Danev

There would be no horn to wake us that morning. No bell, no sun, no beat on a drum. It came slowly. A pat on the shoulder and a whisper to wake the next man up. It'd started with one man who'd known, then he had spread it to another, then the next to two more, and four more after that. The same awakening and message would be spread across the ranks of the 114th, one man after the next until all of us alike knew, all awake now, what was happening. We didn't need to be told what was happening, because we understood by the merit of the fact that in a division of some twenty thousand awake, we were the only unit deployed with standing orders at this very moment. And so we knew that it was tonight. Tonight was the night that we resumed the war.

We didn't need to be quiet. We didn't need to whisper, to watch our steps, but we still did anyway in anticipation for what was coming soon, and so Dragon Platoon operated in near total silence as its men equipped their uniforms. Our barracks had never been so quiet before, such preparations usually accompanied by chatter, jokes, and laughter. There was none of that today. It was unclear if it was a matter of nerves, fear, or simply getting in the flow of keeping our voices down that we would be expected to maintain for the next few hours.

We made good time of it. The routine was one that we'd become acquainted with for a good three quarters of a year now since the days of the Citadel training academy. Nobody among us was not ready by the time Captain Rulaan finally made his way to our barracks to inform us that Lu Ten was waiting for us, meaning we were ready for our briefing.

We filed out of our barracks in a silence that dared rival that of the manner in which we'd equipped ourselves. We weaved our way through the labyrinthian trench lines as the other platoons too began to join us, either ahead or behind.

We didn't attempt to fit the good few hundred of us that there were inside the 114th command center, rather opting for a nice clearing behind our rearmost trench line where, waiting for us patiently, was Captain Rulaan and Colonel Lu Ten.

The soldiers of the 114th gathered into a tight semi-circle centered around the commanding officer present as we prepared to learn the more intricate details of just what we were doing here.

"At 0530," Lu Ten began, "6 hours and thirty minutes from now, the artillery will stop falling. At 0600, the division will attack the wall, initiated first by an armored charge, followed by an infantry wave." An armored charge meaning Fluke. At the front of it all. Don't die, damnit. "Our job tonight is to ensure that this attack on the wall is our last, and that it succeeds. What this means is that you will be operating as sappers tonight. Your assignment is one of stealth and infiltration, and what you do in these next six hours will determine the course of this battle, this siege, and the entirety of this war." There was a pause. A fitting one. "So no pressure."

That earned the colonel a few chuckles across the crowd.

"The eyes of the Fire Nation are upon you tonight. From this point on, Captain Rulaan will take over your briefing. I'll see you on the other side."

A number of disparate "thank yous" including one of my own would accompany the colonel's departure from the men of the 114th, leaving us with his blessing, and Captain Rulaan who now took the rhetorical stage, stepping forward.

"We will be dividing into platoons for this operation. Each platoon will be assigned a different section of the wall that they will be tasked with infiltrating. A map is being handed to you now designating the sections for each of your platoons to engage. Platoon commanders, step forward."

Upon Captain Rulaan saying this and us complying, four different men who I'd only noticed the general silhouette of prior to the captain pointing them out stepped forward, one to each platoon, excluding Dragon. Instead, I at the front was simply handed one of these foretold maps.

It was simple to tell from the get go that we were arranged in the alphabetical order of our platoon names, Dragon second to last. The maps also put on display a number of points lining up the wall. Detonation points? It was the most likely assumption to come to, but it still didn't answer another question of mine. And the men in front of us are-

The men now attaching themselves to each platoon are earthbenders. We all remember the events that transpired a few months ago, but similar to the other men our company received these past few weeks, these are replacements assigned to us. They've been hand-selected for their skill and reliability; they will guide you through the wall to a number of select points." It explained, at least, why there were only four of them, Dragon platoon naturally excluded. We had Mano still.

"Each platoon will be carrying with them fifteen barrels of blasting jelly. These barrels will be planted at the points designation on your map, designed to weaken the wall's structure as much as possible in preparation for the other units of the siege to finish the job before any Earthbending forces can make repairs."

But this was fifteen barrels per platoon, seventy-five in total across the company. And still not enough. I supposed that shouldn't have been any surprise after over two-months' worth of artillery had barely left so much as a scratch.

"Our armored companies will be tasked with finishing the job, and, if they fail to do so, engaging all of our artillery to bring it down."

