Post by pakku88 on Jun 1, 2008 14:22:02 GMT -5
I originally wrote this in Avatar Spirit, but I thought I'd post it here too
This is a story from a few hours after the fall of Ba Sing Se, and features characters mostly from my imagination. The tale is one about an unnamed hero, who is trying to find freedom for his city.
Chapter 1
I remember the day as if it was yesterday, when they marched through the Middle Ring. Me and hundreds of other citizens watched them march through our city, we were supposed to be safe, but we had been failed. Failed by the generals, failed by our King, failed by the Avatar. As the Fire Nation tanks rolled towards the Royal Palace, all of us realised that we wouldn't be saved, we'd have to live under this occupation.
Those of us on the Middle Ring could hear the fire, it was that fierce. They were blasting the symbol of the Earth Kingdom off of the Royal Palace. You could hardly see the Upper Ring, due to the smoke, and the smell would hang in the city for days. That night, people were going from house to house spreading whatever they had heard. "The Avatar is dead", "The war is over", "The Earth King has betrayed us", whatever 'news' you heard, there'd be another piece which would contradict it. On that night, I don't think anybody in the city slept.
I woke up to the sound of shouting coming from next door, so I jumped out of my bed and ran out my front door. As I came out of my front door, my neighbour came out of his. But unlike him, I didn't have a whip of fire forcing me out.
"What's going on?" I yelled at the Fire Nation soldier who was standing in my neighbours doorway.
"None of your business, move along". He growled back to me.
I looked down at my neighbour on the floor, he had been living at that house from before I had lived in Ba Sing Se. And here he was, crawling away from a soldier who was now occupying our city.
That's when I decided that action must be taken, the Firebender had his back to me. Despite the crowd of about 10 other people who had heard the racket, I leapt through the air.
I jumped onto the back of the Firebender, and slammed his face plate down. My momentum had forced him to fall forwards onto the floor, as I remained standing.
"March into OUR city?!" I shouted as I kicked him in the stomach.
"Push us out of our own homes would you?" I yelled as I kicked him again. I could hear running footsteps and shouts, but I carried on.
"I'LL NEVER LET YA!" I yelled at the top of my voice, as I kicked him once more.
That was when two other Firebenders arrived, and tied my hands behind my back.
They forced me onto my knees, and helped the first Firebender onto his feet.
Then, the Firebender I had attacked took a stance, and I knew what would happen, in just a matter of seconds I'd meet my maker.
Chapter 2
I looked up at the Firebender who was preparing to attack me, and as he prepared to attack, he disappeared behind a wall of rock. For a moment, I didn't realise what was happening, and then I realised... an Earthbender. Since I had lost the use of my hands, I couldn't get up, so I moved myself forwards and began to roll. I kept rolling until I felt that I was away from the Firebender, then I glanced back towards the fight which was going on, it was three against one.
I recognised my hero, it was the owner of a local shop, Feng. I had never realised that he was an Earthbender, but all that mattered was that he was. The three Firebenders had surrounded him in a triangle, Feng was a middle aged man and I thought that after the initial suprise, the three younger Firebenders would defeat him. Boy was I wrong.
"I suggest you surrender". Said the Firebender who had a skull face plate on (Skully)
"Same" said Feng, in a voice which disturbed me. Feng the shopkeeper had always seemed a rather happy man, but Feng the Earthbender seemed to be an entirely different man.
"You really expect that you can beat us?" Chuckled the Firebender who was holding a sword (Slasher).
"I've had enough with this talk!". Snapped my would-be executioner (Bruiser), who had obviously been humiliated enough today. His puffy right eye was evidence for this.
Bruiser punched viciously into the air, and sent five fireballs towards Feng. Skully did the same, but seemed to be a weaker firebender and only created three fireballs. Being attacked on two sides, Feng planted his feet on the floor and sent his hands upwards. Feng created a tower of rock about his own height, and was standing on top of it. The Fireballs hit the column of rock, but only chipped off a few bits of it. Feng pushed his hands down and crashed the tower back into the floor, making the floor rock around him. All three Firebenders were taken off balance, and Feng took his oppurtunity. Feng stomped on the ground and bended a rock the size of a desk out of the ground, Feng kicked towards Skully, and Skully didn't have a chance. He flew back with the rock into the house. Knocked unconcious, I believe.
Bruiser recovered quickly, and was obviously enraged at the defeat of his comrade. In a matter of seconds, he had materialised a Fire Whip and had reared it back. Feng quickly brought a thin slab of rock from the ground and held it between himself and Bruiser. Bruisers whip sliced the shoddy shield in two, and he recoiled it for another attack. While Feng had been fighting with Skully and Bruiser, Slasher had decided to edge around so he was behind Feng, with Bruiser in front of Feng. Slasher held his sword up and began to run towards Feng.
"Behind you!" I shouted at the top of my voice.
Feng swiftly turned around, stomped his foot so it faced Slasher and drew his hands up, the Earth beneath Slasher went up into the air. Slasher was stranded on a column of rock the height of a house. Feng span round to have a fire whip miss his face by inches. Instead of creating a shield, Feng dived to the side, away from the fire whip. Feng was getting up, with one knee and one foot on the floor. Bruiser had formed a fireball in his hand and had halted in his tracks.
"You've put up a good fight. Stop now old man, before I have to harm you". Said Bruiser, realising his better.
"Good fight? I've hardly been fighting at all!" chuckled Feng as he rooted his foot to the floor.
Bruiser prepared to release the fireball, but before he could even released it, Feng forced his hands down and sunk Bruiser into the grounChapter 3d. Only Bruisers head and shoulders was above ground, with the rest of his body trapped in the Earth.
Before any reinforcements could arrive, Feng walked over to me and cut the rope which was binding me.
"You'll have to come with me now, it's no longer safe for you around here" said the Feng I remembered from the shop.
As I walked past my house, and walked away from my home. I realised that my life wouldn't ever be the same as it was.
Chapter 3
The Lower Ring, I had only heard stories about it from my friends. They advised me not to go there , and to never go there at night, and yet here I was. It was supposed to be a pit of depravity and crime, and it certainly didn't disappoint. But you feel proud of your nation and its criminals when you see hardly any Firebenders around, only in groups of six and above. There are certainly plenty of guards on the Inner Wall and Middle Ring, but the Lower Ring seems to remain in the hands of the Earth Kingdom. We had remained in silence for most of our journey to the Lower Ring, nervous whenever a Firebender walked past.
"So, where are we going?" I asked him.
"We're going to a community meeting" he replied.
I could hear shouts and banging coming from ahead, but we carried on nonetheless, and it seemed apparent that the building with all the noise was our destination. The fact that I could hear the shouts even though there are no windows and only one door proved how heated the discussion must be. I hung back a little, while Feng marched straight up to it, and banged his fist against the door. Almost suddenly, the raucous behaviour of the people inside stopped. Someone inside opened a small hatch and looked through it, I walked up and stood next to him, feeling that there would be strength in numbers if something went wrong.
"The sun always shines brightest..." said the man inside the building.
"..over the Ruins Of Taku". Feng cryptically replied. With Fengs answer, the man on the inside opened the door to reveal a very narrow corridor.
"Come in, come in", the man quickly said "You don't want to miss the meeting!".
As the man locked up the door, Feng led me down the hallway into a very large room. The room was empty of all furniture, apart from a long table and a few chairs on the opposite side of the room. But the room was crowded with people, there was about fifty people in the room. Fifty people of different heights, weights, ages and origins.
Three of the four chairs at the table were filled, with only one empty. I was about to ask Feng who was supposed to be sitting there when he walked by me and walked round the table.
"The meeting may begin" said Feng, as he banged his fist on the table.
The three other chairs were filled by people all in military uniform. There was a man who I recognised as having the uniform of the Terra Team, a woman of about sixty years of age was dressed in the normal uniform of Ba Sing Se soldiers, the other man however had a uniform which I recognised, but with colours which didn't match those which I was accustomed to.
"For those of you, who are not aware of the purpose of this meeting, we are here to decide how to proceed with life. Now that the Fire Nation has taken over our great city. But first, we must be made aware of the facts of the situation" said the soldier from the Terra Team. "Major Sun, can you fill us in on the matter?"
Major Sun began to speak, and as soon as she did a feeling of respect was demonstrated towards her, since not one person was distracted, with all eyes concentrated on her.
"We have been given reports from our friends in the Dai Li, and it seems that our city has fallen because of enemies on the inside, who are loyal to those on the outside. As much as it pains me to say this, our King, Kuei has betrayed us. Apparently, he negotiated a treaty with a member of the Fire Nation royalty and surrendered. All he had to do was order our Great Gates to be opened, and then he could live the rest of his life in the Fire Nation Capital. The Earth King... the Council of Five... the Avatar, they have all betrayed us! We must take fate into our own hands, and regain our city!" the speech received cheers and rapturous applause from the crowd.
Feng banged his hand on the table again, signifying that he wanted to speak.
"I concur with Major Sun, but a group of Ba Sing Se citizens cannot battle an entire occupying force! I regret it, but outright warfare would be suicide! We must wait for the right time to strike..." said Feng.
"The time for waiting is over!" interrupted Major Sun. "For too long we have been forced back, driven out of lands which are rightfully ours! But I say that this is it, this is where it ends, this is where we fight for our survival! This is our city, and we shouldn't let the Fire Nation forget it! We will NEVER allow Ba Sing Se to be conquered, we will not fall like the other great cities of the Earth Kingdom! Han Tui, Garsai, Omashu and the Hu Sen provinces have all fallen to our enemy, but not here!". Her voice began to rise as she became even more passionate in her speech. "Only few have heard the legends of the warriors at Han Tui and Garsai, but those who fight in Ba Sing Se, their legends will live on for eternity! The Fire Nation will always be terrified of the Earth Kingdom because of our actions in this city. We will be beaten, burnt and dead before we give in. Not just for ourselves, but for our children, for our allies, and for the Earth Kingdom!!". The entire room errupted with cheering and applause, if Feng or the two other army members wanted to say anything back, there was no chance.
"In a week from now, we will march to the Palace. Any Firebenders who stand in our way will see what us Earth Kingdom natives are made of!"
With that, people started leaving the building. Within three minutes there were only five people remaining in the room. Myself, Feng, the man who first let us in (who introduced himself to me as Xue), the soldier from the Terra Team (who was introduced to me as Captain Wei) and the other soldier who dressed in strange colours.
"Excuse me, but I've never seen a soldier wearing those colours" I said to the soldier.
"That's probably because you've never been to Omashu" he replied, smiling. "I used to be the captain of the army there. General Yung, and your name is?"
"I'm..." I was saying, until Feng snapped "We don't have time for pleasantries! Sun has got our people ready for battle, and they'll be marching to their deaths unless we start doing something".
"What do you suggest Feng?" asked Xue.
"We need to get more information about what's going on, I suggest..." Feng said.
"But what about that report which Sun received from the Dai Li?" said Captain Wei.
"The Dai Li? Don't you find it curious that the Dai Li are still walking around doing their duties with the Fire Nation in charge?" Feng shot back.
"And there are those rumours that the Dai Li Earthbended the Outer Wall down". Yung contributed.
"Anyway, I think that if you want a job doing, you should do it yourself. We should find any places where the Fire Nation are keeping weaponry or food, or anything at all which is of value. Xue, I want you to do that in the morning, use your contacts around the city. Yung, Wei, I suggest you start causing trouble in the Middle Ring. Start making them realise that they're going to have more of a job to do. But always remember to get away, we don't want any of our men getting captured".
"And what about me?" I asked. I was eager to become a part of the fight against the Fire Nation.
"You best get some sleep, if Yung and Wei do their job properly, it'll be a busy day tomorrow."
Chapter 4
Wei and Yung's 'trouble' had the entire city talking. There were dozens of little gangs of people all nattering about what had happened the previous night. "Who did it?", "What is it?", "What does it mean?". Then, at noon, Wei and Yung took us to the Lower Ring Market, where there were two hundred citizens going about their business. Feng and Yung created a small stage for us, and soon, we had a little audience of people who wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
"What did everyone see this morning?" Yung shouted over the din of the market. There were murmurs of confusion from most of the crowd.
