"How did you manage to get out?" Azula inquired, straightening her clothing
"They shackled me slightly differently. I managed to free one hand and opened the locks using lockpicks."
I wasn't about to enlighten the Princess or tell anyone else about my abilities from other worlds. They were my trump card for situations like the one we currently found ourselves in. Thus, no one would learn about the telekinesis.
"Lockpicks?" Azula raised an eyebrow. "They didn't confiscate your personal items?"
"They did," I nodded to the Princess's question, "but they didn't check my hair."
I pulled out a few hairpins, pre-bent at various angles, from my pocket. Then I ran my hand over my head, retrieving several more intact pins from my hairstyle.
"My guard was asleep, so he didn't notice me calmly freeing myself from the locks. I didn't use bending. Using it to get rid of all the chains would have taken far too long."
"Hmm, I see," Azula thoughtfully touched her own hair, as if considering whether she could have escaped using the same method. "Once we get out of here, you'll teach me how to pick locks just as silently."
"That's not exactly a skill a Princess should know," I couldn't help but remark
"I am so grateful that you shared your opinion with me," Azula replied with a hint of excitement. "Oh, wait… I'm lying, and your opinion is completely meaningless to me."
"Hey, kid… You freed yourself, now help the others!" we first heard a muffled voice say after we exited Azula's cell.
A bald man was pressed against the bars of one of the cells, trying to see us. Apparently, only the Princess and I were deemed worthy of the chain cocoons. We ignored the prisoner, for which we were rewarded with a stream of curses.
The dimly lit corridor housing our cells was carefully studied. There was no visible exit at first glance. The ends of the corridor terminated in solid walls. It looked as though we were inside a stone box. Knowing the Earthbenders' literal love for digging in, I wouldn't be surprised if this prison turned out to be underground.
"Listen, chick, wanna hang out in my cell for a bit?" another bandit addressed Azula. He did so with an incredibly obscene look, which the Princess clearly disliked. A moment for the flight of Firebending, and the prisoner was incinerated in agony.
Azula abruptly shot streams of flame down both sides of the corridor, waking up the prisoners who hadn't yet stirred and putting those who had been silently but carefully watching us on edge.
"I ask the questions, you answer them," the Princess said menacingly.
"Shut up…" A newly awakened prisoner didn't finish his sentence before he began to scream in pain. Azula directed the flame right into his cell.
"One more time. I ask the questions, you answer them."
Thanks to the Princess's marvelous gift, which allowed her to make anyone talk, we managed to learn that we were in one of the prisons in Omashu… The news was far from pleasant. And subsequent revelations offered little comfort either.
The prison, as I suspected, was underground. This meant we wouldn't be able to escape on our own. There were about ten meters of earth above us. The changing of the guards had happened relatively recently. That process was what woke the Princess, and me soon after, when she tried to bribe a Earth Kingdom soldier.
There were no Earthbenders among the prisoners. Therefore, none of them could help us escape. We would have to wait for the next shift, which would be reinforced by the men of the officer who captured us. He planned to interrogate us and find out everything he could from the "Fire Nation elite saboteurs" we were mistaken for.
As far as I understood, the prisoners, who listened to the guards' conversations out of boredom, had formed an opinion of the local Captain as a terrible careerist, perfectionist, and pedant. He was somewhat similar to Zhao… The Captain had likely not yet reported our capture to anyone. He was either hoping to use his own forces to catch a few more non-existent elite saboteurs or simply didn't want to hand over unfinished work. This was encouraging. Because someone in the officer corps might actually deduce that the soldiers had captured the Fire Nation Princess, in which case our treatment would be entirely different, and the chance of a successful escape from Omashu would become very small. For now, they believed that "Princess" was a callsign, not a title, for one of the saboteurs. Let them continue to think so.
It wasn't entirely clear how the Earth Kingdom soldiers learned we were Firebenders. Perhaps they somehow accidentally saw us using bending. At night, for example, fire is very visible. And they could figure out it wasn't a campfire with a spyglass or binoculars. Such equipment exists here and is widely used by soldiers.
It turned out that the local Captain would take on any task whatsoever just to curry favor with his superiors. He patrolled the city, oversaw one of the prisons, and sent his soldiers on reconnaissance missions.
"A smelly sleeping bag not long ago, and now clothes from someone else's shoulders. I clearly took a wrong turn at some point in my life…" Princess Azula murmured, fastidiously removing the uniform from a shorter, leaner soldier.
Our plan was quite simple. When the shift change occurred, we would simply eliminate all the guards and escape. We also decided to use the element of surprise by changing into Earth Kingdom soldier uniforms, because people usually don't expect an attack from a brother-in-arms, and therefore, they would hesitate. The dead soldiers themselves were wrapped back in the chains, as if they had been there all along.
It was a miracle that our actions did not trigger an alarm. The local soldiers were either too relaxed or there were no powerful Earthbenders among them who could use seismic sense to detect what was happening several dozen meters away. Frankly, when I was killing the guards, I thought the alarm would sound at any moment and hordes of enemies would immediately descend upon us.
The agonizing minutes of waiting stretched on. It was incredibly jarring to see Princess Azula in an Earth Kingdom soldier's uniform. A short circuit occurred in my head every time I looked at her. Jokes aside, I was already accustomed to viewing anyone wearing such attire as an enemy.
