章 42: Chapter 42 - Escape

Toph regains her awareness and feels her body's chi recovered. She clicks her tongue and the sound of the click lets her "see" that she's in a small prison cell. She could tell from her bare feet that the cell is metal. If she didn't have sonic vision, she would hardly be able to feel where she was at all.

Actually, she can feel that the metal is perforated in some places with screws that indicate weaknesses in the structure. Sadly, she has no earth to manipulate here. Even her shackles are metal, so she can't form serious earthbending stances.

Toph hates admitting defeat though. She carefully feels the metal of the cell with her feet. She taps the metal repeatedly with her foot in different places and slowly starts to "see" earth inside the metal. Most metal is unpurified, and therefore still contains earth! Toph feels the earth within the metal and pushes it with her foot in the form of a stomp. The stomp indents the metal on the floor by 1 cm.

Toph becomes the first metalbender of all time as she smiles in glee at the discovery, "Neat!" She puts her hands on the floor. She feels the metal in the shackles and snaps the chain by stomping on it into the floor. Toph uses her hands to feel where the earth is most dense in the solid metal cage she's in. She punches hard at that location and dents the metal 2 cm.

After several more loud punches, stomps, and headbutts, the metal is entirely deformed and Toph kicks the metal cage wall off its hinges. One Dai Li guard is watching in abject horror as he watches Toph dent the METAL with earthbending, and thinks, 'Is she some sort of monster?' He doesn't put up any sort of fight before he's knocked out, perhaps knowing the futility.

The underground prison complex is actually rather sparsely populated by Dai Li agents. Most of them wander around the city searching for offenders leaving only a few to keep an eye on prisoners and recruits. Toph lets out an evil laugh at her regained freedom, "Yall are too confident in your imprisonment."

Toph sees Nuwa walk out of her cell calmly with an earthbending imbued [Vibe].

Nuwa asks, "What took you so long?"

Toph replies, "Humph, they knocked me out."

Nuwa retorts, "And whose fault is that? I specifically told you to lay low."

Toph laughs casually, "Whatever! That's not how I work, snakebitch."

Nuwa snickers, "I know. If you were awake and those 40 agents who brought us here saw you metalbending, they might have killed you, haha."

Toph snorts, "Know-it-all snakebitch. So are we having fun first? Or freeing everyone?"

Nuwa smiles, "Free them, there's even some Dai Li agents who have been brainwashed, so we can recruit some of them to help as we go. Don't be too destructive. Portions of the tunnels could collapse and you wouldn't be able to move that much earth without expending a lot of chi."

"Also if you rip off too much earth while getting caught up in fighting, the Lake above us could flood this entire area and we'll all die. Try to be more like the Dai Li and use precision strikes to capture or knock them out."

Toph grumbles, "Fine, I get it."

As Toph is grumbling, a guard rounds the corner to check the commotion and Toph immediately wraps him in the surrounding earth. Nuwa runs over to him and hits his Crown chakra. He loses consciousness momentarily and starts crying when opens his eyes 3 seconds later.

Nuwa points at him sternly, "You're free, but now is the time to concentrate! We have to fight off the other agents, while I free all the prisoners. Man up, soldier!"

Toph scoffs at Nuwa being Nuwa and frees the rest of the Gang and Katara from their prisons. None of the others have guards nor did anyone try to brainwash them, but Nuwa still says the trigger words she set up, "Fuck me, bitch."

The converted agent looks at Nuwa awkwardly.

Nuwa coughs and hurries them along.

Before they round a corner, Nuwa peeks and sees two agents making small talk in front of what looks like a large hall. Nuwa motions to Ty Li, who jumps onto the ceiling and crawls on piles upside down as she approaches them quietly.

Ty Li hangs down from the ceiling and chi-blocks both of them to sleep by tapping the back of their necks. She lets them fall on each other's shoulders and balances them so they are still standing. Then, Ty Li takes a peek inside the hall.

Inside, there's about 6 agents training 40 child earthbenders and 2 waterbenders. The agents make the kids fight each other to instill a brutal mentality and prevent the kids from uniting against them once they get stronger. Eventually, a long training regiment of physical punishment for disobedience and material rewards for obedience converts the children to their cause as future Dai Li agents.

Currently, most of the kids are still either in fear or rage at being kidnapped from their families, but some are already breaking. These select few will try to go all out and kill their fellow comrades just to avoid pain and get rewards.

The crazy kids push the regular kids to get stronger in order to protect themselves and heighten the bar for power. Eventually those crazy kids are killed by the Dai Li in arranged accidents, since they don't actually want crazy people in their teams.

Ty Li returns and feeds the group the information. Nuwa distributes the guards to Toph, Dan, Azula, and Katara while she plans to use her [Induced Good Impression] on the kids to gain their trust. The opportunistic ones can be really fucking crazy so they might attack the escapee group just to get some points from the Dai Li. [Induced Good Impression] is a real blessing in these circumstances so Nuwa doesn't have to worry about those weak-minded proles fucking around.

Ty Li, Mai, and the converted agent are backup.