"What?! Nobody saw it! Nobody looked at the Royal Palace today?" he once again shouted. Now he had most of the markets attention, the mention of the Royal Palace had everybody interested.
"Well, I'll tell you what I saw" continued Yung "I saw where the Earth Kingdom symbol used to be! I saw the charred wall of the Royal Palace, and do you know what I saw written over that soot and dirt? E-K-L!"
"What does it mean?!" shouted a trader who was close to the "stage". There were cheers from the audience. "Yeah!", "Whats it mean?", "Who did it" were some of the cries from the audience.
"EKL stands for Earth Kingdom Liberation! It's time to force the Fire Nation out of our Kingdom!" shouted Yung. There was applause from the audience, and then cries. As a blast of fire went up into the sky above the market.
"I think it's time for this little demonstration to end" shouted the leader of a group of Firebenders. Quickly, our audience had dispersed and there was just four of us against a dozen of them.
"Well, it seems that we meet again" said the leader, as the troop approached the stage. When he took his helmet off, it showed exactly how that puffy right eye had developed into a full black eye, which encircled his whole eye.
I knew why he was so cocky right then, Feng had created a seat for himself from the rock, and he was sat behind myself, Yung and Wei. As soon as Feng had heard the familiar voice, he had gotten up from the chair and stood with us.
"Come back for more?" the Earthbender Feng said.
Bruiser almost jumped from fright. And he transformed that fright into anger.
"Men, these four are enemies of the Fire Nation! No mercy, take no prisoners!"
Yung, Wei and Feng worked together to force the stage into the ground again. This tremor shook the entire Market, with some of the less sturdy stalls collapsing. All 12 of the Firebenders were taken off balance, with a few of them even falling over. I took the oppurtunity to run to the nearest stall and find a weapon. I ran to a nearby blacksmiths stall, and took two sabres off of the display. I quickly ran back into the fray, engaging in battle with the Fire Nation soldiers who only had spears. There were two of them which obviously couldn't Firebend, so I attacked them. One of them thrust their spear at me, but I dodged the spear, and quickly retaliated by slashing the wooden spear in half. Before I could finish my attack, the other soldier slashed at me with his sword, but thanks to the sabre in my left hand, I quickly blocked his attack. By this time, the other soldier had drew his sabre, and the two of them were forcing me back where I got my two sabres from. When I felt the stall behind me, I decided it was time to strike. I first went for the one with the sword, and kept viciously trying to end our fight, soon he fell backwards and I kicked him in the head so hard that I could feel him go to sleep. After a few seconds, I remembered that the other soldier would be behind me, and I realised that soon I'd feel his sabre inside my back. But instead of feeling searing pain near my spine, I heard a loud crash. I turned around to see the soldier with the sabre walking towards a pottery merchant. From the shards of a pot on the floor, I realised that that trader had just saved my life. So I'd have to return the favour. I ran up behind the soldier and pushed the sabre as hard as I could into his back. I then shouted to the merchant "Get out of here!".
While I had been fighting those two soldiers, my three comrades were taking on ten. Feng was fighting four, since Bruiser had obviously thought he was the most talented of the Earth benders present. Bruiser and his three allies had surrounded Feng on all four sides. The three soldiers had all taken the stance which delivers Fireballs, while Bruiser had formed a Fire whip again.
"You got any other tricks?" Feng chuckled.
Feng's teasing had obviously worked, since Bruiser had visibly twitched due to Feng's comment. "ATTACK!" Bruiser screamed.
Feng smashed his foot onto the floor, and created a column of Earth beneath him. This lifted him up to the height of the market stalls. Bruiser had obviously anticipated this move since before the fireballs hit the column of rock he whipped his Fire Whip up to the top of the column, and slashed Feng right across his chest and face. Feng had tried to move backwards, but the whip had still got him, and the momentum of him going backwards sent him flying backwards and he crashed into a market stall.
"You got any other tricks?" Bruiser shouted, as he began to laugh at Fengs defeat.
I saw this happen and ran towards the Firebenders with my sabres, two of them sent fireballs right at me, but I cut through them with my sabres, as I got close to one of them, he tried to defend himself with a shield of fire. But I threw my sabre right through the fire shield, and judging by the disappearance of the Fire Shield, it had found its target. The second soldier who was bending fireballs towards me had stopped doing it since he saw his fellow soldier demise at my blade. So I took the oppurtunity to whack the sabre into his helmet. He collapsed with this blow. I could hear footsteps behind me and I turned around and saw Wei running behind me, I looked round again to see the three Firebenders he was fighting encased in rock, with just their heads poking out. Wei stomped on the floor as he ran and lifted a slab of rock out of the ground, firing it at the soldier who was with Bruiser. That soldier was sent flying back with the slab of rock and he was buried beneath the Earth and a toy stall. Now it was two on one, and when I looked around, it would soon be three on one when Yung had defeated his one last opponent. I turned towards Bruiser, he still had his Fire whip, and was desperately trying to keep us back. Wei forced another slab of rock out of the ground and kicked it towards Bruiser, but the whip cut right through it, he recoiled the whip as the slab of rock turned into dust. I used this oppurtunity to run through the small cloud and slash at the hand which was controlling the whip, this caused the whip to dissolve into nothing, and Wei Earthbended 4 pieces of rock to jut into his neck and trap him there.
Yung had disposed of his last enemy and had found Feng. Yung was picking him up as myself and Wei arrived,
"Is he OK?" I asked, worried.
"He seems to be breathing, I think he'll need a while to heal. Plus, that burn across his chest isn't going to help his recovery" Yung replied.
"Hey! Stop right there!" shouted a voice from behind us. We turned around to see half dozen of Firebenders.
"Tunnel?" Wei asked
"Tunnel" Yung replied "Your going to have to carry Feng", I nodded at this, and picked up my old shopkeeper.
Before the Firebenders could even arrive, we were underground and were travelling back to Xue's building.
Chapter 5
"Did you do your job?" murmured Feng, he had slep for an entire day after the fight in the market. He was still in a weakened state, but had begun to ask questions about how his plan was proceeding.
"Well, I called in favours from people all over the city and it seems like I've got a basic idea of the locations of the Fire Nations storage places. They obviously have nothing in the Lower Ring, since it'd all be stolen within a day" Xue smirked. "And it looks like they are taking the food they need from the Agrarian Zone. Tanks, cavalry, catapults and the like are being kept in the Upper Ring, and the Fire Nation have emptied a few houses in the Middle Ring and are stuffing theme full with spears, swords and sabres. Why did you want to where the Fire Nation is keeping their weapons Feng?" asked Xue.
"Because I want to steal them" Feng said in a patronising manner.
"I was hoping that you wouldn't say that" Xue said "It seems to me that the Fire Nation isn't taking any prisoners. They aren't having any mercy for insurgents. If any of you get caught, you won't be coming back alive".
"That doesn't matter" I said "We won't be leaving any man behind. It's either everyone out, or no one at all".
"So, when are you going to do it Feng?" asked Wei.
"We're going to do it in five days" Feng replied.
"But that's the day which Sun is going to re-take the Royal Palace" said Xue.
"Exactly". Replied Feng, "our plan all along was to prevent this attack being a total bloodbath on our side. If we steal their weapons, or prevent the Fire Nation getting to them, we might just make it a fair fight".
"But what will we be doing until then?" I asked.
Feng smiled and said "Oh, I've got plenty for you to do".
Two days later
I knew that ever since the fight in the market, the Fire Nation would be increasing their presence in the Lower Ring. But I never thought that they'd have an entire troop of Fire soldiers march through the market. As soon as they started marching through the row of stalls, the bustling market turned into the buyers and sellers murmuring to each other. The Fire Nation troop stopped almost in the centre of the market. And eventually, a crowd formed around them to see what was going to happen. Soon, the only member of the troop who was not in army uniform stepped forward with a scroll and a red, cone shaped hat on his head, obviously a bureaucrat of some kind.
"By order of the Supreme Bureaucratic Administrator of Ba Sing Se, we are offering a reward for the capture of the insurgents who call themselves "Earth Kingdom Liberation". They are responsible for the recent spree of robberies of Fire Nation convoys. They also vandalised the Fire Nation Royal Embassy. And also caused a fight in this very market. This group is not fighting for your best interests, but are just simply terrorists who want to prevent life in Ba Sing Se from returning to normal" said the bureaucrat.
"Lies!" someone shouted from a market stall.
"Who said that?" roared the bureaucrat. "How dare you question information from the ruler of Ba Sing Se?! Guards, find whoever said that, and make an example of them".
"I said it!" shouted the market trader whos stall I was shopping at.
"I said it!" shouted a woman on the other side of the troop of soldiers.
"I said it!"
"I said it!"
"I said it!"
"What are you going to do, make an example of us all?" shouted the market trader who was next to me.
"The patrons of this market are obviously insurgents, deal with them" the bureaucrat said to the Captain of the troop.
I thought that sure, it was fine to verbally stand up to the Fire Nation, but as soon as they attacked the crowds bravery would soon disappear. So I decided to show the crowd that the Fire Nation was nothing to be scared of.
The troop was advancing towards the crowd, and since the crowd of people was all around them, it made the troop of about thirty thin out around the crowd.
I took a vase from the stall I was standing at and walked to the front of the crowd. There were five Fire Nation soldiers advancing towards my part of the crowd, three with weapons and two who had their hands out (obviously Firebenders). The closest soldier to me had a spear, so I threw the vase at her
head. She collapsed to the floor, and I ran over to her body and took her spear.
The four soldiers were now all pointing their weapons at me. The only way to keep them back was to keep jabbing at them, but soon they got bored of it. The two soldiers with swords attacked me at the same time, but I quickly blocked both their attacks, but I wasn't at all safe. As I blocked both those attacks, the two Firebenders decided to send a few Fireballs at me. But thankfully, at that moment, a member of the crowd decided to practice what they preached. A slab of Earth protected me from the Fireballs, and then proceeded to smash into the two Firebenders. The suprise of the Firebenders defeat gave me the chance to swing my spear around and knock out one of the soldiers. I swung around again to see three members of the crowd attacking the Fire Nation soldier. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned around to see the market trader whos stall I was shopping at.
"You best get out of here my friend" he said. "We can handle them, if we get caught, it's OK. But if a member of the EKL gets caught, that's disasterous"
I took his advice, and started walking away from the riot behind me. I turned around as I was walking away and saw another troop of Fire Nation soldiers approaching from the other side of the market. But before they could reach the fight in the market, a massive wall of Earth divided the two groups.
Shouts of "Run away" and "Get out of here" followed the arrival of the second troop. Soon, the entire market was running with me out of the market.
I ran all the way back to Xue's building, and entered it, without seeing a man who had been following me. And was wearing a red, cone shaped hat.
Chapter 6
"How did you get that bruise anyway?" whispered Chang, the new head of the Dai Li.
"How do you think?" murmered Bruiser, as he nodded towards Xue's building.
There were about thirty Fire Nation soldiers, and twenty Dai Li agents marching silently towards Xue's building.
"If we fail with this, you know who you'll be reporting to?" grunted Bruiser.
"Yes" gulped Chang, remembering the Fire Nation Princess.
"No need to worry though Chang. There's no way that we can fail this. It's simple, go in, get the insurgents, and take them to the Royal Embassy for punishment. Then, I get a promotion and can live out the rest of my life sipping Blaze cocktails on Ember Island" chuckled Bruiser.
"Of course" said Chang, obviously not amused by it.
"This is it then" smirked Bruiser "Get to work then Chang". Bruisers signalled for his troop of Fire Nation soldiers to wait at the connecting part of the T road, with Xue's building right in front of them.
Chang and his troop of twenty Dai Li agents advanced towards Xue's building. Firstly, they surrounded it, and then Chang had all twenty Dai Li agents enter the building. This then allowed Bruisers troop to take a guard position around the building.
"Nothing upstairs sir" reported Changs right hand man, Jin.
"Alright then, leave some men upstairs to search thoroughly" replied Chang.
"Sir, we found an entrance that leads to a basement" said a Dai Li agent.
