Chapter 18
THE B-TEAM.
A lone airship cruised high in the sky over the Western Occupied Earth Kingdom, Hakoda stood at the helm, with Teo beside him in his wheelchair acting as a navigator and giving the man guidance on how the machine flew. As per Aang's instructions they'd flown north, before veering east in their attempt to find refuge. Hakoda speculated they were far enough north to make a heading towards the Water Tribe, but with the airship being recognizably Fire Nation he realized they'd likely be shot down. Teo suggested that instead they make a landing in Rong Province. It was forested, in the foothills of the Sky Peak Mountain range, with a small population, and a significant Fire Nation presence just across the provincial border in Yanhai to the east, and the much smaller Dong Tai to the south, due in part to the coastline, and the two states active minor rebellions.
They made a rough landing near a valley in the province's southern boundary, closer to the coast of the western salt lake, and began to make camp. Their plan was relatively simple. They were going to make contact with the local rebel groups, and help in what ways they could.
Of the group, Haru, Chit Sang, and Hakoda ventured from their camp towards the nearest town marked on the map they had. Once within the settlement's borders, the three took note of the absence of Fire Nation colors and iconography, then made their way to the only establishment with it's lights still on and music coming from the interior.
"Well at least the place has a nightlife." Chit Sang said.
"Do you think these people will be on our side?" Haru asked, as Hakoda put his hand on the door knob of the town's bar.
"Well there's an easy way to find out." Hakoda said, as he stepped inside. The rowdy townsfolk not initially taking note of his presence. He cleared his throat, a few heads turning to look at him, before he spoke. "All hail the Earth King!"
In response, the bar went quiet for a second, before breaking out into a cheer.
Hakoda, Chit, and Haru were all given a seat at the bar's corner table, before being seen by a man in a disheveled Earth Army captain uniform, who sat across from them, a glass of honey beer in hand.
"So, Chief Hakoda." The captain said, before sipping his beer. "I was under the impression your invasion of the Fire Nation Capital was a failure, and you were captured."
"First impressions can be misleading." Hakoda said, as the barmaid brought the three men a beer each. Haru winked at the girl before she walked away, as Chit began to chug the contents of his glass. Hakoda pushed the alcohol across the table for Chit to take. "We escaped, or a good portion of us did."
"And how did you manage that?" The captain asked, before taking another swig of his beer.
"My son, Sokka, broke me and Chit here out of prison. Sokka's traveling with The Avatar." Hakoda said, causing the captain to nearly choke on his drink.
The man coughed twice before wiping his mouth, and fixing the three with a look of skepticism. "I heard The Avatar was dead, reborn a waterbender, or not reborn at all. How's your son traveling with them?"
Hakoda smirked. "The Avatar never died, we kept him hidden until the day of the invasion. He was there, at the battle."
"Then how'd you end up getting captured?" The captain asked, setting his glass down.
"Aang wasn't participating in the fighting." Haru said. "He was supposed to face the Fire Lord alone, but the tyrant coward had already fled the capitol before we landed on the beach."
"The Avatar was able to take Haru and our youngest out of the battle. Many of the earth benders tunneled their way out into the Fire Nation mainland's countryside for those who desired to keep fighting, and are probably still on the loose. My men and I surrendered with honor." Hakoda said, as Chit took the beer Hakoda had pushed towards him, and began to drink it too.
The Captain looked at them all. "So The Avatar takes your son away from battle, and then your son breaks you free from prison. If that's the case, why are you not with him, and the Avatar then?"
Chit lowered his glass, belched, then spoke. "We had to split up in the Western Air Temple. This crazy dude that's chasing The Avatar nearly dropped the building on us with bombs or something."
"Kozato, a nephew of The Firelord or something similar." Hakoda said. "Oh, and that's not the craziest part. The Prince and Princess of the Fire Nation? Stripped of their titles, branded traitors, and are now helping The Avatar."
The captain looked baffled. "Well I knew there were plenty of people of Fire Nation descent who want to see the crown overthrown, but his own children?"
"It's true. They were there with Sokka to break me free from The Boiling Rock." Hakoda said with a shrug.
