You, Sokka, Katara and Toph were escorting the refugees into the city. Aang suddenly appeared in the sky with Momo behind him, landing beside you.
Katara looked at him in surprise. "Aang, what are you doing here? I thought you were looking for Appa."
"Did you find him already?" you asked, looking around, half-expecting the bison to appear from behind a cloud and shout 'surprise!'
"No. I found something else," he replied grimly. "Something big."
Aang led you all to the outer wall where he and Toph used earthbending to transport you to the top.
"Now what's so big that Appa has to wait?" Sokka inquired.
"That," Aang said, and you all looked out to see a giant drill approaching, threatening to penetrate the supposedly impenetrable wall.
"We made it to Ba Sing Se and we're still not safe," Ying said despairingly. "No one is!"
"What are you people doing here?" a guard demanded, marching over. "Civilians aren't allowed on the wall!"
Aang stepped forwards. "I'm the Avatar. Take me to whoever is in charge."
The guard nodded and gestured for you to follow him. You glanced back at Ying, who was huddled together with her family, and paused for a moment.
"Hey, excuse me?" you called, and the man turned to look at you. "Is there any way you could get this family safely into the city? They've been through a lot."
"Of course. We'll get them on a monorail to the Lower Ring."
Ying smiled gratefully at you. "Thank you."
You nodded, bowing to them. "If we don't see each other again, I hope you have a good, peaceful life." You glanced at their baby and grimaced. "Uh, no pun intended."
Than laughed. "And we wish the same to you. Good luck, Avatar and friends."
You waved to the refugees as they were escorted to the train, and then you were guided to whoever was in charge. It was a middle-aged man who sat behind a desk.
"It is an honour to welcome you to the Outer Wall, young Avatar," he began, "But your help is not needed."
"Not needed?" Aang repeated, confused.
"Not needed. I have the situation under control. I assure you the Fire Nation cannot penetrate this wall. Many have tried to break through it, but none have succeeded."
"What about the Dragon of the West?" Toph asked. "He got in."
"Well... uh, technically yes, but he was quickly expunged. Nevertheless, that is why the city is named Ba Sing Se. It's the 'impenetrable city'. They don't call it Na Sing Se." He laughed, but quickly turned serious again. "That means 'penetrable city'."
"Yeah, thanks for the tour, but we still got the drill problem," Toph dismissed.
"Not for long. To stop it, I've sent an elite platoon of earthbenders called the Terra Team."
"That's a good group name," Sokka said appreciatively. "Very catchy."
You all watched as the Terra Team wedged earth spikes into the drill to halt it. However this proved to be futile as the drill's segments separated, reducing the columns to rubble. They were then effortlessly defeated by two girls using chi blocking.
"We're doomed!" General Sung cried.
Sokka slapped him across the face. "Get a hold of yourself, man!"
He rubbed his cheek. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"Would you like the Avatar's help now?" Toph asked.
"Yes, please."
Your team stood at the edge of the wall, overlooking the drill.
"The question is, how are we going to stop that thing?" Aang pondered. You all turned your heads to Sokka.
"Why are you all looking at me?" he demanded.
"You're the idea guy," Aang replied.
"And you're constantly saying how much smarter you are than the rest of us," you added.
"I mean, I am, but that's not the point!" he exclaimed. "I can't be the only one to ever come up with a plan. That's too much pressure."
"You're also the complaining guy," Katara said.
"That part I don't mind."
You were thoughtful for a moment. "So this thing is made of metal, right? Well, I can melt metal."
Sokka looked at you in disbelief. "You really think you could melt down that whole thing by yourself?"
"Well... no," you admitted. "But if I could get inside it and find the controls or something, I could destroy that and then, boom! No more drill."
"Or you could risk blowing the whole thing up," Sokka suggested more realistically.
"But then it won't work anymore. That's a good thing, right?"
"Not if you're inside it!" Katara exclaimed.
"Plus, who knows how many soldiers are in there too," Aang added. "And an explosion could damage the wall and hurt the people up here more than anything else."
"Don't worry, I have a plan," you stated confidently.
Katara crossed her arms, eyeing you sceptically. "One that doesn't involve you getting blown to pieces?"
"Best case scenario, yes."
"And worst case?"