"Alright then", said Chang who then pointed at a group of Dai Li "You come with us to search the basement".
As Chang and the rest of the Dai Li began searching the basement, Jin lit a match.
"I'm sorry about this sir" Jin said, as he Earthbended a suit of rock armour around him, after he threw the match at a pile of barrels in the corner of a basement.
"BLASTING JELLY!" Chang screamed, as the entire building exploded. Killing all of the Dai Li inside, and blasting the debris onto those Fire Nation soldiers outside who weren't quick enough to raise a Fire shield.
The explosion lit up the night sky of the Lower Ring, and shook the entire street. The explosion had wiped out half of our opposition, and the explosion was the sign to attack.
"Ambush! Ambush! Come to me!" shouted Bruiser. Constantly looking over his shoulder, expecting a secondary attack soon. And he was right to expect so, as the twenty surviving Firebenders gathered outside the rubble which used to be Xue's building, the call of the ostrich horse signalled for the attack.
Four slabs of Earth rose nearby the group of Fire Nation soldiers. They smashed into the troop, erradicating half of them. Ten soldiers were left, and the combined defeat of their friends and the attack of an invisible enemy forced four of them to start running away from the battlefield.
"Get back here, you spineless swines!" Bruiser screamed at them.
But they did stop, since all four of them were sunken into the floor, trapped in the Earth. Leaving six against six, an equal fight. We had been in the house on the left corner of the T road, which was owned by a member of the resistance. As we approached Bruiser, you could see the fear in his eyes.
"This will be the last time we fight" he growled.
"If you so wish" replied Feng.
Myself and Xue drew our swords, and Feng, Wei, Yung and Sun took their bending stances. About twenty metres away, the six Fire Nation soldiers did the same.
"Let us end this little rebellion then..." grunted Bruiser. "Fire!"
The five Firebenders sent Fireballs at myself, Feng, Wei, Yung and Sun. I slashed through the Fireball which went towards me, while the Earthbenders blocked theirs with rocks out of the ground. Xue ran to his opponent and engaged in a sword fight, despite Xue's age, he seemed to be a formidable oponent with the sword.
My opponent and I were stuck in a stalemate, since every fireball she sent to me, I slashed through. But, Sun had decided to disrupt everyones battles, by striking the ground with her foot and creating a small tremor. This tremor allowed me to strike the Firebender in the head with my sword, knocking her unconcious. I found it ungentlemanly to kill a woman, even if she was fighting for the enemy.
Sun completely outmatched her opponent, and had just been toying with him with the small quakes. But one stray Fire ball from her opponent made her deadly serious, and she bended a column of Earth from the ground, and smashed it into her opponent, burying him underneath the rubble.
Yung and Wei had quickly taken care of their enemies, so after about five minutes Xue and Feng were the only ones left fighting.
Xue kept slashing at his enemy, but every strike was blocked by him, and vice versa. Soon, it seemed like both of them were tiring.
"You have fought well, old man" panted his opponent.
"Yes, so have you" replied an equally tired Xue.
"I suggest you give in" said the Fire Nation soldier.
"No, I don't think so" replied Xue, and with that, thrust his sword into the soldiers stomach. "Sorry".
Feng and Bruisers battle had been raging throughout our little scuffles, so we decided to leave them to it. We stood by the rubble of Xue's building, not intervening in their grudge match.
Feng had been firing rock after rock at Bruiser, keeping him on the defensive. Bruiser blasted every rock down with a Fireball. Bruiser's better fitness and reflexes allowed him to get better speed with his Fireballs, and soon it was the other way round. Feng's rocks were travelling a shorter and shorter distance to defend himself, and it became apparent that soon Bruiser would win the fight.
Feng stomped forwards, shaking the ground, and making Bruiser fall backwards. Feng stomped on the floor again, forcing a slab of rock out of the floor. Feng fired it at Bruiser as he was trying to get off of the floor. Bruiser sent a Fireball at the slab, and stopped it in its tracks.
Feng took a stance to begin the Earthbending move which would sink Bruiser.
"Oh no you don't" muttered Bruiser, as he leapt into the air. Leaving the Earth to sink nothing but itself.
As Bruiser leapt through the air, he fired Fireballs at Feng. But Feng hid behind a slab of rock which jutted out of the Earth.
As soon as Bruiser landed, he took in a deep breath of air, and waited as Feng ran up to him. Bruiser released a charged stream of Fire, seemingly incinerating Feng.
As the smoke cleared, a rock armour-clad Feng ran through it, and punched Bruiser, sending him up into the sky. Feng followed Bruiser as he fell on the floor, then, Feng gave his enemy one more chance.
"Give up" said Feng. "Give up, or I'll be forced to kill you".
"I am Fire Nation. We NEVER surrender!" shouted Bruiser, and tried to send a Fireball at Feng. But his whole body sunk into the floor, and with no air underneath the ground, he was never seen again.
"Come on then" I shouted "Don't we have a job to do?".
And with that, myself, Wei, Xue, Yung and Feng started making our way to the Middle Ring. While Sun waited for Jin to dig himself out of the rubble, and they would then proceed to gather the other members of the rebellion. Tonight was the night we fought for freedom.
Chapter 7
There were five entrances to the Middle Ring from the Lower Ring. Three of them were guarded by one battalion of Fire Nation soldiers stationed close by it. Another was on the same road as the 'secret' headquarters for the Dai Li, with most of the Dai Li not involved in the raid still in it. The last entrance to the Middle Ring was a narrow alleyway had only five Fire Nation soldiers guarding the entrance. Which entrance do you think we took?
After we defeated a battalion of soldiers, we made our way to the house of an ally of ours. Ting was the nephew of a member of the resistance, and had been gathering people to help us in our mission. There were eight of us gathered around a table in Ting's kitchen.
"OK then, this is the plan" said Feng. "We know that they are using four houses in the Middle Ring as storage posts. In the event of an uprising, they will go to these warehouses of sorts, and take the weapons. Our job is to prevent the Fire Nation soldiers from reaching these places. Also, if we hold these positions for long enough, then the weapons will fall into the hands of our allies".
"We are splitting into four teams" I said. "Myself, Feng and Ting will be one team. Yung, Wei and Tao will be another. Xue and Yao will be another. Also, as soon as Major Sun and Jin have alerted the rest of the alliance, they will handle the fourth position".
"Ting, Tao, Yao" Xue said sternly. "Your job is merely to guide us to the locations, we do not want you to be harmed because of us. But, if you wish to stand and fight with us. You may".
"We should be leaving soon, unless you want to be arrested by the Fire Nation for breaking curfew" advised Ting.
"Alright then" said Ting. "Let's do this, for the Earth Kingdom!"
The noise from us eight men seemed to shake the entire room, and as we left through the front door and wished each other luck. I knew that I probably wouldn't see any of these men again.
Twenty-seven minutes later
There had been five Fire Nation soldiers sitting outside the house, it obviously wasn't the hardest job to do during an occupation. It took Feng less than a minute to push them down into Old Ba Sing Se. It would have looked suspicious if the three of us were standing outside of the Fire Nation warehouse. So Feng decided to smash the door down, and we had a sneak peek at what the Fire Nation could have been using against our comrades. One room was full to the rafters with barrels of blasting jelly, and all the others were full to the brim with the same sort of weaponry. Hundreds of swords and shields, bows and arrows and sabres and spears were inside this makeshift warehouse.
"Look at all this stuff" gasped Ting "What if we fail? What if they do get to this stuff?".
"No need to worry" I said. "I'm sure that Feng would rather blow up the place instead of letting these weapons help the Fire Nation".
"You're right, I would rather" replied Feng, in the doorway.
And with that, the entire Middle Ring shook.
Entrance Two to the Middle Ring
"Retreat! Retreat! Fall back to secondary positions!" screamed Colonel Ming.
Colonel Ming had commanded a battalion of over 600 Fire Nation natives, before the explosion. Now, as he ran to the secondary position, he could only see about two dozen of his men in front of him. As he looked back, all he could see was smoke.
The secondary position was where the Fire Nation had put up a few rock barriers, courtesy of the Dai Li. As the remnants of Colonel Mings men fell back to the secondary positions, there was still no sign of the enemy.
"Ok men" grunted Ming, to about eighty survivors of the explosion. "We've just been hit with a crippling blow, but we can come back from it. If worst comes to the worst, then know that you did your duty for the Fire Nation. You!" he said as he pointed at a soldiers. "I want you to run to the Royal Embassy. Warn the generals, tell anyone with a weapon what's happened". The soldier looked bewildered. So Ming pushed him, and pointed away from the smoke, "RUN!" he screamed.
The soldier soon disappeared out of sight. "We will stand and fight. We shall fight until the last man. Know this men, an enemy who does not show themselves, is an enemy full of cowardice!" Ming shouted.
With that comment, came shouts and screams of "Charge!" from the smoke. The barriers which had kept the eighty soldiers hidden, were brought tumbling down. As a portion of the army of the Lower Ring ran towards them. The rebels at the front had fierce looks in their eyes, no fear at all in them.
"Attack!" screamed Ming, which was the only thing he could do. If he had ordered a retreat, he'd have been remembered as a coward. Better to go out in a blaze of glory.
A minority of the soldiers decided to drop their weapons, and run the same way as that bewildered soldier. But the majority of the soldiers decided to stay with their leader.
"For the Earth Kingdom!" screamed a member of the resistance.
"For the Fire Nation!" shouted the last men of Colonel Ming's battalion, just as they were engulfed by the never-ending ocean of Lower Ring residents.
"What was that?!" shouted Ting.
"A little suprise" I smirked. "Blasting jelly was placed at the four entrances into the Middle Ring, it seems someone put a little too much in them".
"Get ready, I'm sure there'll be some friendly Fire Nation soldiers heading here" said Feng, as he walked into the hallway.
I picked up a spear and a sword from the many in the room, while Ting walked past me and into the hallway. From the noise, it sounded like he was in a rush to get upstairs.
"Where's he going?" asked Feng, as I followed him out to the front of the house.
"No idea, probably decided to..."
As we walked out the front door, we could see them marching. They had obviously come from the Upper Ring, since they weren't armed yet.
"You there!" shouted the soldier with a darker shade of red on his uniform, obviously the colonel of the soldiers. "We have two hundred men here ready for the fray, we need spears and shield for them all".
The upper class Colonel had obviously not taken that close a look at us. But one of his assistants must have, since she swiftly walked up to him and whispered into his ear. The Colonel looked round at us with a look of horror on his face. That's when an arrow hit his assistant in the chest. Ting fired another two arrows into the battalion before anyone realised what was happening.
"Rebels!" screamed the Colonel "Rebels! Quickly, attack!". Even though most of them didn't have any weapons, there would still be a load of Firebenders in the two hundred men there.
Feng quickly raised slabs of Earth on either side of himself and me, meaning that any attackers would have to come through a two metre gap. Making sure that they couldn't surround us, but it didn't take away the fact that we were heavily outnumbered.
"Lieutenant Sang! Use your unit to handle these rebels. Everyone else, move out!" shouted a voice. Obviously, the Colonel had someone in his hierachy who had some common sense.
Arrows continued embedding themselves into soldiers at an astonishing speed. But the arrows wouldn't be able to get the troop of twenty advancing towards the gap between the two shields of rock.
"Your cornered" said the soldier leading the assault, probably Lieutenant Sang. "Just give up, and you might not be tried as rebels. Come on, it's twenty against two. And in the event of you beating us, there's another hundred and fifty going down the road. Don't be foolish".
"Us, the foolish ones? We're not the ones who blundered into a city, expecting no resistance" replied Feng.
"Oh, we expected it alright" Sang said smugly.
"Did you expect this?" I heard a voice behind me say.
And before I could turn around to see it, I saw an arrow whizz past my eyes. Hitting Sang right between the eyes.
"For the Earth Kingdom!" shouted Ting, diving into the troop with the spear he just snatched out of my hands.
I followed him, slashing at the nearest soldiers with my sword. It became apparent that this was a troop of Firebenders, when they started firing Fireballs at us.
