99 A.G
Suki was sure she had been under more pressure in the last few days than in her entire life combined. The fighting in the Middle Ring had not slowed much since the uprising spread beyond the Lower Ring, and every day brought more wounded people toward the relief stations.
The Free People of Ba Sing Se, as the rebel movement had begun calling itself, were fighting the city guards and Dai Li for entire streets at a time, while civilians tried to move away from wherever the fighting became worse.
Millions had already been displaced inside the city, and keeping everyone fed and reasonably healthy had become a problem of its own. Suki's people had requested more food, medicine and clean water several times already, while healers warned that overcrowding could become just as dangerous as the fighting if diseases started spreading through the camps.
The Fire Nation had unexpectedly kept its soldiers outside the city through all of it. They controlled the gates and supplied most of what came through them, but their regular infantry had not entered the Lower or Middle Rings.
The only Fire Nation troops Suki regularly saw inside were earthbenders that she knew had joined the Fire Nation army, but they were wearing Earth Kingdom clothing, usually moving with rebel groups or helping to remove rubble caused by the fighting.
Princess Azula was the obvious exception, for Suki had seen her several times beside Toph Beifong, moving through the Lower Ring with confidence, both sticking out as any young girl would in the middle of the biggest rebellion the world had ever seen.
Toph seemed perfectly happy though, for some reason, and Suki had stopped trying to understand their friendship after the first few encounters. At least they were keeping away from the fighting.
The one who had been difficult to track was Lin. She disappeared from the main camp occasionally, sometimes for hours and sometimes for most of a day, and Suki had decided that she probably did not want to know what the general was doing during those absences.
Whenever they did meet, Lin was usually inside the command tent near the opened gates, surrounded by officers discussing whatever came next. Suki had enough work without asking questions that might give her more reasons to dislike the woman coordinating half the supplies keeping the Lower Ring alive.
The previous day had been particularly exhausting after Suki attempted to negotiate a ceasefire between the Free People and what remained of the Royal Council, which sadly had not proved fruitful at all.
Neither side trusted the other, but the fighting in the Middle Ring was causing too much damage for her not to try. The Royal Council had eventually agreed to discuss terms, although their conditions made it obvious that they were not particularly interested in peace.
They wanted the meeting held inside the Upper Ring, with only Royal Guards allowed to provide security, while the leaders of the rebellion were expected to enter without their own armed protection.
Suki had almost laughed when she heard the proposal. Nobody among the Free People had accepted it, and after everything they had learned about the Dai Li, Suki could hardly blame them.
Walking into the Upper Ring under those conditions would have been less of a negotiation and more of a convenient way to arrest every important rebel leader at once. By the following morning, fighting had resumed as heavily as before.
Suki spent most of the day moving between medical tents before one of Lin's messengers found her and said the general wanted to speak with her again. She left the relief camp in the care of the other Kyoshi Warriors and made her way toward the Fire Nation position outside the gates.
The difference between both sides of the wall still felt abysmal. Inside, streets were crowded with refugees, wounded fighters and families looking for somewhere safe to stay, while outside the Fire Nation camp remained organized, with supply wagons and trains continuing moving without much interruption.
Lin's command tent stood close to the main entrance of the city, and Suki kept pace in that direction. But upon reaching the tent the guards were nowhere to be seen and a soldier passing by told her she was further down the road to the west.
Feeling tired and grumpy at having to keep walking further down she sighed and continued heading toward the General. As she approached an artificial sloped terrain she started hearing cracking sounds.
The guards were there and upon recognizing her, they let her through a small clearing where Lin was discussing with other officers and she had one of those Fire Nation weapons. Metal and wood although this one seemed to be slightly smaller than the so-called rifles she had seen a few days ago.
"Ah, Suki. Come." Lin motioned at her once she saw her approach. "Excuse us." She said and the officers bowed and left promptly.
"Sorry to have made you come all the way here, I was testing a new weapon that will greatly help us in the future." Lin said.
"I see, it looks smaller than the ones I saw before." Suki said.
"Yes, but it would have a different role. It's called a sub-machine gun, although so far I'm afraid it might jam as much as a Grease Gun." She said, sighing.
Suki didn't know what a grease gun was but she really didn't care about it either way.
"What do you want?" Suki asked before she could explain, not hiding her bad mood.
"The rebellion is causing a bigger crisis than we expected." Lin said.
"Yes, but I doubt this wasn't your doing." Suki replied.
