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ATLA, In A Darker World: 40 Alarms 2
🕑 Added 2024-10-29 00:31:34 +0000 UTCHearing the girl who laughed with her several hours ago speak in such a chilling voice, made the blonde girl shudder slightly.
Ultimately giving no response, she carried herself up and followed the group.
Right now, it didn't matter what she said or what excuse she gave. The fact that she had sold her teammates out was set in stone, and the damage had already been done.
Meilin's attitude was quite normal from a regular person's perspective. Not to mention, she wasn't the only one.
Both Peng and Dandan had given her similar cold looks when they found her huddled at the side of the tunnel, a distance away from the Captain's corpse.
If it were other people, she would have probably been knocked out and left in that tunnel until the explosion took place.
But Mingxia wasn't like other people.
“All this happened because of me”. Back in the tunnel, Mingxia uttered those words solemnly.
“My carelessness had Fenfang's mother arrested. She had to choose between us and her only family, and I don't blame her for it”.
“.... Then … What do we do with her?” The question felt like invisible hands gripping her heart.
There were only two options. Take him with them, or leave her there.
Not taking her with them would mean she would be left to fend for herself. But that meant problems.
If Fenfang was left to navigate her way back to the Refugee quarters herself, then she would be caught before bypassing the first patrol.
At that moment, she would be forced to reveal everything she knew or face painful consequences.
So unless she stayed in the cave, leaving her on her own wasn't plausible. But could they leave her underground? No. Simply because they were about to blow it up.
The blasting jelly would destroy everything close by, and Fenfang would surely die. This was something Mingxia would not have no matter what.
In that case ….
“We'll bring her with us. Just like we planned to. Despite what's happened, no one will be left behind”. Mingxia uttered firmly. “Escaping is our main priority. Once we do that, we can decide our next course of actions”.
Which led to their current position.
Fenfang was taken along, despite betraying them once. And although there was slight dissatisfaction, everyone else knew that this was the best arrangement.
They weren't cold-blooded at heart and were willing to accept it … For now.
They moved through the corridors with quick steps as silently as they could.
'Twenty seconds'.
She thought while looking upward.
Her eyes widened as she raised her hand, signalling them to stop and hide.
Everyone quickly hid behind whatever they could find.
Up above on the inner walls, a patrolling guard could be seen making his rounds.
Ten seconds later, his figure turned to face another direction.
'Go, go, go'.
She signalled.
Everyone got up and rushed past while the sentry wasn't looking. And so they passed through the first patrol area while moving on.
“Hide”. She uttered. Everyone else obeyed and hide where they could.
'It should pass any time now …'.
She had barely finished her words when another patrol team passed by.
The last soldier even took a look at the dark area where they hid for a moment before walking past.
Once they passed, she stood up and moved, her teammates behind following her as she made a bend to the left.
'That was the second one….'.
She uttered while calculating inwardly, sweat accumulating on her forehead.
In the Avatar World, there was time, but there were no watches or clocks to calculate the passing seconds.
So in a weird way, the concept of seconds, minutes, and hours already existed but ways to keep track of that time like Clocks and watches were entirely non-existent.
If someone wanted to do so, they could only do it without any external assistance. Unfortunately, that was beyond her capability.
An accurate timeframe had only been useful when avoiding the first guard group and the rest could only rely on instinct.
And so, they arrived at the second to last turn.
This one had a fork in the road, diverging into two paths left and right.
'After this, we get to the sewer lines'. There was one last patrol group in this area. However, if she remembered right, then they should be somewhere down the other direction at this point.
Although she couldn't estimate the timeframe properly, she still memorized their movement patterns.
Since they weren't heading in this direction now, it meant they had already passed them by.
This was good, meaning they had about thirty to seventy seconds to get into the sewer line. That was more than enough time to escape unseen.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
Sticking her head out slightly, the first thing she saw when she took a look to the left made her expression change drastically as the scene before her wasn't the empty path she had expected.