Feng was throwing balls of rock at any Fireballs which might hit their target. Soon, we were forcing the soldiers back through the gap which they came. When they realised that they were losing the fight, the smart ones started running to where the majority of their battalion had gone. Only two were stupid enough to remain, and Ting quickly dealed with them.
"Ting..." Feng said.
"Yes?" replied Ting.
"Where on Earth did that come from?" Feng blurted out.
With that, all three of us burst out laughing, watching our enemies run down the hill.
But that laughter quickly went as we realised that the battalion which had just passed, was running back up the hill.
All three of us ran back inside the doorway, myself and Ting pointing our weapons at the door. And Feng with a ball of rock hovering above his hand, ready. But we became curious when the battalion didn't stop running at the weapons warehouse, but just carried on instead.
It became apparent why when the stragglers of the battalion ran past us, with rocks narrowly missing them. We walked back out of the converted house, and turned to see a sea of rebels pursuing the Fire Nation.
Our happiness almost faded when a large slab of Earth came towards us, but Feng quickly swatted it away.
"Stop!" shouted a member of EKL. "It's Feng!"
People immediately stopped, and stared at us. Feng raised himself above the crowd on a pedestal of rock, and adressed his troops as those without weapons got them from the 'warehouse'.
"Welcome my friends! Welcome to the night of your freedom! How many Firebenders have you made fall tonight?" he shouted at the audience.
"Hundreds!", "Loads", "Not enough!" replied the army.
"Not enough you say?" chuckled Feng. "Well, North of here lies the Royal Palace, which we will re-take for the people! Their not expecting us, and remember have no mercy! For they had none in places like Omashu and Han Tui! Let us march, and let the dogs wait for us to defeat them". And with that speech, we began marching.
Myself, Feng and Ting were at the head of the army. It seemed that any positions in the Middle Ring were being abandoned, with all of the Fire Nation retreating to the Upper Ring.
So to pass the time, we sung. It began with just a few members of the army who were bored, but soon developed into all of us singing with pride, a song which many of us had grown up with.
"It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se,
But the girls in the city they look so pretty.
And they kiss so sweet that you've really got to meet,
the girls from Ba Sing Se!"
Chapter 8
We arrived at the Royal Palace walls just as the sun was rising. It was obvious that Major Sun's part of the great army would be there first, military precision you see. Myself and Fengs part was second, since the Fire Nation had left us alone. Yung and Wei's quarter of the army arrived soon after. While we had to wait for at least an hour before Xue's part of the resistance arrived.
Myself, Feng and Sun went over to talk to Xue.
"Did you lot have any trouble?" asked Xue.
"No" replied Sun.
"One battalion. Minor, really..." I said.
"Well, it must have all come our way" Xue said solemnly. "We started off with about seven-hundred men, or so their temporary leader told me. We came across two battalions in the Middle Ring, and another two in the Upper Ring. We made sure that we left no survivors. We now have five-hundred, at the last head count. The question I want answering is how we came across four battalions, when there's supposed to be twice as many as that in the Middle Ring alone".
"Also, where are all the tanks?" I asked.
"What?" snapped Feng.
"The Upper Ring's supposed to be full of tanks, since no where else is secure. But we haven't seen ANY, and you'd think that there would be some guarding the 'Royal Embassy'"
As we were organising ourselves to attack the gate of the Palace, they opened by themselves. Out of the gates marched an army the same size as ours, perhaps even a little larger. There advantage was that they had cavalry, since all of the armys ostrich horses had ruthlessly been killed, another minor advantage was the few catapults scattered along the Palace walls. As their army marched out to face ours, many of us realised that we could win this. Victory could be in our grasp.
A Fire Nation soldier stepped out of the army and adressed us.
"I am General Chan, and I have come to allow you to surrender. Do not turn this into a battle" he shouted. "You are severely outnumbered. A peasant uprising can not match up to the power of the Fire Nation!"
"Peasant uprising?! We are no peasants! Most of us are soldiers whos job it was to protect this city. And here we are once again, protecting it from the Fire Nation!" shouted back Major Sun. The reply made the entire army roar.
"I respect your bravery for doing this today, but now I give you the choice to return to the Lower Ring. With your surrender, there will be no punishment for the bloodshed so far today. But if you decide to carry on, we will have no choice, but to hunt you down"
"We will never surrender!" shouted Sun, unsheathing her sword. "Down with the Fire Nation!" she shrieked as she ran towards the enemy lines, with her battalion following her.
I made my battalion hold back. "What are you doing?!" shouted Feng.
"Take out those catapults!" I shouted back at Feng.
"Earthbenders, with me!" shouted Feng, taking the Earthbenders back slightly so they could make their own artillery.
"Ting, inform Yung to take his Earthbenders and confront the Komodo Rhinos, otherwise they'll attempt to flank Sun's force. I also want Xue's men to stay in reserve, otherwise we'll have five hundred tired soldiers marching against an army which is fresh and ready to go".
"What about us sir?" asked a member of my unit.
"Get ready for battle, Sun needs some back up!"
Me and my men ran towards Suns battle, just as Feng was firing large slabs of Earth at the catapults. It didn't seem like any of the catapults were being operated, which was an advantage since the Fire Nation hadn't had the bright idea to have flames raining down on us.
The shape of our armies before the fighting began played an important part at the start of the battle. The Fire Nation had just been coming out of the gate, which means their battalions were all in a straight, vertical line. While the troops of the EKL were in a long, horizontal line. Which meant that in the opening stages of the battle, we had surrounded the first parts of the Fire Nation army.
The strict training of the Fire Nation was working against them, since most of them had never fought a battle in the style of a riot before. But, since many of our soldiers had been trained in the taverns of the Lower Ring came as a great advantage. The sea of EKL troops was starting to chip away at the rock of the Fire Nation, with many casualties on the enemy side.
I heard a cheer from behind me, as I saw the last catapult be wrecked by a lump of rock. Now, at last, Feng could enter the battle.
Feng outran his men, and used the Earth to make him soar over the battle. He forced a part of the floor to become soft, making a landing pad for himself. Feng identified, just as I had, that the Komodo Rhinos would be a problem. So he quickly began assisting Yung's Earthbenders. One by one, the rhinos began sinking into the ground, sometimes with their riders still on.
As Chan saw his crack squad of cavalry disappear, he ordered for the tsungi horns to be sounded, therefore recalling his army. The Fire Nation soldiers seemed glad to abandon this battle, and re-enter the safety of the Palace.
"Don't pursue!" I shouted. "Fall back to Xue's position!"
It seemed that that first skirmish had ended, in victory for the EKL.
"I gave them their chance" Chan said to one of his Colonels, as he watched the rebels from the Palace wall. "Send word to Colonel Goh. Have the tanks attack". Chan had decided to hold back the large divisions of tanks, but since the rebels had shown no mercy. Neither would he.
Chapter 9
Behind the Royal Palace, Colonel Goh and his army of tanks had been waiting out of sight. Goh had been wandering what was happening, ever since he was woken up hours earlier.
He had woken up, along with every other person in Ba Sing Se when barrels of blasting jelly exploded all around the Middle Ring. Goh had been forced to get up by a messenger, and ordered to stay with his battalion behind the Royal Embassy.
As the hours passed, more and more tanks arrived, and so did more crews to man them. Meaning that Goh's small battalion had amassed to rather large numbers.
Then, as Goh had woken from his fifth nap that night, a letter came to him.
"Sound the tsungi horn" he said to his lieutenant. "There are rebels at the gates, we're supposed to clear this mess up. Order the men into the tanks, quick sharp!".
As his tank led the rest of the unit, he looked back at the force he commanded in amazement. Over three hundred tanks were about to attack a rebel uprising. Whatever their numbers were, they didn't stand a chance.
Myself, Yung, Wei, Xue, Ting and Feng were discussing the outcome of the first scuffle. When Sun, Jin and a stranger came over to us.
"Head to the University" Jin said sternly.
"What?" Feng said in disbelief.
"I'm from the University, I brought one of thse to conduct surveillance on the battle" said the stranger, holding an implement which resembled a metal tube. "It enables me to see for long distances, and what I've just seen has chilled me to the bone. At least two divisions of tanks are making their way here, via the left side of the Palace"
"God.." was what I said, in all my wisdom.
"Thank you for this friend" Feng said to the stranger, as Jin led him away. "We need to start evacuating. There is no chance that we can battle two divisions of tanks as well as all of those soldiers that will surely come out of the Palace when the tanks turn up. Ting, tell the leaders of the units to start moving out to the University"
"Yes sir" said Ting, as he departed.
"Xue, I want your division to hold back for a short while and form a rear guard for the rest of the army. I'll go ahead and inform the students and professors of the University to disappear for a while".
"Their moving sir, it seems that their heading back to the Middle Ring" Colonel Sichuan said to General Chan.
"Order the infantry to pursue. Also, send a hawk to the battalions on the Inner Wall. I want them to meet the rest of our forces at the University".
"The University?!" asked Sichuan.
"Yes, the University. That's probably where they'll try to make a last stand. If their not heading there, it's still a key position in the Middle Ring".
"Keep it moving!" I shouted. "Move it now, or start running when the tanks arrive!"
My shouts were making them walk slightly brisker. But at the rate which we were going, there was no chance we could all get to the Middle Ring without the tanks catching up to us.
Xue and his battalion was at the back of our column, and were going to protect the rest of the army from the attack of the tanks. Just as the first soldiers marched back into the Middle Ring, that's when Xue raised a giant rock out of the Earth and made it come crashing down, creating a noise which was heard by everyone.
"RUN YOU FOOLS!" Xue screamed. "Run, to the University! Do you want to be turned into ash? Then STOP dilly-dallying and START running!"
Xue then walked up to me with a smile on his face, "That's how you get them moving" he smirked.
Soon our retreat was in full flow, with no sign of the tanks yet. I started thinking that all of us might actually come out of this alive. That was before I saw the gates swing open, and the Fire Nation sprinting towards our lines.
"Keep going" I shouted to my battalion. "Follow the others!".
It was four battalions of them against hardly one battalion of ours. I never doubted Xue's commanding ability, but I decided that another pair of hands wouldn't do any harm.
"Earthbenders, wall!" shouted Feng. Planting his feet firmly onto the ground and raising a large slab of Earth into the sky. His benders did the same, which formed a barrier between themselves and the Fire Nation.
"What should we do?" I asked Xue. For the first time in this whole experience, I was scared. Not just for myself, but for the entire EKL. If we stood and fought, and lost, that would leave our retreating comrades vulnerable to the advancing tanks and infantry. If we ran however, we would leave them unopposed and then the rear guard would be vulnerable to attack.
"I..." stuttered Xue. Xue waited for a few seconds, and then realised what the consequences of either decision would be. "Flee!" shouted Xue "Fall back men! Run you fools!"
Then, it began, five hundred men and women all sprinting away from the wall which they had just built. We soon caught up with the rest of the army, and then all of us, united in fleeing to the University.
Chan was with his men as they tried to burn down the rock wall which seperated them from their prey, to no avail. The noise of motors in the background signalled that soon Colonel Goh would be arriving.
"It seems that you were right sir, the Dai Li have reported that the enemy is heading towards the University" said Sichuan.
"Of course I was right!" snapped Chan. "It's the only structure close by which has defensive capabilities. What news of the battalions from the Inner Wall?"
"Well, they are currently heading through the Lower Ring. And it's thought that they'll reach us in about half an hour".
"Good" said Chan, as a a soldier disembarked from a tank. "Colonel Goh, nice to see you!"
"And you General Chan" Goh said, as they both exchanged Fire Nation salutes. "What's this all about then? I'd rather be tucked up in bed, than waiting round the back of the Royal Embassy" chuckled Goh, while Chan didn't seem as amused.
"We have an uprising of over two thousands Earth Kingdom residents...".
"I say!" exclaimed Goh.
"Exactly Colonel Goh. They are currently heading towards the University in the Middle Ring. Now, would you like to put those tanks to use, or would you like to tell your men to all go back to the barracks and nap?" Chan said to an embarassed Goh.
"Of course not sir!" said Goh, as he turned to his lieutenant. "Bring down that wall! And hunt down those dogs who dare to defy the Fire Lord!"