While our men will still be there, I realized.

"We are naturally hoping that it will not come to that, which is why we're here. To make sure this wall falls with as few of our men as possible doing to same."

There was a silence across the platoons as they took the news in. And what of us?

"Artillery will be silenced across five separate entrance vectors. "You will be guided to these starting points and march across no man's land to the wall. From the moment artillery is silenced, you will have thirty minutes to reach the wall before they open fire once again, so make sure you're within the walls by the time this happens. Once inside, you will have approximately five hours to complete your task. It's going to be a long night for you all, but you need to remain alert. When your heart the artillery stop, you get the hell out of that wall and the firing zone. Is that clear?"

Many different variations of affirmations would be sounded across the men as they voiced their comprehension of what they were being asked to do. There would be no further questions asked.

"Then those are your orders," Captain Rulaan said. "Make it back, all of you."

He would not be accompanying us. We'd accepted the likelihood of that reality more than he seemed to have by the look of him. He had his qualms, I saw quite obviously, with ordering these men to risk their lives in his stead without their own commander being there to accompany them. Granted, his presence would not have made sense, more a liability than of benefit to anybody. He was an extra body to guide through this wall. He wasn't single-handedly going to carry a keg of blasting jelly. Much as I was sure it pained him, he was better suited here, monitoring the operation from afar however he could. Should all go to hell, losing a company was bad enough. The last thing the Fire Nation needed was to lose another seasoned officer.

Our munitions were already assembled, ready to be carried. It was fifteen kegs divided between forty men. There were enough for a pair to carry each with some left over to in order to make up for any deficiencies.

Our platoon, sure enough, would have a number of these deficiencies, one such being Tosa, struggling to get even his half of the barrel enough for his partner, Asaih, to get a grip. They managed to get the barrel perhaps an inch or two off the ground before Tosa would exclaim, "Wait wait wait wai" before his grip slipped and the barrel fell to the ground, freeing itself of Asaih's grip as well.

"Spirits, Tosa," I heard Cheju exclaim from where he and Shozi were managing more than fine with their own keg. "If this operation ends before we even reach the wall because of you, I'm going to be pissed the hell off!"

That elicited some laughter finally to contrast the silence of earlier that was only strengthened by the sight of Mano single-handedly carrying a keg of his own atop his shoulder, passing by Tosa in perfect timing to ask, "You try lifting with your legs?"

"Yes I tried lifting with my legs!"

The others laughed, including myself from where I hefted my barrel with Aosore.

We were loading them atop carts, to be sure. It would have been rather impractical to try and carry these across no man's land on our own in such a way, but nonetheless, once in the wall, there would be no such handicap bonus to support us.

Soon enough, we all managed our parts, loading the carts in time for us to be directed to our different approach vectors on the wall. At this point, the many platoons of the 114th's Company would break from one another. I would say my farewells to the lieutenants of the other platoons as we overviewed the details of our operation one last time and realized that there was no ground left to cover. The plan was what it was, as tight as it was possibly going to get, and now, all that was left was to do it. We couldn't put it off any longer.

And so, like that, we were presented with the thin stretch of land above which artillery was no longer being fired. While it was some consolation that the artillery that normally fired directly over this stretch of land had gone silent for a few minutes, thirty to be precise, it was far from a guarantee. All around us, the other guns had yet to quiet themselves, and so still fired but for where our men advanced on the wall.

A single miss, a strong burst of wind to send a shell astray, an unaccounted for feedback from the artillery, and there was a damn good chance that we'd find an artillery shell landing right atop us. But to get this done would mean having faith: faith in the plan, faith in ourselves to not stray from our course, and faith in our artillery gunners to not miss.

Even with the guns firing above our past silenced, the sounds of the artillery's impacts grew only louder and louder with our slow crawl forward. We held our breaths moving forward, all of us I was sure. How couldn't we? We were carrying a cart of fifteen barrels of blasting jelly between us. A single stray shot, and we'd all be dead.

None of us would voice that thought. We all knew it. There was no reason to speak it to one another when we were all equally aware of this fact.

So, we walked in silence, much as we had been in earlier today, now more jokes being cracked, sarcastic comments on our predicament, and instead marched quietly as the dark wall of Ba Sing Se drew closer and closer.