It was another five man patrol team. With four foot soldiers and one riding an ostrich horse.
The same ones that Luca had come across a while ago.
'No. Impossible, they should have passed by now'.
She thought inwardly, her body starting to tremble.
She wasn't wrong, she couldn't be wrong. Not here, not now.
She clearly remembered that they should have moved past this place already. Then how? Why were they still here?
In fact, she wasn't wrong. As normally, this squad of patrolling soldiers should indeed have moved past this area by now.
She had calculated the timeframe and accounted for everything she could. But she missed one detail she could never have prepared for.
Luca.
The disturbance of the ostrich horse in response to Luca's faint smell of blood had caused its rider to perform a momentary inspection.
Delaying their movements and affecting her calculation of the patrol time.
Hence, instead of patrolling other areas like they originally should be, the time lag brought there right here, right now.
This was the one thing that all spies and assassins hated to the core when deep within enemy territory. Unexpected circumstances.
And what once seemed to be an insignificant happening was now proving to be a nightmare for others.
“Did you see something?”
At that moment, a patrolling soldier called out with a frown on his face.
“Over there”.
His companion shouted in alarm. Mingxia's body had been seen peaking out of the corner. Alarming everyone else to the situation.
Everyone's expressions turned unsightly.
Currently, they knew that they had been discovered.
“We know you're there”. The riding soldier uttered with a frown. “Come out and identify yourselves”.
Mingxia turned to look at Dandan.
The latter nodded, understanding that it was now time for plan B. A forceful breakthrough.
Moving his hands, water emerged from the large waterskin on his back as he rushed out and fired a water stream towards the patrol team.
A large water whip snapped towards the soldiers at speeds faster than they could react to.
Whip!
The two in front were sent flying backwards at the force of impact, knocking down the two behind them, as well as the ostrich horse, and its rider.
“Go”.
Immediately, the group of five stepped out and rushed down the path on the right. Mingxia first and Dandan last in line.
“Intruders!”
The riding soldier who had fallen of his mount roared angrily.
“Quickly, sound the alarm”. He looked to another soldier who quickly picked himself from the floor, took off the horn by the side of his waist and blew to the sky.
Blare! Blare! Blare!
Three consecutive long horn trumpets resounded within the Haican Stronghold, alerting everyone who heard it.
Luca, who was approaching the East wall by, climbing atop building structures heard the blaring sounds and turned to look back.
'Caught already, huh?'.
Although he knew this would happen, he didn't expect it to be so soon.
At least, he thought the explosion would go off before they were discovered. Now it seems he had too high hopes for Mingxia's group.
Now the whole base would be on alert. Not that it mattered much anyway.
The fleeing group of five quickly approached their destination.
An iron railing with holes within that led underground. A terrible rotting smell filled the air around them, clearly emitted from the sewer line they were about to jump into.
But they didn't care.
Without waiting for anyone to urge them, they all leaped into the sewer one by one as fast as they could.
“Stop them!” The loud yell made Dandan look back.
Seeing earth kingdom soldiers rushing in their direction, he hurriedly jumped into the sewer line. Then, after running a few meters, he turned around and swayed his hands.
The water moved alongside him. Concentrating, he clenched his palm into fists.
The water exploded upwards before hardening into cold ice, bursting out of the hole and blocking the path in the process the moment it froze.
Seeing this, the Waterbender turned around and chased after his teammates. While the earthbenders could only stop at the sewer entrance now frozen in frigid ice.
Meanwhile ..... The base was alarmed. Every patrol team would carry a horn used to alert the base in case invaders were discovered.
The three loud horns were the signal that The Haican Stronghold now has intruders.
East wall .....
The patrol teams were immediately mobilized as the soldiers made their way towards the area where the signal came from.
Near the Infirmary.
“Dammit!” A sleeping soldier guarding the area was immediately frightened awake by the three horn calls.
With a gourd previously filled with unknown liquid now almost empty, anyone could guess that this guy had drunk himself to sleep with alcohol.