Azula jumps in and shoots lightning at the farthest soldier, immediately knocking him out for the count. Dan controls the two closest ones with bloodbending as they fumble for their earth gloves. The final two have more of a head start, but Katara's water wraps around his gloves, then he gets smacked by two water blasts into Dan's bloodbending range.

Toph uses earth ankle platforms erupting out of the ground as thrusters to slam into the final agent with an earthbender version of brass knuckles. She's still beating them down as the kid soldiers watch dumbfounded.

Nuwa speaks to the kidnapped kids, "Hello everyone, my name is Stella. I'm a noble who has been captured by the Dai Li because I tried to speak out that the Dai Li is illegally kidnapping children. They do this so that you can serve as soldiers and are hiding this from the citizens and even the Earth King! My comrades have come to rescue me and they will bring you out to freedom as well! Come, follow me to expose the truth of the Dai Li to the world!"

The children seem easily persuaded by the hot chick with a plain face since she's spewing exactly what they want to hear. Plus, when she thrusts her chest out during her inspirational speeches, who can resist the sight of that braless cleavage behind the thin blouse?

Nuwa continues, "Now kids, let's all of us calm down and remember that you are not free yet. We have to fight our way out of this underground prison! Don't destroy the walls with earthbending too much or else the tunnels might collapse on us. When they made you fight each other, the Dai Li were trying to divide you so that you would all be too scared to fight as one! All of you are now life and death comrades working towards the same goal of freedom!"

Nuwa hands off further instructions to Ty Li, since the kids seem to be responding well to breasts. She goes over to the Dai Li agents and taps their Crown chakras. Only one of them converts to their side.

She whispers something in Dan's ear and he nods. Dan goes over to a corrupt Dai Li agent, knocks him out, puts his hands on his ankles as he feels the agent's chi, and adjusts the blood flow several times. Nuwa also uses her chi-blocking knowledge to guide Dan towards the Root chakra.

Dan modifies the blood flow several times before Nuwa can sense that the chi flow to the Root chakra has been cut off. She cheers and gives Dan a tame kiss. He blushes and repeats the final set of bloodbending movements on the other agents. He takes nearly a minute to do so with each agent. Nuwa doesn't really want to kill in front of children, so she figures removing the connection to the earth that makes them so proud of themselves in life is also a suitable punishment.

The group make their way through the catacombs with the help of the two agent converts. Even if they liked the Dai Li before, no one wants to be imprisoned in their own heads just for speaking up about something unethical or corrupt. Even if they feel like it was exaggerated, they too feel their passion for freedom ignite after Nuwa delivers her speech to the children.

With them providing the location of the other training halls and brainwashing quadrants, the group navigates the catacombs freely. They stroll through the rest of the child training halls first in order to free the kids and Nuwa delivers similar but differently worded speeches each time. Nuwa frees another 3 agents from brainwashing and Dan cripples 15 of them from earthbending ever again. The brainwashing quadrant gave the approximately 200 kids a big scare, since there was a room where 100 Joo Dees stood silent doing nothing. Nuwa frees them all and feels fatigue. She has to expend mental energy and chi to chi-block and undo brainwashing.

Just 10 minutes after Nuwa finishes freeing the Joo Dees, Long Feng arrives with a 15 agent escort as the prison break is wrapping up. "You! What have you done!? How dare you children spit on the laws of the Earth Kingdom!"

Long Feng sees 300 people against 15 and although he recognizes that they are largely noncombatants, he immediately aims to divide them and seek an opportunity to escape and bring reinforcements. Some of the less hot-headed and more timid children feel fear creep up until Nuwa replies in a domineering tone, "Cease your ramblings, traitor to the Kingdom! I know you've brainwashed the Earth King just like the Joo Dees behind me! I advise you to immediately surrender yourself to my custody if you want a chance to survive, otherwise only death or lifetime imprisonment awaits you. The Dai Li still have a chance to be reformed if you do so."

A tense silence proceeds Nuwa's statements as her words echo within the catacombs. The echoes of "traitor to the Kingdom" are particularly emphasized. Long Feng struggles with finding a way to make it through this nightmare. First, the Avatar arrives to talk to the Earth King and then he's blind-sided by a prison break he may not be able to handle!

Long Feng thinks, 'The Avatar must have planned all this, knowing that his friends can break out and knowing that I wouldn't dare to kill them! That baldy monk is way too cunning! No more power? No more comfortable life in the Royal Palace? No more Dai Li lackeys for me to rule? There's no way I can let that happen! I've invested my entire life's work into this. There's no way I'll let it be torn apart by a shitty kid even if he houses an immortal spirit!'

Long Feng orders, "ATTACK!"

Then he runs back towards Ba Sing Se. The brainwashed Dai Li agents among his escort do as they're told, which is about 4 of them. The other 11 look at each other, nod, and swarm the running Long Feng with earth gloves. In fact, they are just as opportunistic and scummy as Long Feng. They know that they stand no shot against the Avatar and his friends, but they also see other Dai Li agents behind Nuwa, so they take action to have a shot at swapping sides.

