Contrary to how Aang has been awoken by Iroh and the others over the past couple months, today he's startled awake by the sound of the old man shouting about something. "Agni damnit Zuko! Of all the foolish things you could have possibly done this is by far the most idiotic!" The sudden shouting had caused Aang to fall off the second bunk, landing in a heap on the floor. "Aang! Wake up, we need to get the others now." Iroh says as he rushes over to the airbender and helps him off the floor. "Zuko is missing." He exclaims, prompting the young airbender to shoot to his feet with a look of horror on his face.

"Zuko is missing?!" Aang shouts as the door to their room explodes open revealing Katara and Toph fully dressed and ready to go. "Did you two know about this???" He asks.

"We were just about to come wake you two up. I knew I didn't sense that coal-brained idiot coming back last night." Toph says before walking across the room to the door on the other side and pounding on it. "Oi! Wake up Mr and Mrs Snoozles. We got a problem. A big one." Toph says and the others can hear a bit of commotion from the other side before a pair of heavy footsteps approach the wooden door. "Sokka before you answer the door make sure you have pants on." The footsteps stop, and the others can hear a bit of fabric rustling before the door opens revealing a shirtless Sokka who still looks half asleep.

"Couldn't this wait like an hour, the rooster hasn't even crowed yet." Sokka says with a yawn before hearing a rooster outside begin crowing. "I stand corrected." He says before yawning, however that is instantly stopped when Katara splashes him in the face with water. As the water runs off his face, he closes his eyes before spitting out a mouthful of water at his sister before raising a hand and wiping the excess water from his face. "Rude."

"We don't have time for this, Zuko got captured last night when he went to go check up on his girlfriend and we need to go find him." Katara says before spotting Yue just waking up wearing one of Sokka's shirts behind him. "Yue, you need to get ready to go, we need to go rescue Zuko." Yue turns and looks at Katara, her bright blue eyes a bit bloodshot from being woken up so abruptly, that is until Toph marches into the room with a bucket of water and douses her too.

Unfortunately the gaang can't just get up and go find Zuko while leaving all of their things in the room. So a good amount of time is spent collecting their belongings, making sure Appa is fully packed up and that they collect all of Zuko's things before they go. The prince had left his assortment of bags and pouches he usually keeps tied to his waist and of these were his bag of Spirit water and the crystals from the cave of two lovers. His combat waterskin and his drinking waterskins were both missing along with his old firenation armor, swords and Aang's glider staff. After combing through their room making sure that they have well and truly collected everything before they leave, Sokka heads down to the lobby to get breakfast for everyone while Aang and Katara go about finishing tying their things to Appa.

"Looks like there's a bit of commotion on the wall a little west of here. Think we should check it out?" Sokka asks as he looks through the eyepiece of his spyglass. "Where are we going anyways?" He asks as Aang flies Appa over the large wall of the city.

"Zuko wrote down a specific spot on the map before he left, we're going to look there and see if we can find anything. After that we're going to search around for anything firenation related." Katara says as she motions for her brother to give her the spy glass. After he does so, she lifts it to her eye and looks to where Sokka is pointing. "What are they looking at?" Katara asks, noticing that a general on the wall is also looking through a spyglass at something.

"I don't know... but there's a lot of smoke in that direction." Sokka says as he directs the spyglass towards the black smoke. "Can't see what it is from here, but I'm willing to bet it's another firenation attack."

"Then that will be the first place we check after Zuko's spot on the map." Aang says as he flicks the reins on Appa's horns hard causing the bison to pick up speed.

Appa barely has enough time to settle after landing before Sokka, Aang and Iroh spring off of the bison's back and begin their search. The abandoned observation post has an obvious marking where a fire had been lit the previous night but with a master tracker with them it's easy for Sokka to pick up a trail. "Hey, Aang, General Iroh, come look at this." Sokka says as he spots a few trails of footprints circling where a fire was. "Looks like a confrontation but no actual fight." He says as Iroh walks over and inspects the footprints in the dirt. "These are boot marks, likely from Zuko but there's a couple other pairs. One has high heels on the back, you can tell by the trapezoid marking behind the toe prints." Iroh says as he circles the second set of footprints with a stick. "Then two more with regular shoes. Light on their feet too, probably not a lot of weight to whoever was standing here. Katara, who was Zuko's girlfriend exactly?"

"The girl with the knives in Azula's little team. Two days ago he told me the two of them have been writing to each other since our second visit to Omashu." She responds before noticing Toph looking in the direction of the city. "You ok toph?" She asks.

