The smell of smoke was thick in the air, and Katara was exhausted already. She had been fighting alongside Fire Navy sailors, protecting their ships while they were still in port, but she had come to the compound, hoping to help expel the attackers present there. However, she was surprised to find that her father and the warriors had arrived there in the knick of time; she knew that he would be arriving soon with reinforcements from New Omashu, who had come along on their boats with them.

Inside the compound, there were now over a hundred fighters, some of whom she recognised; the Freedom Fighters, led by the irascible Jet, as well as some of the Earth Kingdom soldiers who had fought with them all those months prior. The majority of the people there, however, appeared to be other rebels they had picked up along the way, resembling Jianren's fighters in the sense that they had people of all ages, men and women both, all grizzled and skilled earthbenders. There were a few Fire Nation soldiers there as well, who explained that Colonel Zhengyi had sent the force in to retake the compound from some soldiers who had overwhelmed the defenders earlier.

Katara wished that the battle would already be over, and was relieved when she realised the Fire Nation reinforcements she had helped them beat seemed to be from the last steamers that had been sent to the compound. She knew more would come, given the dozens of ships that were out in the bay fighting, but she could only hope that they were immobilised or sunk before their men could get ashore. Toph and Aang were off at another part of the base, defending the walls, and she was worried for their safety, though she trusted the master earthbender to protect her student.

So, without any fighting to do at that very moment, Katara decided put her waterbending to use and heal all the injured fighters she came across; they had started to line up inside the building, allowing her to move from one to another quickly, before they went back out to man the walls and prepare for the inevitable counterattack. Her father was sitting besides her, sharpening one of the metal blades he had, and they had been speaking on and off while she healed their allies.

"So... this battle in Shengchang, you weren't hurt then, were you?" her father asked, having been on the topic of their battles since she last saw him.

She grimaced, recalling what had happened to her and Sokka; she was hurt, and then, because of the distraction, her brother had gotten himself hurt badly. She was able to heal him then, but she was deathly worried at the time, given it was her fault; if she had been paying more attention, she wouldn't have got smacked across the face by a fireball.

"What happened?" he pressed her, and Katara turned her eyes away, running water across the arm of the man she was attending to, one of the earthbenders, whose whole tunic had got set up in flames when he was fighting some firebenders.

"I got hit in the face... it wasn't that bad, it was just a shock." she admitted, not wanting to go into too much detail about how much it hurt, "Sokka was the problem. He saw me and got all 'scared and angry big brother', and then he got hit, much worse."

"Oh." Hakoda gasped, before smiling, "I'm proud of him for that." he admitted, before chuckling, "Though, it isn't something I hope he'll repeat."

"He probably will be with Azula instead, knowing him." she spoke her mind, "I'll have to heal him... again."

"Ah, well, I can't blame him. Sokka might love to be tactical and quick-thinking, but he's got as much heart as any other man." he acknowledged, and Katara just snickered, before she raised her hands away from the man's arm, having healed it thoroughly.

"You have my thanks." he gave her a grateful smile before pacing away.

She turned back to face her father, "But don't worry about me, Dad. I can handle myself."

"I saw... you're a great waterbender." he acknowledged with a proud smile, scratching her scalp with his left hand, making her swat his hand away, embarrassed that he was babying her in front of a bunch of adults.

She turned her eyes around, and gestured for the next injured fighter to approach; she was a younger woman who had received some light burns to her forearms and face, her eyebrows partly singed off. She sat herself down in front of Katara, who drew her water from its skin before running it over her forearms.

"So, after that fight, you said there was another." Hakoda returned to the prior topic of the battles she had faced.

"Yeah... that one was worse." she admitted, and his eyes widened.

"Wait, did you get hurt again."

"It wasn't me, Dad." she mumbled, recalling the sight of the bodies she found in ruins, and the dozens of soldiers she had fought, her ice cutting them up; she didn't think any of them were innocent, but all the suffering got to her, "So many people... and for what? I don't even know if they're going to stop. This fleet is just another attempt." she gestured towards the door leading out to the pier, "When will they stop?"

"I don't know... it's been a hundred years of fighting for them. It will take time for them to realise their wrongs." he admitted, and Katara sighed, her eyes turning back to the woman's face, noticing she was cringing from the sensation of her healing.

"Your face is going to feel a bit weird." she preempted herself, and the woman nodded, closing her eyes as Katara drew the water up to her face, running it across her cheeks, neck, and brow.

She cringed hard from the sensations, turning her head with each motion Katara made, the glowing water seeping into the skin and slowly clearing away the burns, as if they had never been there to begin with. Her eyebrows were still singed, but at the very least, there would be less pain. Once she was done, the woman stood up, and bowed towards Katara.

"Thank you, ma'am." she addressed her, the Water Tribe girl amused by the formality; she was a lot younger and less experienced than any of the fighters she was healing, but they had the utmost respect for her.

"Then after that... what did you do?"

"Oh, Aang and I went to help a village with a spirit problem. I actually solved it with this." she explained, letting the water coil around her forearms.

"You can heal spirits?" he raised a brow, "Now that's impressive."

"I'd have to go and ask Master Yugoda if that's a technique they use in the north." she admitted, recalling her brief training with the master healer before she started training under Pakku, "I want Aang to try and figure it out, so he can do it himself next time."

"Well, you are his waterbending master now, I'm sure you'll find a way to teach him." he assured her, and she smiled back, appreciative of his confidence in her.

Another injured fighter came up, this time one of the Earth Kingdom soldiers from New Omashu, distinguished by his gear; he sat himself down in front of her, grasping at his burnt left arm.

"Good day, Katara." he addressed her, surprising her with the fact he knew her name.

"Oh, have we met before?"

"Uh, briefly." he confirmed, "I'm curious if you know where the Blind Bandit is. Me and the men want to catch up with our comrade." he clarified his intentions, and she smiled.

"Ah, yeah, she's out with Aang and the other earthbenders... I'm unsure exactly where, but I saw Aang flying around over by the north side." she clarified, before she readied her water.

"Well, once this fight's over, we'll go see her." he decided with a smile, and offered his burnt arm out.

She ran the water along his arm, and bent it around, the water beginning to glow as it healed his burns. Her father leaned in, watching before he decided to speak again.

"And now, how are you feeling?" he asked her; Katara wanted to be optimistic, but she couldn't truly say she was feeling good about their present circumstances.

The best she could say was that she was amongst allies and friends, people that she could trust; it was better than some Fire Nation soldiers she did not know and could not trust.

"Among friends." she spoke her mind, smiling at her father, "But... we're not safe yet."

"No, no we're not." he agreed with her point, rising to his feet, "I'll get the warriors to try and fix up that gate. If we can keep it shut, then maybe we can hold onto this place while we wait for Azula's fleet to move back here."

She nodded, and watched as her father walked off to retrieve his warriors and enact his idea; Katara finished healing the soldier's arm, and he nodded, rising to his feet.

"Thank you." he acknowledged her assistance, before the next person came over.

It was another fighter, one of those her father had picked up along the way; he was a young man, no older than Sokka, with long hair, a thin moustache and chin strap goatee. He had some burns across his neck, and up his right arm, his sleeve pulled up to reveal it. Before she had a chance to say anything, he sat down in front of her.

"I really do need to thank you for the help you're doing here." he addressed her, "We would all be aching and frustrated if it weren't for you."

"It's no issue really." she assured him, feeling it was the least she could do with her abilities.

"You're Katara, right?" he asked her, and she raised a brow.

"Uh, yes, that's me. Did you hear somebody say my name?"

"Oh, I just remember Jet mentioning you once when I asked about who had organised all this." he asked, revealing that he must have made friends with the Freedom fighters since he was picked up; that made sense, given he appeared to be similar in age to the older members of the group.

"I mean it wasn't just me. Dad and the warriors wanted to help the Earth Kingdom, so it was the smartest thing to do, get everyone together to fight." she explained herself, not wanting to claim her role was too great in the whole affair; she certainly supported the plan to help rebuild the Earth Kingdom, but it was never her great master plan- she would have credited Azula, but she didn't think bringing up her with a random Earth Kingdom fighter would be a good idea.

She began to heal the fighter's arm, and he cringed from the sensation before he scrunched his lips up, "Fight the Fire Nation, or for them?"

"You really have been talking to Jet." she noted, hoping that might lighten the mood.

The boy let out a laugh, and nodded, "I guess you're right. I mean, I was on a prison rig with all the earthbenders from my village before your father and his warriors helped us get our freedom." he explained how they had come to be with the Water Tribe warriors, "I have a good reason not to trust them."

"Azula's going to make sure earthbenders have equal rights in the Fire Nation." she repeated what she had heard from the girl herself, "And make sure nobody is imprisoned like that again."

"That's... well, that's good to hear." he admitted with a smile, before his expression hardened, "I just don't know if I can believe that."

"Well, when she shows up, you can ask her yourself." she suggested, and the boy's eyes widened.

"Wait... we can just speak to her?" he asked her, seeming in disbelief.

"Yeah, she's not the nicest, but she'll listen if you're polite about it." she assured him; he glanced down at his now healed forearm, and pulled at his collar, exposing his burnt neck, "Stay still." she warned, and he tensed up as she ran the water over his neck.

She let the water slowly move around his chi-pathways, and after a few moments, the burn dissipated under the glowing water; once she was done, she drew the water back into her water skin, and the boy touched at his neck before rising to his feet, seeming pleased.

"Thank you very much, Katara." he acknowledged her assistance with a bow, before offering out a hand, "My name's Haru, by the way."

"Nice to meet you." she accepted his handshake, before he paced off and went to speak with some other Earth Kingdom fighters.

Katara sat there for a few moments, waiting for the next person to heal, when the ground suddenly shook beneath her; she heard some angry shouts which were followed by everyone inside the compound speaking loudly. She could barely understand a thing anyone was saying, so she got to her feet and paced over to the doors her father had gone out of. Once she pushed them open, she saw her father and the warriors struggling to push the busted gates shut; through the gates, she could see that her walkway of ice had mostly melted, and it had been blown in half by some boulder from one of the enemy ships. That meant that nobody else could evacuate down the shattered pier, though there was only one ship remaining in port, the rest having moved out into the bay.

"Dad!" she shouted at him, "What just happened?"

"I don't know, it sounds like they're still trying to blast the walls apart." he clarified, before gesturing to the staircase that led up to the battlements on the compound's high walls, "Get up there and see what's going on." he directed her, and Katara didn't waste a moment, rushing up the stairs as she drew the water from her water skin; she knew that she could use the sea water just on the other side of the walls, but she knew she had to be ready.

She could see that three more steamers had landed, lining up beside the abandoned ones that lined the sandy shoreline. The men jumped off the boats, and she could hear some indiscernible shouting, noting that some officers were pointing to points on the walls.

"What can you see?" she heard her father shout at her, and she turned around to point the steamers out.

"There's three steamers on the shore. I think they're going to try again." she explained, and Hakoda nodded, before pointing out various vantage points along the walls.

"Get up there, boys. We can't let them get inside."

"We don't have any ranged weapons but our boomerangs, Chief." one of the warriors warned him, and Hakoda laughed.

"I spotted some discs up there. A bit like what the earthbenders like to use. I'm sure you can keep 'em occupied with those." he assured them, and the warriors fanned out, climbing the staircases to get on top of the walls.

Katara reached over to the seawater and bent some of it out, throwing waves of water at the soldiers as they ran along the edge of the walls, freezing it as it made contact; that got a few of them stuck, but they quickly melted the water with firebending. The warriors began lopping the discs at the soldiers, knocking a few of them unconscious, but it seemed that the discs weren't as effective as using a boomerang, given their heavy weight and lack of range.

She pulled out a coil of water, and began to whip it at the soldiers from a distance; she found ranged waterbending to be more challenging than anything she could do up close, but using more water made up for any decrease in accuracy. Soldiers were thrown to the ground, and when she had them pinned, she froze the water around them, leaving immobilised. However, the water didn't stay frozen for long without her focus, meaning that once she moved onto another target, the soldiers broke themselves free quickly enough. She grit her teeth, noticing that the warriors were failing to get enough of the enemy soldiers, and they started to pool at the gates, shoving at them while they remained unlocked.

She turned around, and was relieved to see that the earthbenders had come out, and began to shore up the defences, bending up some cover and defensive walls around the gate, allowing the warriors to draw away before the gates were forced open. Then the dust flew up into the air, obscuring anything she might have liked to see; the sounds of grunts and cries overtook the sounds of heaving and shouted orders.

Her attention turned back towards those soldiers on the outside, as she raised her hands up, bending a wave from the beach up onto them; the size of the wave posed an issue as she felt the weight in her hands, despite it being down below her. Katara let out a cry of exhaustion as she flung her hands down, swamping the enemy soldiers as they tried to run for the gates. They were thrown off their feet, and the lighter of the bunch were drawn back out into the water when the wave receded. The rest weren't any better off, pelted by the discs, before some of the earthbenders scaled up to the top of the walls, allowing them to target them with pillars and boulders, rising from the ground and falling from above.

The soldiers still had a sheer numeric advantage while most of their fighters were behind the walls, waiting by the gates for them to try and push through. The fighting had to be rough, as she could still hear the grunts, thumps, and shouts below.

"Wash them out!" she heard one of the earthbenders give a suggestion, and she nodded, reaching her right hand out towards the water, before clenching her fist and drawing her arm around, bending up a narrow but massive spurt of water which slammed into the soldiers below, throwing them into each other, and then to the ground.

"Aha!" she heard one of the warriors cry out in joy, "Take that!"

She turned herself around, and raced down the staircase, sensing the water to her left as she approached the dust and mass of people that were fighting by the gates. Katara reached her hand out as she approached the gate, and pulled a mass of water from the shoreline, and threw it at the soldiers in the gateway; though she couldn't see what she was doing, the water was firmly in her grasp, and she heard them cry out and grunt as the were thrown about, falling over each other as the water burst out and flowed out into the courtyard.

The earthbenders looked impressed by her intervention, and proceeded to raise up blocks of earth, ensnaring their foes in the ground; they looked dishevelled and disoriented, turning their heads as they realised they were already beaten. However, the earthbenders hadn't gotten all of the soldiers, and they scampered back, raising a wall of flames which consumed the gateway and blocked their view. Katara scrunched her lips, and decided to use their own attack against them, flicking the water up from the ground, making it burst into steam when it flew through the fire. The cries of pain told her that their flames were hot enough to turn the water into a potent weapon.

That made her smirk as she then reached out again, hoping to use the seawater once again; she threw it up, and she heard the sound of steam bursting out as the firebenders must have preemptively attacked it. The earthbenders heard what she did, and tossed some boulders through the steam that obscured the soldiers from view; they were distracted, and were subsequently smacked to the ground by the boulders. She couldn't see anything, but the sounds told her enough; if she wasn't concerned for her own safety, she would have laughed at their misfortune.

She rushed forward, condensing the steam around the soldiers into a coil of water, which she used to smack those still standing around; they were thrown to the ground, into the gates, or down the slope, falling into the now wet sand. Katara raised a fist, and turned her head around, "Well, what are you waiting for?" she asked them rhetorically, before she used her waterbending to grab one of the steamers, a wave appearing under it to set it afloat, and then right into another steamer on its flank.

She heard people cheering for her up on the walls, and smiled, wondering if that was how it felt to be Aang when he showed up to help those in need; she was no Avatar, but she would not shy from doing her part to end the war. A few of the soldiers were struggling back to their feet, but all of them were flung by pillars of earth, and shot right into the shallow water beyond the sandy beach. She could see a ship moving in their direction through the bay, and though it was pretty hard for her to tell them apart, the distinct golden banners that Ozai's supporters used keyed her into what was happening.

She saw the catapults on the ship's deck, all oriented their way, and clenched her fists, knowing what she had to do, "Get some walls up, now!" she called on the earthbenders behind her.

Walls of earth flung up all around her, thick enough that they'd at least keep the compound safe from whatever boulders that would come their way. Katara knew she could preempt their foes, and let out a deep breath as she sensed ahead of her, knowing what had to be done. She couldn't take a whole ship into her grasp; that had taken a handful of waterbenders against a ship far smaller than the one before her.

So, she decided on the next best option, blocking the boulders themselves; she let some pockets of water out in the bay solidify into ice, forming small but tall icebergs, which she shot up into the air, relying on the natural buoyancy of ice over seawater. She had done it in the nick of time, as three boulders were fired off at that very moment, striking the icebergs and shattering both the ice and earth apart. Not even dust reached them at the shoreline, the ice and stone falling flat into the waters below.

"They're going to reload!" she heard somebody shout down to her, "Freeze them!" the voice advised, and she grit her teeth, pulling her hands back as she massed as much water as she could gather, before throwing it back towards the ship; she couldn't knock the ship over, but the water sprayed up the side of the hull when it collided.

When it reached its apex, Katara clenched her fists shut, freezing the spray all over the deck and catapults. She couldn't make out what exactly was going on on the deck, but they must have realised they couldn't attack at once, and the ship turned around, narrowly avoiding one of their ships in the bay, which fired upon the enemy ship at once, blasting holes through the hull.

The eruption of cheers and chants of victory could be heard all around, but she knew that wasn't it, as she could see another few steamers struggling around the ships in the bay, aiming for their exact position; they crested over waves and moved past already immobilised ships, making their way towards the sandy shoreline. She knew that she would have to fight them off again, and let out a sigh as she wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"You did good there, girl." an earthbender commended her, "You have a powerful fighting spirit." he acknowledged her willingness to throw herself into the fight, and pat her on the shoulder, "Let us prove that we're not cowards in front of her! Sink the bastards!" he called on the other earthbenders, who moved into form, pulling boulders out of the ground, hardening them into rock, before flinging them at the steamers as they drew closer.

A few of the boulders hit the water, merely splashing the men aboard a little more than the waves already were, but many fell right on the steamers, striking their hulls and for one of them, the engine and chimney were shattered, causing the craft to run to a stop before it even reached the shallows. The other steamers, counting five, came ashore not long after, and fire streams coursed out from their decks, forcing the earthbenders to rely on their walls for protection.

She reached out to the sea once more, and bent up a wave, ramming it into one of the steamers that had just come ashore, causing it to fall to its side and become stuck in the sand. However, a few shouts behind her made her realise that they had neglected the men they had already defeated; firebenders and non-benders alike and gotten back to their feet and were trying to attack the earthbenders, catching them off guard while they were focused on the new arrivals.

She spun herself around, taking some water that had pooled on the ground earlier, and threw it up, flinging it around wildly to distract the enemy. They weaved about, trying to dodge the mass of water, all while they were pelted with rocks by the earthbenders; one by one they fell, but Katara realised by the time they were beaten that the other soldiers were still rushing their way.

The Water Tribe girl pulled out a new coil of water from the bay, bending it around herself as she readied herself for the inevitable barrage of flames that would engulf them. She was not surprised as a barrage of fireballs blasted apart one of the defensive walls that had been thrown up, and the soldiers rushed in, trying to set the earthbenders alight. She flung the coil as a water whip, smacking a few of the firebenders back, extinguishing their flames before they had a chance to use them, but the non-benders were less fazed by her waterbending, and rushed at her.

She ducked under a pike, and stumbled back, using her water as a shield to block their attacks; the pikes got stuck in the water, which she froze, and then spun around, smacking the soldiers with the poles of the pikes, before tossing it hard at one of the firebenders, cracking the ice and knocking him straight to the ground. The fighter he was about to attack nodded at her approvingly, before raising up a boulder to defend himself. She grit her teeth, melting the ice and returning it to the shape of a coil around her body, forced to step back, moving down the length of the wall, away from the gates as she realised the numbers were not on the side. They had a lot of men inside, but only so many people could fit along the gap between the walls and the water.