"While we were responsible for uncovering the crimes against their own people, we certainly were not expecting the Royal Council to fight against their own people. I don't know what the King is thinking going against his own people like this." Lin continued unfazed.
"I know… I wanted both sides to make peace, but so far, I don't see that happening." Suki said, tiredly.
"The Free People of Ba Sing Se have requested that our full armies enter the city and help them win the rebellion for their side, with a lot of concessions given to the Fire Nation should we win."
"You are telling me that you will invade the city fully then?" Suki asked, fearful.
"No, we believe that will only bring more misery and death to them. It would inevitably cause a lot of damage and we would be forced to help repair a lot of the city's infrastructure if we did that. Not to mention we don't want to lose more people than we have already lost by getting here." Lin replied.
"Then…?"
"We will invade the palace directly and take the Royal Council and Dai Li headquarters by force, then force them to surrender to the Free People's side." Lin stated.
"What? How?" Suki asked.
"Well, we will fly and land directly at the palace. You don't need to know the details, but I urged you to be prepared to assist people both in the Middle and Upper Ring once we assault the palace. There will probably be a lot of confusion and we will have a lot of wounded for sure."
"Right… more work." Suki sighed.
"Sure, but we will make sure this senseless killing comes to an end finally." Lin said confidently.
"I hope you succeed then."
----0000---
The strike force had been assembled before dawn, gathered across the prepared airfield while gliders were being inspected one final time behind them. Lin had kept the operation limited to soldiers she knew were the best of the best.
They were prepared to move quickly once they landed, with officers assigned to seize different parts of the palace and secure anyone connected to the Royal Council before they had time to organize a response.
Long Feng remained the highest priority of course, but the King should be made accountable to the eyes of the people, even if by Lin's intel, he was a prisoner himself. The information they had taken from the Dai Li agent had given them several likely routes through the palace, including passages that could be used to move officials away from the fighting.
Lin had assigned teams specifically to those locations, knowing that taking the palace meant little if the man controlling the Dai Li managed to escape them. He could easily plot something else while the city was under the control of the Free People of Ba Sing Se.
Azula obviously included herself in the plans, and Toph for once didn't want to be left behind, arguing that she was doing it for her people and not even the idea of paradropping deterred her, which spoke highly of how much the young girl was willing to go to participate.
Around her, soldiers finished checking parachutes, weapons and ammunition while pilots moved between the gliders. The mood was different from the one before the march toward Ba Sing Se. Back then, nobody knew how long the siege would take or how many of them would survive it.
Now the Earth Kingdom army had been broken, the battle was already won, and they just didn't commit to a final push just so that they could be hailed as heroes. They would take the city as liberators, not as conquerors, making it easier to control and manage.
Lin stepped onto one of the raised platforms near the center of the airfield and waited until the conversations around her gradually faded. Hundreds of eyes turned toward her, and she waited patiently for her disciplined soldiers to completely assemble before beginning.
"Soldiers of our great nation. The time has come. The enemy is fractured, panicked, and on their last legs."
She could see how excited some of them were even from where she stood. Everyone understood they were so close to winning over their biggest enemy.
"Right now, they cling to their last fortress, hoping that a miracle will save them. What's coming for them is death. With this operation our victory will be complete."
Several soldiers began shouting in agreement, but Lin continued before the cheering could grow enough to interrupt her. The operation depended on speed and discipline rather than raw destruction, yet there was no reason to lessen the importance of what they were about to do.
"It is time for us to bring an end to this war. It is time to show the world that we are unstoppable."
The response grew louder, spreading across the formation as soldiers raised fists, rifles and spears. Lin waited only long enough for the noise to settle before continuing, keeping her voice loud enough to carry toward the soldiers farther back.
"Today… the fate of the war will be decided."
"Today, you will put an end to a century of chaos and fracture."
"Today, you will become legends, you will become heroes admired by everyone back home."
"Today… we put an end to the Earth Kingdom!"
That brought the strongest reaction yet, with her soldiers eager to finally put an end to the Earth Kingdom's resistance. Everyone standing there understood what success would mean for them and for the families waiting back home.
Lin raised one arm and slammed it against her chest armor plate.
"For peace! For the Fire Nation!"
The answer came back from across the airfield in a roar. Lin stepped down from the platform while officers immediately began calling their units toward the waiting gliders. The soldiers moved quickly, still energized by the speech as they loaded equipment and prepared for takeoff.
