"Wait!" He dodged the stream. "Listen to me!" He dodged a second one, this time from me. "The Herald is Vaatu! The spirit of destruction! He's just using you!"
"Stop babbling nonsense!" Zuko's crimson stream of fire was impressive, but proved no more effective than ours.
"You don't understaaa—!!!" The crack of two simultaneous lightning bolts from the princess and me instantly put a damper on the Avatar's willingness to talk.
Unfortunately, realizing that he was being boxed in from every direction, the boy decided to retreat along the length of the drill, so the bolts of spiritual electricity struck its metal hull instead, making the steel ring indignantly. That, however, was the extent of the reaction—the machine was well grounded, and given its sheer size, it could easily take far worse than that.
The next instant, I fired jets of flame from my heels, leaped onto the hull of our "tunnel borer," and took off running straight along it in pursuit of my target. A second later, the princess landed beside me, likewise propelling herself with jets of flame.
Meanwhile, the area around us suddenly darkened, and when I looked up, I saw a massive stone canopy rising from the ground, taking the full brunt of the earthbenders' barrage of boulders. Toph herself was nowhere in sight, but she had most likely positioned herself at the base of the shelter and was using her bending to keep it intact.
Good girl—she'd definitely earned her share of treats already!
None of these thoughts kept me from continuing the chase, but... the Avatar was still too damn quick. Azula and I were the only ones who could more or less keep up with him.
Once the airbender realized he couldn't stand against our group, he floored it, filling the air with panicked yells. It might even have been funny under other circumstances, but we definitely weren't in the mood for laughter. We simply couldn't catch the flying bastard.
He, in turn, couldn't do anything to the drill—the rest of our group was stationed at the head section, while the segments... I saw him try to "whack" the armor a couple of times as he ran, but all he managed was a pair of scratches. Sure, a half-inch-deep "gouge" in a steel plate looked impressive, but... at that rate, it would take him about an hour to chew through a foot and a half of armor, and obviously no one was going to give him that kind of time.
In short, the situation was a stalemate, hanging in limbo. But we could afford to wait. The Avatar couldn't. And so... he ran away. First he reached the end of the "caterpillar," jumped off, unfolded his glider, and rode the air currents away.
"Aaaargh!" Azula was practically on fire. "Come back and face your fate, Avatar!"
"Not likely." I sighed and placed a hand on the furious lady's shoulder. Irritation was bubbling inside me too, but there was clearly a lot more "weary resignation" mixed in with it. Besides, when you channeled chi through the water chakra, harmony practically descended upon you all by itself...
"Did he... hah... get away again?" Zuko had fallen a little behind during the chase—he wasn't nearly as good as his sister at using fire to accelerate himself.
"Yeah." What else was there to say? "All right, let's head back and keep going."
"How can you be so calm?" the girl hissed irritably.
"Well, I'm actually pretty damn unhappy about it, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't expected something like this. That bastard has been a pain in our asses far too many times to just up and die while we're tearing down the wall of Ba Sing Se."
"Strangely enough, I feel pretty much the same way," the prince agreed. "Hey, Uncle, how are you holding up?"
"I'm getting a little old for chases like this." Iroh really did look somewhat worse for wear: flushed, sweaty, and slightly disheveled. When it came to bending, he could overpower just about anyone—or at least, I certainly wouldn't want to face him head-on. And if it ever came down to an Agni Kai between him and Ozai, I wouldn't know who to bet on until the very end. But purely in terms of physical condition, the firebender wasn't young anymore. And while he still had plenty of strength and stamina (though he could stand to lose the belly), his speed had clearly declined compared to his "prime."
"Don't worry, we'll head back now and have some tea..."
"You people are going to drive me insane!" Azula threw up her hands. "The Avatar was right there, and we let him get away! Again! And you're just going to go drink tea?!"
"I wouldn't mind a cup myself," Zuko said with a nod.
"Azula." I put an arm around the worked-up lady. "Think about it. We can't catch him, and chasing after him on impulse while we're sitting right beneath the strongest fortress in the Earth Kingdom is a bad idea. So we should stick to the original plan."
"But... Ah, to hell with it. Like I'm going to let him upset me!" the princess clicked her tongue in annoyance, looking rather cute as she tried to project stern independence with her arms folded across her chest.
"Setbacks happen. But if we stick to the plan, the Avatar isn't going anywhere. And worst case, he won't be all that dangerous anyway. Even he can't stand alone against the entire world."
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The story is steadily approaching its conclusion. Over the coming weeks, the final chapters will continue to be released on my P@treon at the usual pace, and the complete story will soon be available there. Updates here, however, will become considerably less frequent.
P@treon: /SadRaven