"Well, you know..." You mimed an explosion with your hands and then made a cutting motion across your neck with your finger to imply your death. You even added sound effects, which your friends didn't seem to appreciate.
"Okay, we're definitely not doing that," Katara decided.
"Come on, it'll be fine," you assured. "I promise I'll come out in one piece. Maybe two pieces. Three pieces at the most, but definitely no more than that. I'm a professional."
"Dude, I don't think that's helping," Sokka said. Then his eyes lit up slightly. "But you might be onto something."
"I am?"
"He is?" your friends asked, shocked.
"Well, not about the explosion part. That's a horrible idea," he said and you nodded in a 'fair enough' motion. "But that thing you said about getting inside the drill... that could work. If we hit its weak points..."
"We could take it down from the inside!" Toph finished.
"Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a much better idea, actually," you admitted.
"Not that yours was hard to beat," Katara teased and you made a quiet sound of protest but didn't bother trying to defend yourself.
Aang looked over the wall with a determined expression. "Let's do this."
. . .
You and your team crouched together in one of the Terra Team's abandoned trenches.
"Once I whip up some cover, you're not going to be able to see," Toph said. "So, stay close to me."
She stepped outside the trench and with a powerful stomp of her foot, sent a mass of flying debris clouding toward the drill.
"Run!" she shouted. You all raced into the dust cloud behind her. She bent a hole in the ground. "Everyone into the hole!"
You all jumped in before the ground above you closed shut. It was pitch black.
"It's so dark down here, I can't see a thing!" Sokka exclaimed.
"Oh no, what a nightmare!" Toph sarcastically retorted.
"Sorry," he sheepishly apologised.
You made your way to the surface underneath the drill, where Sokka spotted an opening.
"There!"
You jumped up with assistance from your firebending and grabbed the metal bar hanging from the opening. Then, dangling upside down, you hoisted Sokka and Katara up with you. Aang leaped up on his own with airbending, but then you noticed Toph wasn't moving.
"Toph, come on," you said, outstretching your hand to her.
"No way am I going in that metal monster," she refused. "I can't bend in there. I'll try to slow it down out here."
You nodded. "Okay. Good luck. Not... that you'll need it."
Then you disappeared into the drill with the others, where Sokka was leading them through a tunnel of valves and pipes.
"I need a plan of this machine," he said. "Some schematics that show what the inside looks like. Then we can find its weak points."
"Where are we going to get something like that?" Aang asked.
Sokka eyed one of the valves thoughtfully. "Hmm... Y/n?"
"Got it." You easily smashed a pipe as steam immediately started to billow out of it.
"What are you doing?" Aang demanded, panicked. "Someone's going to hear us!"
"That's the point," Sokka said calmly. "I figure a machine this big needs engineers to run it. And when something breaks..."
"They come to fix it!" Katara realised.
You grinned. "Good thinking, plan man."
You all took up hiding places. Moments later, an engineer wearing a mask walked down the misty hallway to the site of the damage.
You stepped out of the shadows with the broken pipe in your hands and slammed it into the back of the man's head, knocking him out cold.
Sokka ran up to the unconscious engineer and swiped his schematics. "This'll work. Thanks!"
You ran off into an area that wasn't so misty to study the map.
"It looks like the drill is made up of two main structures," Sokka observed. "There's the inner mechanism where we are now and the outer shell. The inner part and the outer part are connected by these braces. If we cut through them, the entire thing will collapse."
Aang and Katara nodded in understanding. You honestly had no idea what he was talking about, but you nodded as well.
"Just tell me where to shoot."
Sokka led you through a door onto a massive steel beam.
"Wow, it looks a lot thicker in person than it does in the plans," Sokka commented, mildly impressed. "We're going to have to work pretty hard to cut through that."
Katara crossed her arms. "What's this 'we' stuff? Y/n, Aang and I are going to have to do all the work."
"Look, I'm the plan guy. You three are the cut stuff up with bending guys. Together, we're Team Avatar!" He pointed to the braces. "Now get cutting!"
"You two start over there," you ordered. "I'll get this one."
They nodded and rushed over to a brace. You stepped towards yours, took a deep breath, and shot a mighty blast of flames from your fist. When the fire cleared, you saw that you'd barely done any damage.
