing as sweat ran over his cuts. They were making good progress. He'd left Gaoling with Ed, a crudely assembled cart, and a suit of clanky, improvised armour. Now he was riding a sort of tricycle-cart, its razor-thin sky iron frame pared down to almost nothing. He'd bound his cracked ribs with the tunic they'd given him on the Wind Chariot. Atop his head was a conical straw hat, perfect for keeping the sun out of his eyes. He'd bought it from a somewhat confused farmer in a rice field, along with some rice and a skin of water, in exchange for a lump of gold the size of his fist. The dressings on his hands were stained red, the burnt skin painful against the handlebars. But Ed was all right. His brother had spent most of the time since Gaoling asleep in the back of the cart, recovering from whatever the Airbender and the Firebender had done to him. He occasionally coughed up a little blood, but his breathing was getting much more regular and strong.

As the tricycle rolled to a stop in the lee of a spreading pine, Al took a swig of water, experimentally flexing his hands. The pain came and went. If he hadn't had the cart, though... he'd never really appreciated the mundane utility of alchemy before. Over the past day, he'd made himself transport, shelter and the means to purchase food from nothing. The Alchemists of Amestris were so limited in that respect. They saw their abilities as something higher and more refined- weapons or scientific instruments, when what they really were were tools.

His musings on applied alchemy were interrupted by the realization that he'd stopped quite close to one of the carved stone pillars that passed for milestones in the Earth Kingdom. The inscription read simply 'Bo', and then a distance, which his brain told him was somewhere in the area of three kilometers. Well, no point in stopping now.

His plan was simply to fade into the background. He'd seen Earth Kingdom coinage at the Rumble, and it had been a simple matter to convert the spare metal of the cart into a jangling pocketful of coins. Next, he needed a post office. He'd been surprised to learn that much of the Earth Kingdom peasantry was literate, and mail was a common thing- he'd been passed by several mail coaches drawn by large flightless birds, hiding the tricycle in the bushes as they rumbled past. Five minutes later, he left Ed and the cart in a cave he dug out on the outskirts of Bo, then headed into town, straw hat pulled low. Twenty minutes after that, he was leaving town with several light blankets, a basket of vegetables, a pot of ointment for burns and cuts, two pairs of tinted black spectacles, and a tub of black ink. The clerk at the post office, becoming far more polite when Al handed him a large handful of copper coins, had told him that the stuff was generally used for outdoor signage, and tended to stain. Perfect.

After all the ink was gone, he and Ed sat together, eating a bowl of rice and vegetables. Both of them were seriously weirded out by their new hair colour. Ed had been reluctant to, in his words, 'put on hallowe'en costumes to fit in with the locals', but he rapidly and somewhat vainly demurred when Al pointed out that the dye job would grow out and that people with a back-length black braid looked pretty cool and badass. Thus, Al had resolved the hair-colour problem. Next were the eyes. Yellow-brown was a Fire Nation eye colour. Not exactly welcome in the Earth Kingdom. He hadn't expected glassware to be so prominent, but apparently the merchants had no compunctions about reselling goods from the (apparently) newly-peaceful Fire Nation. And the Fire Nation had the best glassblowers in the world. Or so he'd heard. The spectacles didn't fit either of them well, but they were sufficient to cover their eyes. And lastly came the issue of skin tone. Ed solved that one, between huge, coughing gulps of rice.

"A sunburn is a sunburn no matter who you are. And the Earth Kingdom is pretty damn sunny."

Mai ducked behind a bulkhead as a spattering gout of burning fuel roared past her. They were... suffering some difficulties. Moving closer to the surface and away from the blast zone had brought them into more well-patrolled territory, and news was obviously spreading that they'd escaped. The end result was that the Ember Group had abandoned all pretence of capturing them and was just trying to murder them instead. Unless they had developed some sort of miraculously non-lethal flamethrower, which Mai very much doubted. The three of them had begun to hit wave after wave of the steam-armoured heavy troopers, and their upwards progress was slowing fast. She supposed they could probably retreat back down to the impact crater, but if pursued they'd be sitting ducks while they made the long, slow climb up and out. No way to go but forwards, then. There was another gushing of flame and Suki rolled into the space next to her, green battledress singed and scorched. Mai indicated the collapsed body of another heavy trooper within arms reach, and Suki nodded. They seized the corpse and hauled it upright, using its heavy plating as a shield against the flames. Blood from the knife wounds all across the body dripped onto her as she lugged it forwards, leaning into the flames. She, Suki and Ty Lee had also been forced to resort to desperate measures, and her red robes were dripping as a result. Fire boiled around them and Mai knew that if- when- she got out of this, she'd have a truly atrocious sunburn.

She heard a choked gasp, the pitter-patter of light feet, and Ty Lee kicked off her shoulder, soaring above them and the onrushing flames. The stream of fire stopped as the soldier tried to redirect it towards her, but he was too late. Ty Lee folded about him in a spidery chokehold, spiking her fingers into the unarmoured area at the base of his neck. The soldier went limp, dropping the flamethrower and collapsing to the ground.