"What exactly do you three want?" The captain asked, holding up his glass of beer.
"We want to help in any way we can." Haru said.
"And we want the world to know that The Avatar is back, and he's still fighting for us all." Hakoda said.
The Captain leaned back in his chair, and grinned. "I think I got a job for you then."
Dawn graced the lower ring of Ba Sing Se. It was a shell of it's former self, with over three quarters of the tightly packed district having burned to the ground, or becoming skeletonized husks of buildings, and apartment blocks. The rest of the ring fell silent, the streets far more empty than would be considered normal for the early morning, soldiers being the only ones who moved during the night hours.
Fighting between the Fire Army and the resistance had slowed to no more than a crawl after The Day Of Black Sun. Curfews were being strictly enforced with beatings. The remaining smiths, printing presses, bars, and other establishments that could aid the rebellion were sacked and their owners arrested. The greatest blow to the rebel's efforts came only a week later, when the new field commander charged with overseeing the city's occupation had begun the organized mass arrest of earth benders within the city, offering fiscal rewards to those who offered information on their identities. The middle and upper rings had begun to see unrest, as neighbor turned against neighbor in a desperate bid to avoid the fighting witnessed in the lower ring and the farmlands beyond it.
Jin, wearing her usual thin green summer robe and slippers, left home after sunrise, her bedridden mother fairing her well. She began her walk towards the middle ring, avoiding eye contact with the soldiers out on the streets, pretending not to hear the few who made comments about her in passing, or offers of copper ban for sex.
Jin had no delusions about her place in the world thanks to the occupation of her city. With the constant battling in the street, and businesses being closed left and right, shutting off sources of income, the number of jobs an unskilled young woman could take up had significantly shrunk in size. Jin was by all metrics a daywalking whore now, but she wasn't a cheap one, and she wasn't just a whore.
Though the Fire Army had reinstated travel restrictions between the lower two and upper two rings of the city, blocking potential resistance members from hiding in the middle ring through forbidding the lower commoners from entry, Jin had made a "special arrangement" with the gate guard unit's commander. At the cost of two minutes on her knees, in a broom closet with the older man once a week, she could freely slip between the lower and middle rings to go about her business of killing his peers.
She continued up the far less cluttered street of the middle ring, searching for a new "client." Junior officers were always easy targets. Most were unmarried men, and if they were married men, the Fire Nation's apparent societal lack of shaming infidelity made seducing them far easier than it should have been.
She passed by a bakery, and in the alleyway beside it, saw Hei glaring at her. She hid a look of surprise, before darting into the alley once she was sure no one was watching her. "Business is going well, I take it?" Hei asked.
"As well as it usually would." Jin said, as she crossed her arms. "I'm on the job, so I'll make this quick. What do you want, or what do you have for me?"
"I need a package delivered to the contingent of Earth Army resistance in the west." Hei said.
"Well I'm not a courier. I sleep with men, and kill people." Jin said shortly.
"And that's exactly why I had you in mind for this." Hei said, pulling an envelope from his robe sleeve. "I've been coordinating with other free agents from outside the city, and we've decided that The Earth Kingdom can not win this war, not so long as we continue to act as separate forces struggling against a greater enemy. The Eclipse did more than just take fire bending away for a few minutes, it proved that when the people of the kingdom work together, we can overcome the differences in technology between the nations. It proved that if we can unify, we can win. This is the last dispatch I need delivered."
Jin looked at the package skeptically. "A trip to the western end of the Earth Kingdom has got to take three months on foot, and at least one on an ostrich horse. Who'd take care of my mother while I'm gone?"
"I've already considered her sickened state. She'll be watched over, don't you worry." Hei said, as Jin took the package. "And you won't be gone for that long, if you take my advice." Jin cocked an eyebrow. "The Fire Nation's iron rail can have you on the other side of the kingdom in a week."
Jin shook her head. "Only the Fire Army can ride out of the city in their metal train. Even if I snuck aboard I'd have to hide for a week."