You looked at it in surprise. "Okay, change of plan."
You pressed your middle and index fingers together and aimed them at the brace. You focused on your breathing for a few seconds before shooting a concentrated beam of fire at the brace, steadily melting through it, but it wasn't exactly the quickest process.
Eventually it melted all the way through and slid forwards slightly before stopping. You turned to see how Aang and Katara were doing. They were slumped over and gasping in exhaustion, only halfway through their brace.
"I got it," you said, using the same technique to cut through the rest of the support beam. But to their disappointment, the brace only budged mere inches from its original position.
"There's too many of them to keep trying to cut through them all like that," Sokka said despairingly.
Katara frowned. "At this rate, we won't do enough damage before the drill reaches the wall."
An announcement suddenly boomed through the speakers, "Congratulations, crew. The drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Start the countdown to victory!"
Your eyes widened and you scrambled to start working on the other braces as fast as you could. But it still wasn't fast enough.
"We're putting everything we've got into busting these braces, but it's taking too long!" Sokka exclaimed.
"Maybe we don't need to cut all the way through," Aang suggested. "Toph has been teaching me that you shouldn't give one hundred percent of your energy into any one strike. Sokka, take a fighting stance. You've got to be quick and accurate. Hit a series of points and break your opponent's stance. And when he's reeling back, you deliver the final blow. His own weight becomes his downfall, literally."
"So we just need to weaken the braces, instead of cutting all the way through," Katara realised.
"Then I'll go to the top of this thing and deliver the final blow," you said.
"Don't you think I should be the one to do that?" the Avatar asked.
You shook your head. "Your water attacks are doing barely any damage. It'll be easier for me with my firebending."
Aang hesitated for a moment... then nodded.
"Everyone inside that wall," he commanded. "The whole world is counting on us."
"The whole world minus the Fire Nation that is." Sokka grinned, and the rest of you looked at each other in exasperation.
"Thank you, Sokka," you said dryly. "That takes off a whole ton of pressure."
"Come on, let's get moving!"
The three of you made rapid progress, slicing through several bracers halfway to weaken them.
"Good work, Team Avatar! Now Y/n just needs to..." Sokka glanced up in horror. "Duck!"
"Turtle duck?" you asked hopefully, looking up just in time to see a blue fire blast hurtling towards you. You reacted quickly to counter it with a blast of your own. "Whoa! Not a turtle duck! Definitely not a turtle duck!"
"Wow, Azula, you were right! It is the Avatar!" Ty Lee exclaimed. She smiled flirtatiously at you and Sokka "...and friends."
Sokka smiled and waved. "Hey."
You couldn't help but laugh despite the circumstances, mostly in disbelief. "You're crazy."
Clearly annoyed, Katara grabbed both of your arms and dragged you away.
Ty Lee swung herself forward toward Aang, who quickly blasted her away with airbending. You escaped the scene and raced through the drill's hallways, reaching an intersection.
"You guys get out of here," you said, looking at the other hallway with a determined expression. "I know what I need to do."
"Wait," Aang said, and you looked at him in confusion. He held up Momo. "Take Momo with you."
You blinked, dumbfounded. "Uh... sure. Guess you can ride with me, little guy."
Momo squawked and flew onto your shoulder. You smiled at him, giving him a fist bump.
"Be careful," Katara told you before noticing that the girls were catching up. She gave you a gentle nudge to get you moving. "Go!"
You didn't need to be told twice. You turned and bolted down the corridor, and your friends ran in the other direction. Azula and her team reached the intersection, pausing momentarily.
"Which way do we go?" Ty Lee asked.
Azula stared at the path Aang had gone down, clearly wanting to go after the Avatar... then narrowed her eyes at the hallway you escaped through.
"The firebender is clearly planning something," she said. "I'll get the traitor. You follow the others!"
Mai and Ty Lee immediately gave chase of your friends as Azula began her pursuit of you. You and Momo made it to the top of the drill.
You found a weak spot on the hull, but before you could take advantage of it, you were forced to dodge out of the way of several rocks that were being hurtled down the wall, nearly crushing you.
"Hey!" you shouted, even though you doubted they could hear you. "Stop shooting rocks down here!"
"Soldiers, whatever you do, don't stop shooting rocks down there!" General Sung yelled frantically.