And so came the moment soon enough that nothing was left between us and it. I had been counting the time in my head, near on twenty-five minutes now as anticipated. We were here.

"Mano," I said, urging him forward which he promptly did, creating a hole in that wall for us to enter, pushing it deeper for us to fit inside, and so we had made it past the first miracle. Now, our mission to bring down Ba Sing Se's wall truly began.

Fluke

I'd spent a good deal of time, needless to say, attached to tanks such like the Shanzi for the better part of the last half year. One would assume that time spent like that would help one to become familiar, so to speak, with the ins and outs of such a machine.

I would have assumed that much.

I would have been wrong.

"Kid," our mechanic barked at me, an equipment specialist by the name of Gordez assigned to the 44th armored had what seemed to be rather good ties to our crew in particular.

I raised my head in attention from where I was, crouched atop Shanzi's chassis, wondering just what I'd done wrong now. I turned to look at the mechanic, larger in build with a good head of hair and facial hair at that.

"Fasten the bolts onto the front and back first; focus on the center later! Did I not already tell you this?"

No, I thought. You haven't in fact, or I would have done that.

Zek chuckled from his size of Shanzi's hull, laughing before retorting to Gordez, "Sure your memory ain't getting fuzzy in your old age, Gordez?"

Thank you.

"You're the twentieth crew I've helped with this bullshit today," Gordez said as a yell back. "You're all the same to me."

"Aww, you mean we're not special?" It was actually Boss to say this from where he stood beside Gordez, watching Zek and I work atop the Shanzi in the bitter late-Winter air as Hizo toiled below inside the tank to ensure internal connections were all secure.

"I'm very hurt, Gordez," Zek added.

"You know. I could just skip your crew entirely. There are others waiting to refit too."

That shut Zek up. The refit in question was not exactly simple maintenance. Rather, an entirely new arsenal was being fitted atop our chassis which, by the look of it, was a reinforced ballista. Essentially, an oversized, metal-plated crossbow fitted with a primary munition of a chain-link harpoon that dwarfed what our tanks were ordinarily equipped with on the front. We were preparing well ahead of time for the eventual ascent up the wall and so, with that in mind, none of us were quite keen on saying 'no' to such an upgrade.

I did as Gordez bid and focused on the front of the tank instead in tandem with Zek.

Getting the harpoon cannon atop the tank in the first place had been an endeavor in and of itself, requiring us to drive the tank as part of a queue to the battalion motor-pool to have it lower atop our tank by means of crane. From there, it'd been fastened with ropes to simply keep it in place as we drove back to our own staging area where we would be responsible for handling the installation on our own.

The battalion had been gracious enough to provide its men with a number of equipment specialists, one such being Gordez, to assist in this rather painstaking process. And by 'assist,' that seemed to more mean him and Boss mocking us as the peons of the crew did the actual heavy-lifting.

"He always like this?" I asked Zek as we both worked to fasten the bolts on opposite ends of our tank, fastened them into sockets we'd had to drill into the tank itself to fit the harpoon where it belonged.

"Boss or Gordez?" Zek asked.

Frankly, I would have taken an answer for either. Gordez was part of our maintenance team and so it was fitting that I had a good sense of just what kind of character he was and how much I could trust to rely on him. On the other hand too, Boss was strangely content. He got along with Gordez clear enough, but seemingly well enough to a point that he was actually cracking jokes. Still, I would have more than enough time to interrogate Zek about Boss in the days to come. For now, I was more curious about our so-called specialist.

"Gordez," I answered, spinning my wrench once more around with enough resistance that I wondered if I was actually fastening the bolt into the socket we'd drilled. A double-check reaffirmed that it was in the right place, but I supposed simply a tough job for my non-dominant left-hand while my right was still out of commission.

"Ah he's perfectly fine," Zek said at perfect ease. "If he sees we're actually fucking it up bad enough, he'll step in to do it himself." There was a pause. "Hey that gives me an idea. What say we let this baby fall off the tank and let Gordez handle the rest. They're serving lamb for dinner tonight."

I gave my wrench another spin and stood up slightly to be able to look at Zek over the barrel of our harpoon cannon. The look alone was telling enough.

"Okay okay, fine," Zek said. "I forgot, we don't want to fuck up your impression more than you already have."

"Hell do you mean, 'more than I already have?'" I asked, jokingly offended.

Zek looked across at me innocently, and simply shrugged.