Now, upon waking up, the after effects quickly hit hard without warning. Drowsiness, Dizziness, nausea, that added with the previous ruckus gave him a headache of outstanding proportions.
“Damn! Who the fuck is making a ruckus …".
He felt a chilling breeze just behind his neck after venting his anger verbally. Before he could reach for his weapon on the other end of the table, a hand covered his mouth and the hilt of a dagger made a heavy impact on his head.
Bang!
The soldier who had barely sobered up was knocked unconscious moments after his awakening.
Luca didn't waste any more time. Picking the soldier up and dragging him into the shadows.
Some time later, an “Earth Kingdom Soldier” emerged from the shadows and rushed towards the further most areas of the eastern wall.
Moving past the unsuspecting soldiers, Luca successfully made his way without hindrance until he arrived at the edge of the wall itself.
Following which, be began to calculate the time.
'It's been seven minutes since I left the underground tunnel. Even if it took them two minutes after I left, more than four minutes would have passed since then. Not long now, it should happen'.
He thought to himself with a pondering expression.
Back at the underground tunnel, Luca had realized something when Mingxia pulled out the location and blueprint of the underground passageway as a bargaining chip.
Something so obvious that the fact that she could still ignore it was stupidity of the highest order.
And that was the possibility that the passageway was fake.
No?
The Captain had clearly stated that he knew she had stolen the blueprints when she snuck into the garrison. Yet here lay another question. How exactly did she find the blueprints?
One would think that a secret passageway that led in and out of Haican would be kept safe, yet she had stumbled upon it when searching for God knows what exactly.
Why would something so important be left so carelessly?
Luca had no proper answer to that question. Unless, the blueprints were fake from the very beginning and hence, completely worthless.
If that weren't the case, then it meant the sewer passageway had already been sealed up by Earthbenders.
The so-called secret passageway might not even be a passage anymore and was equivalent to a dead end.
Of course, there was always the slim possibility that the captain never saw a need to seal it up once he was in cahoots with the Fire nation.
Or perhaps it was meant to be a secret channel to infiltrate the base in case, one day, their operations were exposed.
At that time, they could sneak into the place unnoticed.
Nevertheless, all these were purely his speculations and the question remained unsolved.
And that was the one problem Mingxia had overlooked.
Or perhaps she noticed but didn't want to believe that her only exit plan could possibly be compromised.
Either one was stupidity in his eyes. Hence, Luca had rejected her proposal the moment he understood this.
Although his plan could lead to unexpected circumstances, Luca was basically sure to escape from Haican and guarantee his life.
Why take such unnecessary risks?
Plus, his initially uncertain escape might actually end with him not being pursued at all.
“You there!” At that moment, a loud voice interrupted his reverie.
His gaze turned to see an earth kingdom soldier with a thick beard and wrinkled face walking towards him.
“What are you doing standing there?” His eyes flashed with a hint of vigilance.
Seeing this, Luca's expression sank inwardly. Just as his hand slowly reached for the daggers hidden beneath the green robe that covered him.
BOOM!
It happened then.
Back in the underground tunnel, the fuse finally made its way to the target, igniting the blasting jelly and going boom in all directions.
The square right outside the tunnel was blown up, and the two frozen corpses were shattered into tinier parts when hit by the aftermath of the blast.
The tunnel used for trafficking refugees to the Fire Nation collapsed on itself as flames rushed towards the sky.
“Holy spirits ….”. The earth kingdom soldier with a thick beard and wrinkled face stared in disbelief at the place where the explosion just took place.
“What was that ….”. He turned his gaze back to the “Soldier” he was previously interrogating, only to find that the latter had disappeared.
Where did he go?
Question marks appeared above his head.
Unknown to him that the moment the explosion took place, Luca had rushed through the East wall at full speed, running crazily to the other side.
An Explosion was the perfect distraction. Perfect enough to take away the attention of the sentries so they won't notice someone running away on the other side of the wall.
