Peering down from the thick cloud line atop Inma’s saddle, Sora tracked the black hull of the Fire Nation warship cutting through the turbulent ocean currents below.
Sora turned toward Aang and signaled with his hand, his voice fighting the whistling wind, “Maintain your altitude within the storm clouds.
We need a cover to mask our silhouettes completely so we don’t raise any early alerts.” Eventually, the vessel anchored alongside a colossal stone structure, built like a solid mountain cut out and planted right in the heart of the sea; a fortified prison and a massive refining rig bolted firmly into the seabed.
From their high vantage point, dense plumes of toxic black smoke were billowing out, while the fiery orange glow of the coal furnaces leaked from the ventilation shafts.
The group brought Inma and Appa into a tight, parallel formation, banking within the fog to draft their infiltration plan.
“Good grief, Sora!” Sokka stammered, his teeth chattering as he gripped the rim of Appa’s saddle, his eyes wide with terror.
“Are you honestly suggesting we breach a high-security military fortress, wage war against a consolidated Fire Nation garrison, and ignite a prison break for a bunch of captive earthbenders?!
Is it just me, or have you completely lost your mind?!” The terrifying scale of the prison was enough to strike fear into anyone’s heart, explicitly designed to break the physical and psychological will of the toughest men.
Sora replied in a cold tone, completely devoid of emotion, “Calm your nerves, Sokka.
Do not let the massive size of the building deceive you.
The larger a fortress is, the more blind spots it has, and the more catastrophic its downfall becomes.
Isn’t that the simplest law of reality?
Maintain your composure.” Sokka threw his hands up in frustration, saying, “Oh, great logic!
You expect me to just believe your unverified theories?!
I know for a fact your words have a huge flaw, but I currently lack the evidence to prove it to you!” Katara interrupted them, furrowing her brows as she looked back and forth between them, “Hold on a minute.
How are we supposed to convince a broken population of earthbenders to actively stage a violent uprising with us against their guards?” Aang blinked with genuine innocence and looked perplexed as he said, “Isn’t that obvious?
They’re locked in cages.
Who wouldn’t fight for their own freedom the second the slightest opportunity presents itself?” Sora let out a short, dry chuckle.
“People don’t move on such naive principles, Aang.
We won’t waste our breath trying to convince them with speeches.
The moment we engage the garrison and they witness me severing the heads of their oppressors one after another, the barrier of fear paralyzing them will shatter.
Terror only lasts as long as the victim thinks their torturer is invincible.
These are hardened, broken men; they won’t move for empty rhetoric, but they will unleash absolute hell the second they see their captors’ blood spilling on the ground.” Sora understood the nature of earthbenders; their earth element gave them a patience and stubbornness like rock.
They wouldn’t gamble their lives for verbal promises, but the sight of their enemy’s blood pooling on the deck—seeing Fire Nation soldiers dying right in front of their eyes—would instantly ignite the primal fuse of vengeance and survival in a single second.
Sora continued, his eyes scanning the details of the rig, “But first, we must provide them with a weapon.
An earthbender without earth is useless.
Their cells are stripped of any stone, but our weapon is already sitting right in front of us: the coal.” “The coal?!” Sokka’s eyes widened as the ideas began to connect in his brain.
“Are you saying that dense, black smoke pouring from the furnaces is fueled by raw coal?
You want us to take this fuel and deliver it directly to their cells?!” “Exactly.
Coal is nothing more than rocks compressed by the earth for centuries, and it falls entirely under earthbending,” Sora confirmed.
“Aang, Sokka—your primary objective is to infiltrate the lower industrial floors of the refinery and find a mechanical way to force the coal reserves up to the main deck.
Katara, your objective is to locate Haru within the prisoner cells.
Tell him to prepare his men for a swift, high-intensity assault.
The moment Haru unleashes his bending, the rest of the prison population will move behind him like dominoes.
Are there any objections to the plan?” Sokka rubbed his chin, looking at Sora with suspicion.
“Hmmm…
The plan is solid, Sora.
But why are Aang and I the ones sneaking into the lower factory floor filled with explosives?
Wouldn’t it make more sense for a powerful bender like you to accompany Aang and act as his shield down there?” Sora replied smoothly, checking the leather straps on his gauntlets, “A logical question, Sokka.
But my style of fighting is unsuited for tight underground corridors.
I will handle the liquidation of the guards stationed along the high watchtowers.
My ability to fly allows me to move into their blind spots without making any sound, ensuring a rapid and clean cutoff of their communication lines.
Does that make sense?” Sokka muttered, “Yeah…
fair point.