Hei smirked. "Yet somehow you were allowed into the middle ring as a commoner from the lower ring." Jin narrowed her eyes at Hei. "I'm sure you can get on board without anyone noticing, or more accurately anyone giving a damn. If you take the train, your stop is a town called New Gaipan. The entire province is under Fire Nation occupation, but their presence is less noticeable than it is here since the army has been getting replaced with colonials. From there you'll need to cross the Salt River into Guo Jia state, your contact will be in a place called Pine Timbers. A logging town on the river."
"Does my contact have a name?" Jin asked.
"Minuano." Hei said. Jin narrowed her eyes, the name sounding strange. "He's an Earth Army remnant, a second lieutenant of a small cavalry unit the resistance could be better utilizing. He'll be in the town's general store. The next train leaving for the west coast departs at sunset. Do with that what you will."
When Hakoda had heard the words "Earth bender prison camp," he envisioned what Haru and his father had described of their time on the metal prison rig, not the land locked, barbed wire fence enclosed, metal walled factory seated deep in the woods, with long huts in an open dirt yard. A single set of iron rails beside a dirt road led to the prison, and the layout, as far as Hakoda could observe from his point on the hill, was a triangle, with the factory acting as the camp's back wall, and the prison's entrance, the train station, serving also as the only visible guard tower, several men with guns standing watch over the yard.
Hakoda would commend whoever designed the place, the yard being a triangle meant that the one tower could see every wall, and could shoot anyone who tried to escape, either through the main gait, or by trying to go under the fence. The long huts were also aligned with the two fence walls, preventing them from being any sort of effective cover.
Though he didn't know the layout of the factory interior, Hakoda could assume that it would follow similar design principles of the other two Fire Nation prisons he'd been in. Lots of right angles, cell filled hallways, and whatever cavernous work rooms had to have existed.
The Bedraggled Earth Army Remnant Captain had made a point about the camp, and so to the factory's destruction, but Hakoda, seeing the obvious opportunity to gain more allies, intended to break the prisoners out. Slipping away from the hill, and back towards his team's encampment, Hakoda began to make a plan.
"You just want to walk through the front door?" Haru asked Hakoda, after the chief had given them the short and simple version of his plan while the group sat around their campfire.
"Well yeah." Hakoda began. "We've already got Fire Nation prison guard uniforms, Soldier uniforms, prisoner rags, guns, and an airship. All we'd need to do is land right outside of camp, walk in, and convince the guard's we're transferring new inmates in from the colonies."
"Seems a little bold." The Duke said.
"Bold enough that no one trying to break into a prison would actually try it." Teo said.
Chit Sang nodded his head. "And since I'm a fire bender, if anyone thinks we're rebels, all I gotta do is show off a little in a uniform, and whoever we come across is gonna believe the transfer is legit."
Hakoda smirked. "Once we get inside we've still got to destroy the factory, and free the prisoners."
Teo looked down at the fire, and frowned. "You said the prisoners were earth benders. If that's the case, and they have earth to bend, why haven't they tried escaping?"
Hakoda looked around at the men and women of the group without an answer, only for Haru to speak. "Fear is a powerful weapon, and the Fire Nation knows how to use it well."
Hakoda nodded. "I'm sure that once we start making waves the prisoners will help us help themselves."
Haru, doubtful of Hakoda's claims, looked into the fire with Teo. "So when do we leave?"
The Fire Nation Airship was put down just outside of the prison camp gate with a blast from the ship's fog horn. The Duke and Teo kept out of sight, staying behind the wheel in the ship's bridge, while Hakoda and the others dropped the ramp of the airship's landing bay.
Hakoda, and one of the three Kyoshi Warriors had dressed themselves in the prison guard uniforms from the Boiling Rock, as Chit Sang wore the uniform of the company Kozato commanded. Haru, and the remaining two warriors were clothed in ill-fitting prison rags. The men and women playing the part of guard and soldier had carbines in their hands, and pistols on their hips, while those playing the part of prisoner were "chained" by their wrists.
The six approached the front gate of the prison yard, and were stopped by the guards there. "What's the meaning of this? We aren't scheduled to take any new prisoners for another week." The guard standing outside said.