Katara saw some fireballs being shot down from the walls, relieving any fears she had about the sailors abandoning them after she'd helped them flee from their ship back into the base. However, fire against fire was mostly ineffective, just heating up the air as orange hues consumed the sky above her. She could barely see a thing, and had to squint to avoid the light hurting her eyes. She reached back out to the sea once more, and pulled up as much water as she could muster, throwing it at the attackers before they could progress any further. She realised they were at the gates again, which made them much more of a threat than they had been when they were just fighting outside.

"Come on!" she shouted, "Here!" she tried to get their attention, throwing water whip after water whip at the soldiers, smacking them about but merely delaying them.

So, she resorted to freezing her water, and bludgeoning them with ice instead; that was a bit more effective, if not a little crude, imitating the forceful strikes an earthbender would use against them. Katara watched a few of the earthbenders move back through the gates, and realised that it was only her, and perhaps a dozen fighters holding the line on the exterior. She knew that the enemy wasn't landing on the southern side of the pier, so she had no concerns about getting attacked from behind, but the firebenders were unrelenting.

Once they were at the gates, they decided to focus their energy on her and the remaining earthbenders outside. The discs that her father and the warriors had been throwing must have run out, as the only thing she saw from above were fireballs, pelting the enemy soldiers in their obviously fireproofed armour. She decided to escalate matters and took as much water as she could possibly bend, and tried to warn those around her.

"Make some defences, now!" she told the earthbenders, who raised up some short walls to hold off the flames that were being thrown their way; she wasn't worried about the fire, but about the earthbenders being unable to swim.

She let out a battle cry as she heaved the water out of the bay, a wave engulfing them all; it forced the earthbenders to cower by the walls, holding on as the water swept all the soldiers off their feet. She looked up, watching the warriors look down fearfully as the water covered everything, pushing right into the gates, and knocking everyone about. She panted and gasped for air, realising that she couldn't do that twice; the strain was getting to her, and if she wanted to keep fighting, she would have to bend less water at once.

Katara grit her teeth, and held her resolve; she knew she had to keep going; there was no choice, unless she wanted to flee. She was not one to pointlessly throw herself into a doomed fight, and she was sure the fight wasn't doomed if they put their all in. They had the strength of all the Four Nations fighting against their enemies; she was confident enough in that alone to keep her footing. She bent a coil of water out of the wet ground, and eyed the soldiers ahead of herself, knowing that they would not give up so easily.

She was about to throw a water whip at one of the soldiers who had gotten back up, but he was knocked to the ground by a kick to the chest. Her fears dissipated when she saw that the Freedom Fighters, in all their gusto, had forced their way through the gateway, and were proceeding to pick off the remaining attackers while they were in disarray. Jet led his fighters with his hook swords pointed out towards the Fire Nation soldiers, who frantically picked up their weapons and bent flames into their hands. With them on the defensive, it was a lot easier for Katara to rush forward and attack them without fear of being smacked in the face by a fireball.

She ran at them while they were facing away from her, using her coil of water to grab one of them by the ankle, and toss him to the side, throwing him into his comrade beside him; the man who was nearly knocked over turned around and shot out a fire stream from his path, narrow but intense, forcing Katara to weave under and duck.

"You little shit!" he called out to her as he grit his teeth, covering his other hand with flames.

As he prepared to strike her, Katara spun the water around her body, ready to smack him to the ground. She didn't get the chance, as an arrow shot him in his flaming hand, causing him to lose control of his bending, and set his hand on fire. He screamed out in pain, and she was kind enough to douse the flames when she grappled his arm with her water whip, and then threw him head first into the ground.

She turned to face Longshot, who nodded to confirm his hit, before he drew out another arrow; she had no time for thanks, as another soldier rushed at her with a pike, though he was smacked in the face by a wall, pulled up by one of the earthbenders behind her. Another few firebenders ran forward from around the gates, and tried to hit the Freedom Fighters, forcing them to disperse away from the mass of soldiers and dodge the attacks. Katara was able to keep behind a few dazed soldiers, and used them as a temporary shield, though they quickly realised what was going on.

One of them lunged at her with a sword, swinging it down at her side, forcing her to weave; she almost screamed as she felt the blade cut her skin, lengthways across her forearm. She reflexively threw her other hand around, striking him square in the jaw. He stumbled back, dazed and confused, only to be quickly disarmed by Smellerbee, who kicked him in the back and grabbed the sword for herself.

"You alright?" she questioned the Water Tribe girl, who reached for her bleeding arm with a pant; she was losing energy quickly, and she didn't know if she'd have the time to properly heal her arm.

"Behind you!" she almost screamed, Smellerbee spinning around to strike the pole of a pike that was being thrust her way; the force of the parry made the pike carreen off to the side, allowing her the chance to slash the wielder's own forearm, forcing him to drop the weapon.

Katara reached a hand out to pick some water out from the thoroughly drenched grass beneath her, and pulled it up to her bleeding forearm, covering it with the water. Before she could heal herself, another soldier came at her with a pike, and she instead froze the water, knowing it would be more protection than bare skin. With a second to spare, she threw her left arm up, thrusting it towards the soldier, knowing that if he struck that, she couldn't reasonably get any more injured than she already was. Everything moved so fast in battle, so much so that she barely noticed the blood on her ice covered fist. The man had slumped over, grasping at his throat, and Katara's eyes widened, realising what she had just done.

"Oh... oh fuck." she gasped out, watching as he fell back, Smellerbee snapping her out of her daze by shoving her to the side, out of the way of another fire stream.

She rolled on the ground, her ice covered arm breaking the fall, and though the icy covering broke apart and left her defenceless, if it weren't for all the water around her. All she could do in that moment, watching Smellerbee and the others fight off the soldiers, all while the Water Tribe warriors could do nothing but pelt them with a diminishing supply of discs from above, was to think to herself.

"What would Aang do?" she spoke her thoughts aloud, knowing the pacifist boy wouldn't approve of what she had done; she didn't know if he would blame her for her actions, but that didn't matter- she needed to get herself out of the present situation.

Katara reached her hand over to the shards of ice that had broken apart beside her, and pulled them around her bleeding left arm again, liquifying it before it began to glow. She glanced over towards the water, hoping that no more steamers would be showing up; to her relief, she saw a ship with their blue banners sailing closer to the shoreline, presumably coming to their aid, however, when she saw a few men waving at them from the deck, she realised what was going on. She felt the pain escape her arm, and rose up to her feet, reaching her right arm out to the seawater besides her, bending it into a coil around herself before she flicked the water whip into a soldier who had been fighting Smellerbee.

"We need to get inside the walls!" she told her and the others, Jet looked displeased as he threw a firebender down into the sand.

"Why, we just started winning?" he asked her, and she pointed to the approaching vessel, with catapults lining its deck.

"They're going to get rid of the attackers... the most straightforward way." she darkly admitted, before she threw the water in her grasp at another soldier, smacking him to the ground, "Let's go, now!" she called on everyone, the earthbenders immediately heeding her words as they raised up the ground in their path, carving themselves a way back into the gates.

She rushed down the path, and bent the water into the mass of soldiers trying to push themselves through the gates, knocking them back. The earthbenders inside then bent up some pillars, smacking them into the air and down into the nearby sand, or onto the end of the pier.

"Come on!" she called on the others, her eyes focused upon the ship as it slowed its approach; the Fire Nation attackers muts have realised what she had, and began to scramble along the length of the walls, towards their steamers.

"Get off the walls!" she called up to the men above her, "They're going to hit this whole side of the base."

She heard the clattering of footsteps behind her, and watched as the earthbenders and Freedom Fighters funnelled themselves into the gates, while Katara used her waterbending to ward off any stray attackers; some of them might have wanted to try their luck running inside, preferring imprisonment to death. They got the message quickly, and the rest of them began running down towards their steamers. She stepped through the gates, which were forced shut, before everyone ran inside the compound.

She was barely inside when the ground shook violently, furniture tumbling over, alongside the people she had come with; everyone had fear in their eyes, falling to the ground and cowering, understanding what could come next. The lanterns on the walls were shaking so much she was afraid they might explode. Katara turned her eyes away from the doorway, knowing what had just happened, and that she could do nothing about it.

"Katara." she heard her father's voice, and she turned around, seeing Hakoda approaching; he knelt over beside her, and looked at her arm, where there was only a faint mark left from the slice she had received, "Does it hurt?"

"It tingles a bit." she admitted, realising only in hindsight how ridiculous that sounded; he smiled and chuckled, before kissing her on the forehead.

"Alright, just sit here for a bit... catch a breath." he suggested, the Water Tribe girl cringing.

"I... I'm not strong enough to fight like this." she admitted what she knew to be true.

Her father shook his head, "You're just exhausted. Get a drink of water when you have the chance. You look like you need one." he gave her some advice, and she nodded resolutely.

"I- yeah, I can do that." she agreed, and eyed around, "Everyone got inside."

"Yeah, everyone." he reassured her, "Your little group outside the walls were the last in." he clarified, which relieved her; she was afraid that somebody would have missed her warnings and found themselves facing down the rain of fiery boulders or worse from the ship, "I'll go and check the state of things from one of the balconies." he explained his intentions; he knelt there looking at Katara, obviously wanting her approval, given he was very clearly afraid for her safety.

She reassured him with a nod and smile, "It's okay, Dad." she spoke with as confident a tone as she could muster, before watching as he paced away to the stairwell.

She turned her eyes back towards the doors, where she could see Jet reassuring the youngest member of his group, The Duke, before he turned to face Katara; he seemed a little unsure on whether to approach, but he swallowed whatever fears he had and came over, well aware that she had been looking at him.

"Are you alright, Katara?" he asked her calmly, "Smellerbee said you got cut pretty bad."

"I healed it before we came back inside." she assured him, and he smiled; that kind of look was strange on his face- he wasn't being cocky, authoritative, or blustering, but merely relieved.

"Ah, waterbending is really useful, isn't it?" he rhetorically asked her, "You know, your Dad's a really cool guy." he acknowledged, and Katara almost laughed.

"Yeah, he is." she agreed, before tilting her head, "So, why are you talking to me?"

"Oh... uh, I guess I wanted to ask where everyone was." he admitted, "Toph, Aang, Sokka... the Princess." he listed off people, being purposefully slow to mention Azula.

"I'm guessing it's mostly Toph." she observed, knowing that the two of them worked together a lot in New Omashu, "Right?"

"Uh... yeah." he conceded, "She's the best fighter the Earth Kingdom has... and she's taught me and my fighters a lot about tactics and strategy. More than we could just learn out in the woods." he explained himself, his compliments sounding a bit suspect, and amusing to Katara.

She knew that the girl was admired by her fellow Earth Kingdom fighters, but didn't expect such a degree of admiration from a cocky guy like Jet. Now that she came to think of it, he really reminded her more of Sokka when he was younger, despite the fact Jet appeared to be as old, if not older than him.

"Well... I guess if we're working together now, you'll get to fight with her again." she told him what she knew to be true, and he smiled.

"That's what I wanted... and I think we could train with you too, Katara." he suggested, and she nodded, knowing that going against non-benders would still definitely help her improve her combat skills.

She was mostly relying on strength and fighting forms alone, rather than using tactical thinking. Katara knew that wouldn't be very good if she kept getting into tough fights like the one she had just faced.

"Katara!" she heard another voice call out to her, and she turned her head, seeing Aang at the doorway, holding his glider, with his robes torn up and covered in dirt, with his lower portions wet and sprinkled with sand, "Oh, I was so worried when I heard those explosions." he explained his feelings, a wide smile forming on his face as he approached her.

"Don't worry, we're all fine... I think." she tried to reassure him, though she couldn't be certain how many people had been injured; she expected that if the reprieve in the fighting was for long enough, she would be inundated by requests to heal injuries.

"How's everything out there?" Jet asked him, his mind clearly back on the battle.

"Bad... they just keep coming. We've had to use heaps of traps, but even then, they've pushed into the camp now. The earthbenders pulled up some new walls, but for all I know, they're gonna blow those up." he explained what was going on, his frantic tone suggesting that he wasn't handling it all too well, "Do you think Azula will be able to send help?"

"Not quickly enough." Katara conceded, "Sokka might bring the airship, but for all we know he could already be at the North Pole."

"Oh." he mumbled, not seeming at all pleased about the news, "I- uh, I just feel like I can do more. I can fly over to those ships... but it's just me. I can't fight off that many soldiers at once."

"But other people can." Katara realised, narrowing her eyes, "We should get Appa and some good fighters. Remember what I did on that Southern Raider ship?" she asked him, and his eyes widened.

"Oh... I almost forgot about that." he admitted, a devious grin forming on his face, "So, we can stop the fight without anyone else having to get hurt?"

"Maybe." she didn't give her full support, not knowing what might face them out there, "I'll have to tell Dad... and then the Colonel."

"You can just... do it." Jet intervened in the conversation, "You're the Avatar, after all."

"I don't think Zhengyi would like that." Katara retorted, "So, come on, let's go, before they decide to attack the compound again."

Aang nodded, and spun his staff around, "Who wants to go stop those ships?!" he called out to the room, and in return, he received a cheer.

He smiled brightly, before he leaned over to Katara, scrunching his lips, "So, is this what Azula was wanting me to do?"


Smoke was thick in the air, and Sokka was tired; however, his feelings of exhaustion were outweighed by the thrill of battle. He realised he didn't enjoy fighting as much as he probably claimed he did, but he knew that the battle was purposeful. The enemy would not reach the base, and he would take their ships from them; another piece in their game against Ozai, and he was flipping it against him. He knew that he must have been counting on his multi-pronged attacks to eventually stick, and for the base to fall, and their fleet to be put in disarray.

He was crouched behind a steel locker which had been kicked over in the hallway, providing him with a little protection from the flames; the shouts from the enemy down the hall were aggressive and equally as exasperated as the panting he heard coming from the firebenders beside him.

"Weren't they going around to the other side?" one of his allies asked him, and he scrunched his lips, glancing over to where his boomerang was lying on the floor, beside one of the sailors he had caught unawares.

"They must have got caught up in the other hallway." he guessed, and let out a sigh, "Shoot a few fire streams, I'll use the flames to get closer, and chi-block them. You just have to follow and back me up, alright?" he asked them, not wanting to be left out to dry by his allies, who were clearly running on fumes by that point.

There was only twenty of them on the ship, and half of them were occupied with the lower decks, trying to get rid of any armed sailors and force the rest to follow their orders; he and the other nine were struggling to get to the top of the ship, one of the stairwells having been blocked off by a few cabinets, tossed down when the Commander must have realised they were running to get him. So, they were winding their way to an access tunnel, a small ladder shaft that would allow them to get higher up, and hopefully, reach the bridge without issue.

"Got it." one of the firebenders assured him, and the other two nodded, before rising to their feet, raising their open palms down the hallway, and shooting out three synchronised fire streams.

The brightness of the flames forced him to squint, the otherwise dark and gloomy hallway lit up in a stark orange hue. Sokka didn't waste a moment, vaulting over the locker, and racing behind the flames as soon as they stopped coursing from the firebenders' palms. He scooped up his boomerang, and by the time he reached the enemy at the end of the hallway, they were left unsuspecting of his approach, their heads turning up as they saw him leap into the air. He threw the boomerang at one of the helmeted firebenders, whose head was flung back by the strike, the sound of metal ringing echoing through the hallway as he hit the wall.

The moment he landed, he jabbed the non-bending soldier in his forearm, making him drop his sword, before he shoved that man into the one beside him. He was a firebender, and shot two fireballs out his palms at once, striking Sokka in the shoulders. He wasn't stupid enough to travel without his fire retardant vest on, and the flames were just more of a nuisance than causing him any real discomfort. He patted his flaming blue tunic with his gloved hands, revealing the dark vest that the soldier himself must have been familiar with, as all the soldiers wore one.

"Oh shit." he gasped out, before he was jabbed in the solar plexus, wheezing for air as he slumped over.

Sokka heard some footsteps coming from his right, seeing some more firebenders, though they were more battered than the ones he had just fought; they shot out fire streams, forcing Sokka to somersault and roll on the ground, avoiding their attacks and getting himself within reach of his boomerang. He picked it up and flung it up, smacking one of the firebender's right in his skull face plate, while the other kept running for him. He tackled Sokka down to the ground with his flame-covered fists, making Sokka relieved that he had chosen to wear some armguards; his arms were pinned, meaning that he couldn't chi-block.

The flames were hot and stinging his arms, making him grit his teeth as he kneed the firebender in the gut; that didn't do as much as he hoped it would, and Sokka let out a sigh, knowing he had something else up his sleeve. He closed his eyes, and smacked his elbow hard into his belt, the cracking noise making him smile as he heard the firebender cough and then cry out in pain. The smoke bombs Sokka had fixed up were very good at making people blind, mostly because having one's eyes open when around them would sting like having chillies in your eye sockets.

"Argh!" he cried out, Sokka keeping his eyes shut until he could kick the man off and scamper away.

Once he opened his eyes, he was now more frustrated as he realised the other firebender had recovered, having taken his face plate off. His eyes were red, probably from the smoke bomb, and he had his fists ready, not wanting to take a chance getting any closer.

"Die you, seal-fucker." he condemned the Water Tribesman before throwing a fire blast right at his head; Sokka barely rolled out of the way, and reached around for some kind of weapon, hoping to distract him before he did anything more brash.

He was charging another fireball in his left hand when he was kicked to the ground, Sokka realising the firebenders on his side had caught up, one of them then grappling him by the neck, before setting fire to his face. His screams of pain were hard to ignore, and Sokka turned away, not wanting to think about what he was doing; after all, the ladder was right in front of him, just behind a door. The other firebender who had tackled him was trying to crawl away, but he was stomped on the head, stomping his frantic crawling.

One of his allies offered him a hand, his face obscured by the ever eerie skull face plate, "Are you good?" he asked, and Sokka nodded.

"Yeah, I just got tossed around a bit." he admitted, before reaching over to the door, which was luckily unlocked; once he pulled it open, he leaned into the narrow shaft, glancing up to see it went up two floors, "That's where we want to go."

"Sir, we've dealt with the others!" he heard Ken address him, Sokka turning around.

"Good." he acknowledged his hard work, "Now, a few of you need to hold this spot while we climb up and find the Commander. We'll signal you when you can come up."

"Why not unblock the staircase?" one of the firebenders asked him, and the warrior sighed; the only reason they couldn't do that already was because there were a few firebenders waiting behind it, shooting off fireballs whenever they tried to climb the stairwell.

"Do you want to get cooked by the guys behind the cabinets?" he asked the firebender, who grimaced.

"Uh, no sir."

Sokka turned around and stepped onto the ladder, his eyes turning up towards the next floor. He was unsure whether the enemy would be waiting for them as soon as they opened one of the doors, but he knew that there were alternatives, such as using the chains on the airship to hoist himself up to get up to the bridge, or even climbing up the exterior, along one of the chimneys or pipes that lined the exterior of the superstructure. He didn't want to waste any more time than he already had; Commander Junho and his ships were likely getting battered beyond belief outside, and if the battle wasn't already in their favour, then it was only a matter of time before their forces would withdraw and allow the enemy to reach the base.

He scaled up the ladder as fast as he could, quickly reaching the deck above; he stepped out onto the ledge that led to the door, and grabbed its handle; Sokka let out a deep breath, unsure if he was about to open a door into combat, or to an empty hallway. He was frustrated to feel a heavy weight behind the door; they must have realised that they were going to try and open the door through the ladder. He knew that there were more doors further up, but that impediment would just waste his precious time further.

"This one's blocked. If you want to try and kick it down, be my guest." he offered a possibility to the men below, not waiting for a response as he got back on the ladder and continued climbing up.

He reached the next deck, and stepped onto the ledge in front of him; he tried that door, with the same frustrating result. He knew there was one remaining way out, which was a hatch above his head, which led out to some exterior part of the superstructure. He had no idea if that would get him to the bridge, but he had to try, as going back to try and force their way up the staircase would not end well.

