Chapter 41 – Dai Li
Katara and Mai try to follow along closely with the group, but since they are worried about intense movements given their condition, they fall behind.
The Dai Li agents are about two buildings away and strained quite hard to pull Aang along with a single earth glove. As Aang gets closer, they get a better grip on the glove. Since they will be involved in a chase, they let Aang fall on the ground and drag him so the glove isn’t pulling all of his weight. This lets them conserve chi.
Nuwa lands 10 meters behind Aang, but somehow the waist-tie on her current blouse is ripped by a clothes hanger during the zipline and her boobs are kind of just hanging out. Of course, she’s currently “Stella” so she doesn’t notice.
The Dai Li agents do though, so they get distracted and lose control of their focus on the glove long enough for Aang to remember that he can earthbend and pull it off of him. The Dai Li agents are still around 20 meters away, so they quickly all throw their own individual gloves at Aang.
Nuwa wants to act like a non-bender in case she gets captured so she pretends she can’t bend. She reaches Aang as the gloves land on him and tries to throw him behind her with her hook. The earth gloves provide a lot more grip than she bargains for, so neither make any progress in their pulls. It’s the force of three Dai Li agents earthbending various rocks against Aang’s earthbending, his muscles, and Nuwa’s muscles.
Nuwa bought a few seconds for reinforcements before the agents wise up and pull Aang off the ground so Aang and Nuwa can’t leverage the ground to resist. Aang is lifted up with 6 earth gloves on him along with Nuwa who’s blouse is open and has Aang’s clothes by a hook.
Toph jumps down to the ground from the inn window and makes a rock platform thrusts her upwards with extreme acceleration. She looks like the Hulk as she closes the distance to Aang with a single jump. Toph smashes into the ground, cracking it, with her legs out way past shoulder width apart and roars at the Dai Li agents who are understandably intimidated.
She makes a rock spire to hold Aang and Nuwa who are in midair and starts slapping rocks at high speed towards the agents. They dodge, but also can’t pull Aang and Nuwa any more. Toph jumps again and lands next to Aang as she destroys the earth gloves. Aang feels the foreign chi-intent near him dissipate and gets a chance to breathe.
The agents begin to make an escape since they recognize that one of the teens is an Earthbending Master. They start levitating and flinging small pebbles at the group as they flee. Nuwa puts up her shield and blocks her and Aang’s body from the high-speed pebbles. Toph just ignores them and takes all of them without defending. Her earth affinity or chakra alignment must give her an abnormally strong body to resist kinetic energy to that extent.
Nuwa just sighs and asks Toph, “Why’d you let them go?”
Toph smirks and says, “So they can bring reinforcements.”
Nuwa laughs, “Fine. They will try to capture us and brainwash us. Let me implant a verbal command in case you get brainwashed.” Nuwa holds Toph’s Crown chakra and says, “When you hear the phrase “Fuck me, bitch” you will wake up from any sort of hypnosis.”
Toph feels kind of weird, but says, “Sure.”
The rest of the group catch up and Nuwa repeats the same thing to them. Azula laughs and oogles as Katara pinches Nuwa’s free nipple and reties her blouse. Nuwa blushes with embarrassment, “I can’t help it guys.. Anyway, let’s commandeer a monorail and go to the Inner Ring. We’re off to see the Earth King!”
The group rush off to a monorail as the Dai Li agents pull some distance and fire a reinforcements signal into the air. The signal is actually just a few earth gloves stuck together that makes a few hand signals that the people in the stronghold watch out for.
Before Team Avatar Team Gang know it, the Dai Li agents who previously ran are back and keeping track of their location from a distance while firing signals for reinforcements from surrounding strongholds to prepare an encirclement.
Katara and Mai decide to trust the nanotube to do its job and move at full speed since they notice the earth gloves shooting into the air behind them. Toph gets increasingly excited, “Man, these guys are really something!”
Azula smiles, “These guys are quite pro.”
Nuwa nods as they all run close to each other and push the crowd aside, “Don’t reveal all your powers to them or else they won’t just capture us but try to kill us. In other words, we’ll put up a fight, but let ourselves get captured so that we can free everyone in their secret prison. They have hundreds of kids they’re brainwashing and training to be in their army down there. All of them should be weak benders scared into submission.”
