The gigantic vehicle was escorted by a fleet of tanks that appeared little more than toys. The spikes of the drill pushed into the ground, then steam propelled it forward.
Inside the operating tower, Azula sat on a large throne, Mai and Ty Lee on smaller thrones on either side of her.
"This drill is a feat of scientific ingenuity and raw destructive power," War Minister Qin explained. "Once it tunnels through the wall, our troops will storm the city. The Fire Nation will claim the city of Ba Sing Se and the Earth Kingdom will finally fall, and you can claim the city in the name of your father. Nothing can stop us!"
Ty Lee looked through the periscope. "What about those muscly guys down there?"
Qin scoffed. "Please, the drill's metal armor is impervious to any earthbending attack." Ty Lee watched through the periscope as the earthbenders dropped into trenches.
"Hm, I'm sure it is," Azula mused. "But just to be safe, Mai, Ty Lee, take them out."
Mai pulled out a knife. "Finally, something to do."
---
"Rina, what are you doing here?" Katara asked as Rina swooped down to join them.
"I was, but something stopped me. Something big." Katara and Toph bent earth platforms up the wall.
"What's so big that Sang has to wait?" asked Sokka.
Rina pointed over the wall. "That."
Ying shook her head. "We finally made it to Ba Sing Se, and we're still not safe! No one is."
"What are you doing here?" a guard demanded. "Civilians aren't allowed on the wall!"
Katara straightened. "I'm the Avatar. Take me to whoever's in charge."
The general smirked. "It's an honor to welcome you to the outer wall, Avatar, but your help is not needed."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. I have this situation under my control. I assure you, the Fire Nation cannot penetrate this wall. Many have tried. None have succeeded."
"What about the Dragon of the West?" Toph asked. "He got in."
"Ah, yes. But he was quickly expunged." He cleared his throat. "Nevertheless, that is why the city is named Ba Sing Se. The impenetrable city. They don't call it Na Sing Se, the penetrable city." He laughed at his own joke.
"Yeah, thanks for the tour, but we've still got the drill problem," Toph pointed out.
"Not for long. To stop it, I sent an elite group of earthbenders, the Terra Team."
Sokka nodded approvingly. "That's a good name. Very catchy."
---
The Terra Team rode a wave of earth towards the drill. "Ready? Attack!"
The earthbenders launched several large columns at earth at the drill, but it quickly shattered them. The team rose a defensive shield against Mai's throwing knives, letting Ty Lee slip in. Avoiding their attacks, she Chi-blocked them until the entire Terra Team was lying helpless at her feet, the ones she didn't hit struck by Mai's knives.
---
The man, General Sung, watched the Terra Team fall. "We're doomed!"
Sokka slapped him. "Get ahold of yourself!"
"You're right. I'm sorry."
"Maybe you'd like the Avatar's help now," Rina suggested.
"Yes. Please."
Katara nodded. "The question is, how are we going to stop that thing?"
"Why are you looking at me?" Sokka asked.
"You're the idea guy."
"So I'm the only one that can come up with a plan? That's a lot of pressure."
"Also the complaining guy."
"That part I don't mind."
---
"So, Mister Lee and Mister...uh...Mushy?"
"It's pronounced Moo-Shi," Iroh said to the customs woman.
"You're telling me how to do my job?" she snapped.
"Uh no, no, no." He smiled and leaned against the counter. "But let me just say that like a flower in bloom, your beauty is intoxicating."
The lady giggled. "You're pretty easy on the eyes yourself, handsome. Welcome to Ba Sing Se."
Zuko snatched his papers. "I'm going to pretend I didn't see that."
Meanwhile, Jet was talking to Longshot and Smellerbee.
"I think Lee would make a good Freedom Fighter," Jet said. "He's just trying to find his way in the world, like us."
"You don't know anything about him, Jet," Smellerbee pointed out.
Jet chewed his grass. "I know he didn't get that scar from a waterbender."
Smellerbee rolled her eyes. "I thought we were going straight now!"
"We are, and the new Freedom Fighters could use a guy like Lee. What do you think, Longshot?"
Longshot gave him a meaningful look.
"I can respect that."
---
"What's wrong with him?" General Sung asked as Katara tried healing one of the Terra Team members. "He doesn't look injured."
Katara frowned. "His Chi is blocked. Who did this to you?"
The earthbender moaned. "There were two girls that ambushed us. One of them hit me with quick jabs and suddenly I couldn't earthbend. I could barely even move."
"Ty Lee," Rina said. "She doesn't look dangerous, but she knows the body's weak spots and where to hit them. It's like she takes you down from the inside. My mom is super good at that."
Sokka's eyes lit up. "Ooh! Ooh! That's how we're going to take down the drill! The same way Ty Lee took down all those big earthbenders!"