The rest of the fallen soldier's sqaud- all ordinary soldiers, stepped up, crossbows raised. Suki dropped the body and sprang forwards, circular shield in hand. They opened fire, and she deflected the crossbow bolts with contemptuous ease, explosions bursting around her as she recoiled from the force of the detonations. A little sweet-talking from Ty Lee and some punches from Suki had gotten them access to a weapons locker where their gear was stored.

Mai crouched behind Ty Lee, letting the Kiyoshi Warrior take the hits while she returned fire with her rope darts. They were slick with blood, the wire-centered cords kinked and bent from repeated impacts with metal, skin and bone. There was a cough of agony as she withdrew the darts, and the quiet sound of bodies hitting the floor as Ty Lee landed among them. Mai stood, just in time to see one of the soldiers drop one of the small hand explosives they were so fond of using. The grenade clinked distinctively as it rolled along the metal floor. Ty Lee was on it in an instant.

"Oh no you don't!", she screeched, kicking the grenade hard. It hit one wall, bounced off the rough ceiling, then careened around a bulkhead further up the hall. There was an instant of panicked swearing, then an explosion, and silence. Mai grabbed Ty Lee by the shoulder before she could investigate.

"Hold on", she breathed, "we don't know if they're actually dead."

There was a metallic noise from behind them, accompanied by a grunt of exertion. Suki shouldered them aside, staggering under the weight of the flamethrower.

"I am sick," she hissed, hefting it.

"And tired," she growled, raising it.

"Of being on the wrong end of these!" She roared, pulling a lever and advancing around the bulkhead. Gouts of fuel bathed the corridor. All was silent save for the whoosh of flames and the sloshing of the fuel. The air filled with the sickening smell of charred meat. She dropped the flamethrower and turned to look back at them, her dirty, blood-streaked face paint glowing ruddily in the light of the fires. Her eyes were like stones. Mai had seen that face before- in the old paintings and carvings of Avatar Kiyoshi.

"What?", Suki growled, "You guys may be all about your knife tricks and fancy acrobatics, but I am a Daughter of Kiyoshi. We fight to stay alive. And if that means turning the enemy's weapons against them..."

Leaning down, she grabbed a belt of grenades from a fallen soldier, slinging it over one shoulder. Then she found one of the compact Ember Group crossbows. She cocked it with a ch-chunk. A spring snapped and the magazine of bolts clattered on the floor. She stared for a few seconds at the broken weapon then threw it aside in disgust.

"Oh Kiyoshi damn it."

Ty Lee stifled a giggle.

With no little effort, Si opened one eye. He couldn't move the other. He tensed one hand gingerly. It moved. Slowly, he turned his head. His neck seemed to be working, although he could feel the automatic blocks implanted in his subconscious suppressing a truly staggering amount of pain. It was like having a a shard of glass buried deep in his skull- it was sharp and painful, but he could treat it carefully and it wouldn't affect him. Ever so carefully, he began to sit up, feeling his breath rasping in his lungs. The inside of his mouth felt burnt. The pain intensified, but he could still move. Nothing seemed to be broken, but every part of him seemed to be injured in some way or another. Carefully, he looked around. The observation platform was slightly canted, the deckplates split by the explosion of several steam lines. Most of the exposed surfaces were scorched or otherwise burnt. Everything was covered in a thin layer of greasy ash. The metal beneath him felt hot and sticky, but as he moved he realized that was just how his burnt skin felt. He looked at his hands. Second-degree burns just about everywhere. Almost third-degree in a few places. It was a wonder he could move them. He stood, uncomfortably aware of the smell emanating from his parboiled carcass. His right eye still wouldn't open. Gingerly, he felt his face, fingers wrapping around a thumb-sized piece of what might be telescope lens protruding from his right brow. His hand came back slick with slightly dried blood. That- that explained a great deal. He tried to slow his breathing, feeling the beginnings of shock setting in. He was mentally prepared to resist it, but the pull was still very, very strong.

Now, if he could just get to his harness... breath hissing through blistered lips, he took a heavy step, feeling his burns crackle. Without his mental conditioning, he would have passed out from the pain by now. As it was, he was consciously forcing his body to produce dangerous amounts of adrenaline and endorphins, repeating endless mental mantras to keep himself in a state not entirely dissimilar to a runner's high. Another step. One more. Just one more. And one more after that... Ever so slowly.

His harness was intact, although it was scorched and had fallen off its stand. He fumbled for the armour's medical kit, pulling out a syrette and injecting it into his thigh. He'd need all the numbness he could get for what he had to do next. Moving with overexaggerated delicacy, he shucked the harness on, stepping into it like a pair of overalls. There was just enough pressure left in the system to start the boiler and activate the hydraulics. He dialled the weight support system to the highest setting. Taking a deep breath, he chinned the activation panel, the gesture leaving a thin layer of scorched skin behind on the controls. With a hiss, the harness activated, the chestplate folding over his torso and arms and legs clamping down. His breath caught in his throat as the system began to absorb his weight, the padded inserts clamping vice-like over his burnt body.