You grunted in frustration as you leaped out of the way of the next round of oncoming boulders, then began to slice at the metal hull of the drill with precise fire blasts, but you were becoming more and more exhausted with every swing of your arm.
"Ugh, what sort of metal is this..." you complained. Momo suddenly shrieked, and you turned just in time to deflect a fire blast. "Whoa! Thanks, Momo. Good thing you're here, huh?"
Momo chittered in acknowledgement, and then began to fly away. You stared at him in disbelief.
"Hey! Traitor," you mumbled to yourself, not that you could really blame him. This chick was scary as hell.
Azula shot more fire blasts at you, each of which you gracefully dodged. She continued firing and you created a long lash of fire to deter the blasts before bringing it down on her. Azula flipped out of the way and immediately kicked a wave of fire at you.
You leaped over the attack and kicked your leg forwards, sending arcs of fire at her from each of your three spinning kicks. Azula was yet again forced to dodge, and both of you narrowly avoided the several boulders that were hurtled at you in that moment.
Azula recovered first, launching another powerful firebending assault at you. You countered her flames with yours, but you skidded back from the force of her attack, her blue flames burning a deeper heat. Azula didn't let up, shooting blast after blast at you and her flames colliding with yours pushed you back further. Gritting your teeth, you turned your foot around in order to steady yourself before retaliating with a mighty blast with both of your hands and one of your feet.
The blast was explosive, the sheer force of it sending Azula skidding to the edge of the drill. You stumbled back slightly and you looked around to see that the drill had completely dug its way through the Outer Wall. You grit your teeth. You needed to hurry.
A flood of slurry was released as the drill bored deeper into the wall, coating the two of you. Azula slid towards you, attempting to halt herself by windmilling, only to collide with you. The force of the collision sent both of you sliding off opposite sides of the drill. Azula was able to stop her descent by grinding her feet into the drill's side whilst you grabbed a metal bar, slamming into the side of the drill with a groan of pain.
"Ugh..." You blinked and pulled yourself up, trying to get your bearings. Yet another rock soared towards you and you dodged it, and it rolled to a stop on the hull of the drill. You eyed it thoughtfully.
You drew your sword and planted it under the rock as leverage. Then with a grunt of effort, you pushed down with all your strength and managed to move the boulder so it was positioned over the drill's weak spot.
Then you shot a great burst of flames beneath your feet to hurtle yourself into the air. When you reached your highest point, you flipped around and encased yourself in a cocoon of fire, propelling yourself downwards at rocket speeds. Azula attempted to blast flames at you but missed and was sent back forcefully as you slammed down on the wedge you had created, triggering a large ripple effect.
The impact of the blow caused the sliced braces inside the drill to collapse and the pipes to burst, releasing a torrent of slurry. The drill began to release steam and its segments started to collapse as the drill screeched to a halt half-way inside the wall.
You stood atop the defeated drill, covered in slurry. Momo landed on your shoulder and began licking it off as you wiped away the sludge near your face. You heard your friends cheering from the top of the wall and you looked up at them with a huge grin on your face.
"Woohoo!" Sokka exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. "You did it, buddy!"
"Great job getting out in one piece, Y/n!" Katara shouted supportively.
"Way to not suck, hotshot!" Toph yelled.
Aang smiled. "Nicely done, Y/n. Nicely done..."
. . .
You joined your friends at the top of the wall, overlooking the sunset.
"I just want to say, good effort out there today, Team Avatar!" Sokka praised.
Katara looked unamused. "Enough with the Team Avatar stuff. No matter how many times you say it, it's not going to catch on."
"How about..." He pulled out his boomerang. "The Boomeraang Squad! See, it's good because it's got 'Aang' in it. Boomeraang."
Aang grinned. "I kinda like that one."
Your head tilted to the side like a confused puppy. "Aang's a boomer?"
Katara began to walk away and you followed her, yet again acting like a lost puppy. "Let's talk about this on our way into the city."
"The Aang Gang?" Sokka mused.
"Sokka..." Katara warned.
"The Fearsome Fivesome?"
Toph also walked away. "You really are crazy."
"Why? We're fearsome!"
He ran to catch up with you, brainstorming more ridiculous names the entire way to the city...