Chapter 79

"Well well, look who it is. The Avatar's cheerleader." Tanya taunted as the seconds passed and the waterbender made no move to initiate the fight.

"Better than The Firelord's little lapdog." The waterbender shot back.

...

Tanya took a slow step forwards, deciding to test how close she could get before the waterbender lashed out, and gave what she hoped was a smirk, but probably came out as more of a grimace.

"Who exactly are you anyway?" She questioned, hoping that throwing a few barbs into a conversation might rile the girl up. "Zuko just described you as the ditzy water peasant trailing after the Avatar. It'd be nice to put a name to your face."

To her credit the waterbender didn't react. Or perhaps it was just that her expression was so baleful already that it just couldn't get any angrier? "It's Katara." she replied icily. "Of course I recognise you, mighty Admiral Tanya, even when you're trying to wiggle through the door like a fat seal in an ice hole."

Tanya couldn't help the embarrassed blush that crossed her cheeks. She jabbed forwards, shooting a bullet-fast fireball at Katara's face in the hopes that it would startle her. Yet to her surprise Katara flowed backwards in an easy step and caught it between her hands, quenching the firewall in an instant with the pools of water coating both arms.

"Oh, did I touch a nerve?" Katara asked slyly, raising a mocking eyebrow. Bitch.

Tanya took another step forwards, sinking lower into her stance as she mentally adjusted her strategies for the waterbender's increased skill level. "I don't remember you being able to do anything more than splash a few puddles around before. When did you learn to make yourself useful?"

"Back at the North Pole. I was trained by Master Pakku himself."

"You say that like I'm supposed to know who that is."

"You should." The frostiness of Katara's glare redoubled in intensity. "You killed him."

Silence hung between them again as Tanya stared back at her. Then, with an exasperated huff, the firebender sneered.

"Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?"

That, finally, provoked a reaction from Katara. The waterbender bristled, her footwork slipping apart by just a fraction. "You really are inhuman! You know that!" She snapped.

"I'm a soldier! This is a war!" Tanya shouted back. "And you, your brother, your rebel friends, and every other fool who has tried to get between me and the Avatar is in my way!"

Katara grit her teeth so hard they looked like they might crack, anger thundering dangerously in her eyes. "You want me gone? Go ahead then! Try and get through me!"

Orange light began to simmer in the palm's of Tanya's hands as the heat built up, ready to unleash fire at a moment's notice. "As you wish, peasant!" Tanya growled. "Let's do this!"

...

Aang was a blur of movement.

The monks had cautioned many times against using the wind run technique indoors. Running so swiftly that the naked eye struggled to keep up sounded great in theory, until you realised that your own eyes struggled to keep up as well.

Many an excited young airbender in the past had run face first into a stone wall, and the results were never pretty. Yet despite the risks, Aang was in too much of a hurry to care right now. He had to free Bumi as quickly as possible! Every second wasted was time that the rebellion might not have!

Doorways and flights of stairs blurred past as Aang ran higher and higher through the palace, trusting in his ability to sense the paths of the flowing air to avoid crashing. He didn't even stop when he came across a fire nation soldier; instead just flowing around them like the wind itself.

It wasn't long before he screeched to a halt in front of the heavy metal door Sokka had described, and with a strong swing of his staff he unleash a wild blast of air at the pair of soldiers guarding it, knocking them unconscious against the door before they could even comprehend what was happening.

Aang fumbled around searching them for their keys, before finally finding them and getting to work unlocking the variety of mechanisms keeping the door shut. When the door began to swing open he slipped inside as soon as the crack was big enough to fit through. His eyes immediately settled on the metal coffin propped in the middle of the cell, and a wide smile burst across his lips as he spotted the face of his oldest friend within.

"Bumi!" He explained gleefully, racing forwards to free him.

"Aang, no! It's a trap!"

A blue light flared up behind him, and the wind currents flowing across bald head screamed that something was coming! He whipped around, spinning his staff to create a shield of wind before he even saw the wave of blue fire crash down upon him. The shield protected him, even if it wasn't enough to stop the force of the impact from knocking him to the floor.