This is a story from a few hours after the fall of Ba Sing Se, and features characters mostly from my imagination. The tale is one about an unnamed hero, who is trying to find freedom for his city.
Chapter 1
I remember the day as if it was yesterday, when they marched through the Middle Ring. Me and hundreds of other citizens watched them march through our city, we were supposed to be safe, but we had been failed. Failed by the generals, failed by our King, failed by the Avatar. As the Fire Nation tanks rolled towards the Royal Palace, all of us realised that we wouldn't be saved, we'd have to live under this occupation.
Those of us on the Middle Ring could hear the fire, it was that fierce. They were blasting the symbol of the Earth Kingdom off of the Royal Palace. You could hardly see the Upper Ring, due to the smoke, and the smell would hang in the city for days. That night, people were going from house to house spreading whatever they had heard. "The Avatar is dead", "The war is over", "The Earth King has betrayed us", whatever 'news' you heard, there'd be another piece which would contradict it. On that night, I don't think anybody in the city slept.
I woke up to the sound of shouting coming from next door, so I jumped out of my bed and ran out my front door. As I came out of my front door, my neighbour came out of his. But unlike him, I didn't have a whip of fire forcing me out.
"What's going on?" I yelled at the Fire Nation soldier who was standing in my neighbours doorway.
"None of your business, move along". He growled back to me.
I looked down at my neighbour on the floor, he had been living at that house from before I had lived in Ba Sing Se. And here he was, crawling away from a soldier who was now occupying our city.
That's when I decided that action must be taken, the Firebender had his back to me. Despite the crowd of about 10 other people who had heard the racket, I leapt through the air.
I jumped onto the back of the Firebender, and slammed his face plate down. My momentum had forced him to fall forwards onto the floor, as I remained standing.
"March into OUR city?!" I shouted as I kicked him in the stomach.
"Push us out of our own homes would you?" I yelled as I kicked him again. I could hear running footsteps and shouts, but I carried on.
"I'LL NEVER LET YA!" I yelled at the top of my voice, as I kicked him once more.
That was when two other Firebenders arrived, and tied my hands behind my back.
They forced me onto my knees, and helped the first Firebender onto his feet.
Then, the Firebender I had attacked took a stance, and I knew what would happen, in just a matter of seconds I'd meet my maker.
Chapter 2
I looked up at the Firebender who was preparing to attack me, and as he prepared to attack, he disappeared behind a wall of rock. For a moment, I didn't realise what was happening, and then I realised... an Earthbender. Since I had lost the use of my hands, I couldn't get up, so I moved myself forwards and began to roll. I kept rolling until I felt that I was away from the Firebender, then I glanced back towards the fight which was going on, it was three against one.
I recognised my hero, it was the owner of a local shop, Feng. I had never realised that he was an Earthbender, but all that mattered was that he was. The three Firebenders had surrounded him in a triangle, Feng was a middle aged man and I thought that after the initial suprise, the three younger Firebenders would defeat him. Boy was I wrong.
"I suggest you surrender". Said the Firebender who had a skull face plate on (Skully)
"Same" said Feng, in a voice which disturbed me. Feng the shopkeeper had always seemed a rather happy man, but Feng the Earthbender seemed to be an entirely different man.
"You really expect that you can beat us?" Chuckled the Firebender who was holding a sword (Slasher).
"I've had enough with this talk!". Snapped my would-be executioner (Bruiser), who had obviously been humiliated enough today. His puffy right eye was evidence for this.
Bruiser punched viciously into the air, and sent five fireballs towards Feng. Skully did the same, but seemed to be a weaker firebender and only created three fireballs. Being attacked on two sides, Feng planted his feet on the floor and sent his hands upwards. Feng created a tower of rock about his own height, and was standing on top of it. The Fireballs hit the column of rock, but only chipped off a few bits of it. Feng pushed his hands down and crashed the tower back into the floor, making the floor rock around him. All three Firebenders were taken off balance, and Feng took his oppurtunity. Feng stomped on the ground and bended a rock the size of a desk out of the ground, Feng kicked towards Skully, and Skully didn't have a chance. He flew back with the rock into the house. Knocked unconcious, I believe.
Bruiser recovered quickly, and was obviously enraged at the defeat of his comrade. In a matter of seconds, he had materialised a Fire Whip and had reared it back. Feng quickly brought a thin slab of rock from the ground and held it between himself and Bruiser. Bruisers whip sliced the shoddy shield in two, and he recoiled it for another attack. While Feng had been fighting with Skully and Bruiser, Slasher had decided to edge around so he was behind Feng, with Bruiser in front of Feng. Slasher held his sword up and began to run towards Feng.
"Behind you!" I shouted at the top of my voice.
Feng swiftly turned around, stomped his foot so it faced Slasher and drew his hands up, the Earth beneath Slasher went up into the air. Slasher was stranded on a column of rock the height of a house. Feng span round to have a fire whip miss his face by inches. Instead of creating a shield, Feng dived to the side, away from the fire whip. Feng was getting up, with one knee and one foot on the floor. Bruiser had formed a fireball in his hand and had halted in his tracks.
"You've put up a good fight. Stop now old man, before I have to harm you". Said Bruiser, realising his better.
"Good fight? I've hardly been fighting at all!" chuckled Feng as he rooted his foot to the floor.
Bruiser prepared to release the fireball, but before he could even released it, Feng forced his hands down and sunk Bruiser into the grounChapter 3d. Only Bruisers head and shoulders was above ground, with the rest of his body trapped in the Earth.
Before any reinforcements could arrive, Feng walked over to me and cut the rope which was binding me.
"You'll have to come with me now, it's no longer safe for you around here" said the Feng I remembered from the shop.
As I walked past my house, and walked away from my home. I realised that my life wouldn't ever be the same as it was.
Chapter 3
The Lower Ring, I had only heard stories about it from my friends. They advised me not to go there , and to never go there at night, and yet here I was. It was supposed to be a pit of depravity and crime, and it certainly didn't disappoint. But you feel proud of your nation and its criminals when you see hardly any Firebenders around, only in groups of six and above. There are certainly plenty of guards on the Inner Wall and Middle Ring, but the Lower Ring seems to remain in the hands of the Earth Kingdom. We had remained in silence for most of our journey to the Lower Ring, nervous whenever a Firebender walked past.
"So, where are we going?" I asked him.
"We're going to a community meeting" he replied.
I could hear shouts and banging coming from ahead, but we carried on nonetheless, and it seemed apparent that the building with all the noise was our destination. The fact that I could hear the shouts even though there are no windows and only one door proved how heated the discussion must be. I hung back a little, while Feng marched straight up to it, and banged his fist against the door. Almost suddenly, the raucous behaviour of the people inside stopped. Someone inside opened a small hatch and looked through it, I walked up and stood next to him, feeling that there would be strength in numbers if something went wrong.
"The sun always shines brightest..." said the man inside the building.
"..over the Ruins Of Taku". Feng cryptically replied. With Fengs answer, the man on the inside opened the door to reveal a very narrow corridor.
"Come in, come in", the man quickly said "You don't want to miss the meeting!".
As the man locked up the door, Feng led me down the hallway into a very large room. The room was empty of all furniture, apart from a long table and a few chairs on the opposite side of the room. But the room was crowded with people, there was about fifty people in the room. Fifty people of different heights, weights, ages and origins.
Three of the four chairs at the table were filled, with only one empty. I was about to ask Feng who was supposed to be sitting there when he walked by me and walked round the table.
"The meeting may begin" said Feng, as he banged his fist on the table.
The three other chairs were filled by people all in military uniform. There was a man who I recognised as having the uniform of the Terra Team, a woman of about sixty years of age was dressed in the normal uniform of Ba Sing Se soldiers, the other man however had a uniform which I recognised, but with colours which didn't match those which I was accustomed to.
"For those of you, who are not aware of the purpose of this meeting, we are here to decide how to proceed with life. Now that the Fire Nation has taken over our great city. But first, we must be made aware of the facts of the situation" said the soldier from the Terra Team. "Major Sun, can you fill us in on the matter?"
Major Sun began to speak, and as soon as she did a feeling of respect was demonstrated towards her, since not one person was distracted, with all eyes concentrated on her.
"We have been given reports from our friends in the Dai Li, and it seems that our city has fallen because of enemies on the inside, who are loyal to those on the outside. As much as it pains me to say this, our King, Kuei has betrayed us. Apparently, he negotiated a treaty with a member of the Fire Nation royalty and surrendered. All he had to do was order our Great Gates to be opened, and then he could live the rest of his life in the Fire Nation Capital. The Earth King... the Council of Five... the Avatar, they have all betrayed us! We must take fate into our own hands, and regain our city!" the speech received cheers and rapturous applause from the crowd.
Feng banged his hand on the table again, signifying that he wanted to speak.
"I concur with Major Sun, but a group of Ba Sing Se citizens cannot battle an entire occupying force! I regret it, but outright warfare would be suicide! We must wait for the right time to strike..." said Feng.
"The time for waiting is over!" interrupted Major Sun. "For too long we have been forced back, driven out of lands which are rightfully ours! But I say that this is it, this is where it ends, this is where we fight for our survival! This is our city, and we shouldn't let the Fire Nation forget it! We will NEVER allow Ba Sing Se to be conquered, we will not fall like the other great cities of the Earth Kingdom! Han Tui, Garsai, Omashu and the Hu Sen provinces have all fallen to our enemy, but not here!". Her voice began to rise as she became even more passionate in her speech. "Only few have heard the legends of the warriors at Han Tui and Garsai, but those who fight in Ba Sing Se, their legends will live on for eternity! The Fire Nation will always be terrified of the Earth Kingdom because of our actions in this city. We will be beaten, burnt and dead before we give in. Not just for ourselves, but for our children, for our allies, and for the Earth Kingdom!!". The entire room errupted with cheering and applause, if Feng or the two other army members wanted to say anything back, there was no chance.
"In a week from now, we will march to the Palace. Any Firebenders who stand in our way will see what us Earth Kingdom natives are made of!"
With that, people started leaving the building. Within three minutes there were only five people remaining in the room. Myself, Feng, the man who first let us in (who introduced himself to me as Xue), the soldier from the Terra Team (who was introduced to me as Captain Wei) and the other soldier who dressed in strange colours.
"Excuse me, but I've never seen a soldier wearing those colours" I said to the soldier.
"That's probably because you've never been to Omashu" he replied, smiling. "I used to be the captain of the army there. General Yung, and your name is?"
"I'm..." I was saying, until Feng snapped "We don't have time for pleasantries! Sun has got our people ready for battle, and they'll be marching to their deaths unless we start doing something".
"What do you suggest Feng?" asked Xue.
"We need to get more information about what's going on, I suggest..." Feng said.
"But what about that report which Sun received from the Dai Li?" said Captain Wei.
"The Dai Li? Don't you find it curious that the Dai Li are still walking around doing their duties with the Fire Nation in charge?" Feng shot back.
"And there are those rumours that the Dai Li Earthbended the Outer Wall down". Yung contributed.
"Anyway, I think that if you want a job doing, you should do it yourself. We should find any places where the Fire Nation are keeping weaponry or food, or anything at all which is of value. Xue, I want you to do that in the morning, use your contacts around the city. Yung, Wei, I suggest you start causing trouble in the Middle Ring. Start making them realise that they're going to have more of a job to do. But always remember to get away, we don't want any of our men getting captured".
"And what about me?" I asked. I was eager to become a part of the fight against the Fire Nation.
"You best get some sleep, if Yung and Wei do their job properly, it'll be a busy day tomorrow."
Chapter 4
Wei and Yung's 'trouble' had the entire city talking. There were dozens of little gangs of people all nattering about what had happened the previous night. "Who did it?", "What is it?", "What does it mean?". Then, at noon, Wei and Yung took us to the Lower Ring Market, where there were two hundred citizens going about their business. Feng and Yung created a small stage for us, and soon, we had a little audience of people who wanted to know what all the fuss was about.
"What did everyone see this morning?" Yung shouted over the din of the market. There were murmurs of confusion from most of the crowd.