Fastening the front of the harpoon cannon was no simple task, requiring a whole four bolts. We just began to start our second once done with the first before Gordez shouted, "Alternate back and front! Don't put too much pressure on one side alone!"

"Nobody likes a micromanager!" Zek shouted as he stood up to head to the other side alongside me. "Hey Hizo!" he shouted down the hatch of the tank, conveniently left open and accessible by the design of the harpoon cannon. "Bolts looking good down there!"

"Good enough!" Hizo's voice echoed back up.

Zek shrugged nonchalantly, clearly of the belief that 'good enough' was indeed 'good enough.'

As long as that doesn't backfire on us when it comes down to it, I thought to myself.

We moved along to the back, continuing our jobs there as Gordez and Boss resumed their conversations with one another, too quiet to be overheard above the noise of our working, but clearly just by the look of it having a good time.

"Those two seem close," I observed out loud to Zek.

"Oh yeah," Zek answered. "Like me n' Hizo, they knew each other before the Siege. Were both Navy."

"Navy," I repeated, surprised. "Seriously?"

"Mhm," Zek nodded. Decided to join the army when the Siege started though as fucking thousands others did. Sure as hell beats raiding arctic backwaters, I guess."

I would hardly know, of course. My scope of the war was limited to this siege and this siege alone. Were I a soldier fighting in this conflict for years as many were, I'm sure I would have had the time to develop more of an opinion on the state of it. However, that was not the case for me. I was a soldier brought in for one reason and one reason alone, to end the Siege of Ba Sing Se, the last fight of this war. Beyond that, there would be nothing left. And what happens to me then?

I chose not to think about that, instead turning my attention to doing the job I was presented with now.

A rear bolt fastened, Zek and I turned back to the front. At some point, Zek spoke up again, asking towards Gordez's general direction, "Eyo Gordez! Seeing as how we're attaching a fucking harpoon to the top of the tank, why don't we start securing artillery on top of here too?"

"What are you talking about?" Gordez asked, approaching to get a better listen.

"I mean…this fucker alone's gotta be, what, like, 4 tonnes?"

"2 actually."

"Either way, why not start attaching cannons to the top of these things?"

"You mean like the cannons we use for our artillery?"

"Yeah!" Zek answered.

"You're an idiot," Gordez responded. "Far too large and heavy to reasonably put on top of a tank like this."

"Okay well we'd scale it down, obviously," Zek said as I could now make out the sound of Boss lightly chuckling to himself in the distance. "But come on, think about it. A cannon on treads! We're getting all of our firebenders killed already, no offense, kid."

"None taken."

"So we already got hand cannons, big fucking artillery guns, may as well start fitting them on our tanks too. That'd scare the rock-lovers straight, I know that much."

"Tell you what, Zek," Boss said. "Once we're done at the wall, I give you permission to experiment any number of ways you want to fit a cannon on top of the Shanzi."

"I don't!" Hizo's voice echoed from below inside the tank.

"Until then," Boss continued, disregarding the former's complaint, "Just get the harpoon in place, yeah?"

"Yesss, moooom," Zek teased as he turned back to the tank and continued his work. It would not last much longer from that point. Sure enough, judging by the growing tension of the harpoon cannon's frame with each new bolt we fastened in place, it would have indeed been ill-advised to start with the center or to not have alternated between back and front. Now, back and front already secured, fastening the middle bolts was a monumentally easier task as the slots lined up perfectly.

And once the harpoon cannon had withstood a good 'kick of assurance' from Zek and remained in place, we knew we were set.

"All look good below?" Zek asked Hizo.

"Looks good here. Firing mechanism's already set!"

"Give it a dry test!" Gordez said.

"Dry test!" Zek relayed to Hizo. "In ten!"

"Roger!"

Zek turned to look at me, and said, "May want to step down for this."

And that we would. Zek and I both stepped down from atop Shanzi's hull and sure enough, in just ten seconds' time, we could hear the strong reverberating clang of the firing trigger being released and the hydraulic bolt rushing forward, propelling what would have been the harpoon had it been loaded. Even with a dry fire such as this, the entire tank shook from the feedback of the mechanism, the clang of the trigger loud enough to leave a residual ringing in my ears for at least a few seconds.

Oh yeah, I smiled. It works.