"A pity. Zuzu claimed your agility was beyond human levels, and even Tanya admitted that landing a hit on you was like trying to catch the breeze in your hand. I should have known that they were both exaggerating to make up for their own inadequacies."

The rhythmic tap-tap-tap of boot heels on metal echoed behind him, and Aang looked up to find a teenage girl in the uniform of a fire nation soldier approaching from the corridor.

Had she been waiting for him to come here? Her cold, self-satisfied smirk was eerily highlighted by the pale blue flame she held in one hand, and something about the features of her face reminded him of someone, though he couldn't place who.

The girl's smirk grew a little wider.

"You are now my prisoner." She declared smugly as she raised the hand that held the blue flame, and made it flare violently in her grasp, casting long, haunting shadows across the cell with blue firelight.

"But please, try to struggle a bit first. It makes it more fun when they try to fight back."

...

Sokka ducked behind a pillar as a jet of fire erupted towards the space he'd been standing in. A second later a volley of rocks rocketed past him in the other direction, colliding with the firebender who'd attacked him with a satisfying thud. When no more fire blasts came hurtling his way, Sokka poked his head around the pillar to take in the battle raging around him.

He had joined with the rebels that took the rightmost path to the caverns, and at first they'd done a pretty good job of bashing their way through the fire nation forces in their way. That had lasted up until they reached what appeared to be a large hall for dining in.

The fire nation soldiers had overturned the long wooden table in the middle of the room and were using it as a barrier, which turned out to be made of a wood thick and springy enough to be very resistant to the impact of stones. All attempts to circle around it were met with fierce, concentrated streams of fire.

The rebels here were stuck until they could figure out a way through, and as the self-proclaimed ideas guy it was up to him to do the thinking.

"Let's see here…" He muttered to himself as his eyes scanned the room for anything he could use. There was a humongous glass chandelier suspended from the ceiling above the table. The chains holding it in place seemed pretty thick, but if he could get it loose it'd force the fire nation soldiers to flee.

"Excuse me." He said, tapping the nearest earthbending rebel on the shoulder and pointing to the chandelier. "I don't suppose you could get me up there, could you?"

The earthbender looked up, squinted his eyes a bit as if measuring the distance, and then nodded. "Sure. Brace yourself."

Brace himself? Why? Wasn't he going to use earthbending to make him a ladder-…

The earthbender stomped hard on the ground, and Sokka let out a scream as the stone floor tile he was standing on suddenly erupted upwards, flinging him into the air like a catapult.

His arms flailed wildly as gravity started to reclaim him, and as soon as he was within reach of the chandelier he grabbed ahold and latched onto it like a limpet. The chandelier swayed back and forth just a little as he clambered to his feet and balanced like a tightrope walker on one of the metal rods.

"That was awesome! Ten out of ten!"

Sokka jumped in fright, nearly losing his balance, as a voice unexpectedly piped up from next to him. He looked around, and was shocked to find that he was not the only person up in the chandelier.

A pretty girl dressed in pink, with long auburn hair tied back into a large braid, was watching him with a bright, cheerful smile. Even as the chandelier shook and swayed she didn't even seem to notice, her body leaning back and forth with it to maintain a perfect balance.

The girl cocked her head to the side as she looked him up and down. "Hmm… you know, you're kinda cute. What's your name?"

Sokka gulped. Was she hitting on him? He wasn't complaining of course, she was a very beautiful girl, but he hadn't been expecting anything like this to happen in the middle of a violent rebellion. "It's Sokka." He replied unsurely.

"Sokka." The girl echoed, seeming to test the unfamiliar word in her mouth. Then her smile grew even brighter. "I'm Ty Lee. Sorry about this, but I'm going to have to capture you now."

Wait… what? "Capture me?" Sokka questioned?

"That's right." Ty Lee replied, advancing towards him without even seeming to notice the effort it took to stay balanced on the thin railing.

"Try not to struggle, okay? This'll only hurt a little bit…"

...

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