Azula was already waiting near her assigned glider along with a not so enthusiastic Toph, dressed for combat and looking far too pleased with being included in the palace raid. Lieutenant Toma and the rest of Lin's immediate team were preparing nearby while pilots completed their last checks on their equipment.
Lin looked once toward the distant walls of Ba Sing Se before climbing aboard. If everything went according to plan, the war would be all but won.
----0000----
Lin's glider flew in tight formation with the rest of the strike force as they approached Ba Sing Se shortly before dawn. The sun had not yet risen over the horizon, leaving enough darkness to make them harder to identify from the ground while still giving firebenders the advantage once they were fighting.
There were considerably more gliders than Lin would have preferred for an operation like this, but they did not have much choice. She had been corresponding with Minister Qin about improving the design for months now, and work had already begun on larger aircraft capable of carrying more soldiers.
They were even experimenting with adapting engines similar to those used in their tanks so that the aircraft would no longer depend entirely on gliding and favorable winds. Unfortunately, none of those designs were ready yet, which left Lin spreading her strike force across dozens of smaller gliders to get enough soldiers over the palace at once.
Lieutenant Ran was at the front, fiddling with his straps. He had the task of jumping first before her and making contact with the enemy before she reached the ground. Lieutenant Toma was her pilot as usual.
Lin turned her attention toward the city as they crossed the Middle Ring. Fighting could still be seen in isolated areas below, with fires illuminating some of the streets, but most people would have little reason to look toward the sky until the gliders were already above them.
The palace appeared ahead soon afterward, surrounded by the wealthy estates and gardens of the Upper Ring. Lin had expected resistance once they landed, but she had hoped their approach would remain mostly unnoticed until then. Movement from below immediately proved that hope wrong.
Large sections of shaped stone rose from prepared positions around the palace grounds and launched upward toward the formation. The first passed well beneath them, but another climbed high enough that several pilots immediately changed direction to avoid it.
"They prepared anti-air defenses!" Toma shouted over the wind.
Lin leaned toward the side of the glider and watched another enormous stone projectile pass through the formation without hitting anything. They were crude weapons and hitting a moving glider at this distance would require considerable luck, but accuracy was not what worried her.
They could hit the parachutes and cause some casualties on their way down for sure.
"Keep formation!" Lin shouted toward the nearest gliders. "Do not scatter! Paratroopers prepare to jump!"
The order began traveling between aircraft as officers repeated it. They were already close enough to the palace that some could begin jumping and steering towards their original land point, and having soldiers in the air would reduce the number that could be lost if another glider was hit.
Men began jumping from the surrounding aircraft and opening their parachutes above the Upper Ring while the gliders continued forward. Lin waited while Toma checked the last straps around his equipment, preparing to follow the rest of their team.
Another stone flew beneath them, followed by one that passed close enough to make their pilot flinch.
Lin grabbed the frame beside him. "Straight ahead! Ignore them!"
"Yes, General!"
"Alright, begin jumping! Go, Go, Go!" Lin ordered, and Lieutenant Ran was the first to jump.
She was preparing to jump when another glider suddenly crossed into their path. Its pilot had tried to avoid one of the incoming rocks and overcorrected directly toward them before either aircraft had enough room to turn away. The impact tore through both wings and threw Lin to one side.
Wood and fabric tangled together as the two aircraft spun sideways, throwing several soldiers free before they could jump properly. Lin held onto the frame which stopped her from being thrown out immediately and saw the damaged wing begin breaking apart around them.
"Toma, jump!" Lin ordered, but she looked back and found him hanging against the side of the damaged glider, unconscious but still held in place by his restraints.
A broken section of the frame had struck him during the collision probably, and with both aircraft beginning to fall there was no time to wake him.
Lin pulled the knife from the sheath strapped against her leg and moved toward him while holding herself against what remained of the frame. She cut through his restraints one after another, catching him with her other arm to stop him from being ejected away from her.
The gliders were beginning to separate beneath them as pieces continued breaking free. Lin secured Toma against herself using one of the remaining harnesses, tightening it around both of them. Carrying another person would make the descent considerably harder, but leaving him behind was not an option.
She made sure her parachute was ready and then pushed herself away from the wreckage and jumped. The wind immediately caught them as they fell toward the Upper Ring, with broken fragments and pieces of both gliders dropping around them.
Lin waited several seconds to make sure they were clear before pulling the release on her parachute. The sudden force against the harness nearly tore Toma from her grip, but the straps held and their descent slowed considerably.