Fifteen minutes later, after a harrowing descent in a barely-functional elevator, he stomped stiffly into the command centre, his harness doing most of the walking for him.

"Report", he rasped.

The chaos in the command centre slowed slightly as people gawped at him. Someone proffered a medical kit and offered to call a doctor, but he waved them away.

"I know how bad it looks," he spat. "Report."

The news, a shaken Attuned airbender explained, wasn't good. The Phoenix Lord Ozai was laying waste to their defences, well outside the range at which they could return fire with projectors. Rockets could reach it, but it just manoeuvred out of the way and let the unguided projectiles splash down. All airship attacks had proved fruitless, as the White Lotus were pressing their offensive, especially in the air. And the worst of it was...

"The Fire Navy." Si exclaimed incredulously.

"Er, no, sir," the Attuned said, wiping sweat off his flushed face, "Not all of it. Just the Home Fleet. Only about twenty battleships with twice that in cruisers and landing craft."

"Sixty ships, even low-technology steamships, are still a threat, especially if they're carrying an army and supported by the White Lotus. But who called them in?"

A runner staggered in, gasping and out of breath.

"M-message for the General from the lower levels," she huffed, hands on her knees.

"Yes?"

"The Fire Lady-"

Si sighed, shaking hi head and wincing as the skin on his neck went crunch.

"Has escaped. And of course while she was away on Kiyoshi Island she found a way to gather her forces. Lovely. I knew she was a risk, but calling in a whole army...?"

Out to sea, the fleet was steaming landwards, trailing immense black clouds of in their wake. Sailors on deck marvelled as water Tulpa slipped and rolled through the fleet's bow wake, luminescent beneath the night-time sea. Every few minutes, a blaze of purple light from the Phoenix Lord Ozai lit up the night. Some younger, more rabidly patriotic soldiers claimed the flame was Ozai himself, come to free his nation from the invaders. Others said that the Dragon of the West, the great General Iroh, had tamed a still-living dragon. Their more veteran counterparts muttered quietly about black projects, fifth columns, vast stocks of hidden war materiel and secret weapons intended to restore Fire Nation dominance across the globe. Above all, though, everyone was asking questions. Where was Fire Lord Zuko? Who, exactly, were the Ember Group, and why had they invaded the Capital? Where were the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes in the face of a blatant breach of the Armistice? What, by Agni and all the spirits, were the tentacled things in the water and the birdlike shapes circling high above? None of these questions were answered, save by more rumours, but they did not go unrecorded. The fleet was, unbeknownst to the Fire Nation, full of spies, from the Ember Group, the White Lotus, and a half-dozen other interested parties. Messages were being hastily memorized, or shoved through miniature paifangs, or dropped overboard in sealed lead canisters in the final minutes of the fleet's approach.

For they were unquestionably final. Si's orders to the BOOM Serpents had been quite clear. A half-and-half mixture of anti-shipping missiles and gas warheads. Sink the ships, poison the crews. The submersibles were scattered across half the immediate ocean, but they were still in touch with each other and very much capable of combat.

The submersibles rose out of the ocean, their widened hulls rock-steady on the ocean swells. Raggedly, but with increasing force, they let out their war cry.

"UUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAA!"

One by one, hatches on sea-swept decks were slowly opened as huge hydraulic arms tilted an array of gigantic rockets skywards. The ocean lit up as the fleet of BOOMers fired, sending their deadly payload skywards. The rockets rose for a few brief seconds, then levelled off, their gyroscopes activating and setting off the final descent stages of their solid-fuelled engines. They didn't even need to be particularly accurate; the size of the fleet and of their warheads ensured that. They were travelling well over the speed of sound when they hit the fleet, sending up a huge curtain of water and spray followed by an ear-splitting EEEEEEEEKRAKOOOOOOOM as the shockwave hit.

For a few seconds, the ruins of the Home Fleet weren't visible in the rising pillar of spray and smoke. Then, gradually, it cleared. And the Fleet continued unscathed. The Tulpa had risen from the depths, swatting the rockets out of the air like insects before retreating beneath the waves and speeding off into the darkness. The BOOMers had played their hand too early, and were now defenceless in the face of the coming onslaught. Some tried to turn, retreating back into the harbour. They weren't fast enough. The water was torn asunder by another wave of detonations as the Ember Group warships were either scuttled by their captains or dragged down to the bottom, where they were literally torn apart. The Home Fleet advanced unopposed.

-~0X0~-

Yay! New content!

As some of you may have noticed, I've gone back and re-written the first three chapters. I don't know how much editing will be done on the subsequent ones, but I think the changes in characterization, dialogue, scene flow and continuity are vast improvements. Re-reading my earlier stuff in-depth was an interesting experience. The concept and premise behind HtE has changed so much since I originally planned it- hell, it was originally going to be a three-way struggle between an entirely Fire Nation Ember Group, the White Lotus, and an Equalist-style Marxist revolution in the Earth Kingdom.

So yeah. The finale of Korra was fooookin' sweeeeeet. And as is normally the case with summertime, this will probably be the last whole new chapter until September. Documents and potential chapter edits to follow. Ciao.