"We're going through the top." he warned those below, before he reached up and pulled a lever, unlocking the hatch.

He then had to get back on the ladder, and push it open with as much force as possible; it creaked and groaned, but ultimately, it gave way, light shining down the shaft; Sokka squinted, his eyes readjusting to the stark light of the midday sun, but he didn't stop, pulling himself out of the shaft, finding himself on a balcony by the rear of the ship.

He could see all the way down to the steamer bay, which his comrades had apparently secured, flying a black piece of cloth to tell him that it was taken. Out in the distance, behind the ship, he could see Junho's flotilla, which was trying to surround the enemy ships on all sides; fire was being exchanged between all the ships, a few of them damaged to the point that they could no longer fight back. The ship he was on was unsurprisingly spared from the carnage, which the Commander had ordered them to spare, for obvious reasons.

Sokka paced his way along the balcony, which led to a door back into the ship; the whole area was quiet to his relief, though he was unsure what he'd find inside. He kept himself low by any windows he could see, and turned around once he got to the door. Everyone else followed his lead, crouching and moving slowly. He glanced down, and didn't see anyone looking up to them, telling him that they were far more preoccupied with the other ten; shouts of anger and fear were ever present, though the distant noise of explosions was far more noticeable.

"Ready?" he asked the men beside him as he reached for the door handle.

"They're fucked, sir." one of the soldiers assured him with thumbs up, and he held back a laugh.

"They are." he agreed, before pulling the door open, pulling his boomerang out to whack the first man he saw.

To his surprise, there was nobody in the room he entered, which seemed to be some kind of office for junior officers, with some desks, cabinets, and seats strewn about.

"They didn't burn any of their documents." he heard Ken behind him, and Sokka scrunched his lips.

"They think they're winning." he observed the natural conclusion of their inaction; if they were thinking they were about to lose, they'd burn every shred of their orders, reports, and communications between ships, to ensure they couldn't abuse the information to their own advantage.

"Let's keep moving. Stay quiet." Sokka warned the others, before he approached the next door, which led out to a narrow hallway; he could see it through the small glass window that was in the metal doors upper section.

Nobody was there, at least yet, and he pushed the door ajar, eyeing up and down the hall; he could hear shouts down the hallway, and some quieter chatter the other way. He guessed that somebody was mad about their sudden disappearance downstairs; the sailors there must have realised their plan, and were probably informing their superiors at that very moment.

So, Sokka realised that time was quickly running out for a surprise attack, "Up the stairs as fast as you can. Any stragglers, take care of whoever's in the way." he gave his orders, before dashing down the hallway, in the direction of the stairwell.

When he got there, he saw five soldiers, a pair of firebenders and three officers who were either armed with swords or nothing at all; Sokka realised they must have just come up, and their faces filled with shock as they realised their foes were already upon them.

"It's him!"

"Hey guys, were you dobbing on us to your boss?" he asked them playfully, knowing the attitude would either annoy them or unnerve them.

"Uh..." one of the firebenders mumbled, "Sir?" he turned to one of the officers.

"Kill him, and find the rest!" he ordered the firebenders, who moved into form; they weren't that fast, and one of them got smacked in the head by Sokka's boomerang.

The other ran at him, only to find himself overwhelmed by a wall of flames; Ken was standing right behind Sokka, "I've got him, get the officers." he told the Water Tribesman, who drew out his club.

"Don't need to tell me to do that." he assured him, dashing right for the staircase, going right past the now occupied firebender.

He swept his boomerang up off the ground, but the firebender turned around, probably hoping for a cheap shot. Ken however, was not messing around; he shoved the firebender to the ground, and by the time Sokka was moving up the stairs, all he could hear were agonised echoes. The officers were at the top of the staircase, which seemed to be the highest deck of the superstructure- the bridge. They were standing in front of another man, an older man with near white hair and an eyepatch; he looked more like his idea of a pirate than an officer, with a grizzled beard that pointed down at his chin.

"Ah, so, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe graces us with his presence." the Commander noted his presence, and he almost jumped with joy.

"Finally! Somebody knows my name!" he pointed at the Commander, "Well, I guess I have to ask who you are."

"Commander Cheol." he gave his name, "I have the honour of bringing you to face the Fire Lord for your crimes against our nation." he placed a hand on his chest as he explained himself, "You'll be tortured for every ounce of information we can get from you, and then, the Fire Lord may allow you to die."

"Oh, how touching." he sarcastically gave his appreciation, before readying his club, "And you know what, if you do catch me, I'll make sure to piss on your Fire Lord before I immolate his body with it... while he's paralysed and unable to do anything about it." he warned him, knowing that he wouldn't do something so stupid and disgraceful, but it would get the Commander riled up.

"The nerve on this boy." one of the officers growled under his breath, pulling out his jian, "Let me remove at least a few of his fingers first, sir."

"You have my permission... on his left hand. I can tell from his form he's right-handed."

"Huh, so I'm not the only smart-arse in the room." he observed with a smirk, "Well, come on, try me." he prodded the officer, hearing the footsteps of his comrades behind him, "What are you waiting for? Or do you really want these guys to burn your face off?" he asked, and the officer grit his teeth.

"Kill the rest!" Cheol ordered the officers, as well as the guards that were behind him, who all rushed at Sokka and the men behind him.

He weaved out of the way of the officer's jian when it was swung upon him, before jabbing him in the back, chi-blocking his legs, which crumpled beneath his weight. He let out a cry as he fell over, but Sokka took no time to gloat, forced to somersault and dodge a flurry of fireballs that another officer shot at him; he weaved out of the way of another set of attacks, and Ken shot a fireball into the officer's head, setting his hair alight. He cried out in pain as he tried to bend the flames away from his hair, only making it worse. Sokka then made a beeline for Cheol, though his guards stepped in the way.

"So, you're volunteering?" he questioned their foolishness, before making a sweeping kick, striking their shins; they stumbled back, but kept upright, two of them reaching forward to try and grab Sokka, who just dropped to the ground before swinging his club as hard as possible into one of their legs.

That guard grunted and fell to one knee, before he weaved out of the way of Sokka's next swing. The guard beside him reached to try and grapple the Water Tribesman, who let him grab the club instead, before forcing the weapon right into his face plate, audibly cracking it. He didn't waste a moment, wrestling the club free of his grip, before whacking him in the helmet. That guard slumped over, though the other tried to set Sokka alight with his firebending. He shot a fireball at his shoulder, setting the blue fabric alight, though he remained unfazed, knowing that his vest underneath would keep him safe from the flames.

He dodged the next fireball before swinging the club right into his crotch; Sokka felt bad as he groaned and fell back, his comrades not losing any confidence as they launched a volley of fireballs at him. He tossed his club at one of them, smacking him in the chest, while he lunged at another, letting the flames consume his tunic as he jabbed the guard hard in the gut. He let out a wheeze, and tried to intensify the flames on the tunic, only to find out he couldn't firebend. Sokka tossed him into another guard, before he swept up the club, using it to strike another in the leg.

One of them was smart enough to tackle Sokka, who rolled to try and get him off. The weight of a whole man in armour on top of him was enough to restrain the Water Tribe boy, who instead jabbed him with his free hand, getting one of his arms. When it fell limp, he was able to get his arm free, elbow him in the gut and then shove him off.

Another guard thought it was prudent to try and set him on fire again, but Sokka had his boomerang holstered, and flung it right into his helmet, before it ricocheted off and struck another guard in his own helmet. The distraction was enough to allow him to get up, and jab them both in the guts, removing their ability to firebend, before he got to their sides, forcing their legs to buckle beneath them. Cheol was clearly fed up with the display of strength from Sokka, as he lit flames in each of his palms and got ready to attack him.

"Insolent boy." he defamed him, before shooting two large fireballs into his chest, the first burning off more of his tunic, and the second throwing Sokka back, making him inadvertently trip over one of the guards he had paralysed.

Cheol then intensified the flames on his tunic, causing them to spark up over his face, forcing him to close his eyes; Sokka had had enough, and knew that he would need a little support to turn the tide.

"Ken!" he called on the guard he knew to be behind him, and when his vision returned, he saw that Cheol's sash had been set alight, and he was forced to take cover by the pilot's wheel.

"You really need to get better at dodging." the guard derided his efforts, before offering him a hand; Sokka took it, and got back to his feet.

"Now, let's finish this." he declared, throwing his club to the ground as he drew out his bone dagger.

"What's that going to do?" the Commander questioned him, his voice sounding confident, though that could have been a farce to try and intimidate Sokka.

"What did you say to your little buddy?" he questioned him, spinning the dagger in his hand, "That he could cut off some of my fingers... but not the right hand?" he pressed him, Cheol's glare not weakening.

He covered his hands with fire, forming gauntlets that lit up the area around him, "I won't let my honour be sullied by a child... let alone a foreigner."

"Eh, I've literally beaten the Fire Lord, you can't be that hard." he acknowledged, and the Commander's eyes narrowed.

"Which one?"

"Two out of three. I think those are some pretty good numbers." he argued his case, before he rushed Cheol, knowing he'd try and set him on fire again.

He weaved out of the way of a punch Cheol threw, before he stabbed him the gap between his forearm guards and his shoulder plates; the Commander let out a shout of pain, before elbowing Sokka right in the head. He stumbled to the side, but recovered with a quick somersault, dodging his next punch, which turned into a massive fire blast, the flames forming a gust of air which whipped up some papers on a nearby bench.

As they fell around Sokka, the Water Tribesman just smirked, wiping the blood that had begun to drip from his nose, "I'm not impressed yet. Did you spend the past thirty years standing around giving commands?" he mocked him, knowing that angering a firebender was the fastest way to make them lose control of their flames, which made them more of a danger for everyone around them, but even moreso, for themself.

Cheol screamed in fury, throwing a flurry of fireballs at Sokka, who took cover behind some consoles, the pilots looking at him in fear, not wanting to move an inch. He ran around the bridge, letting the Commander tire himself out with his firebending, though he did eventually turn his attention to Ken, the two of them throwing fists at each other, trying to knock the other out. The stalemate lasted until Sokka arrived and kicked the Commander in the calves, throwing him to his knees, opening Ken to make an uppercut, striking him in the chin, and setting his goatee alight. He was polite enough to put out the flames as Cheol slumped over, groaning in pain.

"Thanks." he acknowledged Ken's assistance, before turning around, noting that the rest of the firebenders had cleaned things up, and had restrained anyone who was still conscious, "Now, Commander, we're going to have a little chat that isn't just shouting insults, alright?" he proposed to Cheol, who had his hand on his mouth, which was stained by blood, some still dripping out of his nose.

"Why should I..." he mumbled, before turning his eyes up, "I'm not negotiating with you."

"No, you are." he retorted, "Otherwise, I can just tell Ken here to immolate you."

"You wouldn't dare." he retorted, and Sokka responded by jabbing his solar plexus, making sure his bending was certainly disabled.

He almost fell flat on his face, but the Water Tribesman grabbed him by the shoulder, holding him up, "I really don't care for your life, Commander. You're probably responsible for the deaths of thousands and the enslavement and deportation of countless innocent Earth Kingdom civilians." he acknowledged the kind of person he was dealing with, "A random mook, I might feel guilty about.. but you, I'd gladly throw you into the sea and watch you drown under the weight of your own finely maintained armour."

"I'm- I haven't killed anyone who didn't deserve it." he retorted, "Enemies of the Fire Nation."

"That terms being thrown around pretty loosely these days." he warned him, "Now I'm not here to talk about rights and wrongs, I want you to tell your people to give up and surrender." he explained his goals, "Can you do that?"

"I will never." he snapped back, "If I die here by your hands, at the very least, my honour will remain... and the Fire Lord can always try again. I am but one man... killing me does nothing."

"Wow... I would almost believe that if you didn't let your guards do most of the fighting for you." he quipped back, not buying his 'honourable death'

The look on Cheol's eyes told him that he was aware of his own lies; he didn't seem guilty, but more frustrated that he was being called out for his claims. The man might have been a grizzled fighter, but he was a survivor, and Sokka was the same; he would break, if the right pressure was applied.

"You don't want to die... and you don't need to." Sokka added, grasping him by the chin, "Why don't you tell me what you're fighting for?"

"The ultimate victory of the Fire Nation." he declared with confidence, "The submission of those who stand against us."

"Well, that seems pretty achievable... even though Sozin's Comet, you know, your ultimate weapon, couldn't give you that." he sarcastically acknowledged their power, knowing that it did not mean anything in the face of stalwart resistance.

"It was a mistake..." he murmured, before spitting blood at his feet, "It was a mistake to merely attack Ba Sing Se. We should have destroyed every last whimper of resistance." Cheol declared more confidently, "The North Pole, and your shithole of a tribe as well."

"Yeah, enough hypotheticals." he refused to continue the discussion, punching him across the face as hard as he could; the Commander sputtered out more blood, and slumped to the ground.

Sokka turned his heels and faced the junior officers, those who had tried to resist him earlier but ran with their tails between their legs, "Send signals out. Order every last one of your ships to raise peace banners and allow themselves to be boarded by our ships. If that occurs peacefully... you will all be spared and allowed to retain your ranks and positions."

"You cannot be serious. We've heard what you did to the officers beneath Zhao." one of them retorted, and Sokka raised his hand.

"They were attempting to defect to Ozai's side. I am asking you to defect to ours... and I will not punish you for it. I am not Azula. I know everyone can see reason if I whack them hard enough." he acknowledged, handling his club as he spoke, "So, please, make this easy for yourselves."

"We cannot." one of them spoke up, sounding more fearful than anything, "Even if the Commander was dead, we would not face repercussions from him... you do not understand the situation."

"So, enlighten me." he pressed them, "What do I need to understand?"

"You're not going to win." the officer stressed, and Sokka let out a sigh, frustrated that they couldn't see the situation right in front of them, even if they had some grasp of Ozai's master plan to defeat Azula, whatever that was.

"This battle can be over in moments, all you need to do is signal them." he explained, before pointing to one of the pilots, "Do you know how to signal the other ships?"

"We have smoke signals we make with the ship's chimneys." he clarified, his tone suggesting that he was afraid.

"And you are not permitted to send them without Commander Cheol's express authority!" one of the officers piped up, only to be smacked across the face by one of the firebenders with a punch, rather than any flames.

"Shut it." he gave him perhaps his only warning, "Or you'll taste more than my fist."

"Send out the smoke signals at once." he ordered them, and the pilots glanced around at each other; Sokka did not want to waste another moment, so he paced ahead and gave each of the officers a hard look, "One of you is going to have the honour of betraying that man. Which one of you will it be?"

"Why should any of us?" one of them spoke up, "You're threatening our lives... while our ships are thrashing yours."

"Do you really think this will be an easy win without your flagship?" he pressed them, before spinning his bone dagger in his hand, "Come on, I promise that you won't be going anywhere near the western seas... Ozai's ships won't have a chance to capture you and... well, torture you or throw you in jail... or kill you." he gave more assurances, "We're going to Ba Sing Se, you morons. Not the Fire Nation Capital."

"Why?" the same officer asked, and Sokka glared him down.

"I believe it's what you people call 'classified'." he stressed, before pointing to each of them, "Okay, how about this, if none of you betray your superior, half of you are going to drown, and the rest will be hostages."

Three men immediately stood up, realising that he wasn't playing around, and the warrior smirked, "Finally... somebody has seen reason. Now... order them to give the signals. We don't have all day."

The officers paced over to the pilots, spoke to them quietly, and drew out some things on paper for them, perhaps some codes that the other officers commanding the rest of the flotilla would understand. One of them turned back around and paced over to Sokka, kneeling in front of him.

"It's done. They'll stop firing their weapons and raise peace banners." he explained, and Sokka offered him a hand.

"I don't like kneeling." he spoke bluntly, and the officer stood up.

"All I need to ask of you, before the rest of your friends spend some time in the brig, is what you're here for." he explained his reason for keeping them all conscious; they were there to seize control, but also understand the enemy's plan of attack, "Is this part of a wider operation?"

"The Commander was given orders to sail west and engage with the Northern Fleet and destroy as many ships as possible. If successful, we were meant to land at the North Pole, and undertake clandestine operations to retrieve the prisoners of war held there." he explained their intentions in their entirety, surprising Sokka with his candidness.

"Well, that's funny... I probably still would have gotten in your way if you had sailed north undetected." he observed the irony of their actions; they were always going to fight, but now at least, none of them would be imprisoned by the Northern Water Tribe, where they would be of little use to Azula, "Your services are required by Fire Lord Azula. She will compensate all who cooperate with positions of authority once her father is dead."

"Dead?" one of the restrained officers asked out, "You can't be serious. She would kill him?"

"Well, maybe not personally. I'm more in favour of letting firebombs consume the Royal Palace as a warning. If all you rely on is fire and destruction, then that is what will take you." he explained his rather poetic idea; that seemed to amuse his comrades, and he shook his head, feeling slightly embarrassed having revealed that idea.

He heard a humming noise behind him, followed by silence, and then more humming, Sokka turning to face the pilots, "The signal?"

They nodded, and one pulled a tube down before speaking into it, "This is the bridge. We are surrendering to the attacking forces. Do not resist. All weapons are to be disabled."

"Sir!" he heard one of the firebenders speak up, Sokka turning to see him standing by the windows the pilots were sitting in front of, "There's a messenger hawk flying over to the ship!"

"For them?" he questioned him, and the firebender shook his head, pointing down towards the deck of the ship.

"It's going to our boys on the deck." he clarified, "Maybe Commander Junho's already got some news of the reinforcements we asked for."

"That'd make my day. I want this over and done with." he acknowledged with a smile, "Stay here and keep an eye on these men, I'm going to see what the fuss is."

"So, we're not getting tossed in cells yet?" a restrained officer asked, and the Water Tribesman shrugged his shoulders.

"We might need you to put your hands to work... treason is hard work." he warned them, before he began pacing to the stairwell, accompanied by a pair of firebenders; he turned around, realising that those men blocking the stairs would be an issue, so he pointed to the nearest defector, "Come with me. I need somebody to stop the guys in the stairwell from trying to kill us." he ordered the officer, who bowed frantically and followed after them.

They quickly made their way down two flights of stairs, before they reached the expected blockage; there were six firebenders accompanied by an officer, who turned around with a surprised face, pointing at them.

"They came around!" he warned the firebenders, who turned around, Sokka rolling his eyes, letting the officer stand ahead of him.

The two men looked at each other, the opposing officer's face shifting to one of confusion, "Lieutenant Hayate... what's the meaning of this?" he asked him, "Why are you with the Water Tribesman?"

"Cheol is lying two floors up chewing his own teeth." he bluntly described the situation for him, "We surrendered... otherwise this man was going to toss half of us into the sea."

"Oh, how courteous." he sarcastically acknowledged Sokka's tactics for what they were: brutal and intimidating, though he had not said that aloud, "And why shouldn't I kill you on the spot for desertion."

"Because they could kill you faster." he gestured to the firebenders behind him, who were already in form to fight.

"Well... they're going to get down one way or another." the officer realised, crossing his arms, "Move the cabinets." he ordered the firebenders, who looked at their superior for a few moments before heeding his command; they pulled the cabinets up from the stairwell, placing them back up in the hallway, allowing Sokka to make his way down with the two firebenders.

He turned around, eyeing Lieutenant Hayate, who remained standing there with an unsure face, "Are you going to let them block the stairwell again?"

"No sir." he assured him with a salute, and the other officer just laughed.

"I can't believe how low we've fallen."

Sokka didn't want to comment on that, and just continued down the stairwell, quickly running into Geng and the other firebenders, who must have been preparing to clear the enemy firebenders and the blockage.