I brought my hands down from my ears in time to hear Gordez say, doing the same, "Looks like you boys are set to go then. Should hold up nicely with your ascent, remain more secure, and, most importantly, won't break from the first rocks the dirt-eaters throw at you."

All important facets. All things we would have benefitted from on the first go up. That, and an actual capable leadership. Ordinarily, I should have been concerned by the fact that we were attacking with only half the men as last time, but we did so now under a unified command, against a city reportedly at war with itself, and with the foresight of what'd gone wrong before, and how to make it work now, no matter what.

"Any idea just when that day is?" Boss asked a Gordez now preparing for his departure.

"Can't say sadly," Gordez answered. "I'm as in the dark as you all are. Only that it'll be happening soon, so be glad I came when I did."

"Thank you, Gordezzzzz," Zek droned teasingly, responded to by Gordez simply shaking his head and rolling his eyes before turning to leave.

It was late afternoon by the time we'd finished up with Shanzi's modifications, the tank now set to go for whenever the infamous day came. A day that came beyond all certainty, but as to when, nobody knew. I understood the rationale why. In the past, leaks of information had been the cause of more than a number of difficulties that this siege had faced. By this point, I imagined that only the Dragon himself and his brigade commanders knew just when we would try our hand again at Ba Sing Se's wall, but it was coming.

Naturally, theories were rampant as to when. I ate with the Shanzi's crew that evening, and so was liable to hear a number of these theories over a welcome bowl of lamb soup.

"I'm betting next week," Zek said confidently. "Weather's starting to warm up, and I get the feeling the Dragon's not gonna want to wait too long to use that to his advantage."

"Fuck you mean 'warming?' Hizo asked. "That spike in temperatures was a fluke, nothing more."

I felt half-inclined to say at the sound of the word 'fluke' that that was, funnily enough, actually my name, but I held my tongue. It wasn't the time or place, and the crew had made themselves clear on their willingness to learn my name. For all they seemed to believe, the same day of this assault on the wall would as well be my death day. No point learning my name now.

"Nah," Hizo responded. "I'm saying the start of next month. Gives us more time to prepare, more time for Ba Sing Se to tear themselves apart. Better to wait."

"Yeah," Zek said. "Or it means more time for the city to get its shit together. Good to strike when the iron's hot. That's what they say, right?"

He looked to Boss for an answer, but the man simply shrugged, his sunny disposition seemingly gone with Gordez.

Disappointed by the lack of answer, Zek turned towards me instead, asking, "What about you, kid? When you think's the big day?"

"No idea," I answered, "but I agree with you. Sooner the better." When the iron's hot, so to speak. Of course, however, I had reasons of my own for wanting to get out there, none of them built around the same logical pragmatism. I took another mouthful of soup.

"See," Zek said, motioning towards me. "He gets it."

"Oh he doesn't count," Hizo complained. "He's just going after the smell of blood at this point."

He wasn't entirely wrong on that part. It hardly bothered me though. I knew where I stood on things

"Well," Zek said. "Whenever it does, I got a good feeling about things."

"And why's that?" asked Hizo.

"Call it foresight, a feeling in my bones, so to speak."

"You said that last time," Boss said, speaking up. "And last time we lost."

"But this time's different."

I couldn't tell if Zek was actually being serious. It was difficult to tell with the jokester's like him when they expected something they said to actually be taken seriously. More often than not, I discounted what they tended to say, but that was built on being able to have more than enough others around to actually get a sense of what was what, be it on the streets or with the 114th. Here though, between only the four of us, every voice mattered, and so I actually wanted to know.

The others, however, seemed not to, and so did just what I would have done were I in another unit–discarded it entirely. Boss shook his head, ever the disappointed parent, and Hizo simply scoffed and returned to his meal.

As for me and mine, I was about done eating. The sun had long since made its descent beneath the horizon, and so before it became much too late, I still had some time left for myself, to hone however much of myself I could before this oh so talked about day came.

I stood up from the table, grabbing my emptied bowl.

"Headed out?" Zek asked, almost disappointed by the sound of him.

"Practice," I answered matter-of-factly."

"Again? Can't take a single night off?"

"Only so much you can probably train yourself with one arm anyway, no?" Hizo asked. It didn't seem as though it was meant to be insulting. So that was something at least."

"If one arm's still enough to burn a dirt-eater," I said, "then I may as well make sure I can burn as many as I can, no?"