The group dashes through the crowd and reach the base of the monorail station. Toph brings them up on a rock platform as the Dai Li agents start to recognize that they’re planning to go into the Inner Ring. They all throw earth gloves, but they’re too late to stop Toph stealing a monorail after kicking out the people inside it.
They quickly bend a makeshift rock platform to go down the rail line as well in hot pursuit.
Toph and Aang push the large tram forward past the middle ring and into the opulent inner ring. No trams go to the Royal Palace, so they have to get off. In the meantime, the agents in pursuit fire off signals like mad to the Inner Ring agents.
Nuwa dodges an earth glove that comes straight for her face from a rooftop with a tilt of her head. Unfortunately, it lands on Dan’s crotch and grabs. Dan gives an “urk” and drops to the ground in sheer pain. More earth gloves land and lock him onto the ground.
Toph goes back to help since she’s the one most suited for dealing with earth gloves, plus Dan’s her first real dick, and it felt good. She earthbends a rock spire to surround Dan and injects her chi into the earth gloves to dispel the foreign chi. The whole group is now surrounded on all sides by about 40 Dai Li agents with more on their way. There’s no more running possible with Dan unable to move on his own.
Azula starts firebending some earth gloves that come her way. The gloves seem somewhat brittle, to make gripping and midair movement of the gloves easier, so incidentally Azula’s fire can destroy them.
Katara traps the earth gloves with the water from a nearby estate’s pond. Mai is trained with knives and assassination so she cannot do much in this scenario. She slices earth gloves that come her way but they reattach together after they’re sliced. Aang is airbending to deflect many earth gloves that come in their direction. Nuwa is shielding Jane and Mai in the center of the group.
Toph has a battle-thirsty grin as she stomps the ground with her foot dislodging the earth from the street. Rocks start to float around her as she takes a stance and goes full “Muda-Muda-Muda” on the floating rocks firing them at Dai Li agents in every direction. At least 8 are knocked out as another 10 agents arrive and spam earth gloves as well.
By now, Toph is low on chi from all the tram pushing and bending she’s done. Facing the majority of the hostility on her own, she finally gets locked down after more reinforcements arrive. She totally forgets that Nuwa told her not to show all of her power.
The rest of the group remember and they are captured neatly. Azula is honestly impressed by the discipline, persistence, and power shown by the Dai Li. She wonders if she can duel the leader and subordinate him.
The entire group is pressed to the ground by earth gloves as Long Feng, the Grand Secretariat, leader of the Dai Li, and shadow ruler of Ba Sing Se arrives. Several agents report to him on the chase and powers displayed by the Avatar and his group. They show fear and respect as they point out the small teen Toph.
Long Feng smiles as he nods and decides he needs them all in his slave army. He must personally take them to Lake Laogai for re-education to ensure that the hypnotism sticks. However, he’s not an idiot. He doubts that it’s possible for the Avatar to be brainwashed because of their supernatural powers, so he plans to see if the Avatar is amenable to a compromise after locking him up in a local cell.
Nuwa did not expect that they would be separated from Aang, but it made sense that Long Feng would have at least that much vigilance. The Gang and Katara are taken into a noble’s house in rock shackles with Toph knocked out since she kept using her chi and freeing herself after capture. Some fat nobles were scared out of their lives seeing a bunch of Dai Li enter and even more scared after their own basement opens up into an underground cavern that the Dai Li drag the group into.
Some agents and a Joo Dee return to the fight scene and start earthbending the mess to make it seem like nothing happened. Joo Dee is in charge of making sure that every rock and street returns to the way it was. She orders some agents to bring hedge trimmers, landscapers, and construction workers too for the damaged houses. Some bored nobles look around, see the Joo Dee’s creepy smile, feel a chill all the way up their spine, and go back to minding their own business.
~ ~ ~
The agents walk them several miles through a network of labyrinthian catacombs. The subterranean air is noticeably more humid here. Nuwa believes they are now under Lake Laogai outside the city walls. They separate each of the prisoners into different cells with Toph getting a special set of metal shackles. Her cell is also completely enclosed by metal. It seems they had this prepared for powerful earthbender captures.
Nuwa smiles and waits for the Dai Li agents to disperse.