"Ah, Sokka, you must have already dealt with the Commander." Geng realised, before he pulled out a bound letter, "It's a letter from the airship, they just sent it down here." he explained, and Sokka nodded, opening it up.

The words on the letter took some time to register in his mind, but then his formerly confident visage was shattered in a moment.

"The base is under attack... from the east." he told them what he had just read, before grappling Lieutenant Hayate by the collar, "Were you and your friends fooling me?" he questioned him with grit teeth, "Your attack was a diversion!" he accused him, and the officer trembled, raising his hands up above his head.

"I genuinely had no idea about another operation... maybe the Commander did, but he didn't share it with us, and he couldn't say anything to you, given his state."

"I doubt he would have." Sokka conceded, narrowing his eyes, "Don't say a word about this to your comrades who I've imprisoned. If they say anything about the plans for a multi pronged attack... you're gonna have preferred the half of you drowning, half of you in the brig idea." he gave him as stark a warning as he could, "You heard me, didn't you, Geng?" he asked the guard, who nodded, though he seemed a bit confused.

"From the east?" he asked him, "I mean, the Eastern Fleet doesn't usually coordinate with the other fleets- they're all under the command of separate Admirals." he explained what he knew, "But they couldn't have come all the way from the Eastern Sea... the amount of fuel they'd need alone, that'd cost them a small fortune."

"That's what the letter says... and we're not being fooled. This is Colonel Zhengyi's seal, I recognise it from the last report he sent to Azula." he gestured to the seal on the letter, before narrowing his eyes, "We need to act now." he decided, letting go of Hayate, who stumbled back, fearfully eyeing the other firebenders who surrounded Sokka.

"What will we do, sir?" one of the firebenders asked him, and he gestured up the staircase.

"Geng, retrieve Ken, and tell the pilots to take us back to Junho's flagship. We'll meet the airship there." he explained, "The rest of you will take control of this ship. We'll need as many as we can get if we want to stop the attack."

"How do we know the base is still standing?" Geng asked him, Sokka narrowing his eyes; he could not be certain of much given that the letter must have been sent earlier in the day, but he knew battles were not ordinarily quick- their assault of Shengchang was specifically designed to be so, but most battles would not be so fortunate for either side.

"We don't." he admitted the truth, "I know there are over a thousand men there already, not including the earthbenders who must have already arrived. That should be enough... plus Aang and Katara, if they've already solved that spirit issue."

Geng nodded, seeming a bit unsure of himself as he paced away slowly, before he increased his pace as he raced up the stairs; Sokka kept walking, heading right down the hallway to the door that let him out onto the deck of the ship. Once he stepped outside, he glanced up, watching the airship flying in the distance, dropping a few bombs on one of the ships that had yet to raise a peace banner. The explosives went off, bursting a hole in its deck. Sokka looked away, wondering if he was to blame for being so ineffective in enforcing his demands.

The Water Tribesman held his hands behind himself, before he heard some footsteps behind him, turning around to see a burnt and battered officer rushing at him with a jian sword. He didn't utter a word, swinging his sword down hard upon Sokka, who weaved out of the way of his attack. He wanted to ask him why he was bothering, but instead decided that he ought to just entertain the man's desire to fight. He was clearly hurt, and would probably falter in no time, even without being chi-blocked.

Sokka drew out his club at once, using it to block the blows that were swung his way, momentarily glancing around the deck, noticing some of the men who had been operating the artillery pieces were just standing there watching, not trying to intervene for either side. He didn't blame them, though given his position in commandeering the vessel, they ought to have at least tried to warn him about the attacker.

The officer was panting after a few swings, and Sokka could admit that he was pretty good. He was forced to parry each strike, finding it hard to dodge such forceful and fast blows. Once the officer tripped up, he let his swing go hard towards the deck. As he tried to recover, Sokka just gave him a light kick to the calf, and he stumbled over, using the tip of the jian to balance himself.

"Nobody's coming to save you." the officer muttered under his breath, and as he panted, readying his blade, Sokka couldn't help but pity the man.

"You're trying so hard, but you've already lost."


The sound of explosions were constantly going off, like the earth beneath Jet's feet had a beating heart. He was more than certain much blood had already been spilt in the fighting, and the smell of smoke was thick in the air. He'd seen the tent hospital when they came into the base, and it wasn't pretty; he didn't want to sympathise with Fire Nation soldiers of all people, but they were being brutalised. They were forced to hold against a seemingly insurmountable foe, constantly coming in from the bay, where there was even more death and chaos. The only hope he had was that the ships would sink each other and spare the rest of them on land from any more fighting.

However, he'd been there long enough, fighting alongside his friends to defend a metal behemoth of a fortress from Fire Nation assaulters, protecting it with Water Tribesmen, other fighters from his country, and even the people he'd rather call his enemies. Even after all that fighting, the enemy hadn't given up; they had stopped attacking the compound, after one of the friendly ships set upon them with their catapults. He had looked outside, and couldn't see anyone living amongst the rubble of the walls, with sand, metal, and dirt strewn everywhere. The earthbenders pulled up more walls of dirt, hardened to rock, but he was unsure if it would hold.

In any case, the Avatar had gone off with some eager Water Tribesmen, intent on disabling the enemy ships, something they were supposedly quite familiar with. Jet just hoped that in time, that would allow them to be sunk, so that they could stop sending men ashore. That had been a while ago, and after spending some time recovering, getting some water and eating a very quick lunch from his bag, Jet had set out with dozens of fighters, heading for the northern flank of the walls, where enemy attacks were concentrated. That was also where the local earthbenders were, holding the line against the attackers.

The reports he'd heard indirectly, coming from some lower officer who explained things to Chief Hakoda, said that they were forced to use traps to keep the enemy at bay, though their earthbending allowed them to reuse their traps and rebuild defences. The casualties must have been racking up after spending so much time in the thick of battle, and their forces were simply meant to help relieve them, so a few could get their wounds checked, and the others could recover in hopes that they could muster a counterattack and expel the enemy from their beachhead.

His Freedom Fighters were right behind him as he walked through the camp, following the directions of one of the earthbenders who had been defending the northern walls, around craters and ruined campsites. They were keeping low as they approached the walls, or more accurately, a second set of walls that had been raised up behind them to defend the base. Flames were being shot up into the air, smoke and dust flying about, right behind the walls, not to mention the flaming boulders that were being infrequently tossed in their direction, often enough to keep him on edge.

When they finally got to the secondary walls, the fighters around him began to fan out, moving to take up positions along the defensive line, while he and his Freedom Fighters remained there, unsure where they would be best suited. Given none of them but Longshot would be any useful making ranged attacks, he decided that he'd look for a breach, or somewhere the defenders were making counterattacks, and pitch in.

"Okay, we're gonna find somewhere to help out." he explained his intentions, and Longshot gestured to their left, where what looked like a bare, but expansive village lay, within the base's walls; the houses weren't too tall, but they provided a decent vantage point.

"Good thinking. We can spot from one of the roofs." he agreed to Longshot's unspoken plan; the silent archer pursed his lips, seeming glad to have assisted, before he dashed off along the defensive line, heading for the village.

Jet and the others followed right after him, making their way past the defenders, who were frequently throwing boulders up and over their smaller defensive wall towards the enemy soldiers that lay in between them and the main walls. That's where he guessed the traps they were talking about were, though without an earthbender to help him, he knew they would be of little help to their efforts. He could see up along the walls that they led off and around, past which lay a tree-covered hillside; they could go out there and around, using the woods to their advantage, and come back to ambush the enemy whenever they came back from the walls to recover. That idea was too much effort when he had what looked like over a hundred earthbenders that he could fight with to directly thrash the enemy.

He wasn't too familiar with direct combat; he was a guerrilla through and through, the woods his home and the ambush his tried and trusted tactic. He knew, however, that with a sufficiently bombastic distraction, he and his friends could abuse their skills to the fullest. He knew that a certain earthbender would come in handy in creating such a distraction. When Longshot got to the house, he found that he couldn't reach the roof, but that wasn't a problem, as Pipsqueak offered him a boost up; once on top, he got prone and looked out along the length of the wall, before pointing further along.

The leader gave him a thumbs up, showing his appreciation before he paced along the defensive line, which was less straight than the rest of it, forced to weave around the houses, some of which seemed pretty badly damaged after all the fighting. When he got around a corner, he ran into who he had been looking for; Toph was sitting by the exterior wall of one of the houses, drinking water from a flask. Her head was already turned his way, and she seemed surprised that he was standing in front of her.

"Jet?" she asked with an uncertain tone, "Wait, of course it's you, Pipsqueak's right behind you."

"Hey Toph!" he called out to her with an eager wave, "Sunk any boats today?" he asked her, and she snickered.

"Only the little ones." she conceded, before rising to her feet, "So I guess this means the Water Tribe boats got here just in time. I was wondering why the soldiers weren't focusing on this part of the base so much... you must have already got their attention." she deduced what had occurred, Jet nodding.

"Yep, that just about sums it up." he confirmed her deductions, "Now, do you need a hand beating up some ash-makers?"

"Ah, you're just the clean-up." she waved off his suggestion, "I'm the one giving the smackdowns." she declared, pointing her thumb toward her with a cocky grin.

"Yeah, alright, but we need to get rid of them." he stressed, "So, what are we doing?"

"Holding them off." she told him what he expected, "I'm just taking a break while the others fend them off with boulders. They've only made a few breaches, but they just won't give up." she explained her thoughts, sounding frustrated and exhausted.

"We can knock them back a little, maybe even make them start running." Smellerbee declared confidently, though Toph didn't seem to share her enthusiasm.

"Run back and regroup more like it. I've destroyed a few of their little steamers, but I don't want to get them all. If they get on them and sail away, then that solves our problem, at least down here."

"Their ships will just keeping throwing boulders, won't they?" Jet pressed her, and she shrugged her shoulders.

"Yeah, but they've died down a lot since the start... they must have lost a lot of their catapults." she explained, though a boom and shake of the ground a moment later made those words sound a lot less accurate.

"It sounds like they aren't giving up anytime soon." Jet conceded, before smirking, "But we can try and force them out of here. If they aren't drinking seawater, then we aren't doing our jobs." he declared his intentions, though before he could give any of his own ideas, he heard some shouts behind him.

"Breach!" he heard somebody call out.

"Cover that shit up!" another voice shouted, and Toph cracked her knuckles.

"Well, looks like we're needed." she observed, Jet nodding before turning around.

"You heard her, let's go!" he called on his comrades, who raised their respective weapons up.

He dashed back along the length of the wall, beside the walls of the houses, before he was stopped in his tracks by a collapsed wall, which had partially caved in one of the houses. There he could see that the interiors were unfurnished, still just bare stone with some narrow windows; they'd obviously just been built, meaning that they weren't going to ruin much if they started fighting in or on the houses.

He stepped inside the house, allowing him to walk around the rubble, past which he saw an injured man, grasping at his leg, "Urgh... could you give me a hand?"

Jet obliged, offering him a hand up, before grabbing him by the shoulder, allowing him to get to his feet. He limped badly, but smiled at Jet softly, his wincing face showing that he was in severe pain.

"I'll help you around back, you've got to get back to the field hospital."

"That's on the other end of the camp." the man realised, sounding disappointed, though he didn't say anything as he and Jet walked over to the doorway, which was still intact.

Before they could step outside, a fire stream burst out in front of him, making them both stumble back.

"Shit!" he cried out in fear, before hardening his glare, gesturing for the man to sit himself down while he readied his hook swords.

He heard some footsteps approaching, and then some thumps as somebody must have earthbent; a firebender dropped down face first on the ground in front of the doorway, making Jet raise a brow, wondering how he'd gotten hit from behind. He turned around and saw that Toph had been right behind him, and bent part of the rubble right into the soldier.

"Oh, thanks." he acknowledged her help, before he put his swords away, offering a hand back to the man, "Let's go. Toph will watch our backs."

He nodded at the girl, seeming to approve of her assistance, before getting up with Jet's aid; they stepped out the doorway, and a wall rose up out of the ground, providing them with a little defence. He turned his head right, and saw Pipsqueak and Smellerbee had made their way around the other way, readying their weapons, though their stances softened when they saw Jet aiding the man.

"Oh, I can help 'im, boss." Pipsqueak assured him, stepping over to the man as he dropped the club he was wielding, before picking the man up, making him snicker.

"Really?" he asked Jet, who shrugged his shoulders, finding Pipsqueak's plan to be faster, and get the man out of harm's way without the issue of being unable to defend himself.

"Hey, you want to get out of here, right?" he asked the man, who nodded, before gesturing at the wall Toph had raised up.

"Send the bastards my regards." he directed Jet, who nodded and readied his blades once more, noticing some shouts, thumps, and bursts of fire behind the wall.

He rushed forward, Toph dropping the wall before he'd run into it; once he could see where he was going, he chose his target at once; there were a pair of firebenders attacking a woman who was trying to earthbend at them, only defended by a small, quickly crumbling wall. Jet seemed to have got their attention immediately, but their feet were ensnared, presumably by the woman or Toph, allowing him to hook their legs and throw them into the ground, their helmets ringing as they struck the ground forcefully. They were unconscious, allowing Jet to immediately turn his attention to the other attackers, who came in the form of what had to be a dozen soldiers, all of them non-benders, led by a commanding officer who wielded a jian.

"Children?" he asked out, presumably referring to Toph and himself, "They're sending children against us. And here I thought the Water Tribes were the weak ones." the officer declared cockily; he was just lucky that Sokka or Katara wasn't there to hear that because he was sure neither of them would take that without giving the man a thorough and painful beating.

One of the non-benders was struck down by an arrow from Longshot, falling to the side and tripping over one of his comrades, while the rest continued running straight for Jet. Toph and the woman threw their hands up, bending up pillars to strike a few of the soldiers, but they were running fast enough that only a few got hit over, with some stumbling before continuing their approach. Jet spun his swords around, and dashed at the enemy, hoping to catch them off guard. He hooked two men by the ankles, ran between them, and flung them face-first into the ground. Their grunts were music to his ears.

Jet swung his swords around, hooking the ends of his blades onto a few polearms, smacking them together and out of the hands of his foes. When they put their brains to work and tried to stab him with their pikes all at once, he just ducked under and kicked a few of them down before dashing out of the circle, returning to beside Smellerbee and Longshot, who had their weapons ready. The jian wielder spun his blade around, spared from the trips his subordinates had suffered, and rushed at Jet.

His comrades got out of the way, letting Jet fight him one on one while they and the earthbenders got to work cleaning up the rest of the soldiers. Their cries and grunts sounded off around them as the officer fruitlessly swung his sword around, using fancy but ineffective sword forms, where he forecast his attacks far too early, making it a breeze for him to parry each blow. When Jet grew tired of the charade, he swung both hooks onto the blade, drew them down to the hilt and flung the jian from his grip. The officer looked at him with shock, and raised his hands up defensively, only to be knocked unconscious a moment later; Jet turned around, noticing that The Duke was wielding a polearm, looking at him with a cocky face.

"Got him." he declared triumphantly, before gesturing behind them, "You gonna help, Jet?" he asked, and the leader had little choice but to accept.

He readied his blades before running at the remaining soldiers, who consisted of a few non-benders. They all started to retreat, and Jet hooked one by the ankle, forcing him down to the ground. He let out a grunt, and reached out for his comrades.

"Don't leave me!" he pleaded to his fellow soldiers, who turned to stay and fight; Jet could at least commend them for their honour, if nothing else.

That didn't do them any good as they were battered by boulders, before the rest were knocked out by Jet and his Freedom Fighters. Toph and the woman restrained them with earthen shackles, and looked to each other approvingly.

"Thanks for the help, Toph." she acknowledged her assistance, "And your funnily dressed friends too."

"The name's Jet." he identified himself, "We're freedom fighters." he declared, gesturing to his comrades, who were scavenging weapons from the downed soldiers.

"As are we." she acknowledged with a proud smile, before she raised up new defensive walls to cover the gap the explosion had destroyed.

Toph assisted her, before turning around to face the Freedom Fighters, "We need to kick these guys out past the proper walls. There's no way we're going to be able to hold these crappy replacements." she explained what was on her mind, Jet wholeheartedly agreeing.

"I have an idea." he spoke up, "We could draw them out and box them into a certain area... and bury them alive. Anyone left standing, we could pick off, and then get back to the walls." he explained, and she raised a brow.

"I mean... that might actually work." she considered the merit of his plan, before turning her heels, "Follow me, I've got to tell our boss about this."

"The boss?" he asked, guessing that with her experience, Toph would be leading the charge.

"Jianren. He's a fighter... not too different to you and your friends, though his group are mostly adults." she explained herself as she lead them along the length of the walls, approaching a makeshift bunker of sorts, which had been raised up out of the ground, allowing earthbenders to cover as they tossed boulders at the enemy forces.

She stepped into the bunker, making her way down some stairs, and Jet followed, raising a hand to tell his friends to wait outside; in case they were attacked, he wanted somebody to actually be able to watch his back, instead of getting themselves accidentally buried alive when a boulder landed on the bunker. They seemed to understand that, and fanned out as he followed Toph inside.

Inside the bunker, stood a few earthbenders, who were looking out some narrow slits, moving their hands up and around to draw pillars of earth out, hitting any soldiers they saw in the gap between them and the proper walls, which Jet could clearly see were in ruins, with multiple large gaps in their breadth, making it a challenge to hold them, let alone use them to attack any enemies on the outside.

In the centre of the group stood an older man, with dark hair and a trim beard, and was dressed like any other peasant, though he had some repainted Fire Nation armour on his torso and a conical hat, like most Earth Kingdom soldiers he'd seen in New Omashu. He seemed grizzled and experienced, and his face was in a frown, suggesting he thought the battle wasn't going their way.

He turned around and his expression warmed upon seeing Toph inside, "Got a report for me?"

"We expelled some guys who broke through the defensive line. The injured were taken out of harm's way." she explained what happened, "This is Jet... he's just got here, and he has a plan you might be interested in."

"Alright, you've got a minute." he allowed, gesturing to the Freedom Fighter, who stepped forward, feeling a growing sense of urgency and anxiety about making a fool of himself in front of a man who seemed to be everything Jet himself wanted to be.

"We can break the defensive line, on purpose. Allow them to swarm in, trap them into the ground and anyone who makes it up to fight, we beat them. Then we can move back to the walls, all the way to the beach even, and cut the enemy forces in two."

"That would make it easier to push them all back. If we give them the chance to run into the woods, maybe they'll take it."

"You'll let them escape?" Jet asked, surprised that he'd be so merciful to the men who were at that very moment trying to kill them

"We can't imprison everyone. Most of the prisoners have nowhere to be put. Unless the Fire Lord wants us to make a labour camp with her citizens... which would be an ironic turn of events, I don't see any benefit to catching any of them."

"They could come back and fight."

"They're more likely to starve or succumb to the injuries we've already given them." he retorted, before raising his chin, "We'll do your plan... Jet." he agree to the proposition, "Who named you that?"

"I chose it for myself."

"Take it from me, boy, it makes you sound like an arrogant arse." he warned him, the Freedom Fighter cringing before he nodded; he hadn't used his birth name in so long that it felt strange to him.

His name was chosen, and yes, it was a bit pompous sounding; he wanted it to be cool, but he realised that wasn't necessarily going to get him respect from adults. However, he knew the best way to earn respect was one's actions, not things like names or puffed up stories.

"How many people have you killed, Jianren?" he asked him, and the earthbender's eyes narrowed upon him.

"There is nothing pleasurable about killing people, even if they're genocidal bastards." he responded calmly, and Jet scrunched his lips up; he didn't want to say he disagreed, because that would make him look like a bloodthirsty murderer.

He wanted justice, and there was no justice in letting those responsible live; he had yet to find those directly responsible for the destruction of his village. If he did, they would die, and not quickly like he expected many of the men in the coming fight to.