"What?! Nobody saw it! Nobody looked at the Royal Palace today?" he once again shouted. Now he had most of the markets attention, the mention of the Royal Palace had everybody interested.
"Well, I'll tell you what I saw" continued Yung "I saw where the Earth Kingdom symbol used to be! I saw the charred wall of the Royal Palace, and do you know what I saw written over that soot and dirt? E-K-L!"
"What does it mean?!" shouted a trader who was close to the "stage". There were cheers from the audience. "Yeah!", "Whats it mean?", "Who did it" were some of the cries from the audience.
"EKL stands for Earth Kingdom Liberation! It's time to force the Fire Nation out of our Kingdom!" shouted Yung. There was applause from the audience, and then cries. As a blast of fire went up into the sky above the market.
"I think it's time for this little demonstration to end" shouted the leader of a group of Firebenders. Quickly, our audience had dispersed and there was just four of us against a dozen of them.
"Well, it seems that we meet again" said the leader, as the troop approached the stage. When he took his helmet off, it showed exactly how that puffy right eye had developed into a full black eye, which encircled his whole eye.
I knew why he was so cocky right then, Feng had created a seat for himself from the rock, and he was sat behind myself, Yung and Wei. As soon as Feng had heard the familiar voice, he had gotten up from the chair and stood with us.
"Come back for more?" the Earthbender Feng said.
Bruiser almost jumped from fright. And he transformed that fright into anger.
"Men, these four are enemies of the Fire Nation! No mercy, take no prisoners!"
Yung, Wei and Feng worked together to force the stage into the ground again. This tremor shook the entire Market, with some of the less sturdy stalls collapsing. All 12 of the Firebenders were taken off balance, with a few of them even falling over. I took the oppurtunity to run to the nearest stall and find a weapon. I ran to a nearby blacksmiths stall, and took two sabres off of the display. I quickly ran back into the fray, engaging in battle with the Fire Nation soldiers who only had spears. There were two of them which obviously couldn't Firebend, so I attacked them. One of them thrust their spear at me, but I dodged the spear, and quickly retaliated by slashing the wooden spear in half. Before I could finish my attack, the other soldier slashed at me with his sword, but thanks to the sabre in my left hand, I quickly blocked his attack. By this time, the other soldier had drew his sabre, and the two of them were forcing me back where I got my two sabres from. When I felt the stall behind me, I decided it was time to strike. I first went for the one with the sword, and kept viciously trying to end our fight, soon he fell backwards and I kicked him in the head so hard that I could feel him go to sleep. After a few seconds, I remembered that the other soldier would be behind me, and I realised that soon I'd feel his sabre inside my back. But instead of feeling searing pain near my spine, I heard a loud crash. I turned around to see the soldier with the sabre walking towards a pottery merchant. From the shards of a pot on the floor, I realised that that trader had just saved my life. So I'd have to return the favour. I ran up behind the soldier and pushed the sabre as hard as I could into his back. I then shouted to the merchant "Get out of here!".
While I had been fighting those two soldiers, my three comrades were taking on ten. Feng was fighting four, since Bruiser had obviously thought he was the most talented of the Earth benders present. Bruiser and his three allies had surrounded Feng on all four sides. The three soldiers had all taken the stance which delivers Fireballs, while Bruiser had formed a Fire whip again.
"You got any other tricks?" Feng chuckled.
Feng's teasing had obviously worked, since Bruiser had visibly twitched due to Feng's comment. "ATTACK!" Bruiser screamed.
Feng smashed his foot onto the floor, and created a column of Earth beneath him. This lifted him up to the height of the market stalls. Bruiser had obviously anticipated this move since before the fireballs hit the column of rock he whipped his Fire Whip up to the top of the column, and slashed Feng right across his chest and face. Feng had tried to move backwards, but the whip had still got him, and the momentum of him going backwards sent him flying backwards and he crashed into a market stall.
"You got any other tricks?" Bruiser shouted, as he began to laugh at Fengs defeat.
I saw this happen and ran towards the Firebenders with my sabres, two of them sent fireballs right at me, but I cut through them with my sabres, as I got close to one of them, he tried to defend himself with a shield of fire. But I threw my sabre right through the fire shield, and judging by the disappearance of the Fire Shield, it had found its target. The second soldier who was bending fireballs towards me had stopped doing it since he saw his fellow soldier demise at my blade. So I took the oppurtunity to whack the sabre into his helmet. He collapsed with this blow. I could hear footsteps behind me and I turned around and saw Wei running behind me, I looked round again to see the three Firebenders he was fighting encased in rock, with just their heads poking out. Wei stomped on the floor as he ran and lifted a slab of rock out of the ground, firing it at the soldier who was with Bruiser. That soldier was sent flying back with the slab of rock and he was buried beneath the Earth and a toy stall. Now it was two on one, and when I looked around, it would soon be three on one when Yung had defeated his one last opponent. I turned towards Bruiser, he still had his Fire whip, and was desperately trying to keep us back. Wei forced another slab of rock out of the ground and kicked it towards Bruiser, but the whip cut right through it, he recoiled the whip as the slab of rock turned into dust. I used this oppurtunity to run through the small cloud and slash at the hand which was controlling the whip, this caused the whip to dissolve into nothing, and Wei Earthbended 4 pieces of rock to jut into his neck and trap him there.
Yung had disposed of his last enemy and had found Feng. Yung was picking him up as myself and Wei arrived,
"Is he OK?" I asked, worried.
"He seems to be breathing, I think he'll need a while to heal. Plus, that burn across his chest isn't going to help his recovery" Yung replied.
"Hey! Stop right there!" shouted a voice from behind us. We turned around to see half dozen of Firebenders.
"Tunnel?" Wei asked
"Tunnel" Yung replied "Your going to have to carry Feng", I nodded at this, and picked up my old shopkeeper.
Before the Firebenders could even arrive, we were underground and were travelling back to Xue's building.
Chapter 5
"Did you do your job?" murmured Feng, he had slep for an entire day after the fight in the market. He was still in a weakened state, but had begun to ask questions about how his plan was proceeding.
"Well, I called in favours from people all over the city and it seems like I've got a basic idea of the locations of the Fire Nations storage places. They obviously have nothing in the Lower Ring, since it'd all be stolen within a day" Xue smirked. "And it looks like they are taking the food they need from the Agrarian Zone. Tanks, cavalry, catapults and the like are being kept in the Upper Ring, and the Fire Nation have emptied a few houses in the Middle Ring and are stuffing theme full with spears, swords and sabres. Why did you want to where the Fire Nation is keeping their weapons Feng?" asked Xue.
"Because I want to steal them" Feng said in a patronising manner.
"I was hoping that you wouldn't say that" Xue said "It seems to me that the Fire Nation isn't taking any prisoners. They aren't having any mercy for insurgents. If any of you get caught, you won't be coming back alive".
"That doesn't matter" I said "We won't be leaving any man behind. It's either everyone out, or no one at all".
"So, when are you going to do it Feng?" asked Wei.
"We're going to do it in five days" Feng replied.
"But that's the day which Sun is going to re-take the Royal Palace" said Xue.
"Exactly". Replied Feng, "our plan all along was to prevent this attack being a total bloodbath on our side. If we steal their weapons, or prevent the Fire Nation getting to them, we might just make it a fair fight".
"But what will we be doing until then?" I asked.
Feng smiled and said "Oh, I've got plenty for you to do".
Two days later
I knew that ever since the fight in the market, the Fire Nation would be increasing their presence in the Lower Ring. But I never thought that they'd have an entire troop of Fire soldiers march through the market. As soon as they started marching through the row of stalls, the bustling market turned into the buyers and sellers murmuring to each other. The Fire Nation troop stopped almost in the centre of the market. And eventually, a crowd formed around them to see what was going to happen. Soon, the only member of the troop who was not in army uniform stepped forward with a scroll and a red, cone shaped hat on his head, obviously a bureaucrat of some kind.
"By order of the Supreme Bureaucratic Administrator of Ba Sing Se, we are offering a reward for the capture of the insurgents who call themselves "Earth Kingdom Liberation". They are responsible for the recent spree of robberies of Fire Nation convoys. They also vandalised the Fire Nation Royal Embassy. And also caused a fight in this very market. This group is not fighting for your best interests, but are just simply terrorists who want to prevent life in Ba Sing Se from returning to normal" said the bureaucrat.
"Lies!" someone shouted from a market stall.
"Who said that?" roared the bureaucrat. "How dare you question information from the ruler of Ba Sing Se?! Guards, find whoever said that, and make an example of them".
"I said it!" shouted the market trader whos stall I was shopping at.
"I said it!" shouted a woman on the other side of the troop of soldiers.
"I said it!"
"I said it!"
"I said it!"
"What are you going to do, make an example of us all?" shouted the market trader who was next to me.
"The patrons of this market are obviously insurgents, deal with them" the bureaucrat said to the Captain of the troop.
I thought that sure, it was fine to verbally stand up to the Fire Nation, but as soon as they attacked the crowds bravery would soon disappear. So I decided to show the crowd that the Fire Nation was nothing to be scared of.
The troop was advancing towards the crowd, and since the crowd of people was all around them, it made the troop of about thirty thin out around the crowd.
I took a vase from the stall I was standing at and walked to the front of the crowd. There were five Fire Nation soldiers advancing towards my part of the crowd, three with weapons and two who had their hands out (obviously Firebenders). The closest soldier to me had a spear, so I threw the vase at her
head. She collapsed to the floor, and I ran over to her body and took her spear.
The four soldiers were now all pointing their weapons at me. The only way to keep them back was to keep jabbing at them, but soon they got bored of it. The two soldiers with swords attacked me at the same time, but I quickly blocked both their attacks, but I wasn't at all safe. As I blocked both those attacks, the two Firebenders decided to send a few Fireballs at me. But thankfully, at that moment, a member of the crowd decided to practice what they preached. A slab of Earth protected me from the Fireballs, and then proceeded to smash into the two Firebenders. The suprise of the Firebenders defeat gave me the chance to swing my spear around and knock out one of the soldiers. I swung around again to see three members of the crowd attacking the Fire Nation soldier. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned around to see the market trader whos stall I was shopping at.
"You best get out of here my friend" he said. "We can handle them, if we get caught, it's OK. But if a member of the EKL gets caught, that's disasterous"
I took his advice, and started walking away from the riot behind me. I turned around as I was walking away and saw another troop of Fire Nation soldiers approaching from the other side of the market. But before they could reach the fight in the market, a massive wall of Earth divided the two groups.
Shouts of "Run away" and "Get out of here" followed the arrival of the second troop. Soon, the entire market was running with me out of the market.
I ran all the way back to Xue's building, and entered it, without seeing a man who had been following me. And was wearing a red, cone shaped hat.
Chapter 6
"How did you get that bruise anyway?" whispered Chang, the new head of the Dai Li.
"How do you think?" murmered Bruiser, as he nodded towards Xue's building.
There were about thirty Fire Nation soldiers, and twenty Dai Li agents marching silently towards Xue's building.
"If we fail with this, you know who you'll be reporting to?" grunted Bruiser.
"Yes" gulped Chang, remembering the Fire Nation Princess.
"No need to worry though Chang. There's no way that we can fail this. It's simple, go in, get the insurgents, and take them to the Royal Embassy for punishment. Then, I get a promotion and can live out the rest of my life sipping Blaze cocktails on Ember Island" chuckled Bruiser.
"Of course" said Chang, obviously not amused by it.
"This is it then" smirked Bruiser "Get to work then Chang". Bruisers signalled for his troop of Fire Nation soldiers to wait at the connecting part of the T road, with Xue's building right in front of them.
Chang and his troop of twenty Dai Li agents advanced towards Xue's building. Firstly, they surrounded it, and then Chang had all twenty Dai Li agents enter the building. This then allowed Bruisers troop to take a guard position around the building.
"Nothing upstairs sir" reported Changs right hand man, Jin.
"Alright then, leave some men upstairs to search thoroughly" replied Chang.
"Sir, we found an entrance that leads to a basement" said a Dai Li agent.
