Bella [AANGXOC]

Chapter 59: The Escape From Omashu

Sorry this one took a bit long too. School has finally ended though and summer has begun. Sure gives me a lot of time to stress about freshman year but whatever lol, enjoy the chapter.

I recognized them as earth kingdom uniforms and made a guess that they wouldn't be hostile, and thankfully, I was correct.

One of the soldiers led us out to a larger opening of the cave headquarters after explaining their resistance against the fire nation troops that had taken over Omashu after we left.

"So is King Bumi with you guys? Is he leading the resistance?" Aang asked the soldier hopefully.

All of the citizens and soldiers in the room went quiet until one of them spoke. "Of course not." He said lifting up his fist in an angry manner.

"The day of the invasion, we readied ourselves for battle. We were prepared to defend our city, to fight for our lives and for our freedom. But before we even had a chance, King Bumi...surrendered." One of the soldiers explained to us.

Aang's face fell. And I felt my eyebrows raise in surprise, he was a bit wacky but he wasn't completely crazy, right?

"I asked him what he wanted to do, he looked me in the eye and said he was going to do nothing." Another soldier spoke up.

"It doesn't matter now, fighting the fire nation is the only path to freedom. And freedom, is worth dying for."

"Actually, there's another path to freedom. You could leave Omashu. You're directing all your energy to fight the Fire Nation, but you're outnumbered, you can't win. Now is the time to retreat so you can live to fight another day, " Aang said. His voice sounded peaceful, a direct contrast to the angry frustrations coming from the soldiers.

The guard held up his fist again, "You don't understand. They've taken our home, and we must fight them at any cost."

"I don't know, Yalo. Living to fight another day is starting to sound pretty good." The other soldier turned to him expressing his concerns. 

The room erupted in mumbling agreements from citizens and soldiers alike.

The guard turned back to us after looking around the room at the nodding faces, "Fine. But there's thousands of citizens that need to leave. How are we gonna get them all out?"

Aang turned to us for ideas and I shrugged my shoulders and turned to Sokka since he was our unofficial idea guy.

"Suckers!" Sokka said abruptly making Momo jump on my shoulder.

Everyone turned to him for an explanation, while I desperately hoped that he even had one.

"You're all about to come down with a nasty case of Pentapox," Sokka explained to the best of his ability.

"Of course! If every citizen is sick the governor wouldn't want them within his walls." I explained a little better and everyone seemed to get the most of it.

Katara and I hastily made our way back down into the sewers to fill a bucket full of pentapusses, while Aang and Sokka gathered everyone in the city near the sewer entrance.

Once Katara and I returned with the bucket, we started placing them on peoples faces and then removing them to cover them in the red spots. Once we were sure we had covered everyone, including ourselves, Sokka gave them the speech.

"The spots make you look sick but you gotta act sick too, you gotta sell it."

Great speech.

"Ok everyone, into sick formation."

Sokka and Katara followed the crowed and I turned to Aang noticing he was backing away from the crowd.

"I'm going to find Bumi." Aang said as he opened up his glider. I nodded to him and then ran off to the crowed of sick looking civilians.

I pushed my hair back a bit to reveal more of the spots and limped quietly with the crowd to the front gate of the city.

Once the guards started noticing the 'sick' crowd of people walkng around I heard bells being rung, probably as some kind of warning. And then the front gates started pulling up.

I mentally jumped up and down, since the plan had worked. I tried to look extra sick as we limped by some guards. We passed through the gate as the sun rose up through the sky.

We disappeared to the view of the guards as we walked over the side of the mountain and back down it again to find ourselves back in the rocky clearing where Appa had been eagerly waiting for us to return.

I dropped the sick facade and went up to pet his fur above his eyes, missing his loving head buts.

Katara and Sokka noticed me and ran over to where I was, I anticipated the question before it left their mouths. "Aang went to look for Bumi," I informed them and they nodded.

The citizens, including us, sat down on the rocky floor and started pulling out varieties of food to eat while we waited for Aang to return.

Well, one of our plans actually worked.

~

People started falling asleep next to their fires as the sun had done a full circle and the moon had rose. But I wasn't sleeping, because we were still waiting for Aang to return with King Bumi. I felt myself grow more and more anxious as the minutes ticked. Katara and Sokka were also being a bit restless but none of us had brought it up yet.

Finally, I saw Aang emerge from over the cliffside with Bumi's pet. Katara, Sokka and I met him as he made his way into the very large campsite.

He didn't look happy like I expected he would. I expected him to come back laughing with arms around Bumi but he looked sad and Bumi was nowhere to be found. 

"We looked everywhere, no Bumi." Aang said when we had made our way over to him. Bumi's pet, Fluffy, also didn't look too happy.

I let the information sink into my head. Not only was this terrible for the people of the city and for Aang, but it also meant that Aang had no teacher, and we have no way of knowing where to start looking for a substitute. 

This is awful. What are we going to do now? 

Before any of us had said anything one of the guards we escaped with walked up to us, "We just did a head count," he said.

"Oh no, Did someone get left behind?" Katara asked before he could finish.

Could this day get any worse? Apparently our plan had failed, as usual.

"No. We have an extra." He said pointing over to the campfires, there was a baby, no more than a year old clinging to Momo's wing. The scary thing was, I was hundred percent sure that no baby had been carried out with us.