Toph and Azula take down the 4 brainwashed agents and Nuwa releases them from their mental chains. Katara heals the ones that got injured. The 11 agents capture Long Feng neatly after a small fight. Long Feng is an earthbending master, but even he cannot fight off 11 of his elite squad working together. Synergy is the strongest trump card of the Dai Li, allowing their precision style of bending to overwhelm superior opponents with numbers.

Long Feng is thrown to the ground spitting and shouting, "You ingrates! This is a peasant rebellion! You're all in contempt of the state! The Earth King will have your heads!"

Nuwa smiles, "Wrong, the Earth King will want your head, because you are the reason the Dai Li turned out like this. I am your only hope." Hearing this, the 11 Dai Li agents gave sighs of relief that she blamed the entire thing on Long Feng.

Nuwa waves Dan over. "Long Feng, your reign of terror and ignorance in Ba Sing Se is over. My friend here has the special ability to call on a Spirit to remove your inborn bending. Once he's done, you'll be a weak citizen, just like those you oppress. It's time that you get a taste of your own medicine."

Long Feng remains skeptical, but feels existential dread creep up as Dan approaches. He begins to whimper, "No.. No.. not my bending. I don't want to be weak.. I can't be weak! I am the Head of the Dai Li! You can't do this to me!" Struggling against the earth gloves restraining him, the guards remain skeptical of Dan's supposed ability to remove bending.

Dan knocks out Long Feng, holds his ankles for a full minute and thoroughly severs his connection to his Root chakra. Nuwa walks over and wakes up Long Feng. She smiles wickedly, "Congratulations, Long Feng. You can no longer bend. Any of you former Joo Dees want to help 'take care' of Long Feng?"

The escorts release Long Feng from his bindings curiously and feel abject horror as Long Feng takes earthbending stances and nothing happens. Even imprisonment is better than losing their bending! They inwardly make the resolve to never get on the wrong side of the girl with the nice cleavage and Dan.

Nuwa shoves the trembling Long Feng into the group of former Joo Dees, who he immediately tries to attack with earthbending, but still nothing happens. The girls all smile wickedly at their jailor getting his just dues. A dozen of the more courageous girls come over and kick at him, which doesn't look like it hurts at all, but Long Feng nevertheless cowers in fear as he adopts a fetal position to defend himself.

All the former Joo Dees are in tears, along with Katara, who seems to be crying because of justice prevailing. She has somewhat lost faith in justice since she hasn't seen any meaningful counterattack response against the Fire Nation, only defense in the Northern Water Tribe. Now she's finally convinced herself that she too can get revenge against Yon Rha, her mother's killer, as she witnesses true justice delivered.

Azula also feels vindication. Just six months ago, she too was trapped within the castle walls of the Fire Nation Royal Palace. It felt like decades ago that Nuwa led her out of those walls. Now, Nuwa is freeing hundreds of innocent people from other prisons.

Azula does not quite understand the righteous morals that Nuwa talks about like "freedom of opportunity" and "basic human rights," but she resolves herself to slowly understand. She knows that Nuwa wants to change the world, so she will stay by her side to share the weight of the world with her. This is the obsession and love she holds deep in her heart.

~ ~ ~

Aang walks around the middle ring as the Joo Dee smiles and gives a tour filled with propaganda. With all his thoughts on his captured friends, especially Katara, he barely pays any attention to the tour or his surroundings.

Zuko and Iroh pass by Aang on their way to the outer ring from the inner ring. They both smile at his presence, knowing that their family is near. Zuko wanted to see the difference between the rings in Ba Sing Se, so Iroh cashed in a favor from a rich friend who he claims he befriended through Pai Sho and got them a ticket down to the inner ring. Now they're going to the slums.

Aang doesn't recognize them, so he continues. Zuko doesn't bother to stop him either and continues towards the monorail station to go to the outer ring.

This is a good thing, because knowing Aang, he'd say something devoid of common sense like, "Oh, you're Zuko? Nice to meet you man! I see your girlfriend naked every night banging Slinky. She's quite the sight! You're a lucky guy."

~ ~ ~

The escapees emerge from underground inside the Royal Palace. They're all tuckered out after walking for miles and experiencing emotional upheaval. The kids quickly fall asleep on walls, on each other, or on a former Joo Dee. Nuwa smiles at how tightly knit this escapee army is already.

Nuwa picks up a bruised and battered Long Feng and has him lead her, Toph, and Dan to the Earth King. The rest of the group defends the escaped prisoners. No longer offering resistance and seemingly giving up on life, Long Feng does as he's told.

Dragging Long Feng by the collar on the floor, Nuwa bursts into the throne room with a heroic pose as her cleavage bounces in the dim rays of the setting sun, ushering in the end of a tyrannical regime.

Future scholars argued back and forth what message Nuwa was trying to convey with her actions. By parading the fact that she took down a shadow ruler of the Earth Kingdom, was it actually a veiled threat towards Ozai? When she entered the court with her friends alongside the last rays of the setting sun, was she implying that the Fire Nation will also fall into darkness like the setting sun? Was she demanding that the old must give way to the young all throughout the world?

In reality, Nuwa just thought it'd look badass.