Chit sang, spoke both clearly and with far more etiquette than he'd previously displayed. "My unit, under the command of Captain Kozato, has been tasked with an assisted expedited transfer of a prisoner from the Boiling Rock. We found out, this one was an earth bender. These two were scheduled for a transfer a month from now, and the warden over there lumped them in. Said it'd be easier to get rid of them now."
"Oh I hear that." The gate guard said, before he took the keys to the iron gate off his belt. "Walk them into the main building for processing." He said, unlocking the gate and pulling it open for the group, smirking at Haru.
The group entered the yard, and the wind changed direction. The gust was cold despite the summer heat, and the smell of smoke from the factory's three chimneys wafted through the air. Hakoda had to resist the urge to vomit. It reeked of sulfur, smelted copper, feces, and bacon being burned making almost everyone gag.
They marched through the camp, passing by the long huts. Prisoners wearing flat brown rags for uniforms were standing around, some looking out from the end doors of the buildings. Hakoda took note that most of the prisoners looked to be wasting away. Their faces were pale, gaunt, and their body's thin and bony. "When's the last time they fed these people? Hakoda muttered to himself.
The door guards of the factory saw the incoming personnel all looking sick, and chuckled. "Yeah, putrid aren't they. You get used to it eventually." One said, as they opened the doors to the building. The group was met with more of the same stench from outside, and it was only once the doors had opened did Hakoda understand what it was they were smelling.
In cages, suspended from the ceiling with chains, packed in like rats, were the camp's earth benders. They were emaciated, starving husks of skin and bones, steeped in their own filth, far worse than the prisoners in the yard. The segregation made it clear that the huts outside were not filled with earth benders, merely non bender earth kingdom citizens, the metal cages being reserved for those who could easily escape. Though their filth was not the source of the smell…
On the floor were piles of corpses, stripped of all their clothing, neatly stacked on top of each other, sitting beside a conveyor belt which led to one of three giant coal fired furnaces that lined the back wall of the open building. Four inmates that hardly looked different from the bodies they were moving, each working to place human remains on the conveyor belt, one by one.
Burning corpses… That was what Hakoda had smelled upon entering the camp, and for the first time in his life, Hakoda felt something he couldn't describe. It wasn't anger, fear, or disgust. He didn't know what it was, but it left him feeling almost empty. A single tear fell from his eye, and he had to close them, pretending not to witness the atrocity being committed right in front of him.
"Oh, look at that, more stone chuckers." Hakoda opened his eyes as he heard a guard watching over the corpse movers speak. "They look nice and healthy too. Might be able to put the male here to work for a week or so." Acting nearly without thought, Hakoda thumbed the cap lock of his carbine back, and pointed the muzzle at the guard, whose expression turned from a smirk, to cold disbelief. "Oh shit." He muttered.
It was midnight in the Fire Nation capital, and through the shadows lurked a team of just three. Covered in black, the group of escaped invaders from the Battle of Caldera, crept deep into the city. Approaching the Fire Lord's Palace, the exterior stone walls seemed to grow in size to the three shadowy figures, an unsurpassable obstacle, or so it would seem.
The shortest member of the group tipped his conical hat slightly left, and drew back his bow sting. Longshot let the hook headed arrow fly over the wall of the palace, and the coil of rope attached to it unwind. Once the arrow had found purchase on the other side of the wall, he gave it a tug, and then began to climb the wall, his two partners behind him.
The three person team rappelled down an anchored line into the palace grounds, and quietly made their way across the open yard under the shadow of a cloud that had moved in front of the moon's glow, avoiding the guard patrols outside. Once up against the building, they climbed up the wooden supports of a side deck to reach the first floor. The woman with them, Li-An, a water bender from the Foggy Swamp, drew a small stream of fluid from the hide pouch on her waist, and forced it into the lock of the deck's door. The water pushed the tumblers of the lock out of the way, and the door clicked open.
Now inside of the building, the three hugged the corners of hallways, and Longshot was always the first to turn them, arrow drawn. Crossing an open air hall, the silk curtains billowing in the warm breeze, the three snuck up behind two guards on patrol of the palace interior. While one infiltrator had opted to simply put his guard to sleep with a choke hold, Li-An had covered his mouth and nose with water, and drowned him while he stood.