During one of my glances at Azula, I noticed she was displeased about something. Her face was becoming progressively gloomier. The reason was clearly not the sleeping bag or the hand-me-down uniform, but something more significant.
"Long, the plans are changing. I don't want to immediately flee Omashu as soon as we get out of prison. I wish to retrieve my possessions."
"Princess, that is very risky. It will be an unnecessary waste of precious time. I suggest acquiring everything we need on the way to our objective."
"I want to retrieve my possessions, Long. Will you help me, or will you cowardly run away and leave your Princess alone?" Azula looked at me expectantly.
If Princess Azula hadn't been in Omashu—the one I wanted to gain the trust of—and if our ultimate goal wasn't the Spirit Library of Knowledge, I would have stayed in this city myself. I'd do something locals would consider insane. For example, challenging King Bumi. He might even accept it. He is, after all, considered a slightly mad man for a reason.
"Wait, Princess…" I recalled a curious fact. "Didn't you only have a cosmetic bag left of your belongings?"
"Yes, I wish to retrieve precisely that."
My cheek twitched, but I expressed no further dissatisfaction.
"As you command, Princess. The cosmetic bag… shall be returned to you."
Soon after this conversation, the earth began to part next to us. We simultaneously looked up at the descending figures.
"Droi, did you lose weight?" one of them smirked, halfway down. "Did your wife stop…"
"It's a trap…"
A synchronized strike with the Princess and a wave of fire that broke from our hands instantly engulfed the entire created corridor. Just in case, the flames were held for about five seconds to ensure the death of the six descending fighters. Afterward, Azula immediately ran up the corridor. I delayed for a moment to kill the prisoner who had shouted about the trap. His own fault. He should have remained quiet, as I had requested earlier, so the Princess and I could have killed the enemies silently and discreetly.
The column of flame that erupted from the prison couldn't help but attract the attention of the soldiers based in this location. Especially at night. We must have slept for a long time… When I got upstairs, Princess Azula was already engaged in battle in the inner courtyard of the base with numerous enemies.
Five people simultaneously aimed their weapons at me, but I defended myself in my usual manner. I created and rotated a sphere of fire around myself. A few moments later, the men were disarmed. Their weapons were either burned up or heated to the point of being impossible to hold. Then, the sphere unexpectedly expanded, consuming the opponents.
I took a moment after the sphere vanished to assess the situation and sent a hail of fireballs toward the towers where archers were aiming at Azula. A little later, the Princess herself created something resembling a lasso and struck the last observation post with it. Instead of coiling around it, as this fire technique usually does, Azula's lasso effortlessly burned through the tower's supports, and it collapsed to the ground. Enemy soldiers who accidentally crossed the lasso's path were also out of luck. Instant death.
It's likely that the Princess's incognito status would now definitely be compromised. Only one bender is currently known to use fire of that color. Bumi will certainly send a pursuit after us, if he doesn't lead it himself, should our duo manage to escape his city.
The courtyard of the miniature fortress was filled with corpses within seconds. Mostly those unfortunate enough to be on duty on the walls tonight. Instead of moving as quickly as possible toward the exit gates, Azula confidently ran toward a three-story building, where lights were gradually coming on in the windows and shouts of various commands could be heard. It seemed the main building was also used as barracks for the fighters of the Captain who had captured us.
I sped up slightly, overtook the Princess, and entered the structure first. I immediately dodged a boulder flying toward my head, thrown by a soldier from the wide staircase leading to the second floor. I struck a fighter who appeared from the nearest doorway with a knee to the groin, then clapped my palms over his ears, simultaneously releasing jets of hot flame. I kicked the corpse in the stomach, sending it flying, and then tackled another fighter who had also rushed out of the same door. Before he could get up, I finished him with a stream of flame from my heel.
The air smelled of ozone. Azula quickly grew tired of dodging the attacks of five soldiers who had managed to appear on the staircase while I was fighting their colleagues, and she decided to dispatch them all at once. Forked lightning streaked up the stairs. No barrier could stop it. The screams of all those standing on it rang out. Soon, five bodies rolled back down.
Judging by the groans of pain, one of the opponents somehow miraculously survived. Azula kicked him, flipping him onto his back.
"Where are our things?!" the Princess demanded, letting a fireball strike right next to the opponent's head.
The Earth Kingdom soldier, trembling all over, pointed to the very last door in the hall and then fell silent, having taken a ball of blue fire to the head. Soon, we were kicking in the correct door.
The room was crammed with a multitude of items placed on dozens of shelves. Mostly complete trash that the Earth Kingdom soldiers hadn't even bothered to take after the owners' deaths. But not far from the entrance was a bag familiar to Princess Azula. She reached it in one long stride and immediately opened it, spilling the contents onto the shelf. And while Long, who was standing guard in the hall, couldn't see, Princess Azula stroked the blade of a single knife and tucked it beneath her clothing.
It wasn't the cosmetic bag itself or the self-care products that mattered. Only one wretched knife, given to her long ago, was important. However, Long was not supposed to know this. That scoundrel might misunderstand everything… or, even worse, understand everything exactly as it truly was. Azula simply wouldn't be able to endure his smug smirk. Therefore, she would say she hadn't found anything but her knife.
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