"Alright then", said Chang who then pointed at a group of Dai Li "You come with us to search the basement".
As Chang and the rest of the Dai Li began searching the basement, Jin lit a match.
"I'm sorry about this sir" Jin said, as he Earthbended a suit of rock armour around him, after he threw the match at a pile of barrels in the corner of a basement.
"BLASTING JELLY!" Chang screamed, as the entire building exploded. Killing all of the Dai Li inside, and blasting the debris onto those Fire Nation soldiers outside who weren't quick enough to raise a Fire shield.
The explosion lit up the night sky of the Lower Ring, and shook the entire street. The explosion had wiped out half of our opposition, and the explosion was the sign to attack.
"Ambush! Ambush! Come to me!" shouted Bruiser. Constantly looking over his shoulder, expecting a secondary attack soon. And he was right to expect so, as the twenty surviving Firebenders gathered outside the rubble which used to be Xue's building, the call of the ostrich horse signalled for the attack.
Four slabs of Earth rose nearby the group of Fire Nation soldiers. They smashed into the troop, erradicating half of them. Ten soldiers were left, and the combined defeat of their friends and the attack of an invisible enemy forced four of them to start running away from the battlefield.
"Get back here, you spineless swines!" Bruiser screamed at them.
But they did stop, since all four of them were sunken into the floor, trapped in the Earth. Leaving six against six, an equal fight. We had been in the house on the left corner of the T road, which was owned by a member of the resistance. As we approached Bruiser, you could see the fear in his eyes.
"This will be the last time we fight" he growled.
"If you so wish" replied Feng.
Myself and Xue drew our swords, and Feng, Wei, Yung and Sun took their bending stances. About twenty metres away, the six Fire Nation soldiers did the same.
"Let us end this little rebellion then..." grunted Bruiser. "Fire!"
The five Firebenders sent Fireballs at myself, Feng, Wei, Yung and Sun. I slashed through the Fireball which went towards me, while the Earthbenders blocked theirs with rocks out of the ground. Xue ran to his opponent and engaged in a sword fight, despite Xue's age, he seemed to be a formidable oponent with the sword.
My opponent and I were stuck in a stalemate, since every fireball she sent to me, I slashed through. But, Sun had decided to disrupt everyones battles, by striking the ground with her foot and creating a small tremor. This tremor allowed me to strike the Firebender in the head with my sword, knocking her unconcious. I found it ungentlemanly to kill a woman, even if she was fighting for the enemy.
Sun completely outmatched her opponent, and had just been toying with him with the small quakes. But one stray Fire ball from her opponent made her deadly serious, and she bended a column of Earth from the ground, and smashed it into her opponent, burying him underneath the rubble.
Yung and Wei had quickly taken care of their enemies, so after about five minutes Xue and Feng were the only ones left fighting.
Xue kept slashing at his enemy, but every strike was blocked by him, and vice versa. Soon, it seemed like both of them were tiring.
"You have fought well, old man" panted his opponent.
"Yes, so have you" replied an equally tired Xue.
"I suggest you give in" said the Fire Nation soldier.
"No, I don't think so" replied Xue, and with that, thrust his sword into the soldiers stomach. "Sorry".
Feng and Bruisers battle had been raging throughout our little scuffles, so we decided to leave them to it. We stood by the rubble of Xue's building, not intervening in their grudge match.
Feng had been firing rock after rock at Bruiser, keeping him on the defensive. Bruiser blasted every rock down with a Fireball. Bruiser's better fitness and reflexes allowed him to get better speed with his Fireballs, and soon it was the other way round. Feng's rocks were travelling a shorter and shorter distance to defend himself, and it became apparent that soon Bruiser would win the fight.
Feng stomped forwards, shaking the ground, and making Bruiser fall backwards. Feng stomped on the floor again, forcing a slab of rock out of the floor. Feng fired it at Bruiser as he was trying to get off of the floor. Bruiser sent a Fireball at the slab, and stopped it in its tracks.
Feng took a stance to begin the Earthbending move which would sink Bruiser.
"Oh no you don't" muttered Bruiser, as he leapt into the air. Leaving the Earth to sink nothing but itself.
As Bruiser leapt through the air, he fired Fireballs at Feng. But Feng hid behind a slab of rock which jutted out of the Earth.
As soon as Bruiser landed, he took in a deep breath of air, and waited as Feng ran up to him. Bruiser released a charged stream of Fire, seemingly incinerating Feng.
As the smoke cleared, a rock armour-clad Feng ran through it, and punched Bruiser, sending him up into the sky. Feng followed Bruiser as he fell on the floor, then, Feng gave his enemy one more chance.
"Give up" said Feng. "Give up, or I'll be forced to kill you".
"I am Fire Nation. We NEVER surrender!" shouted Bruiser, and tried to send a Fireball at Feng. But his whole body sunk into the floor, and with no air underneath the ground, he was never seen again.
"Come on then" I shouted "Don't we have a job to do?".
And with that, myself, Wei, Xue, Yung and Feng started making our way to the Middle Ring. While Sun waited for Jin to dig himself out of the rubble, and they would then proceed to gather the other members of the rebellion. Tonight was the night we fought for freedom.
Chapter 7
There were five entrances to the Middle Ring from the Lower Ring. Three of them were guarded by one battalion of Fire Nation soldiers stationed close by it. Another was on the same road as the 'secret' headquarters for the Dai Li, with most of the Dai Li not involved in the raid still in it. The last entrance to the Middle Ring was a narrow alleyway had only five Fire Nation soldiers guarding the entrance. Which entrance do you think we took?
After we defeated a battalion of soldiers, we made our way to the house of an ally of ours. Ting was the nephew of a member of the resistance, and had been gathering people to help us in our mission. There were eight of us gathered around a table in Ting's kitchen.
"OK then, this is the plan" said Feng. "We know that they are using four houses in the Middle Ring as storage posts. In the event of an uprising, they will go to these warehouses of sorts, and take the weapons. Our job is to prevent the Fire Nation soldiers from reaching these places. Also, if we hold these positions for long enough, then the weapons will fall into the hands of our allies".
"We are splitting into four teams" I said. "Myself, Feng and Ting will be one team. Yung, Wei and Tao will be another. Xue and Yao will be another. Also, as soon as Major Sun and Jin have alerted the rest of the alliance, they will handle the fourth position".
"Ting, Tao, Yao" Xue said sternly. "Your job is merely to guide us to the locations, we do not want you to be harmed because of us. But, if you wish to stand and fight with us. You may".
"We should be leaving soon, unless you want to be arrested by the Fire Nation for breaking curfew" advised Ting.
"Alright then" said Ting. "Let's do this, for the Earth Kingdom!"
The noise from us eight men seemed to shake the entire room, and as we left through the front door and wished each other luck. I knew that I probably wouldn't see any of these men again.
Twenty-seven minutes later
There had been five Fire Nation soldiers sitting outside the house, it obviously wasn't the hardest job to do during an occupation. It took Feng less than a minute to push them down into Old Ba Sing Se. It would have looked suspicious if the three of us were standing outside of the Fire Nation warehouse. So Feng decided to smash the door down, and we had a sneak peek at what the Fire Nation could have been using against our comrades. One room was full to the rafters with barrels of blasting jelly, and all the others were full to the brim with the same sort of weaponry. Hundreds of swords and shields, bows and arrows and sabres and spears were inside this makeshift warehouse.
"Look at all this stuff" gasped Ting "What if we fail? What if they do get to this stuff?".
"No need to worry" I said. "I'm sure that Feng would rather blow up the place instead of letting these weapons help the Fire Nation".
"You're right, I would rather" replied Feng, in the doorway.
And with that, the entire Middle Ring shook.
Entrance Two to the Middle Ring
"Retreat! Retreat! Fall back to secondary positions!" screamed Colonel Ming.
Colonel Ming had commanded a battalion of over 600 Fire Nation natives, before the explosion. Now, as he ran to the secondary position, he could only see about two dozen of his men in front of him. As he looked back, all he could see was smoke.
The secondary position was where the Fire Nation had put up a few rock barriers, courtesy of the Dai Li. As the remnants of Colonel Mings men fell back to the secondary positions, there was still no sign of the enemy.
"Ok men" grunted Ming, to about eighty survivors of the explosion. "We've just been hit with a crippling blow, but we can come back from it. If worst comes to the worst, then know that you did your duty for the Fire Nation. You!" he said as he pointed at a soldiers. "I want you to run to the Royal Embassy. Warn the generals, tell anyone with a weapon what's happened". The soldier looked bewildered. So Ming pushed him, and pointed away from the smoke, "RUN!" he screamed.
The soldier soon disappeared out of sight. "We will stand and fight. We shall fight until the last man. Know this men, an enemy who does not show themselves, is an enemy full of cowardice!" Ming shouted.
With that comment, came shouts and screams of "Charge!" from the smoke. The barriers which had kept the eighty soldiers hidden, were brought tumbling down. As a portion of the army of the Lower Ring ran towards them. The rebels at the front had fierce looks in their eyes, no fear at all in them.
"Attack!" screamed Ming, which was the only thing he could do. If he had ordered a retreat, he'd have been remembered as a coward. Better to go out in a blaze of glory.
A minority of the soldiers decided to drop their weapons, and run the same way as that bewildered soldier. But the majority of the soldiers decided to stay with their leader.
"For the Earth Kingdom!" screamed a member of the resistance.
"For the Fire Nation!" shouted the last men of Colonel Ming's battalion, just as they were engulfed by the never-ending ocean of Lower Ring residents.
"What was that?!" shouted Ting.
"A little suprise" I smirked. "Blasting jelly was placed at the four entrances into the Middle Ring, it seems someone put a little too much in them".
"Get ready, I'm sure there'll be some friendly Fire Nation soldiers heading here" said Feng, as he walked into the hallway.
I picked up a spear and a sword from the many in the room, while Ting walked past me and into the hallway. From the noise, it sounded like he was in a rush to get upstairs.
"Where's he going?" asked Feng, as I followed him out to the front of the house.
"No idea, probably decided to..."
As we walked out the front door, we could see them marching. They had obviously come from the Upper Ring, since they weren't armed yet.
"You there!" shouted the soldier with a darker shade of red on his uniform, obviously the colonel of the soldiers. "We have two hundred men here ready for the fray, we need spears and shield for them all".
The upper class Colonel had obviously not taken that close a look at us. But one of his assistants must have, since she swiftly walked up to him and whispered into his ear. The Colonel looked round at us with a look of horror on his face. That's when an arrow hit his assistant in the chest. Ting fired another two arrows into the battalion before anyone realised what was happening.
"Rebels!" screamed the Colonel "Rebels! Quickly, attack!". Even though most of them didn't have any weapons, there would still be a load of Firebenders in the two hundred men there.
Feng quickly raised slabs of Earth on either side of himself and me, meaning that any attackers would have to come through a two metre gap. Making sure that they couldn't surround us, but it didn't take away the fact that we were heavily outnumbered.
"Lieutenant Sang! Use your unit to handle these rebels. Everyone else, move out!" shouted a voice. Obviously, the Colonel had someone in his hierachy who had some common sense.
Arrows continued embedding themselves into soldiers at an astonishing speed. But the arrows wouldn't be able to get the troop of twenty advancing towards the gap between the two shields of rock.
"Your cornered" said the soldier leading the assault, probably Lieutenant Sang. "Just give up, and you might not be tried as rebels. Come on, it's twenty against two. And in the event of you beating us, there's another hundred and fifty going down the road. Don't be foolish".
"Us, the foolish ones? We're not the ones who blundered into a city, expecting no resistance" replied Feng.
"Oh, we expected it alright" Sang said smugly.
"Did you expect this?" I heard a voice behind me say.
And before I could turn around to see it, I saw an arrow whizz past my eyes. Hitting Sang right between the eyes.
"For the Earth Kingdom!" shouted Ting, diving into the troop with the spear he just snatched out of my hands.
I followed him, slashing at the nearest soldiers with my sword. It became apparent that this was a troop of Firebenders, when they started firing Fireballs at us.