Longshot took point once again, as he nocked two arrows into his bowstring, approaching the long hallway leading to the firelord's chamber. He drew the arrows back, and held his bow horizontally, before peeking out from behind the corner, and letting the needleheads fly.
The two steel tipped wooden shafts sailed clean through an eye slit on each of the royal guard's helmets, instantly killing the two who stood guard outside of the Fire Lord's chamber. Before their bodies could fall to the ground, Li-An, with two tendrils of water, caught the bodies of the guards, and pulled them away from the door.
As Longshot and Li-An stayed behind the safety of their corner, Chey approached the massive metal door. Before getting carried away, he tried turning the handle, finding that it was locked. As expected, only a firebender could unseal the chamber door… Or someone with a lot of explosives. Diving into his waist bag, he pulled out two sticks of his and The Mechanist's greatest invention. Blasting jelly soaked diatomite, wrapped in a thick paper, with a mercury fulminate blasting cap and attached fuze, or as Chey liked to call them "Boom-tubes." Taking out a jar of paste as well, Chey slathered one side of each stick in the white adhesive, before sticking the two explosives to the heavy metal door near where the deadbolt should have been. Striking a match, Chey lit the intertwined fuzes to the explosive sticks, and then quickly ran back to the corner down the hall to take cover. The three held their ears, before the nearly deafening boom from down the hall shook the palace walls.
With the element of surprise now gone, the three rushed around the corner, down the hall, and into the smoke cloud, crossing the threshold into the remains of the entryway. The three quickly observed that the bedroom was missing it's supposed sole occupant, as the bed in the room's center was empty, and they had not been attacked yet.
Either through poor luck, or the Fire Lord's own paranoia, he wasn't in his room. "Aw man." Chey muttered to himself. "We gotta move!" The three took off into the halls of the palace, as alarm bells rang from the palace guard posts.
Heavy footsteps could be heard coming from around the corner, their original point of entry now cut off. As they passed the intersection, Longshot loosed an arrow into an imperial guard's neck, one of the men beside the now wounded guard shouting "ASSASSINS!"
Making their way around an adjacent hall to the open air passage they'd come across, now with guards chasing after them, the three clambered up the wooden poles supporting the roof, climbing up onto the tile above them. Taking off to the south side of the palace by the rooftops, the three heard another shout from a window in the palace's main tower. "YOU THERE, STOP!" Ignoring the command, the three kept running along the rooftop, before a small volley of gunfire was heard.
There was a cry of pain, and Chey crumpled onto the tile rooftop. Li-An looked back to him, finding the man to be bleeding profusely from his groin. She nearly stopped to help her co-conspirator, before he shouted at them. "GO! LEAVE ME! JUST GO!" Chey shouted, as he rolled over onto his back, and began to dig into his waist pack for another Boom-tube, unwilling to let the Fire Nation get it's hands on his creation.
Longshot and Li-An reached the end of the tile roof, and both jumped down and away from the next volley of gunfire. Longshot was fine after dropping from the roof of the two story building, as he landed in a roll that distributed his energy, though it ruined his conical hat. Li-An, on the other hand, had not landed properly, and there was an unsettling crack that could be heard, her shin now bending at an awkward angle. She screamed in pain, before Longshot picked her up and carried her, the two not having enough time to set and then heal the fracture with waterbending.
From the roof, a massive blast rocked the palace once again, this one larger than the last, throwing bits of clay tile, and wood splinters into the air. Longshot didn't look back, knowing that Chey had just blown himself up, and probably took a few imperial guards with him.
Reaching the palace's stone wall, Longshot struggled to accend the anchored rope they'd left, Li-An weighing him down. Once he'd slid down the other side, the bowman took off in a dead sprint into the city's empty streets.
When Hakoda next saw the captain who'd given him the task of destroying that Fire Nation "prison," he looked slightly worse for wear, and had over five hundred mouths in need of food, water, and shelter now in his care. "So how'd it go?" The captain asked, as Hakoda sat beside him at the bar of the tavern where they'd met.