"Remember when Zuko's sister kept attacking us that night a few weeks ago? When I said it felt like there was a metal building moving towards us?" She asks before pointing in the direction of where she's sensing something. "Whatever is out there, feels like an entire mountain is moving towards the city. It's huge, and it's solid metal."

"You can sense it even this far out?" Sokka asks as Toph beckons him to come towards her. He follows where her finger is pointing and in the distance he can see that massive plume of smoke that they had seen earlier.

"Sokka, stab your sword into the ground like you'd do back at the ice fields and listen to it." Katara says as she pulls out a few liters worth of water then spears it into the ground in the shape of an icicle. Behind her, Sokka and Yue remove their blades and do as Katara had said, and as Sokka cups his ear to the handle of his blade he hears it too.

"What the hell..." Sokka half whispers to himself, "Toph's right. Whatever is moving out there is absolutely massive. Bigger than glaciers back home."

"It seems Zuko was likely dragged that direction too." Iroh says, calling attention to himself. "There's heavier footprints on both sides of these drag markings in the dirt. Probably Azula's royal guard she brought with her, or a few soldiers from whatever base is around here."

"If they brought him anywhere after capturing him. It'd be to whatever the hell that thing out there is. They wouldn't leave him in a place where he could escape from. He'd be imprisoned in something massive, heavily guarded and made of metal so he can't earthbend." Sokka says before doing a search of the surrounding area one last time. As he nears the log beside the fire, he finds a small piece of paper half concealed under a piece of bark. "That's not good..."

"What? What's not good?" Yue asks as she walks over and reads what Sokka had found.

"On The Drill." These three words are written on the piece of paper, and it isn't in Zuko's handwriting.

"Think it could be a trap?" Katara asks and Sokka nods his head.

"Yes. But we're going to spring the trap."

As Appa gets airborne and begins flying back to the wall, Aang is the first to spot just what exactly is leaving that plume of smoke. "Woah... that's a big drill." Aang's words draw the others' attention to what he's looking at. Past the mountain range cradling the walled city is a drill several miles long, it's dark steel drill bit rotating against the dirt as it crawls towards the wall. At the top of the wall of Ba Sing Sei, dozens of soldiers stand at the top overlooking the incoming drill with trenches surrounding the base of the wall. Dotting the landscape acting as escorts for the drill, are dozens of tanks that look like tiny specs compared to the behemoth of steel and iron. The roar of the steel mega structure is audible even several miles away from it. Aang directs Appa up towards the top of the wall where an earth kingdom general watches as the sky bison lands overhead.

"After hearing from the Dai Li that you were on our side, I had a hard time believing it. General Iroh." The hunched over wispy mustache sporting general says as Appa lands in front of him at the top of the wall. "I had half a mind to think that it was you in that metal monstrosity."

"No, but we need your help, General Sung." Iroh says, acknowledging a bit of the history between both men. "My nephew, Avatar Zuko was captured by them and is inside the drill."

"Prince Zuko is the avatar? From what I heard, the current avatar is a man named Lee." General Sung says as he raises an eyebrow at the statement from Iroh. "Why do you think we would help you with this? You broke down the wall before, and I have half a mind to have you arrested in connection with that drill."

"Do you really think he would be using his birth name when actively fighting against the firenation or trying to assist the other nations? They know who he is and that he is the crown prince so we had to devise an alias. That is where the name Avatar Lee had come from." Iroh says before looking down at the metal behemoth heading towards them. "You can have me arrested, but it would be vastly more beneficial for me to help you. I know all their military tactics, and strategies. You are so unbelievably outmatched in this situation that refusing my help will doom the entire city."

"Ugh. Fine, but if that drill so much as scratches my wall I'll have you executed. General Iroh." General Sung says before looking down at the drill. "What do you need us to do? I have a highly skilled contingent of earthbenders on the ground called The Terra team, they are going to be holding back the drill but should they fail, my men up here will attack the drill from above."

"Behind me are Avatar Zuko's teachers. We need your team to help them get inside the drill to rescue Zuko and take down the weapon." Iroh says before motioning to the group behind him.

"Very well, I'll write orders down to the captain on the ground, deliver these and you'll have the entire terra team at your disposal. Iroh you are going to stay up here with me as insurance for this battle." General Sung replies before motioning for the others to follow him to his command post on top of the wall.

Inside the Drill.