~ ~ ~
Aang is taken to a cell in the inner ring. It’s meant for high profile captures and negotiations, so the cell itself is spread with amenities like food, clothing, and games. A Joo Dee checks on him every 10 minutes to make sure he’s comfortable.
Aang is actually extremely anxious since Nuwa didn’t tell them the plan until the last minute and he had no idea Katara would have to go through this much danger in Ba Sing Se. He chooses to trust Nuwa though that they will be able to break out and help all those kids who are trapped. After all, he still remembers the despair on Jane’s face when she was unhypnotized.
All of his airbender cells shake in disgust every time he sees that smile on a Joo Dee’s face. Airbending, after all, is the element of freedom.
He suppresses his disgust so that he can hide the fact that he knows more than he lets on. He’s picked up a few tricks from Nuwa over the past few months. All he has to do is act normal and bargain for the freedom of his group as if he’s a naive teenager.
Long Feng walks in. He’s a balding man with a sinister looking pointy mustache and goatee. He’s also clearly power tripping on some heavy duty stuff since he walks around with his fists pointing at each other behind his back.
He puts on a punchable smug grin and says, “Welcome to Ba Sing Se, Avatar Aang. I hope you are enjoying your stay.”
Aang visibly suppressing himself from punching him says, “What are you doing treating my friends and I like this? What have we done to deserve this treatment!”
Long Feng furrows his brows, “Avatar Aang, your friends were discovered spreading chaos in the outer ring. We found 3 individuals that your friends assaulted and many more who will testify that they were terrorizing the populace. You, of course, are innocent. They will be let out in time, but if you can help us out in keeping this city safe, then the Earth King can grant them a direct pardon!”
Aang almost gags at the shamelessness of Long Feng to blackmail him with his friend’s freedom. “Humph, they better just be imprisoned. I’ll go after you myself in Avatar Mode if I find that any of them were killed by your agents. I’ll level this entire city just to get you if that’s what it takes.”
Long Feng momentarily shivers at the obvious threat. He quickly resumes his countenance and assures, “No worries, I have utmost faith that they will not be harmed in the slightest. The Dao Li are only trained for nonviolent takedown and capture. That’s all. We’ll surely treat them exceedingly well since they are your dear friends.”
Aang feels like he was too straightforward earlier when he was supposed to be acting in a way that stalls for time. Meanwhile Long Feng is internally cursing Aang for daring to threaten him, the true ruler of Ba Sing Se.
Since the Dai Li were trained by Avatar Kyoshi herself, they had far more respect and fear for the true power of the Avatar and Raava than laymen bandits and Fire Nation soldiers. Any sort of Avatar who is fine with killing like Kyoshi is a nightmare for evildoers.
Although Long Feng feels high on power, he also secretly feels shame and existential dread just looking into the eyes of Aang as he remembers the stories passed down by his mentor of Kyoshi’s ideals of justice and brutality. It was not as bad in his mentor’s time. Back then, the victims of brainwashing were mainly criminals. Long Feng is fully aware that he’s corrupted and betrayed the ideals of the Dai Li long ago. He doesn’t care though since the Dai Li exists to serve his ambition.
Aang replies, “Good, we can be friends then!”
Long Feng does a double take and gets the sense that maybe he’s not as much in control of this conversation as he expected when walking in.
Long Feng nods, “Good. I hope you were not expecting to meet the Earth King.. He’s very busy dealing with affairs of the state. If you have any inquiries to make to him, feel free to tell me so that I can relay them to him amidst his work. Please remember that it is against state policy to talk about the 100 year war to avoid causing undue stress to the citizens.”
Long Feng begins to exit since he wants to hypnotize Toph as soon as possible, “Very good. Joo Dee, take him on a tour around the Middle Ring.”
Aang reaches his hand out, “Wait, I was hoping to get the Earth Kingdom’s help against the Fire Nation!”
Long Feng shouts back, “I’ll let the Earth King know about it!”
Joo Dee chastises Aang, “Shush now, we don’t want to spread panic in the city do we? Even if you are the Avatar, you still have to follow our rules.”
Aang can’t help but look at Joo Dee with slight pity and assents, “Yes, I know.”
Joo Dee tears up from one eye with a wide smile as she leads Aang back to the middle ring. Her unconscious mind is agitated by the presence of the Avatar who, according to legends, is her greatest hope of escape from the hell she’s been put in.