"Why didn't you tell me what was going on in that…" Hakoda didn't even know what to call it. "That death camp."
"Would you have believed me if I told you?" The captain asked.
"I might have been inclined to." Hakoda said.
The captain sighed, before taking another swig from his drink. After he swallowed, and wiped his mouth, he turned to look at Hakoda. "But it's almost inconceivable isn't it, The Fire Nation, industrializing and streamlining the mass murder of an entire people, for no discernible reason, other than maybe because they believe we're a threat. After everything else, all of the peace brokering in the colonies decades ago, granting citizenship to people of the Earth Kingdom once conquered… Why would they do it? Making us slaves would be understandable, but just killing us is… It's just madness."
Hakoda forced an exhale through his nose. "Because madness was always part of the plan… The Southern Water Tribe's seen something similar before. The Fire Nation used to come, and take water benders away, then one day they just started killing them… Just started killing us until there were only two villages left."
The captain hummed in response. "They just decided to go one nation at a time then I guess?" The captain finished his drink, before burping with his mouth closed, and venting it through his nose to not make any noise. "So what are you gonna do now, Chief Hakoda?"
Hakoda clenched his fists. "I'm going to find out where every single one of these camps are, and I'm shutting them down."
If nothing else, Hei was right that Jin would figure out how to board the Fire Nation's steam train, though not technically as a passenger.
The train was part of the Fire Nation Colonial Rail system, and while the majority of passengers would not be aboard for more than a few hours at a time, the line officially ran from Crainfish Town in the colonies, all the way to Siaw Jong province just outside of Ba Sing Se now, and into the city when in coordination with the army. Over such a long trip, the crew, if not what passengers were traveling that distance, required somewhere to sleep, and eat. For the rich, it was a private state room. For the commoner, there were shared rooms that had bunks. For engineers and conductors who ran the train, it was the caboose. For the cook in the buffet car, it was a small bunk room behind the kitchen.
Jin had made a deal with the cook who was in the chief conductor's good graces. In exchange for keeping her bed warm for the week-long trip, (strange as it was sleeping with another woman after how many men she'd seduced,) Jin was allowed aboard the train.
She'd reached her stop at the train station outside of New Gaipan, and began her walk south towards Salt River, taking another day of her time. Once at the river, Jin caught a ferry across the water and into Guo Jia state. On dry land again, Jin had to hitchhike for a wagon ride further west along the river, and only then did she come across the town of Pine Timbers.
To Jin the community seemed to be thriving. It looked to be predominantly populated by people of the Earth Kingdom, though a few pedestrians in fire nation attire or colors could be spotted in the crowd. Every building was made of wood, sourced from the trees that used to grow where the town now sat. Children played in the street, and roving merchants had stands scattered around the wooden slat sidewalks and the interconnected porches of buildings. The street was less a street, and more a dirt road, or as it was in the moment, a mud road after heavy rainfall. Surrounding the town for a mile in every direction were fields of tree stumps, and men at work felling pines in the distance. Ostrich horse teams pulled carts filled with logs down the way towards a mill closer to the river.
Jin was let off of the wagon she rode into town on, looked up to see the sun hanging above her in the sky, and began her search for the general store. The town, though busy, was not massive, it had only five streets, with the main road leading directly to the river. She passed a blacksmith, a bar, an inn, and bakery alone on the side of the walkway she trodden on before reaching the town's second of four intersections. As Jin crossed the street she was nearly run over by a drunk man riding an eel-hound, mud splashing up onto her otherwise clean summer robes. With a groan of disgust, Jin continued down the road, finally finding the general store.
Jin entered the dusty store, wiping her feet on the mat layed out inside. The layout was simple. The store occupied the building's first floor, and shelves were hanging from the walls. A wooden staircase to the second floor sat in the corner behind the counter in the back of the store. There were only three people she could see in the shop. The man behind the counter, an older gentleman with glasses and a long mustache that was beginning to turn white with age, then the couple making their way towards the exit.
Jin, not knowing what else to do, approached the man behind the counter. He smiled and greeted her. "Good afternoon young Miss. You're a new face in town. What can I do for you?"