Zek shrugged, conceding the point for Hizo. "Fair point."

The talk of the wall, however, it raised another concern, one more pressing. I turned towards Boss, him rather involved in this, and said, "In a week, or a month, I need to be on that turret when the day comes."

"Stow it."

"I'm serious," I said.

"Seat's a deathtrap. Just ask the last five gunners I've had."

"All the more reason. No matter what way you frame it, I'm the better choice to be up there. I'm a firebender, capable of doing more than Hizo and Zek combined up there, no offense to either of you."

Zek waved a dismissive hand.

"And besides, you spent the last few weeks clearly dedicating so much effort in making sure you gave zero shits about me, so now you can finally collect. If I die up there, no loss to you and your real crew. So let me do my damned job as your assigned gunner, and if it comes to it, take the hit."

There would be a pause of silence after that. I wanted to believe Boss actually considering it, seeing the merit in my proposal until all such notions would be cast aside for him to simply say, "Go," dismissing me.

It would be left at that then. I wouldn't fight to make myself heard. There was little point.

I returned my bowl to the communal washing basin where it'd be cleaned by the poor sods assigned to our battalion's logistics and food division, and so began to make a b-line along my normal route towards the 114th company's staging area, where I'd now grown accustomed to practicing for the past few weeks.

Every now and then I would run into other soldiers of the 114th, Danev included among them, but this late at night, it was rare, the lot of them already off to sleep. There was something in store for them, I knew. I'd poked my head around long enough by this point to know something was up, some special assignment. It'd been my long-standing suspicion for a while and revealed to me by an overly vocal Tosa who'd chosen to watch me spar one day and commented that I shouldn't have left the 114th as I was missing out on the special event they had coming up.

From there, it hadn't taken much for me to get the rest out of him, even as he slowly processed the fact he was saying more than I imagined he was meant to. It wasn't especially hard to learn of the 114th's coming assignment, an infiltration of Ba Sing Se's wall. Not through, but simply inside, weakening it in preparation for the actual attack. So it doesn't count as Danev getting to the other side first, I'd told myself upon hearing it.

It was near impossible not to think about the time Danev and I had infiltrated the Citadel inner wall back in the day. I couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment as missing out, if only so I could make a wisecrack or two about that and relive such a day, preferably with better results, of course, but nonetheless.

As a whole, I was glad to be where I was. There was no mistaking it as important, preparing the field for the battle to come, but to see that battle myself, diving into that hell and fire, that was where I belonged, where I was needed, and where I needed to be.

Such had been my general process nearly every time that I'd made this same trek to the 114th's staging area, if only to reinforce in my mind that I was where I wanted to be lest I consider diving back into their trench line and swearing myself to them regardless of any military paperwork. It'd worked thus far, and I was dedicated to making it work again tonight.

And so it would have to every night I practiced here until that fateful night came.

But as I approached the 114th's staging area, something about it appeared different than most other nights. It was quiet, even this early on in the night. Not like the 114th to call it an early night, I figured to myself as I strayed further away towards the training area.

My routine that night wouldn't be much different from the nights before, more of the same: breathing exercises as remnants of Jeong Jeong's training, forms, target practice, testing the limits of my bad arm and realizing that it still pained me to try to feel the energy course through, and then doing it all once, twice, thrice over until I was heated enough to forget it was a late winter day.

And still not a soul from the 114th. Ordinarily there would be at least some of them out here to practice as well, but by now, the night was no longer young, past midnight at the very least, a damn good sweat having been worked up, but all the same, it was quiet. Oddly so.

Even quieter too as I took the wasted training targets back to the 114th's trenchline to drop them off for repair as was custom for us by now, them always knowing who left them on their doorstep akin to how a cat might leave a dead mouse on the step of its owners.

Sometimes though, I'd be met with at least one or two sleepwalkers still roaming around. This night however, nobody.

I wasn't particularly reliant on the company, on the affirmation of my presence, but when dealing with it long enough, the absence left a mark, and so it was with that mindset in mind that I dropped down into the trench.

All the torches had been snuffed, not a single light shining to show my way ahead as I stalked through the trench line towards the Liángshí barracks–Dragon's barracks. I would have been surprised enough to find the forty of them already tucked away and sleeping with not a soul awake, but what would surprise me even more was that I wouldn't be met with that sight. Instead, I would be met with the sight of absolutely nobody. All beds were empty, all light snuffed, all equipment backed, armor, weapons, everything.