"By hitting all the pressure points!" Katara realized. "We'll take it down from the inside!"
---
The team crouched down in one of the abandoned trenches created by the Terra Team. "Once I whip up some cover, you won't be able to see, so stay close to me," Toph whispered.
A blast of stone and dust rocketed along the ground towards the drill. "Run!" The team plunged into the dust cloud.
---
"Hey, look at that dust cloud!" Ty Lee was still looking through the periscope. "It's so...poofy! Poof!"
"Don't worry, princess. I'm sure it's nothing."
---
"Everyone, into the hole!"
"It's so dark in here," Sokka complained. "I can't see a thing."
"Oh no," Toph wailed. "What a nightmare!"
"Sorry."
The hole opened up under the drill. "There!" Rina yelled, pointing to an opening in the drill. She grabbed onto a pipe and hung onto it with her legs, pulling up Katara and Sokka. "Toph, are you coming?"
Toph scoffed. "No way am I going onto that metal monster. I can't bend in there. Tikaani and I will try to stop it from down here."
"Ok. Good luck." Rina disappeared into the drill.
---
Sokka studied the pipes. "I need a plan of this machine. Some schematics that show us what it looks like. Then we can find its weak points."
"Where are we going to get something like that?" Katara asked. Sokka pulled out his machete and started chopping pipes. "What are you doing? Someone's going to hear us!"
"That's the point. A machine this big needs engineers to run it, and when something breaks..."
"They come along and fix it!"
Moments later, an engineer in Fire Nation garb appeared through a hatch.
Katara beamed. "Hi!" She condensed the steam into an icy shell around the engineer.
Sokka grabbed the blueprint in his pocket."This'll work, thanks!"
They ran up the stairs and Sokka studied the drill. "The drill is made of two main segments. There's the inner part, where we are now, and the outer shell. The inner and outer parts are connected by these braces, and if we cut through them, the entire thing will collapse!"
---
Zuko, Iroh, and Jet walked through the checkpoint. "So," Jet said, "you guys got plans once you're inside the city?"
"Get your hot tea here! Finest in Ba Sing Se!" and Iroh was off.
"Jasmine, please!" The man poured tea into Iroh's cup and he took a sip. "Bleh! More like coldest tea in Ba Sing Se! What a disgrace!"
Zuko rolled his eyes and Jet nudged him. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second? You and I have a much better chance in the city if we stick together. You want to join the Freedom Fighters?"
Zuko had a pretty good idea of what freedom he wanted to fight for. "Thanks, but I don't think you want me in your gang."
"Come on, we made a great team looting that captain's food! Think of all the good we could do for these refugees."
"I said no."
"Have it your way."
Jet turned to leave, but then something caught his eye.
Iroh smacked his lips as he drank a steaming hot cup of tea.
---
Sokka stared at the steel beam. "Wow, this looks a lot thicker than it does in the plans. We're going to have to work pretty hard to cut through that."
Katara raised an eyebrow. "We? Rina and I have to do all the work."
"Look, I'm the plan guy. You guys are the 'cut stuff up with airbending' guys. Together, we're...Team Avatar!"
The two girls rolled their eyes. Katara began bending a slice of water through the brace while Rina fired thin slivers of sharp air. They were at it until sweat was dripping from their foreheads and they stopped, gasping with exhaustion.
"Come on, guys! Don't give up! We're almost there!"
Katara growled at him.
"I mean, you're almost there."
The brace collapsed, finally. Rina wiped her forehead. "I don't think we'll be able to do enough damage before the drill hits the wall."
"We should get out of here," Sokka urged.
Just then, a voice came from the tubes overhead.
"Congratulations crew, the drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se."
"C'mon, brace, budge!"
"This is bad, really bad," Katara moaned. "This is taking way too long!"
RIna frowned, then suddenly she perked up. "Oh, I know! My mom told me once that the key to Chi-blocking is not putting in all of your energy. You've got to be quick and accurate, hit a series of points, and break your opponents stance. Then, when he's reeling, you deliver the final blow."
"So we need to weaken the braces instead of cut them all the way through," Katara realized.
"Then we'll go to the top of this thing and deliver the final blow!"
Sokka whooped. "And boom! It all comes crashing down!"
Katara cracked her knuckles. "Everyone inside that wall, everyone in the world, is counting on us. Well, minus the Fire Nation."
---
"C'mon, Sugar Queen. Hurry up."
---
"That's enough!" Katara called, assessing their progress on the brace. "Let's get to the next one!"
---
"War Minister, an engineer was ambushed! His schematics were stolen!"
"War Minister, a brace on the starboard side has been cut clean through! It's sabotage, sir!"