"Justice is justice." he gave his thoughts, before turning his gaze over to Toph, "So, are we going to organise this?"

"I'll go tell some people to get ready, you get your fighters in position." she explained, her eyes moving to Jianren, "If this screws up, it's on me."

"Well... I wasn't going to even suggest that." he assured her, "Can't be mad if we're all dead, can I?"

"No, you can't." Jet agreed with the point, "So let's fucking live."

"Truer words have never been spoken." Toph agreed with a smirk, offering him a hand to shake; he threw his into it, clasping her hand and shaking it, "You know, I thought you were a bit of a dick, but you've got the spirit when it counts."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Nobody ever won by being the nicest." he argued, and she cringed slightly.

"Eh, give Aang some time. He might just prove you wrong." she warned him, and Jet turned around, heeding the directions she had already given him.

Once he had climbed out of the bunker, Jet whistled to get his friends' attention, "Everybody, we're getting ready!" he warned them, and everyone assembled out, following him as he paced away from the bunker to a relatively open space between the village and the edge of the campsite.

It looked to be the optimal place to make the trap, with little potential cover for the enemy to use, so that when the traps worked, they wouldn't be able to hide themselves. Once he and his fighters were by the field, they lined up, watching as earthbenders raised up small walls for cover around the edge of the field, providing them with some defences against the incoming attack. Then when Toph showed up, she raised her hands up, and the ground beneath them shook, Jet understanding that she must have been hollowing out the ground under the open space between the defences.

"Now what?" The Duke asked Jet, confused as to what they'd do to draw in the Fire Nation attackers.

The earthbenders assembled themselves in a line, led by Toph, and they raised their hands up, which told him they were about to earthbend; he didn't realise what exactly their idea was, until he saw one of the flaming boulders that had been flying over in their general direction suddenly switch course, heading right for the defensive line.

"Oh shit." Jet gasped, realising what was going to happen; they had to pretend they were defeated, giving the enemy an incentive to rush in and take the gap.

So, they didn't fake a thing; the flaming boulder struck the lines, while he cowered, feeling the ground shake beneath his feet and watched dust fill his field of vision. The earthbenders stumbled back, some of them cut up by the rubble, and all of them ran back away from the defensive lines; their act was believable, and the enemy fell for it. Jet watched as two groups of soldiers, counting at least two dozen combined, rushed through the gap, then followed by some firebenders, who shot out volleys of flames, striking nearby tents, presumably hoping to start a fire to try and smoke them out.

They came out into the field, ready to attack the earthbenders, who all took defensive forms, while Longshot drew his bow, ready to strike; everything looked like it was going sideways for them, exactly as it should. Then, when the ground gave way, they sprung into action. Jet and his friends waited for the pit to form, men strewn in and over the rubble, before leaping down and attacking those who were still cognizant of the situation. Boulders fell down on some, while clubs and blades fell on others. A few firebenders were lucky enough to remain just off the edge of the pit, and tried to attack them with their flames, but all of them fell within moments, one to an arrow, and another to a pillar which struck him square in the chest and threw him a good distance backwards through the air.

He spun his blades around, striking those few men who could pull themselves from the rubble, stabbing a few of them in their extremities, making it harder for them to try and scramble out. Blood splattered with dust, and a few rocks found heads; some of those men were dead, and perhaps, they were the lucky ones. The rest found themselves sinking into the earth, which was being liquified around them, while the Freedom Fighters stood upon solid patches which remained. Jet looked upon his foes with pity, and decided things were done, climbing out of the pit before turning his gaze up towards the walls. They had a clear path, and it had to be abused.

"Come on!" he heard Toph call on the earthbenders, who rushed through the opening the earlier explosion created, and pulled up new defensive walls to their left and right while they approached the walls.

They scaled up the narrow staircases that led to the top, and began pelting any occupying forces with boulders, pillars, and those that were stupid enough to stay in place found themselves swallowed by the earth. Jet found a few stragglers, and slashed them up when they resisted, knocking them out with a few well aimed blunt strikes to the jaw and neck. When the dust had settled, the battle was only just starting.

Firebenders threw up walls of flames to try and protect themselves, but that did them little good as more and more pillars of earth were thrown up, and old traps were pulled open, swallowing even more soldiers into the ground. Some fighters he recognised from the boats, but others were new; all of them working together in a harmony he hadn't seen since New Omashu. Defence had become offense in mere moments, and the ruins the attackers created became their downfall, unable to find a clear path out.

The soldiers were frantic, and though the firebenders were formidable enough, the earthbenders were able to drive them back, squeezing them in from two sides. On both the western and eastern flank, each group of enemy soldiers was forced to move into a tighter formation, and most of them on the western side drew down the length of the walls, presumably hoping to take cover in the nearby woodland.

Jet smirked, pleased with the results of his plan, and he made his way up the stairs, looking out towards the bay, where ships were still firing at each other. Most of them were either sunk, disabled, or no longer had weapons. Some of the ships were on the retreat, but they could be counted on one hand, while a dozen ships still remained in the bay, all of them firing either at the other ships or in their direction. When a boulder came their way, the earthbenders turned their attention to it, and flung it off to the side, striking one of the groups of soldiers.

"Damn." Smellerbee gasped out beside him, "That's half of them done for." she observed, "We did it, boss."

"I know." he agreed with a smile, and turned around to face Toph, who was still launching off boulders in the direction of the other group of fleeing soldiers.

"Are we going to chase them?"

"If they turn around, then yeah. I don't want to have to deal with another counterattack." she gave her thoughts, which weren't orders, but told him what he wanted to know.

"Alright... then let's get moving. We need to make sure these walls are secure." he told his fighters, who nodded, following Jet down the length of the wall, which had been hastily fixed up in some areas by the earthbenders as they moved forward, allowing him to remain on the walls instead of having to go back down to the trap-strewn ground.

Pits were everywhere, and he could see bodies inside, though that didn't tell him if they were alive. The battle had been going on for so long, he couldn't be sure how many men the earthbenders had killed or simply restrained. He would have continued to the western end of the walls, but his attention was drawn by Longshot, who grabbed his shoulder; Jet turned around and saw something out in the bay, quite close to them.

A ship had careened off course, and had ploughed into the shallow sands, leaving them grounded, the ship already tilting to the left side as it lacked the benefit of being buoyed by the water. The earthbenders on the walls cheered eagerly, and Jet realised what they could do. The ship's deck was still lined with artillery pieces; if they could make their way aboard and take control of the weapons, then they could attack the other ships, and even sink them. The water was shallow out to where the ship had run aground, and he turned to face his friends.

"You know what to do." he told them, and they nodded, Pipsqueak cracking his knuckles.

"Sailors aren't gonna be any better at fighting." he argued, and Jet almost laughed; he was right, the fight would probably be even easier if all their well-trained fighters had come ashore to take the base.

"Let's get going!" he called on his comrades, and leapt over the wall, sliding down its side down into the grass that narrowly followed the wall beside the beach. He then dashed out into the sand, and then into the water, followed by his friends, as well as a few earthbenders, who must have gotten the exact same idea they had.

They threw their hands forward and bent out pillars of earth, short, but massive, pushing into the side of the ship; that meant that it couldn't move, but also would stop it from tipping all the way over, which would make all its weapons useless. He smiled with confidence as he ran into the deeper water, which came up to his thighs, but that didn't slow him too much. The sailors on the deck could see them approaching, and looked to be turning the weapons on the deck around, probably hoping to drop some boulders on them, even at such a short range.

Before they had a chance, a wall of earth shot up right beside the hull, rising up to past the deck, making their attempts pointless. He turned around, and saw Toph with a few earthbenders, all moving together in form. He gave them a thumbs up in approval, before running towards the rear of the ship; the water was a little deeper, but he found an exterior ladder to climb, scaling its rungs with haste before wedging the door open with one of his hook swords. Once he was inside, he turned around to offer his friends a hand up, helping each of them, except Pipsqueak, who was far too heavy, and could easily climb up himself with his thick muscled arms.

Then they entered the dark interior of the vessel, which felt more like a prison than an actual ship; the sound of an alarm was being rung off through some pipes, and he could hear shouts and footsteps nearby. Longshot readied an arrow as he moved to a corner in the hallway, leaning around before shooting an arrow. They were already upon them, and Jet readied his swords, letting Longshot move out of the way before he thrust the blades out, hooking some legs as sailors rushed at them, throwing them face first into the floor.

"Ack!" one of them cried out, and though another got back up, he was smacked by Pipsqueak's club, and thrown back into the wall.

Smellerbee and The Duke then ran down the hallway, and the sounds of grunts and cries sounded off, Jet turning the corner to see another two sailors unconscious.

"Pipsqueak was right... these guys can't even fight." The Duke declared with confidence, "Where are we going, Jet?"

"We need to get to the deck. Those weapons might still be useful." he explained his plan, and the others looked at him with approving smiles.

"We can send them packing." Smellerbee commented, and he raised a finger.

"Not just those guys on the shore, but the other ships too." he explained, before he felt the ship shake violently; he grabbed a hold of the wall to keep his balance, and glanced down the hallway, immediately smelling smoke.

"I think they just destroyed the engine." he warned them, "Let's get out of here before the smoke gets us."

He rushed down the narrow hallway before they came to a stairwell, and ran up that; about two flights up, they ran into some more sailors, these ones armed. They had pikes, and no firebenders were among them. He readied his hook swords as they cautiously moved to try and surround them. He could have continued up the stairwell, but he knew that he didn't want to get attacked from the rear once they got up to the deck.

"Well, come on then, prove you can actually use them." he prodded his opponents, who rushed in.

Jet bobbed and weaved, throwing his blades up to hook a polearm when it was thrust right at his head, he spun it around, smacking its wielder in the head with the pole, before throwing it at another sailor. Another came at him low and fast, but Pipsqueak slammed the pike down into the floor, shattering it half, splinters going everywhere.

"Oh shit." the wielder gasped out in fear, before he was thrown aside by Jet's blades.

A few more tried to surround Pipsqueak, realising his strength made him more dangerous than the rest of them, but that just drew their focus, making it easier for Jet and his friends to make cheapshots, striking their backs, calves, and heads to knock them down and out. Once they were on the floor, groaning and cringing, he turned his attention back to the stairs.

"They're not stupid enough to get up again." he argued, and ran up the rest of the stairwell without delay.

When he reached the open deck, he noted that one of the catapults was completely busted, while another was being repaired, leaving only two fully functional ones. The engineers turned around, shocked to see them there, and though they were unarmed, a few sailors rushed out from the nearby superstructure to face them. They were led by an officer, who was a firebender, though unmasked, unlike the other ones he had faced already.

"Bloody savages!" he cursed them, "Throw them overboard!" he ordered the sailors behind him, and they got into formation, trying to surround the Freedom Fighters; in such an open space like a deck, that was very hard for them to achieve.

With less armour, they were able to outmanoeuvre them with ease. Jet went straight for the officer, weaving around his fire blasts before he got a hold of his wrist with one of his hooks, throwing it down to the ground, causing him to shoot a blast right at his feet. It didn't damage his armour, but it must have been hot, because he cringed in pain as he stumbled back, before trying to shoot another blast, point blank at his head.

That wasn't a smart idea, as he found his forearm stabbed by Smellerbee, who then grabbed a hold of the man's torso and flipped him onto the ground; his grunts and groans were music to his ears, and he turned to face the remaining sailors, who were struggling to hold off Pipsqueak and dodge Longshot's arrows. The Duke had even taken down a few of them, though it was a bit of a challenge for him to incapacitate people when he lacked the strength or height to go toe-to-toe with them; however, the pike he had stolen was working well enough for him, as he could smack them in their faces with the blunt end after stumbling them.

He heard another few grunts behind him, and turned to see that the earthbenders had launched themselves up onto the deck and proceeded to use the pillars of sand and dirt as projectiles, incapacitating a few engineers and the remaining armed sailors. Jet glanced up to the bridge of the ship, where he could see another officer, presumably the captain of the vessel, looking on with horror. The ship suddenly began to shift in the sand beneath them, making the Freedom Fighters stumble, Jet grabbing The Duke before he fell to the side, and towards the shallow water below.

"I've got you." he reassured his young friend, before tossing him up, allowing him to get better footing beside one of the catapults, "Somebody better bend the sand quickly or we're going to be eating it!" he called out to the earthbenders, who were trying to fix the pillars they had been using to attack the men aboard.

However, the ship stopped shifting after a few moments, and then began to realign. Jet stepped over to the railing and glanced down, seeing Toph standing in the thigh-high water, teeth grit as she held her hands up, bending the wall into the ship to keep it stable.

"You're a legend!" he declared, and she didn't respond, Jet only hearing more grunts as she held the ship in place, "We need to use these catapults, now!"

He paced over to one of them, noting that it had a line up of boulders, though they weren't yet set alight; he noticed that there were a few levers, and tried pulling one, which shot the contraptions arm upward, telling him that was how it was fired. He didn't know how to pull it back, but he realised that Pipsqueak had already handled it, twisting a wheel to tighten the chain that held it down. Once it was back in place, The Duke pushed on another wheel, turning some chain which shunted a boulder forwards and into the bucket of the catapult.

With everything in place, Jet pointed ahead, "We need to make sure we're aiming at the right thing." he warned his comrades; Smellerbee dashed ahead, and eyed off the railing, at the view that was obscured by the tilted deck of the ship.

She gestured for them to turn the catapult to the left, and when she stop motioning them, she got out of the way, before Jet pulled the lever down once more, which caused a spark beneath the boulder, setting the oil that covered it alight, before propelling it through the air. He couldn't see where it had gone, but Smellerbee was eagerly watching as she grasped the railing, and raised her fists up to cheer when a distant boom went off.

"It's a hit!" she declared, and his comrades all cheered, barring Longshot, which was to be expected

He was moving the mechanisms on the other catapult, loading it up, and Smellerbee understood what to do, gesturing for him to rotate it. Jet did that for him, pulling on the chain that lay underneath it to rotate it on the gear upon which it sat. Once it was in position, Longshot pulled the lever, and that boulder was sparked alight and shot through the air.

That time, Smellerbee didn't raise her hands in a cheer, but turned and shook her head, "We were too slow, they've moved out of the way." she explained their failure, but Pipsqueak and The Duke had already loaded the other catapult again, which needed to be turned again.

She pointed to the right, and they spun it only a few degrees, before she held her fist; the lever was pulled, and the next boulder went flying. She watched intently as the boulder flew through the air, before it very clearly crashed into something made of metal, the distant thump, crash, and boom bringing a smile to his lips. Smellerbee didn't seem happy though, and her eyes widened in fear as she turned and then screamed.

"Evacuate the deck, they're gonna fire at us!" she warned, and Jet grabbed Longshot by the wrist, rushing for the superstructure as fast as he could.

By the time he got there, he had dropped to the deck, and felt the whole ship shake as a hole was ripped through it; he turned his head, seeing flames and smoke burst out of the staircase they had climbed earlier, before the ship tilted even harder than before. He could hear Toph's walls crumbling, and he scrambled as fast as his hands and feet could take him to the nearest door.

When he got inside, the floor was halfway to being vertical, and then, when he dropped onto the wall, it quickly fell to the side. The shaking came first, then the force of the impact, and then finally, water burst up into the hallway, flooding it up to his knees. Jet got up, and glanced around, seeing Longshot beside him, and further along the hallway, Pipsqueak was helping The Duke up, who seemed to have gotten a mouthful of seawater.

"Where's Smellerbee?" he asked them, and he could see the fear in Longshot's eyes, he turned to the doorway they had come through, which was filled up with sand and seawater.

He heard some creaking, and tensed up, before he saw that the entrance was tilting, and the whole ship around them was slipping through the sand, pulling it deeper into the water. That became very obvious as the water rose up around their feet, rising quickly past their legs, and up to their waists as they stumbled down the hallway, trying to reach the next hallway that would lead them up the ship, and out of the water.

When they got to the hallway, he glanced up it, and saw that Smellerbee was looking down at them from another flipped hallway, eyeing them with a relieved look, "Ah, so you didn't drown." she noted with a pleased voice, "I'll see if I can find a rope to get you guys up here." she explained her plan, and he nodded in approval.

"Just be quick about it, I don't know how good everyone is at swimming, and I'd prefer to not find out."

Suddenly, he heard a thump and grinding noise down the hallway, and he turned his eyes down, seeing that the entrance was suddenly clear, and wasn't just filling with water. He realised why a few moment later when Toph jumped down into the hole that appeared.

"You guys don't know how frustrating it is to bend this slop." she voiced her frustrations, before gesturing for them to approach, "Get over here before this crap collapses on top of us and we have to drink more saltwater."

Jet just let himself grin, relieved that they weren't going to be stuck in a capsized ship, lapping up seawater to their waists.

"You're the best, Toph." he acknowledged as he paced over towards her, and she flicked some wet sand from her tunic, her lips scrunched up in distaste.

"I don't care what you say, I'm not going out in the water again."


The smell of salt and smoke was thick in the air, and Aang was wishing that everyone would realise the fruitlessness of their fighting. He knew violence was wrong, yet he was forced to partake in it, knowing that was the only way he could protect those he cared about. He made sure to avoid hurting people, or forcing them to try and hurt him and his friends, but things were messy, as always.

Ships kept sailing around the bay, hurling boulders at each other; some ships were damaged so badly they were stuck adrift, and others had sunk or capsized because of water filling their insides. He could not fathom how many people were burnt, crushed, drowned, or any other kind of horrific death, and preferred not to think about it. When he did, it filled him with a surprising amount of courage. Aang did not want to see anyone else die, and he tried his darndest to disable every ship they could reach, and as fast as he possibly could.

He and Katara were a quick team, using their waterbending to short the engines, and in some cases, cause them to get clogged and explode. The strategy was something he'd already learned, and they were getting better at it as they went along. With them came some Water Tribe warriors, led by Bato, who were skilled combatants, already well-versed with the layouts of Fire Navy ships and how to abuse flaws to their advantage. Each ship they took down was another that could not attack the base or their allies on the water. Appa alone could destroy the catapults on the deck, allowing them to focus on getting rid of the engines and then the steamers, which the attackers were using to assault the beaches in wave after wave.

Another ship lay below them as Appa circled above the deck, Aang and Katara reaching their hands down to bend water out from the sea below and up onto the deck, providing a sufficient distraction to keep them from being overwhelmed by fireballs. He moved his hands around, bending a massive stream of water out from the sea below onto the deck, catching a few unprepared sailors and swamped the artillery pieces on the deck. It was easy enough to hold them in place by freezing the water, but that wasn't a permanent resolution.

When they got low enough, Aang leapt from the saddle, letting Katara take the reins as he dropped down onto the deck of the ship. Sailors quickly began to surround him, cautiously moving into fighting stances, the firebenders creating walls of flames to protect themselves for the inevitable counter.

He spun his glider staff around, and swung it down at the deck, creating a massive gut of wind which propelled forward into one of the walls of fire, blasting it away and throwing the firebender off his feet. Aang was fast enough to repeat this twice before somebody actually tried to hit him. When they did so, he weaved out of the way, spinning his staff around in the air to bend the flames away from his body, and into those who were unlucky enough to lack the firebending to counter them.

Once enough of them were either down or occupied with getting rid of any stray embers on their clothes, he rushed at a pair of firebenders, bending the ice nearby into water and throwing it at their feet, freezing them in place. They might have tried to melt the ice, but the warriors had already leapt down from Appa's saddle and used their clubs to knock them unconscious in quick succession, before going for the remaining sailors on the deck. Appa let out a roar when one of them tried to smack him with a fireball, and swung his tail around, striking a sailor into one of the catapults, and in process broke its arm.