And so it clicked.

Oh.

Oh..

Oh…

It clicked once there as I looked over the empty barracks.

It clicked once again as I left the trenchline and made my way back towards the tank crew.

It clicked once more after that as I found the sleeping mat that'd finally been granted to me for me to sleep atop in a tent I shared with both Zek and Hizo.

And it clicked to me one last time as I lay atop my bedroll, staring at the tarpaulin ceiling, realizing what it all meant.

We weren't attacking Ba Sing Se by the beginning of next month.

We weren't attacking Ba Sing Se within the week.

We were attacking Ba Sing Se in a matter of hours.

And so I would stay there, staring at the ceiling of the shared tent as the others blissfully slept, myself unable to do the same. Not on account of the pounding artillery, but on account of the fact that in only a few hours' time, it would come to an end, and so I waited, and waited, and waited as the seconds, minutes, and hours rolled by, myself not sleeping for any of these measures of time, counting the pound of each artillery blast in the distance like an every-quickening count-down timing, all sense of time lost, not knowing which would be the last.

But I just lay there, listening, waiting, and waiting longer until, finally,the artillery kept coming down, and then it no longer did. And I knew, the second battle of Ba Sing Se had come.

Long Feng

It had taken four minutes for me to leave the comfort of my bed and find my way to the royal palace in haste. It had taken 3 minutes for agent Feng of the Dai Li to find me in my home. It had taken 7 minutes for the message from the inner wall to reach my desk to be intercepted by said Dai Li agent. It had taken 13 minutes for word to reach the inner wall from the outer wall by way of mounted messenger. And that message was simple.

Twenty-seven minutes ago, the Fire Nation had ceased its bombardment of Ba Sing Se

Which meant only one thing–they would attack today.

The balcony of the royal palace provided me only a view that stretched so far as the inner wall of the uppermost district of Ba Sing Se's inner city. From here, I could just barely make out the most coming from the lower city, but beyond that, I could hardly even see Ba Sing Se's inner wall, much less its outer. For all I knew, it could have already fallen, gone before the sun could even fully rise.

But I wanted to believe it hadn't. Not yet. How we would keep it standing, however, I was still working that out.

General Hondu was operating on a schedule not too different from mine it seemed, likely on account of the fact that I hadn't been awake for half a minute before hearing the news and ordering agent Feng to relay the word to General Hondu, however necessary.

His uniform was tattered, hastily put on, himself breathing heavily, nervous, an uncommon sight for a man such as him who even in the face of a city entering civil war, had remained stoic and firm in step. Today was different though. Today, the danger we found ourselves in was being made more apparent than ever before.

General Hondu found a place beside me by the rail of the balcony, and so stared ahead straight to the south as I did, no doubt wondering too what lay in the distance, miles away, on the other side of our so-called "great wall."

"So it's really happening then, huh?" General Hondu said.

"It seems so."

"So what do you make of it then? You always seem to be the one to know how things will turn out before they do."

Was that the reputation I'd established for myself with him? I supposed I'd been correct about the first of our colossal failures. It was not too much of a stretch that I would be wrong about the next, even though an optimistic point of view was something I really would have liked right about now.

"They have less men than they did last time," I said, trying to let that forced optimism break free.

"So do we," Hondu amended, ready and willing to catch me in a false fantasy. And he was right. For every disadvantage the Fire Nation faced today, we faced twice as many.

I sighed. There was no point shrouding the truth. "We are down two corps of soldiers on the outer wall," I said. "One has been transferred directly to Honang's royal guard, and the other, yours, deployed to fight a fire that can't be stopped." That was one less corps than we'd had on the wall last time, seemingly not much of a difference, but when it came down to numbers alone, considering just how barely we'd survived the last attack, it meant almost everything. "In addition, I added, our lines are becoming stretched all the more thin as we try to fight on two fronts."

"We're fighting two wars at the same time, and we're losing both," Hondu clarified. "I know. Believe me, I know. We should have chosen our fight long ago, realized we couldn't handle both. I shouldn't be in here, wasting men on our own people in a pointless war of attrition that's only costing us men and resources, not when the real enemy is at our gate threatening to tear it down."