Lin wrapped one arm around him anyway while using the other to control their direction as much as she could and using firebending on the tip of her legs to steer away from the rocks being thrown around.
Most of the strike force was landing around the palace itself, but Lin was not able to reach her landing zone. The collision had carried them away from the intended approach, and the wind was now pushing her toward one of the large royal gardens along the edge of the palace grounds.
She could see soldiers descending several paces away, but nobody close enough to land with them, although that did not concern her much. Azula knew the operation, Toph could help them navigate the palace, and every officer involved had been given their objective before departure.
Her presence wouldn't collapse the assault at all, and her soldiers were her best for a reason. She concentrated instead on keeping Toma from being injured during the landing. They struck the ground harder than Lin would have liked, and she immediately rolled sideways to avoid landing on him.
The parachute collapsed across part of the garden while Lin unfastened the harness and carefully lowered Toma onto the grass. He was breathing normally, and there was no obvious blood around his head, which was reassuring enough for the moment.
Lin began removing the parachute from around them when she heard movement closing in on her. Royal Guards were approaching from several directions. She counted the ones she could see while drawing her sub-machine gun, keeping herself between them and Toma.
More movement came from behind a stone pavilion and along one of the paths, in a matter of seconds, at least several groups were converging on the garden after seeing their parachute. Lin raised the weapon but kept her finger away from the trigger.
The guards had not attacked yet, and firing immediately would only encourage anyone still hidden to remain that way. If they believed she was trapped and allowed everyone nearby to gather before attacking, dealing with them would be considerably easier.
Lin remained beside the unconscious lieutenant and waited.
"It's that demon!" someone shouted. "Captain! What do we do?!"
One of the bigger guards moved forward. "Surrender, monster! We have you surrounded."
Lin grinned and saw them flinch.
"All I am surrounded by is fear… and dead men."
----0000----
Lieutenant Toma woke with his head throbbing and the smell of burning flesh filling his lungs. For several seconds his vision remained blurred and he could not remember how he had ended up on the ground, but once his eyes focused, the scene in front of him made him forget about the pain for a moment.
A pile of Royal Guard bodies was burning in the middle of the garden while General Lin dragged another corpse toward it. She added the body to the pyre and used firebending to strengthen the flames, sending more smoke rising above the trees.
It was a grotesque sight, almost as if he were in the most heinous place on earth. General Lin was standing beside the fire with another body held beneath one arm. Toma watched in stunned silence as she added the dead guard to the pile, stepped back and used firebending to strengthen the flames.
The fire immediately spread higher around the bodies, sending another wave of heat and smoke across the garden. Toma felt a chill go through him as he tried sitting up, disturbing the remains of the parachute beside him and immediately drawing Lin's attention.
"Ah, Lieutenant, you are finally awake!" she said before walking over and crouching beside him.
Toma flinched slightly, but Lin only moved his hair aside and inspected the area where something had apparently struck him.
"You have a noticeable bump, but I don't feel anything broken. Can you see properly?"
"I think so, General…" Toma replied, blinking several times. "What happened?"
"You were knocked unconscious when we collided with another glider, so I cut you free and carried you down with me. We landed several paces away from the intended drop point."
Toma looked past her toward the burning bodies.
"They found us almost immediately after we landed." Lin explained
Toma decided there was little reason to ask how many guards had attacked them when the answer was currently burning a few paces away. He swallowed the bile down his throat and looked up at her.
"What are we going to do now?" he asked.
"Well, I made a pyre so the smoke could act as a signal for our soldiers. We are separated from the rest of the strike force and this should be visible from quite far away, but nobody has arrived yet."
Toma stared at the column of dark smoke rising above them. "Ah… I- I see."
"I thought it would be quite impossible to ignore, but I guess my orders were quite strict to carry out the assault even if they didn't see me there."
Lin helped him sit upright and waited while he recovered from the dizziness. "You should probably stay down a little longer, but I don't think we should, they might have reinforcements coming in and I doubt they will surrender until we capture the palace completely."
Toma checked his equipment and found most of it still attached. Lin noticed him preparing and slowly reached for the inside of her leg and pulled her own sidearm.
"Here, I still have bullets for my weapon. I know you are a proficient firebender, but it never hurts to be prepared. I've seen you fire them before, you know what to do."
He nodded, accepting the gun and taking it from her hands. "Do we just move toward the palace then?" he asked.
Lin looked toward the palace through the trees. "Indeed, we make our way in. Our team is capable of continuing the operation without us, and if we meet friendly forces along the way we regroup with them."