Aang was amused by the display of the sky bisons strength, but he had far more important things to focus on, namely the group of firebenders who had ran up from the lower decks and were standing in formation, ready to set them all alight. Katara smacked them back with a water whip before trying to freeze their legs, though they all firebent downwards in synchronisation, making the water burst into steam and obscure their field of vision.

"Get back!" she warned the warriors before a flurry of fireballs were shot out, Aang narrowly able to avoid getting hit due to his staff catching them; others weren't as lucky, and a few of the warriors were smacked in the chest, arms, and head by fireballs.

Katara would have to tend to the light burns, but the chaos of battle demanded that they kept fighting, and push the firebenders back. Aang rushed forward, deciding to try and utilise his airbending to the fullest, and ran right between all the firebenders, before funnelling all the air he could through a tube beside him. When the tried to firebend at him, it turned into a flaming tornado that burst out across the deck, striking one of the catapults and caused all the oil covered boulders to burst into flames and explode.

Luckily, the rubble didn't move far, but the dust blinded everyone, Aang included; he wished that he could use seismic sense with materials other than earth, knowing that it would be amazingly unfair against any foe. He did guess they were going to try and hit him again with their flames while his back was turned, and he leapt up into the air, dodging a few fire streams before he landed behind his foes.

"Looking for me?" he asked them, and as they turned, they were thrown across the deck by a stream of water; Katara had bent it out of the bay, and she looked exhausted because of it, freezing the water to keep the firebenders in place.

"We have to get rid of the rest of the catapults." she reminded him, gesturing to the two remaining ones that appeared functional.

The warriors rushed over to one of them, and pulled hard at the levers and mechanisms, smashing them apart with their clubs; Aang decided to instead use his waterbending to put water deep into the gears and cogs, and freeze it, hoping that the engineers would struggle at least for a while to figure out how to fix the catapult.

When he was done, Katara reached a hand forward, bending some of the left over water she was wielding into a thin arc, slicing right through some of the wooden fastenings of the catapult, causing it to shudder and break in some spots. He was unsure what that would do, but it was better than nothing.

"What about the engines?" he asked her, and she gestured to the superstructure.

"If we get around... maybe we can beat them." she acknowledged, not sounding very confident; it must have been because she was tired- he was too, but he knew that giving up at that point would be conceding more power to their enemies, so they could continue killing people without restraint.

"We'll stick right behind." Bato assured her, "If you need to rest, we can fly back and try again later."

"No!" she almost shouted, "We can't let this continue. We have to stop every one of them."

"Most of them are already beat... you can see they've left the bay, maybe they're going to retreat entirely."

"We don't know that." she disagreed, before turning her heels, "Let's hurry up before they free themselves." she warned them, Aang noting that the firebenders were already melting their hands free, though the rest of their bodies were thoroughly locked in the ice.

They rushed around the side of the superstructure, and down some stairs, which led them down towards the steamer bay. There were a few armed sailors in the way, but Katara quickly got them out of the way by flushing them down the stairs and out onto the deck below. As they tried to get up, Aang swung his staff around, bending a powerful gust right into them, flinging them into the railing. They were just lucky it was solid metal and not rope or wood, because he knew that they would already be swimming in the bay if that were the case.

Then they turned the corner around the rear of the ship, revealing the steamers, of which one remained; the other must have already gone ashore, but they could get rid of the other one. The warriors were able to deal with those themselves, and once they were getting aboard the craft to break the engine, Aang turned his heels and ran for the door, knowing they had to disable the engines before more sailors came down and were able to corner them.

Katara was right behind him as he rushed down the hallway; when he got to the engine room, he blasted open a door with his airbending, revealing the multistorey high boilers and the pipes that radiated out from them. He leapt down from the platform he was on, and eyed the engineers, who obviously hadn't been expecting company.

They readied the large shovels they had on hand as weapons, but before they could even try to attack a pipe burst open and covered them with hot steam, blinding them as Aang quickly used his airbending to throw them around, trying to be as soft as he could when knocking them out. He was no Ty Lee, but his airbending was precise and delicate when it needed to be. He turned to face his friend with a smile, finding her pipe trick amusing.

"You got them good there." he noted, and she laughed.

"The boilers were doing all the work, I just made them put out a little too much steam." she explained, before pointing her hands towards the boilers, "Speaking of which, let's get this done."

He nodded, and took a deep breath as he reached his hands to the steam that was flowing through the pipes. He held it in place for two boilers, while Katara did the same with another two. The focus required meant he just had to stand there; he could have tried to freeze the steam, but the last time he tried that, it just broke the pipes, which wasn't their goal. They needed to destroy the whole engine system so they couldn't reasonably repair it in any good time.

As the pressure built up, valves began to whir and pop off, letting out some of the steam, but not enough. He and Katara stepped back, walking up the staircase backwards as they tried to leave before the boilers decided to burst with them inside the room. Then suddenly, one of the engines made a crumpling noise as one of the pipes must have broken, and then, in quick succession that engine went off, all its valves and pipes breaking out at once.

He ran off without a second thought, and heard the rest burst and explode as they made their way through the door. He shut it behind them to stop the hallway from filling with steam, before glancing around recalling the path they'd need to take to get back to the warriors. They ran as fast as they could down the hallway, but it seemed that the sailors had caught on, and came down a nearby stairwell, blocking their path out.

"You're not going anywhere, Avatar." one of the sailors warned him with a firebending form, before he lunged forward, shooting out a flurry of fireballs, soon followed by the other sailors which sent volley after volley of flames at them.

Aang had to spin his staff around, bending the flames away from him and Katara, but eventually his robes caught fire and he gasped out, dashing around a corner so he could put on the flames. The sounds of footsteps thumped behind him, and he grit his teeth, before reaching for Katara's water skin, drawing some water out before he threw it in the direction of their foes, the water bursting into steam when it made contact with their flames.

"That was all I had." she warned him, and he grit his teeth and grabbed her by the hand.

"Then hold tight." he warned her, and though she did grab his wrist, she was not ready for what followed.

"What are you-" she asked, and that was all she could get out before she was forced to run along with him, narrowly missing a few fireballs that were tossed at them once the sailors recovered from the burst of steam.

She let out a fearful cry as they swung around a corner and dashed up a staircase; Aang understood the layout of the ship well enough, and when they were on the level of the main deck, he led them down the hallway to exit the superstructure. To his frustration, the men they had frozen earlier had gotten themselves free, and were now covering the exit.

"Where do you think you're going, kids?" one of the sailors mocked them, "Smoke them out!" he ordered his comrades, and in sync, six firebenders raised their hands and shot fire streams down the hallway, forcing Aang to shove Katara back and use his airbending to redirect the flames away, shooting them down a hallway to the side.

The heat was quickly getting to him, and he stumbled back, hoping that while he was bending Katara came up with a solution. He realised what it was when she grabbed his staff from his back and use it to break open a heating pipe; steam burst out, and she smirked as she reached her hand towards it.

"Get ready to duck." she warned Aang, who nodded, cringing from the heat of both the steam and the flames which were upon him from both sides.

When she gripped the steam and liquified it, he dropped down, watching as it collided with the flames, dousing them and creating a powerful burst of steam, which clearly did a number on the sailors; he could hear them grunt and cry, and the thumps and thunks of their armour striking the deck. When the steam cleared out, he saw a clear path, and without hesitation, he ran down it, hearing more voices behind them.

"They're here!" a sailor shouted out, and he saw another fireball be shot out in their direction.

Aang grit his teeth and squatted it with his hand, only realising after the fact that he had bent the fire himself. His eyes widened, realising what he had just achieved, but there was no time for celebration. He ran after Katara, following her past the dazed sailors, and watched as a few of them got up. Before they could dare to attack them, one of them was struck by a boomerang.

Aang almost called out Sokka's name, but realised it was just one of the other warriors. A few warriors ran up past him, attacking the firebenders before they had the chance to form a defence. Clubs and spears clashed with flames, swords, and pikes, but they had a narrow edge in numbers, and once Aang had gotten his staff off of Katara, he used it to throw a few of them across the deck.

"Thank the spirits you're alright." Bato acknowledged their presence as he approached, before pointing over to Appa, who was fending off a few other sailors, "We need to get off this ship, now!"

"I thought you'd never ask." he made his feelings clear, before running over to his sky-bison with the others; they climbed aboard the saddle, and he grasped the reins hastily, whipping them and saying the words, "Yip yip!"

With that, Appa roared, swung his tail around, and knocked over a few men who had been harassing him, before launching up into the air; the sailors tried to attack them once more with some synchronised fire streams, but he squatted them away with an equally powerful air blast, causing the fire to fall down and dissipate into the water below. He grabbed the reins again, and directed Appa back over to the base, making sure to land behind the walls and away from any fighting he could see from above.

It seemed that the attackers had mostly been beaten back, as he couldn't see any breaches, and those that existed seemed to be held by the soldiers and Earth Kingdom fighters protecting the base. Once Appa slowed down, he turned back to face the warriors, seeing that they were all a bit worse for wear. Katara had been aiding them with her healing abilities, but even then, that hadn't stopped them from tiring out.

He just hoped that Bato was right, and the ships were drawing away and probably about to retreat; if not, he didn't know how they'd stop them from making more attacks and eventually wearing all of them out. Fleeing was not something he wanted to do, not when everyone had spent so much blood, sweat, and tears protecting the base, which was meant to be a new home for refugees, but now stood in ruins and disarray.

The compound was still mostly intact when he saw it last, but the city of tents was burnt and busted up, not to mention the new village he and Toph had been working on building; those houses were crumbling apart from the shells, and he couldn't imagine how annoyed the fighters would be having to rebuild them. He was not looking forward to returning to working on them, even if it was relatively easy with the use of earthbending.

"That was one fight." Katara gasped as they climbed off of the saddle, glancing down at Aang before she reached at his right palm, "Your hand got burnt."

"Oh..." he mumbled, not having noticed the slight pain he felt there; the exhilaration of the fight, which mostly consisted of him frantically running away in fear of their lives, distracted him from it until that moment, "I think I firebent."

"Well... maybe you can try and learn to do it properly. I don't want to have to face something like that again without a firebender to back us up." she suggested, before scrunching her lips, "I hate firebending as much as the next Water Tribe person, but I mean, it's pretty useful."

"Y-yeah, I guess it is." he acknowledged, before he heard the sound of an explosion in the distance; Aang turned his head to see one of the ships covered in flames, and realised why.

Flying right above it was the airship; Sokka had got to the base, and just in the nick of time. He hadn't noticed it when they were flying down to the base, but that was probably because he was so distracted by the massive fire stream that was sent at Appa.

"Sokka!" Katara exclaimed her brother's name with joy, raising her fists into the air, "Finally!"

"So, that's the airship." Bato mumbled, "I thought it would have been bigger... like a proper ship."

Aang noticed that there were more ships sailing along with the airship, and they fired off their catapults, striking the few remaining ships that weren't already floating adrift; the explosions made him cringe, but he was relieved to see that the fight was going to be soon over. He opened his glider, knowing he ought to speak with Sokka and explain what happened, so they could prepare for whatever might come next. He was no strategist, but he had a feeling that the ships that had attacked were not the end of things.

"Katara, make sure everyone gets back safe, I'm gonna go tell Sokka what's happened." he explained himself, and she nodded, before he launched himself into the air, gliding over the water before he rose up as he approached the airship, which was making a beeline for the base after it dropped a few explosives over the ships in the bay.

When he flew around to the gangways at the back, he closed the glider, landing softly on the gangway, where two of Azula's guards were standing. They saluted him at once, and one of them gestured through the doorway behind them.

"Sokka's inside." he told him what he was already guessing, and Aang paced down the gangway and through the door; it led him over the engine room, and then into a small compartment where the crew and passengers rested.

People he recognised from the meeting back in Shengchang were inside, surprised to see him.

"Aang!" Cheng exclaimed his name, "Oh, it's good to see you. Is everyone alright down there?"

"I think so. There was a lot of fighting... explosions and stuff. But, we've won now, right?"

"That's what it looks like." Kibo gave her opinion, looking out a small window, "Half these ships are already dead in the water."

"Yeah, we did that." he acknowledged, pointing a thumb to his sternum.

"You did that?" he heard somebody else speak up, Aang turning his head to see Sokka, who was wearing his fireproof vest and a red tunic, instead of his usual Water Tribe garbs.

His hair was down and he had a few bandages on his extremities, telling Aang that he got hurt wherever he was fighting.

"Y-yeah, me, Katara, and some of the Water Tribe-" he began to explain, before the warrior's eyes widened.

"Wait! My Dad's here?!" he asked with a near shout, Aang nodding awkwardly, a bit surprised by his eagerness.

He grabbed the Air Nomad by his shoulders and grinned at him from ear to ear, "Oh and I thought this day was an absolute bust. Turns out I'm wrong, thank the spirits."

"I never hear you say that."

"Well, it has to be pure stupid luck that they showed up now to help." he acknowledged, before turning around, "Bring us down outside the compound. I need to speak with whoever's in charge."

"Colonel Zhengyi." Aang gave him the name of who he was looking for.

"Oh, that guy. Yeah, he left Shengchang with the prisoners." he remembered when he'd last seen the Colonel, "Is Jianren alright? I hope he's not too mad he had to fight off half a fleet instead of just doing construction work."

"Last time I saw him he was fine. He was commanding at the walls with Toph." he explained what he knew about his status, before scrunching up his lips, "Uh, what happened to you?" he gestured to his bandages, and Sokka made a sheepish smile.

"Ah, you know, the usual, fighting somebody who thought way too much of themselves." he explained himself casually, "I think we were just dealing with the diversion. We were able to get them to surrender to us, though."

"Wait, so you got Azula even more ships?" he asked, and the Water Tribesman smirked.

"Yes I did... probably just to replace all the ones that are sunk or stuck in the bay." he noted, before pacing over to the bridge of the airship; Aang followed him, eyeing the windows out of which he could see the base all around them, telling him that they were nearly on the ground already, "But, coming here has delayed all our plans... I mean all of this is just a mess really."

"Your dad got even more rebels to join us though... that has to be good news, right?"

"Yeah, it is, but- uh, I'm sorry, I'm really tired after the fight today."

"Me too." he agreed, "Hopefully Azula will send help from Shengchang."

"Eh, I expect so, but it will take time to repair ships." Sokka noted, "The houses and the walls... that's probably easier with earthbenders to help."

"Yeah, I was helping them today." he recalled, before sighing, "So much for all that work."

"Don't worry, I'm sure if my dad really did get a lot of rebels to join him, then they can help fix things up quick." Sokka reassured him with a hand to the shoulder, before the airship landed on the ground, the metal creaking and making a reverberating thump as it touched down.

The Water Tribesman then paced over to the door, unlocked it and opened it up, striding down the stairs that were already in place to the ground below. Before them Aang already saw a few soldiers, who had come around eagerly to watch their arrival; they cheered for Sokka as he stepped outside, and he made an awkward wave before turning his heels towards the compound.

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask, where's Katara?"

"I left her with Appa by the walls." he answered quickly, "She's not hurt."

"Well, I wasn't really worried about that, because of the healing... but I hope she hasn't been getting herself into too much danger."

"Don't worry... she's really good at waterbending. I'm surprised how quickly she got the hang of it." he assured the Water Tribe boy, who smiled brightly upon hearing his words.

"Yeah, that's my sister alright." he declared proudly, before continuing along to the gates, which were still open; out of them rushed a few people, most of whom he didn't recognise, though one was very clear- Sokka's father.

"Sokka!" he exclaimed his son's name, and leapt to hug him, Sokka accepting the embrace eagerly; the two of them hugged it out for a few moments, and Aang awkwardly waved to those people behind them, who seemed to be a hodgepodge of Earth Kingdom fighters.

"It's good to see you too, Dad." the boy acknowledged his feelings, before glancing past him, "So, are you the fighters Dad recruited?"

They all nodded, and he smirked; that kind of face told Aang he had plans to discuss.

"I have a lot to talk about with you all, but I just want to speak with Zhengyi first." he explained himself, and he turned around, watching as the Colonel approached with his personal guard, looking almost excited to see him, tough he kept a muted, serious tone hen he addressed him.

"Sokka... I mean, sir." he spoke up, before kneeling, "We have held the base in her majesty's name. The enemy is repulsed thanks to your assistance."

"It was mostly your efforts." he assured him, "Everyone here... I'm glad that you were all able to work together."

"There were a few stumbles along the way, but we got it done." Hakoda gave his thoughts, before Sokka stepped closer to the Colonel, gesturing for him to stand up.

"I'm not your Fire Lord." he warned him, "You don't need to kiss my boots... I want to know what we've lost, and what it will take to fix things around here."

"Eight ships were sunk in the bay according to the last report I received, and another five are no longer seaworthy but still afloat." he told him what had happened out in the bay, "Our armaments are greatly depleted, and we'll need to restock from somewhere. Hopefully those ships that remain salvageable have enough arms to cover the gaps."

"What about the base?"

"The compound was slightly damaged in the fighting, mostly due to shelling on the walls around it, and the walls have been thoroughly damaged, though the repairs are easy enough to make with the earthbenders on site." he explained, sounding more optimistic, "The docks are in tatters. They'll need to be relaid entirely, but again, earthbenders make that much easier than it would be otherwise."

"What about the garrison?"

"The casualties were not as high as I feared. We have two hundred men in the on site medical camp. More might be needed to be treated properly by healers and physicians away from here, but they only count around two dozen. At least a hundred are dead... of our men. I haven't gotten any numbers from Jianren or the new arrivals."

"It's not your concern." Hakoda stressed, "And my friends would not like to discuss those matters with you." he added, speaking for the new allies that had come with him.

"It is my concern." Sokka clarified, turning around to face them.

"Uh, and mine too." Aang spoke up, feeling that those people that had come along to fight were probably enticed by the fact he was there fighting alongside Azula's forces.

Hakoda cringed, and gestured for the others to step forward, "Tell them."

"Six."

"Three."

"Eight."

"Five."

"One."

The numbers were listed off, and Aang was relieved to hear that they were nowhere near as high as he feared they would be; he didn't know what had happened with Jianren's fighters, but he imagined they had suffered worse, given they were out holding the walls for that entire time. Zhengyi had his arms crossed, and nodded, seeming to think the numbers were believable; the idea that he was concerned they were lying disgusted Aang, but the more he thought about it, the more he understood. They weren't really allies, not in the way that Azula wanted them to be; the Earth Kingdom hated the Fire Nation, and the Fire Nation feared they were being played by the rebels.

"What about Jianren and his fighters?" Sokka asked, and Zhengyi shook his head.

"They're still at the walls... I'm sure you'll get your answer soon enough."

Aang nodded, and turned his attention to Sokka, "So, I guess you never ended up going to the North Pole."

"No, I didn't." he confirmed, before turning to face his father, "Well, seeing that you're here, Dad, why don't you come with me?"

"Wh-what?" he gasped, surprised to hear the offer; he glanced around, before grasping Sokka by the shoulder, "Uh, let's just go talk about this... I think I need to catch up on things." he acknowledged, and when they paced away, Aang followed, knowing that he could help fill in the gaps.

Hakoda wasn't disapproving when he did, so when they paced into the compound, and to a spot to sit in the courtyard, he followed them, sitting alongside them as Sokka collected himself.

"So, what exactly has been going on, Son?"

"You probably heard from Katara and Aang about what happened at the North Pole when we were there last. We... well, annoyed the locals."

"Yeah, they didn't like Azula leading a ship and a crazy guy there to kill the spirits." Aang noted, finding the whole situation absurd, though he was mostly just relieved it hadn't gone the way he was afraid it would.

"And so why are you going there now?"

"Azula wants to- uh, bury the hatchet. So, I'm going with a delegation of representatives from Shengchang to make a trade agreement, and ensure that we can get that ship back. Not that one ship is that important, but a lot of the men on there were made prisoners." Sokka explained, "Some of them, from my understanding, will profess loyalty to Azula now that Zhao is a prisoner of the Northerners."