Jin cleared her throat, before quickly checking over her shoulder, to see if anyone was at the door. "I'm looking for someone, a cousin of mine. He used to be in the army. I was told he might work here. His name's Minuano."
The man behind the counter's demeanor changed, as he grew serious. Without another word, the clerk turned and made his way up the staircase. Jin, feeling as if she'd made a mistake, took a few steps back towards the door, as muffled conversation could be heard above her, there was a shout, and then glass breaking.
Cutting her losses, Jin turned, and made her way out the door, before taking a few steps down the wooden walkway. She took a calming breath, before the sound of shutters opening to her left caught her attention. Looking up, Jin saw a man, with a light tan complexion, dark black hair in a tail, looking out the window. He vaulted over the sill, onto the low roof of the butcher shop beside the general store. She wasn't able to catch more than that, and the fact he wore black pants, and a green sleeveless tunic, exposing what looked like a burn on his right shoulder.
He looked down at the street once he was on the roof, and made eye contact with Jin. She was able to take in more detail now. He looked to be in his twenties. His face was strangely angular, with a sharp jaw, pronounced nose, and a dusting of facial hair suggesting he hadn't shaved in a few days. His eyes were hazel, and the tail he'd put his hair in was messy, leaving a few loose locks framing his face. A thin scar ran down his cheek, from just below his left eye to his upper lip. Jin couldn't put her finger on what it was, but for some reason he just looked strange.
Jin swallowed a lump in her throat, before the man, who she assumed was Minuano, spoke. "Merda." He muttered, before taking off across the rooftops.
"Hey! Wait!" Jin shouted, as she began to follow him from the street.
The young man's agility was impressive. Jin while having to run through the foot traffic of the town, was still able to keep up a sprint, however her supposed contact had jumped across the alley between two one story buildings, scaled the wall of a the two story cobbler shop beside them, then leapt off of the roof onto the wooden awning above the first floor of a dinner's front porch. From there, he took one running jump onto a logging cart to get halfway across the intersection, ran along the timbers, then dropped into the street. Gaining on him, Jin was only a few arms lengths away, before the man threw coins from his pocket into the air, shouting "FREE SILVER!" A small crowd quickly gathered to squabble over the coins, blocking Jin's access to him, and setting her chase back by a few seconds.
Shoving past the crowd, Jin continued to chase after the man, his lead getting larger, if only for a few seconds, before he was nearly run over by the same drunkard on an eel hound. Said eel hound was spooked, and her contact backed up a pace so as to not get slashed by it's claws, before her supposed target let fire trail from his hand in an arc, as he began cursing at the drunken man. Though surprised, Jin was not deterred, now only wishing to get answers. As the mount and the drunkard rode away, Jin had finally made up enough ground.
With a grunt, Jin jumped into the air and tackled her contact into the muddy street, laying both of them out, covering them in muck. Grabbing him by the collar of his tunic, Jin pulled out a small knife she kept up her sleeve, held it to the man's neck and spoke. "Are you Minuano?"
"That depends… Who's asking?" He asked, tilting his head slightly. His voice was smooth, and… Jin was sure he wasn't trying to sound sensual, but then again, she was straddling him.
"Just a whore from Ba Sing Se." Jin said with a shrug.
The man chuckled. "Oh, well then, why didn't you tell my pai that? After all, strangers asking about resistance members is quite suspicious. But, eh, My name is Sa Mu… Or Minuano if you'd prefer."
Jin got off of Sa Mu, and looked down at the bedraggled man who was now grinning at her. This was who she was supposed to give dispatches to. "You're the Earth Army officer Hei sent me to find? And you're a fire bender?"
Sa Mu performed a near flawless kick up, landing on his feet. He chuckled, dusting his hands off, fire puffing out from between them every time they made contact. "That I am." He said, still grinning.
"Do you have somewhere safe we could go? Somewhere private?" Jin asked.
"Miss. Look around." Sa Mu gestured to the loud and busy street, as he came to stand beside her. "The most private place to speak is one where no one can hear you over the sounds of the public."