Feng was throwing balls of rock at any Fireballs which might hit their target. Soon, we were forcing the soldiers back through the gap which they came. When they realised that they were losing the fight, the smart ones started running to where the majority of their battalion had gone. Only two were stupid enough to remain, and Ting quickly dealed with them.
"Ting..." Feng said.
"Yes?" replied Ting.
"Where on Earth did that come from?" Feng blurted out.
With that, all three of us burst out laughing, watching our enemies run down the hill.
But that laughter quickly went as we realised that the battalion which had just passed, was running back up the hill.
All three of us ran back inside the doorway, myself and Ting pointing our weapons at the door. And Feng with a ball of rock hovering above his hand, ready. But we became curious when the battalion didn't stop running at the weapons warehouse, but just carried on instead.
It became apparent why when the stragglers of the battalion ran past us, with rocks narrowly missing them. We walked back out of the converted house, and turned to see a sea of rebels pursuing the Fire Nation.
Our happiness almost faded when a large slab of Earth came towards us, but Feng quickly swatted it away.
"Stop!" shouted a member of EKL. "It's Feng!"
People immediately stopped, and stared at us. Feng raised himself above the crowd on a pedestal of rock, and adressed his troops as those without weapons got them from the 'warehouse'.
"Welcome my friends! Welcome to the night of your freedom! How many Firebenders have you made fall tonight?" he shouted at the audience.
"Hundreds!", "Loads", "Not enough!" replied the army.
"Not enough you say?" chuckled Feng. "Well, North of here lies the Royal Palace, which we will re-take for the people! Their not expecting us, and remember have no mercy! For they had none in places like Omashu and Han Tui! Let us march, and let the dogs wait for us to defeat them". And with that speech, we began marching.
Myself, Feng and Ting were at the head of the army. It seemed that any positions in the Middle Ring were being abandoned, with all of the Fire Nation retreating to the Upper Ring.
So to pass the time, we sung. It began with just a few members of the army who were bored, but soon developed into all of us singing with pride, a song which many of us had grown up with.
"It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se,
But the girls in the city they look so pretty.
And they kiss so sweet that you've really got to meet,
the girls from Ba Sing Se!"
Chapter 8
We arrived at the Royal Palace walls just as the sun was rising. It was obvious that Major Sun's part of the great army would be there first, military precision you see. Myself and Fengs part was second, since the Fire Nation had left us alone. Yung and Wei's quarter of the army arrived soon after. While we had to wait for at least an hour before Xue's part of the resistance arrived.
Myself, Feng and Sun went over to talk to Xue.
"Did you lot have any trouble?" asked Xue.
"No" replied Sun.
"One battalion. Minor, really..." I said.
"Well, it must have all come our way" Xue said solemnly. "We started off with about seven-hundred men, or so their temporary leader told me. We came across two battalions in the Middle Ring, and another two in the Upper Ring. We made sure that we left no survivors. We now have five-hundred, at the last head count. The question I want answering is how we came across four battalions, when there's supposed to be twice as many as that in the Middle Ring alone".
"Also, where are all the tanks?" I asked.
"What?" snapped Feng.
"The Upper Ring's supposed to be full of tanks, since no where else is secure. But we haven't seen ANY, and you'd think that there would be some guarding the 'Royal Embassy'"
As we were organising ourselves to attack the gate of the Palace, they opened by themselves. Out of the gates marched an army the same size as ours, perhaps even a little larger. There advantage was that they had cavalry, since all of the armys ostrich horses had ruthlessly been killed, another minor advantage was the few catapults scattered along the Palace walls. As their army marched out to face ours, many of us realised that we could win this. Victory could be in our grasp.
A Fire Nation soldier stepped out of the army and adressed us.
"I am General Chan, and I have come to allow you to surrender. Do not turn this into a battle" he shouted. "You are severely outnumbered. A peasant uprising can not match up to the power of the Fire Nation!"
"Peasant uprising?! We are no peasants! Most of us are soldiers whos job it was to protect this city. And here we are once again, protecting it from the Fire Nation!" shouted back Major Sun. The reply made the entire army roar.
"I respect your bravery for doing this today, but now I give you the choice to return to the Lower Ring. With your surrender, there will be no punishment for the bloodshed so far today. But if you decide to carry on, we will have no choice, but to hunt you down"
"We will never surrender!" shouted Sun, unsheathing her sword. "Down with the Fire Nation!" she shrieked as she ran towards the enemy lines, with her battalion following her.
I made my battalion hold back. "What are you doing?!" shouted Feng.
"Take out those catapults!" I shouted back at Feng.
"Earthbenders, with me!" shouted Feng, taking the Earthbenders back slightly so they could make their own artillery.
"Ting, inform Yung to take his Earthbenders and confront the Komodo Rhinos, otherwise they'll attempt to flank Sun's force. I also want Xue's men to stay in reserve, otherwise we'll have five hundred tired soldiers marching against an army which is fresh and ready to go".
"What about us sir?" asked a member of my unit.
"Get ready for battle, Sun needs some back up!"
Me and my men ran towards Suns battle, just as Feng was firing large slabs of Earth at the catapults. It didn't seem like any of the catapults were being operated, which was an advantage since the Fire Nation hadn't had the bright idea to have flames raining down on us.
The shape of our armies before the fighting began played an important part at the start of the battle. The Fire Nation had just been coming out of the gate, which means their battalions were all in a straight, vertical line. While the troops of the EKL were in a long, horizontal line. Which meant that in the opening stages of the battle, we had surrounded the first parts of the Fire Nation army.
The strict training of the Fire Nation was working against them, since most of them had never fought a battle in the style of a riot before. But, since many of our soldiers had been trained in the taverns of the Lower Ring came as a great advantage. The sea of EKL troops was starting to chip away at the rock of the Fire Nation, with many casualties on the enemy side.
I heard a cheer from behind me, as I saw the last catapult be wrecked by a lump of rock. Now, at last, Feng could enter the battle.
Feng outran his men, and used the Earth to make him soar over the battle. He forced a part of the floor to become soft, making a landing pad for himself. Feng identified, just as I had, that the Komodo Rhinos would be a problem. So he quickly began assisting Yung's Earthbenders. One by one, the rhinos began sinking into the ground, sometimes with their riders still on.
As Chan saw his crack squad of cavalry disappear, he ordered for the tsungi horns to be sounded, therefore recalling his army. The Fire Nation soldiers seemed glad to abandon this battle, and re-enter the safety of the Palace.
"Don't pursue!" I shouted. "Fall back to Xue's position!"
It seemed that that first skirmish had ended, in victory for the EKL.
"I gave them their chance" Chan said to one of his Colonels, as he watched the rebels from the Palace wall. "Send word to Colonel Goh. Have the tanks attack". Chan had decided to hold back the large divisions of tanks, but since the rebels had shown no mercy. Neither would he.
Chapter 9
Behind the Royal Palace, Colonel Goh and his army of tanks had been waiting out of sight. Goh had been wandering what was happening, ever since he was woken up hours earlier.
He had woken up, along with every other person in Ba Sing Se when barrels of blasting jelly exploded all around the Middle Ring. Goh had been forced to get up by a messenger, and ordered to stay with his battalion behind the Royal Embassy.
As the hours passed, more and more tanks arrived, and so did more crews to man them. Meaning that Goh's small battalion had amassed to rather large numbers.
Then, as Goh had woken from his fifth nap that night, a letter came to him.
"Sound the tsungi horn" he said to his lieutenant. "There are rebels at the gates, we're supposed to clear this mess up. Order the men into the tanks, quick sharp!".
As his tank led the rest of the unit, he looked back at the force he commanded in amazement. Over three hundred tanks were about to attack a rebel uprising. Whatever their numbers were, they didn't stand a chance.
Myself, Yung, Wei, Xue, Ting and Feng were discussing the outcome of the first scuffle. When Sun, Jin and a stranger came over to us.
"Head to the University" Jin said sternly.
"What?" Feng said in disbelief.
"I'm from the University, I brought one of thse to conduct surveillance on the battle" said the stranger, holding an implement which resembled a metal tube. "It enables me to see for long distances, and what I've just seen has chilled me to the bone. At least two divisions of tanks are making their way here, via the left side of the Palace"
"God.." was what I said, in all my wisdom.
"Thank you for this friend" Feng said to the stranger, as Jin led him away. "We need to start evacuating. There is no chance that we can battle two divisions of tanks as well as all of those soldiers that will surely come out of the Palace when the tanks turn up. Ting, tell the leaders of the units to start moving out to the University"
"Yes sir" said Ting, as he departed.
"Xue, I want your division to hold back for a short while and form a rear guard for the rest of the army. I'll go ahead and inform the students and professors of the University to disappear for a while".
"Their moving sir, it seems that their heading back to the Middle Ring" Colonel Sichuan said to General Chan.
"Order the infantry to pursue. Also, send a hawk to the battalions on the Inner Wall. I want them to meet the rest of our forces at the University".
"The University?!" asked Sichuan.
"Yes, the University. That's probably where they'll try to make a last stand. If their not heading there, it's still a key position in the Middle Ring".
"Keep it moving!" I shouted. "Move it now, or start running when the tanks arrive!"
My shouts were making them walk slightly brisker. But at the rate which we were going, there was no chance we could all get to the Middle Ring without the tanks catching up to us.
Xue and his battalion was at the back of our column, and were going to protect the rest of the army from the attack of the tanks. Just as the first soldiers marched back into the Middle Ring, that's when Xue raised a giant rock out of the Earth and made it come crashing down, creating a noise which was heard by everyone.
"RUN YOU FOOLS!" Xue screamed. "Run, to the University! Do you want to be turned into ash? Then STOP dilly-dallying and START running!"
Xue then walked up to me with a smile on his face, "That's how you get them moving" he smirked.
Soon our retreat was in full flow, with no sign of the tanks yet. I started thinking that all of us might actually come out of this alive. That was before I saw the gates swing open, and the Fire Nation sprinting towards our lines.
"Keep going" I shouted to my battalion. "Follow the others!".
It was four battalions of them against hardly one battalion of ours. I never doubted Xue's commanding ability, but I decided that another pair of hands wouldn't do any harm.
"Earthbenders, wall!" shouted Feng. Planting his feet firmly onto the ground and raising a large slab of Earth into the sky. His benders did the same, which formed a barrier between themselves and the Fire Nation.
"What should we do?" I asked Xue. For the first time in this whole experience, I was scared. Not just for myself, but for the entire EKL. If we stood and fought, and lost, that would leave our retreating comrades vulnerable to the advancing tanks and infantry. If we ran however, we would leave them unopposed and then the rear guard would be vulnerable to attack.
"I..." stuttered Xue. Xue waited for a few seconds, and then realised what the consequences of either decision would be. "Flee!" shouted Xue "Fall back men! Run you fools!"
Then, it began, five hundred men and women all sprinting away from the wall which they had just built. We soon caught up with the rest of the army, and then all of us, united in fleeing to the University.
Chan was with his men as they tried to burn down the rock wall which seperated them from their prey, to no avail. The noise of motors in the background signalled that soon Colonel Goh would be arriving.
"It seems that you were right sir, the Dai Li have reported that the enemy is heading towards the University" said Sichuan.
"Of course I was right!" snapped Chan. "It's the only structure close by which has defensive capabilities. What news of the battalions from the Inner Wall?"
"Well, they are currently heading through the Lower Ring. And it's thought that they'll reach us in about half an hour".
"Good" said Chan, as a a soldier disembarked from a tank. "Colonel Goh, nice to see you!"
"And you General Chan" Goh said, as they both exchanged Fire Nation salutes. "What's this all about then? I'd rather be tucked up in bed, than waiting round the back of the Royal Embassy" chuckled Goh, while Chan didn't seem as amused.
"We have an uprising of over two thousands Earth Kingdom residents...".
"I say!" exclaimed Goh.
"Exactly Colonel Goh. They are currently heading towards the University in the Middle Ring. Now, would you like to put those tanks to use, or would you like to tell your men to all go back to the barracks and nap?" Chan said to an embarassed Goh.
"Of course not sir!" said Goh, as he turned to his lieutenant. "Bring down that wall! And hunt down those dogs who dare to defy the Fire Lord!"