“We’ve only got a couple more days, Aang,” Katara said, trying to calm the antsy airbender down. “And the generals have already sent out their people to look for Appa for us.”
The Avatar stopped to raise a hand towards the set of walls looming in the distance, masking the city proper of Ba Sing Se. “Yeah, but we’re so close, and the city is so big! It could take days before we find Appa! The longer we wait around here, the longer he’s stuck in who knows what kind of situation.”
Toph gave an annoyed grunt. “Yeah, but if we’re in there when the Fire Nation makes another appearance, we’d have more than just Appa to worry about.”
Aang sighed, relenting to his friends’ words. Sokka felt for the guy, really, but Toph was right. The generals had requested - very reasonably, in Sokka’s mind - that the gang remain on the outer walls for a few more days, just in case the Fire Nation returned. With Xing showing up, the commanders of Ba Sing Se had been clearly spooked. General Fong tried to hide it, but his overcompensated stoicness betrayed his nervousness, while General Sung more openly wore his concern.
Interestingly, despite the disparity in emotions, both generals contributed equally to bolstering the defense. General Fong channeled his sternness onto the soldiers manning the wall, bolstering their resolve with training drills and stony words. The meeker General Sung organized the supplies in the meantime, arranging for extra piles of dirt and rocks to be sent up, and using the not-so-cheap tactic of bolstering morale by increasing food rations and overstocking the armories.
Sokka had taken in the contrasting methods and noted how both did their job in keeping the defenders from worrying too much.
But these two were generals tasked to only defend the wall, and not venture out. The broken drill still lay just outside, untouched for the time being because neither wanted to risk falling into a potential trap by investigating the wreck. Aang and Toph had volunteered for it, but considering that neither were combat engineers, their assistance was too limited to be accepted.
“I just don’t like being stuck up here doing nothing,” Aang reasonably complained. But Aang was the Avatar, and both generals wanted to keep him around as a trump card for as long as they could, which after some negotiations meant at least until reinforcements arrived.
Which should be two days from now. Sokka picked up the mutterings from the troops, and apparently Ba Sing Se was recalling all its field commanders to defend itself.
The one that got the troops on the walls particularly excited was the return of one General Yiu, the great hero of Tai Plains. The one who had dealt the 11th its most decisive defeat. The way some soldiers spoke of his brilliance, the gang expected a mirror of the Scorpion, brilliant in tactics and combat, and maybe not as twisted as his Fire Nation counterpart.
In the meantime, while they waited for the hero general’s arrival, Aang kept training his waterbending with Katara, and earthbending with not only Toph, but the generals as well. Sokka didn’t know that the blind earthbender had it in her to tolerate tips from outsiders, but apparently the combat-experienced earthbenders gave pointers that she acceded to.
Like hardening the tips of earth waves into jagged blades to break an enemy’s charge, or piecing together rock armor to maximize protection in important places. It all highlighted to Sokka how brutal their time in combat must be, for even the hunched over General Sung to be giving Aang and Toph pointers on how thick their earth walls had to be to survive a certain amount of firebending or spears.
Both Avatar and Blind Bandit realized it as well, and while Toph grimly accepted the knowledge, Aang seemed to teeter with doubt, especially regarding more violent advice. The air nomad monk was clearly reluctant to accept the importance of aiming his earth spikes at necks and faces, or sink the ground to trip his enemy into a waiting bed of rocky spikes.
Sokka felt bad for his friend, but Aang’s pacifism was something he had to deal with himself. They’d seen the aftermath of Agna Qel’a. It was a horrific thing, yet the Northern Water Tribe had to kill to defend their family and homes. Aang understood that, but Sokka knew he was also afraid of what lay on the other end of the spectrum.
The bloody lunatic that wielded white fire.
Could any of the gang descend into the darkness like the Scorpion Dragon if it came down to it? Hopefully not, but Toph had suspected that the airbender was particularly afraid of going down that route, especially since as Avatar he wielded far more power with the three (soon to be four) elements.
Sokka agreed with her, even if Katara was insistent about the whole ‘killing is wrong’ angle.
The two long days eventually passed, and the gang were almost disappointed as a whole when they saw the much hyped leader of their reinforcements.
General Yiu at least looked as capable as General Fong, but where the latter gave a sense of stony reliability, the former seemed tired. Very tired.
“General Yiu, we’re glad that you’re here! Come, your office is waiting for you. I’ve had our plans so far ready for your review…”
The other two generals practically herded their weary looking peer away, and Sokka didn’t miss how he gave resigned nods and short answers. Like he was forced to be here.
“I gotta admit, I don’t know why they treat him like a bigger deal than Aang,” Sokka admitted while they lunched in the privacy of their spacious lodgings.
Toph shrugged. “Beats me too. Judging from his footsteps, that General Yiu seems like he’s tired and overworked.”
Katara, as always, tried to look on the bright side. “Well, maybe it’s because he’s the best general they got, and they rely on him for his advice.” Okay, not as bright a rationalization, and it admittedly made some sense. “He beat off Xing and his goons after all.”
Toph beat Sokka to a rebuttal. “He beat the 11th, but not Xing. Xing wasn’t leading them back then.”
“Not outright. They say he’s been leading them from the shadows before he got promoted.”
Which was disturbingly true. How old was the guy when he became a monster who taught his men and women how to monster like him?
Toph still looked doubtful, but kept her silence, settling with just folding her arms.