Toma pushed himself to his feet with her help, still feeling unsteady but capable of walking. He looked once more to the pile of burning bodies, which was a mistake as he felt dread and nausea come back.
Lin didn't notice, however, and she adjusted her sub-machine gun and began moving toward the nearest path leading deeper into the royal grounds.
'I'm so glad the war is almost over, I don't want to see this ever again.' he thought.
Toma tightened his armor, strapped the handgun under his belt, and followed behind her.
----0000----
It took Toph a few minutes after landing to stop feeling nauseous, which only confirmed that she hated flying and had no intention of making a habit out of jumping from gliders ever again. Once her stomach settled, though, there was no time to complain.
The palace grounds had already turned into a mess of shouting soldiers, earthbending and fire, with Fire Nation paratroopers dropping across several areas at once and forcing the Royal Guards to react in every direction.
Azula stayed close to her while they moved inside with the rest of their group. Toph could feel dozens of people moving through the palace halls ahead, some retreating and others trying to organize resistance, while more familiar footsteps appeared from different directions as other strike teams managed to regroup with them.
Lin was nowhere nearby, but Toph was not particularly worried about that. Metalsticks had probably landed somewhere else after the formation broke apart, and if there was one person in the entire palace she did not expect to need rescuing, it was Lin.
The fighting inside was easy for Toph, no earthbender was really a challenge after fighting King Bumi. Stone floors carried every movement clearly beneath her feet, allowing her to warn the others whenever Dai Li agents tried to sneak toward them.
Azula and the soldiers dealt with most of them before they could properly attack, while Toph guided them through the palace. Toph was expecting a harder fight, and once more soldiers joined them inside, they were able to capture or defeat most of them quickly.
Several surrendered in fear, while others continued resisting until they were knocked down or forced away from the corridors leading deeper into the palace. They kept moving toward the underground sections according to the information Lin had gathered earlier.
Toph guided them down several stairways and through increasingly narrow passages while feeling for any tunnels, leading them deeper into the royal dungeons. By the time they reached the deepest point beneath the palace, most of the fighting was happening far above them.
Toph could still feel vibrations traveling through the structure whenever something heavy struck the ground, but the corridors around them had become calmer. When they entered the final section of the dungeon, Toph stopped and felt a group of people ahead.
One was standing rigidly near the back of the chamber, surrounded by several Dai Li agents who immediately prepared to fight, and there was another presence who remained farther inside.
"Long Feng, running away like a coward, huh?" Azula, taunted.
"A spoiled brat and a traitor won't stop me." The man replied
"Get them!" He ordered.
Her group immediately went into the offensive and Toph used lava bending to stop Long Feng from going anywhere, burying his legs in the hottest rock he had probably felt. His screams echoed through the underground chamber.
Although he quickly freed himself he was not walking anywhere like that, and even though he tried to retaliate, Toph quickly disabled him using an earth column to hit him straight in the chest throwing him to the ground.
The rest made short work of the Dai Li, capturing everyone shortly after.
"Hah, they were no match for us." Azula said.
"Of course they were not, you have me." Toph replied, smirking. "There is someone further away in what looks like a cell by the way." She commented.
"Oh yeah, I see him. He looked beaten up." Azula said.
"Who is it?" She asked.
"That… that is the Earth King." Colonel Zhou answered for them.
"Oh… juicy. I know exactly what to do with them." Azula said, sounded happy.
"What?"
"We will parade them around, everyone will surrender once they see we have them, then we can give them to the rebels, see what they make of them."
----0000----
[...] That evening, Ba Sing Se's central Plaza in the Upper Ring saw Long Feng and King Kuei hanging from their feet upside down. They were showered with rocks, and people used them as punching bags. They were murdered by the masses.
Alongside them, the Royal Council, consisting of three generals, the Earth Queen and all of the heads of the richest families in the Upper Ring were also executed, leaving the Free People of Ba Sing Se to control the city.
The rebel leaders would form a coalition government that surrendered itself to the Fire Nation as a puppet nation. The Hundred Years War was almost all but over by this point. It was clear for everyone that no one could, or even wanted to challenge the Fire Nation.
It signaled the end of the Earth Kingdom as a unified region. Ba Sing Se itself wouldn't be an independent region for years to come. [...]
- Extract from The Fall of the Earth Kingdom by Huajin
----000----
Art by Cali (you can find the @CalypseArt in vgen. It's Colonel Zhou :3