Azula narrowed her eyes. "Let's go, ladies."
---
Sokka wiped his hands. "Good work, Team Avatar! Now you just need to...DUCK!" He ducked just in time to avoid a blast of blue flame.
Ty Lee ran down the wall. "Wow, you were right, Azula! It's the Avatar and..." She spotted Sokka and smiled at him. "Friends."
Sokka stared at her, then shook his head. "Hey."
Katara pulled him away. "Run," she told her friends. "I've got an idea."
Azula narrowed her eyes. "Follow them. The Avatar is mine." Mai and Ty Lee ran after Sokka and Rina.
---
Rina stopped at a pipeline and read the label. "Slurry pipeline? What does that mean?"
Sokka opened the pipe. "It's rock mixed with water, and our way out." The two of them plunged into the slurry, just barely missing Mai's throwing star.
Mai made a face as she peered down the tube. "Ugh, disgusting."
Ty Lee pulled her arm. "Come on, Mai. You heard Azula. We've got to follow them."
"She can shoot all the lightning she wants at me. I am not going in that wall sludge juice."
Ty Lee shrugged and hopped down the hatch, and Mai slammed it closed.
---
A large pool of slurry was starting to form at the rear of the drill. Rina and Sokka screamed as they came to a stop.
Ty Lee rode the wave of slurry and Rina snarled, bending it back up the pipe with a burst of air. "Try blocking my Chi now, circus freak!"
"Rina, keep that up! The pressure will build up in the drill, and when Katara delivers the final blow, it will be ready to pop!"
---
Katara came to a stop. "This looks good." Then a boulder nearly hit her. "Gah!" she yelled at the earthbenders on the wall. "Stop throwing boulders!"
"Soldiers, whatever you do, don't stop throwing rocks down there!"
---
"Good technique, Rina! Don't forget to breathe!"
"You know, I am just about sick and tired of you telling me what to do all day! You're like Aunt Ikki gone sour!"
"Just bend the slurry, woman!"
Rina didn't even bother with bending. She swept Sokka's foot out from under him and he faceplanted into the sludge.
Toph emerged from under the drill. "You guys need some help?"
"Toph! Can you help plug up the drill?"
---
Katara watched as mountains of slurry poured from the drill. She shook her head as she sliced away with waterbending. "Man, what I'd give to be a metalbender." But bending metal was impossible, everyone knew that.
Then she jumped to the side, just avoiding a blast of blue fire.
Azula attacked, but Katara jumped into the air, flinging a water whip at her. Then Azula delivered a series of firebending kicks that evaporated Katara's water. Another barrage of boulders. Katara caught one of them and bent it at Azula.
Azula dodged and knocked her into the outer wall. Katara slumped to the ground.
Azula smirked and approached. As she raised her hand to deliver the final blow, Katara blew her back with a blast of air. She bent a rock suit around her arm and deflected Azula's fire blast. Then the battle was interrupted by a wave of slurry from where the drill met the wall.
Katara just managed to pull herself to a stop, but then Azula crashed into her, knocking both girls off the drill. Azula managed to slow herself and grab onto the drill.
Katara did not want to get into the slurry, but she had no other choice. She bent it into a waterspout and returned to the top of the drill.
"Now all I need is a..." A boulder crashed down next to her. "Actually, that is what I need, for once."
She bent the boulder over to the incision she'd cut on the drill and bent it into a spike. She left the spike driven into the incision and used an earth elevator to scale the wall.
Azula climbed to the top of the drill. Katara gritted her teeth and leapt off, Azula's fire attack just barely missing her. Katara struck the spike.
---
"Here it comes!" Toph yelled as slurry erupted from the drill. She bent a rock pillar underneath her, Sokka, and Rina as the slurry sloshed around the base. Ty Lee got up, covered in slurry.
The segments of the drill came to a stop.
---
Katara wiped the slurry off her face and grinned.
I need a bath.
---
Azula slid down the slurry towards Ty Lee, who was wiping her mouth.
Mai opened a hatch. "We lost."
---
"Last call for Ba Sing Se!"
"Jet, relax!" Smellerbee urged as the trio boarded the train. "So the old guy had some hot tea. What's the big deal?"
"He heated it himself!" Jet narrowed his eyes. "Those men are firebenders."
---
Zuko and Iroh sat down beside Than and Ying, holding a sleeping Hope in their arms.
"What a handsome baby," Iroh said, tickling Hope's chin.
Ying smiled. "Thank you."
---
Four very long baths later, Team Avatar stood on top of the wall, staring down at the ruins of the drill as the sun set in front.
Sokka beamed. "I just want to say, good work out there, Team Avatar."
Rina wiped the last of the slurry from her nails. "Come on, guys! We're off to Ba Sing Se!"