This time it was Aang who spoke up before Sokka could get a word in. “I think…we should be prepared in case Toph is right.” He regarded Katara with a concerned frown. “After all, we’ve seen how…strange Xing acts, and how he lies to his own Fire Nation leaders.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Sokka shrugged at that; he tried not to think too much about that point at all. Either Xing’s loyalty was highly unreliable, which means he can’t be trusted, or he’s working to some hidden goal, which also means he can’t be trusted.
Coupled with the way he cut Zhao in two with his firebending, and how casually he treated the gang back at the drill, it just hammered home even more that the Scorpion really could not be trusted. Like, at all.
Regardless, with General Yiu stuck in a meeting with the other generals, the gang were ready to enjoy their last night on Ba Sing Se’s outer walls before they headed into the city itself the following morning. Unfortunately for them, the sun hadn’t even begun to rise when a commotion stirred.
Blurry eyed, the quartet of teens woke up to the most ill-timed of news - The Scorpion Dragon was making an attempt for Ba Sing Se, and he had made public his promise to bring down the walls. Two whole armies followed in his wake, ready to seize the gains Xing created for them.
“Take heart. We’ve already just foiled off the Fire Nation’s attack.” General Yiu looked utterly despondent, but his words nonetheless strengthened the soldiers’ resolve. “We’ll be ready for whatever new toy they throw at us. Our comrades in the other armies are making their way to bolster our ranks, and, don’t forget…we have the Avatar with us.”
Sokka saw how the general drew in a steadying breath amidst the cheering of the crowd around him before he continued. His expression changed so suddenly that it seemed as though he just wore a mask. “We will not falter. Ba Sing Se will live up to its name. The Scorpion Dragon, however storied he is, will not break into the Impenetrable City! For our loved ones, for our homes, we will throw back this attack, and we will keep doing so until the Fire Nation finally learns their lesson!”
Just like that, Sokka felt like cheering along with the soldiers. The soaring mood was infectious, with Aang and Katara joining along and even Toph nodding with an approving grin.
Appa would have to wait a bit more. They had another round to go with the Fire Nation.
*****
It took the officers in the 11th all of their professional will to not descend on their colonel like older adults scolding a misbehaving youth. What’s done is done, and no amount of asking Xing what he was thinking could change that. Mozi hated it, especially because he now had to lead the regiment in his commander’s absence.
“Since I’ll have to breach the walls and capture the palace myself, I leave the 11th in your hands for now, Mozi. Enjoy being colonel, eh?”
Xing would head off to Ba Sing Se, with nothing from the regiment’s stores save for a particular prototype transport tank that he ‘purchased’. Watching him drive off was like witnessing the boy traveling to his death, and it took constant reminding by Koshi and the bodyguards to trust in their young, spirit-touched colonel, however doomed this endeavor seemed to be.
With his work cut out for him, Mozi made the regiment ready to join the Northern and Eastern Armies in pushing towards the great city. It would be a spearhead not unlike the types the Fire Nation was used to doing, save for the fact that pressure at the spearhead would be far more concentrated to quickly break through Earth Kingdom lines.
The 11th, of course, would be part of that vanguard, and Mozi had Regimental Quartermaster Hyung obtain everything they could possibly need for an extended and rapid push. Most of the prisoners except for the healers and General Yama were kept in Zilang, freeing up more transport tanks to carry supplies. A small reserve would also remain to wait for and escort Princess Azula to the front once the front reached Ba Sing Se.
The new flammenwerfer tanks would serve exclusively as fuel carriers until they reached the walls. The Hans crewmen would just have to bear the being crammed in with barrels of oil within their more armored transports for a while. Their weapons’ reservoirs were topped up, but plugged up just to be safe.
By calling in favors and loosening up the regiment’s purses, a supply line was established by using the merchants of Zilang. As expected of him, the great and generous merchant Je-Choi had promised to commit most of his trade caravans to provide fresh supplies to the regiment and its allies at cost price. The merchant didn’t just offer his usual fare either, by now he had expanded into other foodstuffs, becoming less ‘cabbage merchant’ and more ‘food magnate’.
The 11th rolled out, keeping as fast as they could to meet up with Generals Sho’s and Hwa’s armies and take up the post of vanguard. Despite the constant worry, there was a sentiment within the regiment that jokingly hoped they did not reach Ba Sing Se to find its walls already shattered and Xing sitting on its throne, with the ashes of all opposition already blown away by the wind.
Li Ming also helped sooth the nagging worry, her own trust in Xing being a calming balm for the lieutenant colonel. “He pulled off a lot of impossible ideas already, love. What’s a mere city and its walls to him?”
Mozi’s lover massaged his shoulders to encourage him to release his pent up tension. “If anything, you should be more worried about what happens after.”
He scrunched his face in confusion at Li Ming. “What do you mean?”
She grinned with light amusement. Her fingers slowly slid down Mozi’s chest as she leaned in from behind to whisper in his ear. “Well, we’ll be in Ba Sing Se, the center of the Earth Kingdom. A massive city that needs taming. What do you think would be the first thing Xing might want to do to keep the populace well behaved?”
It took Mozi a few dense seconds before he finally understood, and the thought of being forced to march through the streets of the city to be mobbed by hundreds- thousands of Earth Kingdom spinsters made the lieutenant colonel shudder in his lover’s arms.
Li Ming giggled into his ear. “See? Now you have something greater, and something more plausible to fear.”
Fear? It was beyond terrifying.
He’ll have to figure out a way to injure himself right before they entered the city. Maybe he could pay a driver to run his leg over with a tank. Or get one of the regiment’s earthbenders to drop a boulder on him.