"And what about the North... do they want to help us fight Ozai?"

"Maybe." he mumbled, "Aang and Katara's master, Pakku, is a member of the White Lotus."

"The White Lotus, they're- oh, yeah." he recalled where he must have remembered them from; Aang knew the story- Jeong Jeong, at the behest of the organisation, hired Hakoda and the Water Tribe warriors to capture Azula.

Now, Aang was well aware of other members of the group, such as Iroh, Bumi, and probably a lot more across the Four Nations, most importantly Pakku, who would probably use his respect within the tribe to push them to act in the best interests of the world.

"So, Pakku might help you persuade them to help us?" he asked, and Sokka nodded.

"Yeah... well, that's what I've gotten from how he's spoken about the war and our tribe's situation." he acknowledged, and Aang furrowed a brow, remembering a rather important point about Pakku that hadn't been mentioned- his relationship with Kanna, Hakoda's mother.

"What about K-" Aang began, Sokka cutting him off with the raise of a hand, probably because he wanted to break the news himself.

"There's just something I should probably say about Pakku before we leave... in the case that you might meet him."

Hakoda seemed confused, and eyed Aang momentarily before looking at his son, "What is it, Son?"

"Before Gran-Gran left the North Pole... she was betrothed to him."

"Oh." he mumbled, his muted reaction a bit surprising, though what followed it was not; the realisation dawned upon him, and Hakoda's gaze turned away from them, "So... do you know why she left?"

"I mean, I've heard the stories from her, and what he said, it matched up. It's- well, it's his fault, and all the stupid traditions of their tribe." Sokka explained what he knew, and his father just looked distantly, his eyes showing a sadness that Aang hadn't expected.

"Huh." he murmured, "He's the reason we exist."

"Yeah, that's what I said." his son noted with an amused tone, before offering him a hand, "So, I understand if you don't like the guy... I mean, he's an arse. So, you'd be justified to feel that way, even ignoring what he's done."

"He taught Katara to waterbend." he realised, "Was it guilt... or does he see your Gran-Gran in her?"

"Probably both." Sokka acknowledged, before turning around, "She's coming to meet us, right Aang?"

"I'd say so. Appa hasn't flown over, so she must be walking." he deduced, before eyeing Hakoda, "So, are you going to go with Sokka?"

"I mean, after my mother told me about the place... a part of me has always wanted to see it. It's a whole other Water Tribe... and part of me wishes that I was born there instead of the south."

"Yeah... I understand why." Sokka mumbled, and Hakoda laughed, before grabbing his son by the scruff of his neck.

"But then I wouldn't have met Kya... and you and your sister wouldn't be here to make me proud." he acknowledged, "I am proud of you, Sokka."

"Th-thanks, Dad." he awkwardly acknowledged his affirmations; Aang smiled at the interaction, though he felt a throb in his heart, knowing what he was lacking.

Though it had been a hundred years, it felt like only a few months since he had spoken with Gyatso; everything he had taught him, all the fun they had had together, and his comfort and care, it was all still there. It hung over him more than he realised; whenever he had left the temple, it was always with the assumption that he'd get to come back and Gyatso and the others would be there waiting for him.

His attention was drawn when Katara arrived, "Sokka!" she called out to her brother, who smiled and turned around; Aang also noticed that Toph had tagged along, following her back from the walls.

"I heard you and Aang were taking out some ships." he addressed their prior efforts, and she smirked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, we did. But, you made most of that effort a little pointless with your airship." she acknowledged with a little dejection, though she still eagerly hugged her brother when she reached him.

"Now can we rest?" Aang asked, "I'm really tired." he spoke his mind as he stretched out his arms, hoping that with the fighting done, he could get the rest he needed.

"Yeah you can say that again, Twinkletoes." Toph gave her opinion, yawning afterwards to emphasise the fact, "Uh, maybe we should use that spa thingy that Ty Lee likes so much."

"Oh, yeah, it is pretty good." Katara agreed with her point, "I could definitely go for some of that after all the fighting... but it seems a little unfair when the others can't use it."

"How about you do a last run of healing to clear your conscience, then we can go to the spa?" the earthbender offered a counter, and Katara smiled.

"Yeah, that sounds good." she agreed, before turning to face Aang, "How about you?"

"I might help with the healing. I've had to do a bit of practice today, can't hurt to do a little more." he decided, "But I'm going straight to bed after this." he explained his intentions, before turning to face the Water Tribe boy, "What about you, Sokka?"

"I've got to make sure the airship's refuelled and stocked up with supplies, but then we've gotta get going. As soon as the path is clear, I'm going straight for the North Pole." he explained his intentions, and eyed his father, "So, Dad, you are gonna come, right?"

"I guess so. I ought to stress our tribe's position on the war." Hakoda spoke his mind, "Even if I am not looking forward to... that meeting." he referred to what would inevitably happen when he and Pakku met, before his expression brightened as he turned to face the others, "You all have... uh, fun with your spa time." he farewelled Katara, who hugged her father before pacing off with Toph.

"I'll see you before you go!" she assured him, and she gestured for Aang to follow, "You coming, Aang?"

He sighed and nodded, knowing the work wasn't over; his desire to make sure the injured were well treated outweighed his desire to fall flat on the ground and go to sleep.

"Those burns aren't gonna heal themselves."


Unadulterated fear was something not common to Azula. She had spent most of her life with a sense of control and power over her life, even if in hindsight, it was foolish to think so before she was free of her father's control. However, fear came and went, usually in battle, when she would fear for her life, or the lives of those she had come to care about; she would have never admitted it a year prior that there were other people she cared about, except maybe her father, but even then, that was out of respect, not because she thought anyone could harm him.

The kind of fear she was feeling since the messenger hawk arrived was not something she had felt since she realised Zhao had betrayed her; the fear that he would use his knowledge to destroy the spirits and bring the world to its knees. That kind of power was practically nonexistent, except for the Avatar, and the Admiral had held that over her, like he was better than her. The idea itself offended her, and only made her wish that her brother had killed him instead of merely teaching him the same lesson he had learnt from Ozai.

Now, she was not afraid for the world, but for things far closer to her heart. She didn't realise how much she cared for her friends, as she had come to call them, before that moment; Katara, Aang, Toph- for all she knew, they could have died protecting a stupid tract of land she had usurped from the Admiral. It was not worth their lives, and she knew that. And worse, she knew that as soon as Sokka found out, he would turn the airship around and fly headstrong into battle, no matter the danger.

She had only received one more letter from the base, written by its commanding officer, Colonel Zhengyi. It said that they had won the battle, and held their ground. Even then, she couldn't believe it, for her fear was too strong. He had spoken of half a fleet, more than two dozen ships bearing down on a base that might have only had half that in port, while the rest patrolled the sea, to prevent such an occurrence. She had received not long before that another letter, of another group of ships sailing in from the west, engaged by Commander Junho with the assistance of the airship. But Zhengyi did not merely send her a letter, and for all she knew, Junho, Sokka, and thirty warships had fallen upon the base and destroyed every enemy vessel.

She could not be certain of their victory, because a seal could be taken from a burning camp, marked upon a letter, and sent to her, trying to coax her to approach without an army at her back, seeking to aid her people. And then, she knew that they would strike her down; Azula would not allow for such treachery. That was why she sent two of her guards ahead to the vantage points she knew existed around the base, to spot it and ascertain if Zhengyi had really sent her that letter, or if he was dead, along with everyone else.

She was riding her mongoose lizard through the woods, along the same well trodden path they had taken more than once before. The guards had yet to return, and she was teetering on the edge; her grip upon the reins was tight, to the point it hurt her hands. She didn't say a word just staring forth, scanning the treeline for threats, or her returning guards. Ty Lee could see her face, and rode ahead so she could get her attention; the look on her friend's own face told her all she needed to know. She knew what she was afraid of, and she knew she could do nothing to relieve those fears.

"Just... stay calm." she suggested, and Azula almost laughed; she held her lips stiff, and narrowed her eyes.

"I-" she struggled to speak, unsure what to say to that; she was right, she needed to remain calm, but it was practically impossible, "I can't."

"The others should be fine. If they were defeated... we would have seen somebody coming along the road. Somebody would have got out." she argued, and Azula scrunched her lips.

"We don't know the extent of this operation." she argued, "For all we know, they could have landed troops to surround the base on all sides and stopped any withdrawal."

"I mean... is that what you would have done?" she asked, and Azula narrowed her eyes.

"Well... if I were in their shoes, I would have not attacked this base directly. It's too well manned and defended. I would have taken control of some nearby ports, attacked them from the land, and then moved to blockade the bay so that the base could be seized as bloodlessly as possible." she explained what she would have done in place of whoever was commanding the operation; even if they had succeeded, they would have wasted so much manpower and resources that it would likely do her father's war effort more harm than good.

"I don't think it could be bloodless either way." Ty Lee mumbled, "The Earth Kingdom fighters would never surrender to them."

"That's true. That's half the reason they're there."

"What, to keep your own people in line?" she asked, sounding almost offended by the hard pragmatism she had employed.

"It was either that or purging the officer corps of any potential defectors... That would have hampered our efforts to take the colonies, so I decided on a different course." she explained her rationale, knowing the alternative would have only made it harder for her to gain allies within the Fire Nation military.

"Your majesty!" she heard one of her guards shout out, and her eyes turned up the road, seeing the two returning on their mongoose lizards.

"What did you see?" she asked him, and he gestured up the road.

"The walls were pretty badly damaged, but they were half-repaired from what I could see. There has to be at least a dozen ships out in the bay, sunk or disabled. The docks are gone, and the outer wall of the compound facing them is completely gone." he explained what he could see, which suggested a terrible battle had taken place, but not that the base had been taken by the enemy.

"Could you see the works of the earthbenders? The new settlement." she asked, knowing that if it remained undamaged or repaired, it was clear evidence of their victory, as any new occupiers would either ignore damage or outright destroy it to make their stance against the rebels clear.

"Yeah, there was a village by the northwest end of the base, near the shoreline. It was mostly intact, and I could see there were works around it. They're still building."

"So, we won." she concluded, feeling the anxiety escape her like a scream; the relief was sudden, and it made her want to fall back in her saddle and sleep, knowing that her friends were safe and that her efforts were not all in vain.

"Yes, I think we did, you majesty." the guard agreed, and she gestured up the road.

"Well there's no reason to keep this slow pace any longer. Let's get to the base, and assess the situation." she argued, "I'll send a letter west to the aid convoy as soon as we have the details."

She turned to face Ty Lee, who was smiling brightly at her, "This is great!" she declared, before her expression weakened, "I mean... the battle happening in the first place was terrible, but at least it didn't go terribly."

"And you couldn't see the airship, right?" she asked the guard, who shook his head.

"No, it wasn't there. Do you expect Sokka to come here to help them?"

"He's probably already gone if he was here at all." she conceded, knowing that he had his mission in the Northern Water Tribe to worry about; that was less important than defending their territories, but vital for the future of their campaign against her father's forces- trade and a potential military alliance would only further secure her position.

"Well that's a disappointment." Ty Lee pouted, "I was hoping you two could have a beautiful moment when you reunite." she admitted with starry eyes, "I love romance... especially when it's happening right in front of me."

She would have reprimanded her friend if she had not given up entirely trying to play down her relationship with Sokka in front of the guards. So, instead she just sighed and looked ahead.

"He'll be back soon enough. Chief Arnook will either cave in or he will not." she spoke her mind, knowing that the Northern Water Tribe was probably no monolith; some would be opposed to aiding them, supporting isolation, while others would want a chance to make money, and others still would genuinely desire to help the rest of the world out of sympathy for the century of suffering they had endured.

Her sympathy for them was thin, and Sokka's influence had made sure that remained the case. He was not a fan of their attitude towards the rest of the world, and she had come to see things as he did; inaction was weakness, but there was nothing wrong with protecting your own interests. What made it so despicable was that they claimed dominion over the South, yet failed to ever aid them in their time of need. She knew that if she was to reign over the Fire Nation, she needed to take responsibility for all her citizens; it was not enough to appease those people who would help her keep her throne. Ruling, she had realised, was a matter of being just; goodness and fair intentions would not be enough- action was required.

"So... what will you do if they refuse?" Ty Lee asked, and Azula narrowed her eyes.

"I will not punish them for their foolishness, but... I will not allow them to reap the benefits of my new world. If they want to remain in their icy shell, they are free to do so... but that is all they will ever have." she explained her view on the matter, and her friend nodded, seeming to approve.

"I mean, I can understand why they're afraid." she acknowledged, "If they tried to do anything, maybe the Fire Nation would have already conquered them."

"They could try... but how could they hold a place encased in ice? If you killed every waterbender, maybe, but that would have been a fruitless effort." she asked, her idea sounding like something her father would do; she might have recommended it if she hadn't known how resilient the Water Tribes were.

The Fire Nation had its technology, wealth, and military might to rely on; without it, they were just as weak as any other people. They could die, they could lose, and that very fact was what she was relying on to achieve her victory. She would do what her ancestors had failed to achieve after a century: she would end the war, permanently.

"That would have been terrible." she acknowledged, before glancing away, "We already tried it."

"My grandfather should be glad he is dead." she mumbled, thinking how much her boyfriend disdained Ozai, despite not even being responsible for the policies that destroyed his nation, "Sokka would have killed him slowly and painfully for his crimes against the South."

"What about your father?" she asked cautiously, and Azula didn't immediately respond, unsure what he really wanted to do with him; he obviously understood that Zuko leaving him alive was the cause of their problems.

"Him living is the cause of our suffering. I hate to say it, but I wish my brother had just had a spine and had put him out of his misery." she declared coldly, knowing what good her brother could have done without Ozai in his way; she hated that he stole the throne, but she feared her father more.

She had always been afraid, afraid of losing his love and respect, but now, she was afraid of him taking the things she loved. She wasn't going to claim she loved the world, peace, and balance, but she wanted those things because they would make things better. A better world for herself, and for those who trusted her to achieve victory. A world where she could have a future with Sokka beyond hiding in the cold, dark South where they could remain out of Ozai's grasp.

"I am sure that we can find a way to stop him." Ty Lee assured her, and the Princess shook her head.

"I already have my path... the airships, and the Earth Kingdom. I have them both, but not enough... first Ba Sing Se, and then, I will have my throne." she reminded her of her plan, "If the airships cannot win us this war, then treachery and subterfuge will have to do."

"What, will you send assassins after him?" she asked, and Azula shook her head.

"Assassins... as in multiple? No, all I'll need is Toph." she argued, "That girl could wipe out every Imperial Firebender in the palace, and my father, as long as she remains out of their grasp, which is easy enough given her abilities."

"I don't know if she'd agree to that." Ty Lee acknowledged, "I don't know her that well, but she seems to prefer working with others, despite- uh, her attitude."

"That's what being a soldier does to you. You know that your power isn't enough, and that together, you can coordinate and achieve victories that no one fighter could." Azula acknowledged, before grimacing, "Something I learned a little too late, unfortunately."

"The Agni Kai, that wasn't your fault." she tried to dissuade her from her negative thoughts, but the Princess would not have a bar of it; if she were to deny her failures, she would simply repeat them.

"It was completely my fault. I am only lucky that my lightning was weak enough that it didn't kill me." she retorted, "I can't even remember if that was on purpose or not." she added, looking away, feeling somewhat ashamed for having tried to kill her brother; she knew that it was wrong, after realising how siblings were meant to act towards each other.

"You don't hate Zuko anymore, do you?" she asked, and the Princess shrugged.

"It wouldn't matter if I did... if he really is dead, then my anger and foolishness is probably what got him killed. We could have cooperated, and ruled together, but... I don't know if I could have accepted that." she spoke her mind, knowing that her relationship with her brother was always rocky; after he had claimed to kill their father, she was consumed by rage, and had failed to follow Sokka's reasonable advice, even if he went along with her plans.

"You've really... I want to say grown, but you've just changed. You don't really look any different, but you feel different."

"My aura?" she asked her, the tone emphasising her lack of belief in such things.

"It's really different. I know you don't really care, but it's never been like it was before. Ever."

"Really, not even when I was laying into Zhao at the North Pole?"

"No, not even then." she assured her, knowing that even if she was angry then, she was primarily acting out of fear for Sokka's safety, even if she was motivated enough alone to stop him from harming the spirits.

She was not ruthlessly hunting down a traitor, even if she thought Zhao ought to hang for his actions, primarily those in Yu Dao, where he inadvertently led to the deaths of hundreds, both Fire Nation soldiers and innocent civilians who were mere bystanders in the conflict between her and her brother. All those deaths were pointless in the end, which is why they angered her so much.

As they rode up over the crest in the hill, she finally made sight of the base, spotting in through the trees; she could even see the bay, and the sunken vessels that dotted the shallows. She remembered the shipwreck Sokka had shown her in the South, and wondered if Katara had tried to sink any of them herself with her waterbending. The girl's waterbending had improved drastically over the past few months, but she was unsure if she had the capability to do something so extreme; Toph, on the other hand, certainly could, especially with a little assistance from other earthbenders.

"Wow... they really did fight them off." Ty Lee gasped out in awe, "I can't believe it was over so quickly."

"There were only so many ships they could lose." Azula acknowledged, knowing that naval combat was especially quick when the Fire Nation was fighting themselves, as their vessels were more than capable of sinking each other, even with their massive reinforced steel hulls.

Earth Kingdom or Water Tribe ships would be destroyed even quicker, with their wooden hulls and smaller sizes, but it was more impressive seeing such massive works of engineering and labour being turned into heaps of scrap in the bay.

Their mongoose lizards began to increase in pace as the path became wider and better maintained, leading them to the first gatehouses of the base, which lay halfway up the hillslope, to check any convoys for contraband and spies. She was afraid enough of the latter to keep a tight security operation in place. Those men at the gatehouse immediately ran out and hailed her, before falling to their knees.

"Your majesty!" one of them beckoned her, "Your domain is secure. Do you have any orders?" he asked her, and the Princess crossed her arms.

"I want the hills scouted quickly for any spies or scouts."

"We've already done it, your majesty." he assured her, "Colonel Zhengyi made that the first priority once the prisoners were secured." he explained what had happened, and she nodded.

"I expect nothing less from my subordinates. We will not be played like this again." she assured him, before gesturing for the soldiers to move out of the way, "Now move, I have a base to inspect."

"Of course." he accepted her order with a salute before he and his men stepped back over to the gatehouses, letting them through and further down the hill.

They followed the winding path further downhill to the flats where the base was located, quickly reaching the next set of gatehouses, which were at a proper gate; those marked an entrance through the outer walls, made of rammed earth and wood, surrounded by a trench that Jianren's fighters and the engineers had made before their campaign in Shengchang. The men stationed there saluted her and opened the gates at once, not needing to say anything. She simply nodded, approving of their work, before leading her guards through the gates.

"She's here!" she heard somebody shout out, and she glanced around to try and discern the source.

She then found groups of soldiers coming up towards her, lining the path that led her towards the centre of the base; they all began to fall to their knees, as a sign of respect. Azula then did the only thing she could, raising her left hand up, and saluted the soldiers who had risked their lives for her cause. She rode along, struggling to keep a straight face as she saw the soldiers line up along; they were tired, and many of them were clearly injured, but they still came to kneel for her.

She was their Fire Lord, and being reminded of that made her feel anxious once more. Not about losing a battle, but about losing the war; she did not want to see all her efforts, and all the sacrifices that had been made, all to be in vain. Those before her reminded her of that, and she swore silently then and there that she would finish what she started. Turning back was not an option, not when the alternative would commiserate the human race; she was not responsible for all people, but she had the power, and the influence over the right people, that would prevent that misery.