He was more right than either of us could possibly begin to actually voice. One of these wars would cost us the other, and so…it came down to an unpleasant decision that I'd been trying to avoid for much too long now, but as we stood now, every minute, every second, was of vital important, and so there could be no avoiding it any longer.

"We need to make a decision," I said. "We can't fight on two fronts. We need to choose our fight."

"You're not," Hondu turned to face me. "You're not talking about abandoning the outer wall, retracting our forces as far back as the inner wall?"

It was one of my ideas. For a time. We would surrender the outer wall, pull our forces back to the inner wall, focus on quelling our rebellion and strengthening the inner most primary wall of our city, but the plan was so fraught with "ifs." Then again, all plans were, but the questions this plan would have raised, how we'd be able to pull our troops back in enough time to save them, how this would only strengthen the Fire Nation's resolve, encourage the nation to divert even more resources, and whether or not there was even an assurance we'd be able to end our rebellion, they were too much.

"No," I said. "We won't abandon the outer ring of our city."

"So…you're suggesting."

"We abandon the lower city, you bring your troops to the front," I said. "No other way."

"You…would have us abandon the lower city in the name of protecting the wall."

"It may very well be too late to save the wall," I said. "If it can be saved, all the better, but more likely than not, we will find ourselves in a battle for the outer ring. We cannot surrender the outer ring, not without making the Fire Nation suffer for each and every mile of it. Should they reach our inner wall, this war will become one of walls alone, and the Fire Nation's resolve will be doubled. If we cannot hold them at the wall, then we must meet them on the field.

"And the inner city?"

"We have walls of our own. We'll hold the rioters back, and with the fighting done, the Dai Li will have more of a chance to end the fighting for good."

"Our orders were to hold the inner city," Hondu said, less attempting to counteract my own suggestion than simply trying to check off each and every box. I understood it. What I was suggesting was hardly a minor decision. He wanted what I was suggesting, knew it was the only way, but a lot stood in the way: the chain of command, loyalty, the hundreds of thousands who would find themselves abandoned by their own nation as they chose battles elsewhere. Even if the right thing in the long run as I wanted to believe he knew this was, it was no easy thing to simply say 'yes' to. "To abandon the lower city, our charge, it would be-"

"You let me worry about Honang and the king," I said.

"As for me?"

"As for you," I echoed, "there will be no way for Honang or the king to reach you. You will be on the other side of an armed revolution's borders."

"Completely cut off. From the King, from the Earth Kingdom, left to defend it with everything the army has to offer."

A suicide mission, more likely than not, but the only chance for the Earth Kingdom. That I could think of at least.

Hondu looked at me, and asked simply, "You're positive this is the only way?"

"If you see another way," I said, "Then I'm open to hearing it."

There was a pause, a brief one, but still a pause, all it took for Hondu to see that this was it. This was what it came down to, and anything less than all that either of us could give to our nation, and we would lose it forever.

Then, I saw something almost resembling a smile come to Hondu's face.

"You know," he said. "When I was told that I was being forced to work with you and the Dai Li to keep our city safe, my first thought was that I would have to defend it from both these rebels as well as from you."

I remembered those days well. "And I thought I would have to both manage a city as well as a raging bull that thought it knew best," I remarked.

Hondu's smile grew, and he gave a soft chuckle, closing his eyes as he allowed himself a moment to take in the early morning breeze that flowed towards us from over the walls. "But now," he said. "I think you're about the only damned man who knows how to save it." He opened his eyes, and looked at me. "I'll gather my men. We'll march within the hour. Make sure there's a city for me to come back home to, yeah?"

With that, he held an arm out to me. I took it, and I nodded.

"I will," I said.

He nodded back at me before letting go. We'd made our choice. Saving our city at the cost of treason. I knew nothing good would await me upon Honang learning of what'd happened here today, but as I watched Hondu leave, prepared to give everything, no doubt his life included to protect his kingdom, his city, his family, his home, I knew that I could not let myself do any less.

Hondu was right. Much as a part of me loathed to admit it, he was right. Everybody within this city was too busy fighting for their slice of heaven aboard this sinking ship to realize the ship could still be saved, but I wasn't done fighting for it. Not yet.

This city would survive, no matter what. I would do whatever it would take to keep this city, this kingdom standing. And that was a promise I would deliver on.

No matter what, though the heavens fall.