As Sa Mu put his arm across Jin's shoulders, she held up her knife, putting the blade to his chin. "Unless you're willing to pay, I suggest you take your hands off me… I might be a whore, but I'm not without boundaries."
Sa Mu pulled his arm away, holding his hands up. "My bad, my bad…"
Jin put her knife back up her sleeve, and sighed. "But I've got more than just words to share, and I don't trust that we aren't being watched by someone who might care. Hei has a dispatch for you, and thinks your unit could be better utilized."
"Dispatch for my unit?" Sa Mu asked in confusion, before his expression darkened. "Oh, right… My unit…"
"Is something wrong?" Jin asked.
Sa Mu sighed. "News travels far too slow these days…" He looked down at Jin and clicked his tongue. "Miss. My unit is gone… You must understand, many of the men I had under my command were family men, and the cavalry is volunteer only. They were not with me because they were forced to be, they were with me because up until a few weeks ago, they wanted to be."
"Well then, what changed?" Jin asked. "Why have you lost your unit?"
Sa Mu sighed again. "They've gone home to protect their families. The war is not going well for us, Miss. It might seem like Pine Timbers is doing good, but outside of the lands the resistance can controle, the Fire Nation has been making moves… I hear things, from travelers, from cities, and towns bigger than this, like Ba Sing Se, that they come and take away the earth benders, the resistance fighters, their wives, their children, their mothers, fathers…"
"The Fire Army is doing something like that, yeah…" Jin said, crossing her arms.
"And so, I had too few men to command." Sa Mu shrugged. "What other young men remained I helped go into hiding within the province, but I've not seen anyone else in nearly a week."
"Then it's just you?" Jin asked.
Sa Mu held his arms out wide. "An army of one."
Jin raised an eyebrow. "But you're in hiding too?"
Sa Mu shook his head. "Pine Timbers is where my pai and mai have come to settle. It is their home now, and so too it is mine."
"An army of one, defending his home town, called upon to serve his kingdom… And he runs away when a young girl asks if he's home?" Jin asked with a smirk.
Sa Mu chuckled, as he rubbed the back of his head. "Well, you know, I didn't want to burn my pai's store down. Had to get out in the open first… Ah, forgive me Miss. I have not asked your name."
"Jin." She said shortly.
"Heh." Sa Mu smirked as he turned and faced towards the river. "Well, Miss. Jin, whore from Ba Sing Se, why don't you come back to my apartment so we can review these dispatches, perhaps, after washing off and getting comfortable?" He held his arm out, elbow bent for her to take, an oddly gentlemanly gesture she was not often shown by her normal clientele.
"Do you treat all the whores you meet this nice? Or just the ones you can't pay?" Jin asked sarcastically, though took Sa Mu's arm all the same as he chuckled.
"Well, I did just throw away my silver didn't I?" Sa Mu said with a thoughtful nod.
"Damn shame." Jin said, growing a smirk, as the two began walking back down the street.
AN: Going on a camping trip next week, so I won't be writing until I get. But when I do... Oh the incoming shitpost that is "The Ember Island Players" will be LEGENDARY... Or at least entertaining.
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Genocide, assassination plots, and liaisons with interesting new characters...
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Yeah, The Fire Nation plan to "burn the earth kingdom to the ground." I actually had to sit down and think that one through, then took notes from the National Socialists. Which was depressing to say the least.
The Fire Nation is on that racial supremacy BS, and they would have 100% started the genocide of the Earth Kingdom early in the places they could, IE the places they had the greatest military control over. Occupied fringes, and places with a large presence of soldiers, like naval port towns. Then when the comet comes they can do the bulk of the work.
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Chey, Longshot and the OC Li-An were part of the invasion force that fled into The Fire Nation mainland's countryside, scattering and evading capture. Their assassination plot is ... Plausible canonically? Definitely plausible within this story, as we've seen the Royal Palace has flaws in its security with messengers sneaking in under the darkness of night before. Of course after the invasion, Ozai has been a little bit more paranoid. There are resistance fighters in his own country now after all.
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Jin's delivery mission for the Ba Sing Se resistance has, as it seems, taken an odd turn in meeting Sa Mu... And I think we all know where he's from.