No objections.” Sora said, “Then, let us begin.” Without a trace of hesitation, Sora leaped off Inma’s saddle into the open air.
He manipulated the atmospheric pressure around him to create a light current that wrapped around his body, reducing wind resistance.
He glided through the heavy sea fog like a silent ghost, drifting effortlessly toward a secluded, low-surveillance platform on the eastern perimeter of the fortress.
Sora landed on the ground without making a single sound, his flexible movement absorbing the impact so his back pressed flat against the rusted iron framework of the primary watchtower.
He focused his senses, scouting the room ahead; three Fire Nation soldiers were sitting around a metal table, drinking and eating with complete relaxation, surrendering to the boredom of their shift.
Sora monitored their movement for a full minute.
Suddenly, one of the soldiers pushed his chair back and groaned as he stood up, saying, “I’m heading to the latrine via the outside catwalk.
Don’t finish off the remaining food, you greedy leeches!” He pulled the heavy iron door open and stepped out into the cold sea air.
As the guard walked alone on the isolated iron walkway, Sora moved behind him like his shadow.
With a swift flick of his wrist, Sora trapped the soldier’s head inside an invisible sphere that he completely emptied of air.
Before the guard could even process this sudden drop in pressure, the vacuum violently forced the air out of his trachea and respiratory passages, robbing him of his ability to catch his breath or scream for help.
The soldier staggered, hit by severe dizziness and a sudden lack of oxygen, his heart rate spiking frantically as vision faded from his eyes.
Sora closed the distance between them in a fraction of a second; he turned behind the stumbling guard, locked his palms tightly around his chin and the base of his skull, and twisted it with a swift, lethal movement.
Snap!
The muffled sound of cracking neck vertebrae echoed over the crashing waves of the sea.
Sora violently wrenched the guard’s neck past its limits, ending his life instantly.
The soldier fell as a lifeless weight, never even realizing what had breached his perimeter.
Sora looked down at the lifeless body and decided to exploit it immediately for his next step.
Dragging the corpse toward the guardhouse door, he pulled a heavy bronze coin from his pocket and flicked it hard against the iron panel of the door, creating a sharp, metallic ring.
Inside, the two remaining guards stopped talking.
One muttered, “What’s that sound?
Go check it out.” The second guard opened the door with annoyance, and his eyes instantly fell upon the twisted corpse of his comrade slumped over the threshold.
The guard froze in his place, his brain trying to process the scene as he quickly scanned the catwalk for any enemy.
Seeing nothing but empty, thick fog, he took a step forward to inspect the body.
“Now!” From his position where Sora had been hanging upside down, holding onto the exterior railing directly over the ocean, he vaulted back onto the iron walkway with terrifying speed and flexibility.
He drew his combat dagger, channeling a sharp, compressed air current like a blade along the steel length.
The guard caught the faint echo of moving air and tried instinctively to drop into a firebending stance, but Sora was faster; with a swift snap of his fingers, he detonated a compressed pocket of air right in front of the guard’s face, causing a localized dust storm that blinded the man’s eyes and made his head spin.
The guard instinctively stepped back, writhing in pain from the burn and irritation for a fraction of a second.
Sora capitalized on the opening immediately, driving his wind-infused dagger into the soldier’s neck, severing the carotid artery and his larynx.
The blade pierced completely through the neck.
The guard’s eyes snapped open in shock and horrific pain, the white of his eyes turning a violent, bloodshot red as he stared at Sora’s completely expressionless face, before the light drained from his eyes and his body slumped uselessly onto the iron floor.
Inside, the final guard grew suspicious of this sudden silence.
When he heard the heavy thud of his comrade’s body hitting the ground, he drew his broadsword and advanced aggressively toward the exit.
Sora anticipated his movement; he gripped the blood-slicked hilt of the dagger embedded in the second soldier’s neck, ripped it out with force, and hurled it with all his might toward the open door, backed by a compressed jet stream that transformed the dagger into a piercing projectile.
Thwack!
The blade buried itself entirely into the final guard’s forehead the exact millisecond he stepped over the threshold of the door.
The steel pierced straight through the skull bones and reached the brain instantly due to the projectile’s immense speed, making the guard drop like a stone, dead before his brain could send a single signal of pain.
Sora stepped over the threshold, his boots slipping slightly in the fresh blood beginning to pool on the floor.
With complete coldness, he grabbed the ankles of the three soldiers and dragged their bodies inside the room to hide them from the roaming searchlights.
He wiped his dagger clean on a discarded Fire Nation banner lying there, his eyes narrowing as he looked toward the next tower.
Time was ticking against them, and he intended to harvest as many lives of the empire’s soldiers as possible before the sirens started blaring.