She could never say she personally cared for all those faceless people, in the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation; in the case of the latter, she knew that it was her duty to protect them, but that was more a frame her father and others like him would place their arguments in to make them seem more palatable. She knew, however, that duty was all about sacrifice, and not that of her nameless, faceless countrymen, but for herself.

When she approached the inner gates, which allowed her to pass the ditch and palisade that lined the inner area of the base, where their warehouses, barracks, and common areas were located, she saw a few men standing duty there, and they immediately rushed to open the gates. She nodded in approval, and led her men through.

"You're being really quiet." Ty Lee noted with a whisper, though it was loud enough for her to make out.

"I have more responsibilities than appeasing your social needs." she retorted, though she felt that it was a bit of a harsh response; her friend seemed to understand, and nodded.

"These people are your responsibility." she realised, "I get it."

"There isn't much to understand... but there is much to do." she stressed, knowing that she needed to make plans and set them into motion; even if she intended to go east, things needed to be set in place, so that her forces could secure the colonies and link up with whatever remained of her brother's loyalists.

Glancing ahead she then saw Jianren, flanked by a pair of his fighters, from the compound. He looked at her with a sombre face, and bowed towards her quickly, not as deferential as any of the soldiers had been earlier. As they had approached, she and her guards dismounted from their mongoose lizards, and she held her beast by its reins as Jianren bowed.

"Fire Lord Azula." he addressed her formally, "We held your base, as you wanted."

"You have my thanks, Jianren." she acknowledged him with a quick bow, before glancing past him, "Did the fighting last long?"

"A few hours in total... but that was because most of the ships were disabled or sinking, so the crews came ashore and tried to make beachheads. They did not succeed, though some of them ran off into the hills by the end of the day."

"I assume Colonel Zhengyi sent men after them?" she asked, and he nodded.

"Mounted scouts. They've come back with a few prisoners, but... not as many as who ran off." he explained, sounding frustrated with the fact, "I'd lead my group off to handle them, but the rebuilding work requires us."

"I understand." she accepted his reasoning, and stepped past, "Hopefully it will be done soon, and you can go after them... that is if you don't want to join me when we go to Ba Sing Se."

"Ba Sing Se?" he raised a brow, "I mean, I have responsibilities here." he gestured at the base that surrounded them.

"And you part of that is making sure your nation is secure. Without that, all our work here won't mean much. Bandits, my father, unruly, opportunistic colonists. Somebody is going to make your life hell eventually." she warned him, and Jianren sighed.

"Well, I will need to appoint somebody to oversee things here. I have a few good lieutenants. Skilled fighters, capable of dealing with the politics of this situation you've forced upon me."

"I did." she agreed with his point, which might have been intended to guilt her, but she wouldn't feel so, "You are needed in our new world... not out in the forest, but serving your country."

"I wouldn't think you'd be so concerned about who exactly leads the Earth Kingdom... I mean other than people that don't want you dead."

"And what did you try to do when we first met?" she retorted, and Jianren just laughed.

"Point taken." he conceded that he was once her enemy; it was her desire to make peace and cooperate that had made him an ally, "I'll find somebody in the next few days."

"That would be best. I imagine we will be leaving soon." she acknowledged, "As soon as the boats bringing my allies from the south of the Earth Kingdom arrive, we will have no reason to wait any longer."

"Uh... sorry?" he questioned her words, and Ty Lee stepped closer.

"When the Water Tribe boats get here. They were coming from somewhere near Omashu, right Azula?"

"Yes, from there." she confirmed, and Jianren snickered.

"Your men are really good at giving you the details." he sarcastically commented, before crossing his arms, "Those boats are already here. Those allies aided us in the fighting... they're probably half the reason the base didn't fall, given how many defectors were already here. If given the chance they probably would have defected back again to the enemy side."

"I was going to ask about the defectors... but that answers that question." she noted, before turning her gaze back towards the gates of the compound; not long after, they were opened, and out came Colonel Zhengyi, flanked by a group of personal guards.

He beelined straight for Azula, allowing her to stand there quietly and watch as he came to kneel, alongside all his guards, "The battle was hard fought, but together, we achieved victory, your majesty."

"I can see." she observed, "I received your letter yesterday... I thought it was too good to be true." she admitted, and he cringed.

"I understand your fears, your majesty. We thought the battle might have been lost, but the forces we had sent out to attack the enemies to the west returned just in time." he acknowledged, before crossing his arms, "We've captured... well, a substantive number of prisoners. Do you have any orders concerning them?"

"We have no space here for them. Their hands would be better utilised ensuring we secure our supply lines... even if the threat of defection and sabotage remains." she gave her first idea, knowing that with the extra manpower, fixing the railway to Shencghang, and then ensuring their overland routes to the other colonies were secured would become far more simpler.

"I see." he nodded, "Would you like to give those orders directly?" he asked, and she furrowed a brow.

"Yes, but not at once. I have other matters to attend to. Ensure that they are fed and housed in the meantime."

"What of those who refuse to work?" he asked, and she pursed her lips.

"We could always force them, but I want to give them the choice to do their duty. I will allow them to undertake non-combat duties here or at our other military installations... if they refuse that or work on the railroad, then they will be sent in chains to the colonies. I'm sure the Governors there might find some use for them." she decided, before turning her gaze back to the base, "Where are the rebel leaders Jianren spoke of?"

"We've housed their leaders inside, given their value to your plans, but the rest are camped out in one of the yards over that way." she explained, and Azula nodded, approving of that move; she wanted to ingratiate herself with the rebel leaders at once so they would agree to her plans- they must have at least in principle done so if they had gotten on Hakoda's boats.

"I will see them at once." she declared, before turning to face Ty Lee and her guards, "You can reacquaint yourselves with your quarters. I can handle all of this myself."

Renshu stepped forth, "At least allow two guards to accompany you. Some of the prisoners, either the new ones or the ones from Shengchang, might have escaped their quarters and are seeking you out." he warned her, and Zhengyi seemed offended.

"Excuse me, Captain Renshu, but my men have kept a very tight leash on the prisoners. The ones we brought here have been more than cooperative. If they wanted to attack her majesty, they would have done it out there." he pointed to the outer part of the base, where she had made her way past the masses of soldiers, who had knelt to her in respect.

"Captain, take the mongoose lizards with the rest of the men, spare two to guard me." she directly ordered Renshu, who bowed.

"Y-yes, your majesty." he accepted her command, and did so, grabbing the reins she had been holding so he could lead her mongoose lizard along with his own.

Before he departed, he pointed out two of his men, "Yi, Shan, accompany the Fire Lord."

"Yes, sir." they both saluted him, and followed Azula as she approached the gates, which were left open when Zhengyi had come out.

She stepped inside, and glanced around the courtyard, seeing that Appa was resting in it, beside a few bales of hay that were left for him to eat. Momo was nowhere to be seen, and she assumed that the little creature was clinging to Aang. She couldn't see any signs of the boy or any of the others at first, so stepped through the doors of the compound, deciding to head to their quarters in hopes that they were there.

She strode over to the hallway, and just as she was about to walk down, she heard somebody speak up, "Azula."

She turned her head around and saw Katara standing in front of her, wearing her usual Water Tribe garbs, though they had clearly been damaged, as she could see some hastily sown tears on her sleeves and along her torso.

"Good, I see that you're still alive." she commented on her status, before glancing past her, "Where are the others?"

"Aang and Toph are eating breakfast, actually. I was just about to go to the field hospital. There're still a lot of injured who need my help." she explained, and Azula nodded.

"Well then, I shouldn't keep you." she conceded, knowing that she probably wanted to just get to work; given her seemingly boundless desire to help others, it was of no surprise that she was going to spend her day healing people, Fire Nation soldiers included.

"No, no, it's okay, we haven't seen you in a while." she admitted, before glancing behind her, "Hi, Ty Lee."

"Hey, Katara!" she eagerly addressed her, before giving the Water Tribe girl a hug; she seemed a little surprised by it, but wasn't frustrated, like Azula would be when she pounced on her like that.

"How has it been in Shengchang?" the Water Tribe girl asked her, and Ty Lee sheepishly smiled.

"Oh, nothing much has happened. Me and Azula did some work in the soup kitchen... she really did that." she assured her, and Katara chuckled.

"She's trying to prove herself to her people. That's a good thing." she gave her opinion; the way she framed it was the same way Azula did, so it seemed that the Water Tribe girl wasn't in the mood to annoy her.

"What about you? Was the battle as bad as it sounded in that letter?" she asked, and Katara nodded with a stern look.

"I can't say I've ever seen anything like that. They just kept coming ashore, and ships were getting blown apart all the time. It was pretty scary... especially when me and Aang went over and tried to get as many engines as we could."

"So, I see that the trick is still effective." Azula noted with approval, liking that Katara had taken her earlier ideas and utilised them to a brilliant effect, "How many ships?"

"I think we got eight... some of them had a few soldiers onboard we had to fight, but airbending really helps when you want to dodge a fight." she explained, "And being on the water, well, you can guess how it went for them."

"Poorly." she noted with a smirk, "It's just a shame you and Aang are the only waterbenders we have. It would be of great help if we could combat the enemy on water with such a... well, stupid advantage."

"Waterbending isn't stupid." Katara quickly snapped back.

"No, but it makes an otherwise fair battle stupidly unfair... and that isn't to say I want a fair fight. I want a quick fight." she assured her that she wasn't trying to mock her element; she'd done that plenty before, and had no need to do it again, unless she proved it necessary.

"I guess that's true." she mumbled, before smiling, "Well, if all goes well in the North Pole, maybe some waterbenders will come and help us."

"That'd be the best news I've gotten since my uncle decided to side with us." she acknowledged the gravity of such a possibility; the Northern Water Tribe couldn't spare enough waterbenders to form a proper army, but they would number large enough that in if put in enough key battles at sea, her father's efforts to attack them with his ships would become fruitless if not actively harmful to his own war effort.

"Yeah, well, we'll see soon enough." Katara noted, before gesturing for Azula to follow, "We can go see Aang and Toph. I'm sure they'll be happy to see you... well, at least Aang will be."

"I'm sure the earthbender will see the merits of being my friend soon enough."

"I don't think that's how people-" Katara began, before shaking her head, "Nevermind."

She led them back over towards the mess hall, and as they walked along, she decided to ask what she had been wondering about, "Have you heard from your brother?" she asked, and Katara turned around, looking at her with a confused face.

"Wait, did nobody tell you?" she asked, and Azula shook her head, "He came on the airship with a whole bunch of ships. They helped finish off the enemy... but he and Dad left last night. Sokka said that the mission to the Northern Water Tribe was too important to wait around for." she explained, and Azula crossed her arms, feeling slightly disappointed that she had missed her boyfriend, but she completely understood his rationale.

She had sent him to negotiate with the North, and he'd complete his orders before any desire to see her again, or even to merely oversee the base in her absence. Sokka's absence was beginning to weigh on her, and it only exacerbated her earlier fears; she regretted sending him North so early- if she had waited just a day, then they could have heard the report from Zhengyi in Shengchang, flown over together, and destroyed the enemy side-by-side, as she always liked to.

"Sokka understands what is at stake. Chief Arnook needs to be appeased, and if the North can come to support our cause, it will hasten my father's defeat." she explained her thoughts on the matter, to dissuade any thoughts Katara might have had that she was utterly disappointed and frustrated by Sokka's absence.

"So... you're okay?" she asked, and the Princess narrowed her eyes.

"You are all alive. This base is secure. My forces are intact and morale has not been shattered. So yes, I am okay." she acknowledged the situation, even if she was denying how utterly afraid she had been before she was told about the status of the base.

"I'm glad you were thinking of us... I thought that you might have just been worried about Sokka." she admitted, her blunt words harsh but not a completely inaccurate view of the Princess; she was far more concerned about Sokka once she realised he could have gone to the base to his own doom, but she was immediately concerned about the rest of them, along with everyone who had sworn themselves to her cause.

"I came as quickly as I could." she stressed, before turning her eyes around to Ty Lee, who was staring at her with a face of distaste; perhaps she was offended on her behalf, "Don't think less of her because she said that. She knows me."

"A little too well." Katara noted, and Azula couldn't tell if that was a joke; she was aware that Sokka's sense of humour was not shared with his younger sister.

She didn't get a chance to ask as they stepped into the canteen, and Aang turned around to see them, a wide smile forming on his face, "Azula! Ty Lee!" he exclaimed their names before dashing over to them; it seemed that Ty Lee wasn't the only hugger, as he grabbed a hold of them tightly.

Azula looked down at him, feeling an odd sense of calm as he hugged her; she didn't understand why, but she patted him on the shoulder, before pushing softly to make him let go of them.

"That was a bit much, don't you think?" she asked the boy, who cringed.

"Sorry, I'm just glad to see you. Things were crazy here." he acknowledged, before turning around, "Hey Toph-"

"Yeah, you screamed right beside me, Twinkletoes." she waved off his words, "So, did you bring another army or are you just here to say hi?" she asked them casually, still picking up some jook with a spoon, before she ate it.

"We're going east, Toph." Azula reminded her, which seemed to get her attention.

She raised her head up and scrunched her lips, "And... straight to Ba Sing Se?"

"Those rebels aren't going to recruit themselves." she raised a finger, and the earthbender snickered.

"Well, that'll be easier than fighting... I think I've had enough of that for at least a month." she noted, and Azula glanced around.

"We have all the time to discuss the details of the fighting, which I'm sure was interesting, but I need to speak with those rebel leaders." she explained her intentions, and Aang gestured down the hallway.

"I can take you to them." he offered, and she nodded.

"You'll probably be needed for any discussion anyways... so, good." she noted how he'd already be of assistance.

He nodded with a smile, seeming eager to help, and as they walked past Katara, she glanced their way awkwardly.

"I'll- uh, head back to the field hospital. We can talk about the battle later."

"How about over a spa?" Ty Lee suggested, and Katara snapped a finger.

"Please." she agreed to the proposal, sounding as if she were begging.

Her eagerness almost made Azula laugh, and the Princess's smile was still holding as she turned back, "We will." she gave her approval, before pacing on after Aang, knowing the meeting couldn't wait.

He led her out of the mess hall, down the hallway, and across through the central hallway to another section of the compound; it was where her guards personal quarters were, as well as some presently unused quarters, formerly used by some officers who were thrown in the dungeon below for their treason. She guessed correctly that those quarters were the ones being used, as Aang knocked on the door leading into one of the dormitories. It opened up, revealing an older Earth Kingdom male, who was balding with a thick beard.

"Ah, Avatar." he noted his presence, before glancing behind him, his eyes widening, "Oh, she's here." he realised, "Should I tell the others?" he asked, and Aang nodded.

He closed the door, and the Avatar turned around to face her, giving her an awkward smile, "Hopefully they'll listen to what you have to say."

"They came all this way... they must at least want to work with me, even if it hurts their pride." Azula gave her analysis, and the young boy nodded along, before cringing; he seemed uneasy, and she stepped a little closer, "What is it?"

"I'm- well, I'm a bit scared. After everything that happened, I don't know if they're going to give up." he admitted, and she sighed, knowing she had to be honest.

"They aren't giving up, Aang. One battle will not stop my father." she warned him, "But we're going to leave for Ba Sing Se, so you don't need to worry about them coming after us again."

"But what about the base?" he asked, and she glanced down the hallway.

"The Fire Nation forces here are going to leave in their entirety for Shengchang as soon as we have a suitable port to base from in the colonies." she clarified, "I assume there are still spies here... so the intel will trickle back to my Father's men, who will give up trying to attack this place. It's far less valuable if it's just an Earth Kingdom fortress, rather than my base of operations."

"Uh... okay." he nodded; she was unsure if he understood the whole strategy that was being employed, but he could understand what she was trying to make out- the base was not likely to be attacked again, at least before everything of value to her was moved elsewhere.

The door beside them opened up once more, and Azula and Aang moved to allow those inside to step out; there were five leaders inside that dormitory, each of them grizzled fighters, and one of them was an older woman, who seemed scarier than any of the men, due to her build and scarred face. The man they had spoken to earlier led them across and knocked on another door, and after a few moments some more leaders came out; two of them she recognised at once- one of them was Jet, the leader of the Freedom Fighters, and the other was one of King Bumi's lieutenants, though she did not know his name. There were another three she did not know, and all followed her down the hallway to a small meeting hall, more quaint than the one upstairs, which was next to a window that allowed the room to be filled with natural light coming from the south.

She sat herself down at the table, followed by Aang, and then all of the others, who filed in and took up spots. Once they were all seated, Azula placed her hands on the table, and eyed them all, wondering what they might have to say to her.

"You have all come here with the promise of reunifying the Earth Kingdom." she reminded them, "I am here to assure you, that is exactly what we shall achieve."

"We?" one of the leaders asked her, "As in, you're going to take over the country?"

"No, she doesn't mean that." Aang assured him, "You're going to." he corrected them, the leaders looking amongst themselves.

"I don't understand." another mumbled, "We're just guerrilla fighters... freed prisoners. None of us have any political experience."

"War and politics aren't all too different. I've learned that pretty quickly out here." Azula gave her opinion on their 'inexperience' as they saw it, "And it will not be you alone... the people of Ba Sing Se should have their say and their own delegates, as should other rebels across the northern Earth Kingdom." she explained who else would come to form a new government.

"So, we're going to get in a room and decide what happens to our country?" Jet asked her, and she nodded.

"That's exactly is what is going to happen." she confirmed, and the rebel they first greeted stroked his beard in thought.

"How do we enact such decisions?"

"By making yourselves the only legitimate government." she declared, "The Dai Li have outlived their usefulness, and have made the Earth Kings of old their puppets. Now they rule in the open, and I doubt the masses will tolerate it for much longer, given that the city is blocked off from the rest of world, and reeling from whatever rebellion they made to take the city from the Fire Nation."

"And... we have to fight them?" the older woman asked, her gravelly tone making her sound more angry than amused, "We're not exactly the biggest force of fighters... even if you could scrap together other rebels who'd agree to work with you."

"Oh, I'm not fighting a battle like the one you did yesterday." she shook her head, "The Dai Li rule through subterfuge and terror, so, the only way to break them is by using their own tricks. Scare them into attacking each other, and then, when the opportunity arises, organise the local population to storm the palace. Then a new government may be assembled from yourselves and other like-minded individuals, and you may pursue the rebuilding of your country."

"You say we'd form a government, but what about the Council of Five, or the Earth King? They're all still out there, probably hiding off in the east." a leader asked Azula, who scoffed.

"They are of no concern. The Council's military credentials and remaining forces will be of use, but the Earth King is but a man. It is time that the worthy rule... and who is more worthy than a man or woman who seizes their own destiny?"

Jet, out of all on the table, seemed to be the most enthralled by her words, "Oh... I was wrong about you." he admitted, and she smirked.

"Glad to hear it." she noted with crossed arms.

"Come on, what do you all say?" Jet asked them, rising to his feet, "Should we make an end to the rotting corpse of the Earth Kingdom... and make a new Earth Nation?"

The rebels raised their hands, giving their thumbs up.

"I never expected to be this person... but I know someone ought to be." Azula began, before rising to her feet, and spread her arms out wide.

"We will renew this land, and give its people something to fight for. Not a king, nor cultural heritage, nor for the whims of nobles. For themselves."

Jet raised a fist and grinned widely, "Long live the Earth Nation!"

Everyone cheered the same words, and Aang turned to face her with a look of awe.

"Is this what I should be doing?" he asked, raising his hands up.

The Avatar was the most powerful person in the world, burdened with a responsibility that only someone like Azula could understand; she was to be the Fire Lord, and had to serve a whole nation, while he had to think about all of them, and how they could live together in peace. More than that, he had to protect the people of those nations, not just from each other, but from themselves.

"It's what you've always done. Just this time... we're not fucking it up."