Azula overlooks the battlefield from her metal throne inside the command tower. On her right side, Ty Lee looks through a periscope at the battle below while Mai sits nervously on Azula's left. The normally gloomy girl is anxiously fiddling with one of her throwing knives to pass the time. "Looks like we got company." Ty Lee says as she looks down at the terra team in their trenches ahead of the drill. "Oh please, the drill is absolutely indestructible. In an hour from now, we will have breached the wall and the city will be claimed in the name of the firelord." War Minister Ching says as he wraps his knuckles on the iron coating of the periscope.

"You may be right, War Minister but you are underestimating the enemy. Mai, Ty Lee. Go deal with them." Azula says and the mention of her name startles Mai for a moment but both girls stand up and bow to Azula before leaving the room. "War Minister, send someone down to check on the avatar while they're at it."

"Yes princess Azula." War Minister Ching replies before walking over to the intercom and pressing a button sending a message down to the barracks. "Sergeant Aminai, check on the prisoner." He orders before receiving a hasty "Yes Sir." back through the intercom.

Without a means to leave the room he's being kept in, Zuko is forced to hide beside the door and wait for someone to eventually come around and check up on him. There isn't even a peep hole leading through the locked steel door that bars his cell closed, a poor choice of design in his mind. However as he continues to wait for someone to head down towards him, he begins to hear footsteps coming from the other side of the iron door. Stilling his breathing for a moment, Zuko waits as a key is inserted into the locked cell door before the rotating handle is spun and the iron door is pulled open. As it is, three guards sprint into the room, seeing that the restraints that Zuko was once in are now empty and laying strewn across the floor. "Quickly, alert War Minister Ching that the avatar has escaped!" Sergeant Aminai barks at the other men but the second the words leave his mouth, the three men are blasted off their feet by a wave of compressed air slamming them hard into the steel walls of Zuko's cell. They crashed into the wall so hard that the trio left a visible dent in the sheet steel. "You won't be alerting anyone." Zuko says before walking over to one of the guards and stealing his uniform.

After taking the time to dawn a standard firebender infantry uniform, Zuko slides the white faceplate over the face of the helmet before exiting his prison cell and locking the door behind him. For an added bonus, he takes the time to melt the handle of the door so the others won't be escaping any time soon. "I have to assume that the others have gone searching for me, or are already on their way to attacking the drill... if I was Sokka, what would I do first?" Zuko ponders as he sprints down the winding hallways around the interior of the drill. As he rounds one of the corners, he spots a side panel on the wall detailing different directions of where to go on the drill. "Barracks, mess hall, latrines... command tower... bingo. Engineering." he whispers before sprinting down the hall towards the direction the arrow is pointing to.

With the Gaang.

Aang had elected to leave Appa with Iroh on top of the wall both to allow the general to come rescue them if need be or to pick them up after the battle is over. Toph kicks her foot out and creates a platform for the quintet to stand on as she wills it to descend down the face of the wall towards the Terra Team's forward position. As the sliding stone lift comes to a stop however, they're met with a gruesome sight. The entire terra team had been defeated, while most of them didn't have fatal injuries who or whatever did this to them is an extremely competent fighter. "Captain Baneng, what happened here?!" Katara exclaims as she rushes over to the injured captain laying flat on his back in one of the trenches.

"Two girls ambushed us, one with throwing knives, the other hit me with several quick jabs and my body locked up. I think she paralyzed me." The captain responds as Katara pulls out her waterskin and begins healing the injured captain.

"You're not paralyzed but your muscles have been seized up by her. That was Ty Lee, an expert chi blocker who can remove anyone's bending or completely immobilize them." Katara says, "Do you have an emergency firework, or something to communicate with the wall?" She asks.

"Yeah, it's in this." The captain says as her healing restores his ability to move his left arm. He reaches into a bag on his side before pulling out a spherical firework shell. "If any of you are an earthbender, launch this up to the top of the wall." He says prompting Yue to grab the firework charge and rush it over to Toph. "It'll call for reinforcements and medics."

"Toph, launch this, straight up." Yue says as she hands the firework charge to Toph who obliges in kind. The firework launches clear to the top of the wall before exploding in a red flare. "That'll get their attention." She says before motioning for Toph and the others to follow her.

"There's no way in hell we're taking that thing down from out here. We need to get inside it." Sokka says before looking at Toph. "Can you make us some cover to get inside that thing?"

"Yeah but you're going to have to stick with me, Snoozles. You're not gonna be able to see it once I do it." Toph responds before leaping over the side of the trench and extending her hands outwards. With a thrust of her arms in towards her body, she creates a massive dust cloud before calling out for the others to come with her. "Hurry!" She shouts before taking off, behind her a team of medics and reinforcements is descending the wall down towards the Terra team allowing for Team Avatar to make their way towards the drill.