Accidental Avatar 3.5: The Burn Book

Final Stand Kind of Stuff

With the city as ours, we could finally remove our eclipse glasses. Taking the city itself had been easier than anyone had imagined in the lead up to the invasion. You would think that with the royal family living here, they would have more non-benders protecting them. You know, just in case that circus freak girl shows up and tries to take over the city.

"What should we do, Hakoda?" Bato asked. "Shouldn't something have happened by now?"

"I don't know," Hakoda shrugged. "But now that the eclipse is over, I expect we're going to see some firebenders any minute."

"Firebenders are fun," I added. "They spice up the fight a little, but don't put too much in your cooking, or they will overpower everything else."

Suddenly a thingy appeared in the sky. It was big and metal. It looked like it was made of lead; it was moving so slowly... it was a Lead Zeppelin...

"My own invention!" Old Man Mechanist groaned. "Oh, this is terrible!"

War balloons and Battle Zeppelins rose over the city as our soldiers looked on in horror.

"They're back!" Katara sounded relieved, pointing up at a descending Appa.

Mogui jumped down from Appa's back before they even touched down.

"Are you seeing this?!" Mogui exclaimed.

"Yeah," I awed at the sky. "But why are you guys back so early? Aren't you supposed to be still sawing off the Firelord's head so we can show these guys their king is dead?"

"It was all a trap," Sokka's voice was full of frustration. "Azula knew we were coming, and she's plotted out every move."

"We didn't even get to see the guy, let alone cut off his head," Mogui sounded down.

"We just got to get to the beach as fast as we can," Sokka continued. "If we can make it to the submarines, maybe we can get away safely."

"They've got airpower," Aang exclaimed as he opened his glider. "But so do I! I'm going to do what I can to slow them down."

Our little monk then threw his glider into the air, catching it and flew into the air. It looked super cool.

"Appa and I can help too," Katara called as she ran to the bison and launched.

"Wouldn't lightning be better against those things?" Mogui asked, watching them recede. "OH!"

"What?" Hakoda asked as Mogui turned to me.

"Boeing B-17," he pointed at the blimps. "The Flying Fortress. What was their number one killer in the war?"

"Which war?" Sokka asked.

"OH! You've told me this!" I pressed my knuckles to my head. "Flank something or other."

"The FlaK-88," he corrected. "Loaded with explosive, shrapnel rounds."
"I think I know where this is going," I turned to the inventor. "Do we have any grenades or explosives left?"

"I don't think so," the old man replied. "Maybe in the tanks?"

"The defence towers at the beachhead had explosive bolts," Hakoda offered, gesturing to his wounds.

"Let's retreat to the beachhead," Mogui suggested. "Mut and I will go ahead and pick up the explosive bolts. See if we can't knock down at least one of those blimps."

"Right," Sokka shouted to the troops. "Everyone, let's get back to the subs!"

As we were running, I noticed that Katara and Aang were wreaking havoc with the balloons. The Blimps, however, seemed too heavily armoured and had too much firepower coming off them. Aang and Katara were getting bounced right off them.

They eventually returned to the column of troops as we got to the line of bunkers. Mogui kicked in a door and ran in. He was back out less than ten seconds later with four giant arrows. I took one, and Mogui primed it for firing, then I encased it in earth. Mogui stood back, and I bent the Earth casing as high and far as I could, aiming for a blimp. It missed, but the explosives went off right next to it. The side got peppered with shrapnel. When the smoke cleared, two men were hanging from the underside of the blimp. One was thrashing, while the other was motionless.

"Prime me another one," I ordered Mogui. He obliged.