Beneath the drill, Toph creates a massive pillar of stone launching Aang, Katara, Sokka and Yue into the underbelly of the drill. "Toph, you coming too?" Sokka calls out as he leans down to grab her hand. "I can't see inside that thing, I'll try to slow it down out here but you need to find Zuko." She responds before creating several more pillars and jamming them into the moving joins beneath the drill. Without another word, Sokka heads up into the drill leaving Toph to try to stall for as long as possible.

"Do you have a plan Sokka?" Katara asks as he gets to his feet before drawing his sword and club from their holsters on his back. "We need to find out where they're keeping Zuko."

"Knowing him, he's probably broken out by now but we need to check to see where he could be being held." Sokka says before looking at Aang and Katara. "We also have to try to find engineering. A machine this size needs mechanics to take care of and repair it. Once we're down there we take down one of the guards, steal their plans and come up with a way to take this thing down."

"Taking down the drill would make it easier to find Zuko. If he hasn't broken out then they'd send a bunch of guards towards him to prevent it once this thing comes grinding to a halt." Aang says as the four begin running down the long hallways looking for any sort of directions inside the metal beast.

"Hopefully he's already thought ahead and has broken out. If they're holding him somewhere on this thing it won't be labeled and that'll make rescuing him a lot more difficult." Sokka responds as the quartet sprint down the metal corridors.

In the depths of the Drill, Zuko sneaks around walls and corners trying to avoid any of the other personnel that are onboard. He glides down a staircase heading towards the engine room making sure to keep out of line of sight from any of the workers. As he rounds a corner, he hears footsteps coming around the other side. Slow and methodical coming from heavy metal boots on the iron grates of the floor. Across from him, a pipe wraps around the wall heading around the corner coming from the boiler room. The small label on the side of the pipe warning of its heat is all he needs to hatch a plan. With his stolen boots, Zuko leans up and kicks the top of a valve off of it's mooring causing the pipe to begin spraying boiling water all over the wall and releasing so much steam it completely obscures him from view.

Hearing the valve stem hit the ground, the engineer around the corner, from where Zuko is, stops in his tracks. The young avatar drops low to the ground underneath the rising steam so he can get a better view at the legs of whoever is around the corner. The moment he sees the heavy boots of one of the engineers come into view, Zuko ambushes the man. He springs to his feet and pulls his arms up and in around the engineer bending the steam in the air to surround the man. With a sharp exhale, the temperature of the steam instantly drops to freezing, encasing the man in ice. Using the remaining water in the air, Zuko creates a club out of the ice before slamming it down on the back of the man's head rendering him unconscious and frozen in ice. He quickly roots through the man's things and finds several schematics of the drill in his bag.

"Let's just hope my luck can hold out." Zuko says to himself but almost the moment he stops speaking he feels a disturbance in the air behind him. Reacting quickly, he dodges underneath the attack coming from behind him before using his airbending to launch his attacker upwards then the steam to freeze his attacker to the ceiling.

"Wait! Katara! Yue stop! That's Zuko!" Sokka exclaims as Zuko spins to face Yue who is holding several spear pointed tendrils of water facing right for him. Zuko manages to stop her forward momentum from the attack as he takes control of the water before directing it onto the broken pipe freezing the leak in place. "Holy crap that was a close call." Zuko breathes out a sigh of relief as he pulls his helmet off.

"Good call on the disguise, you even had me fooled." Yue says as she pulls the water from the air back into her waterskin. "You alright?" She asks as Zuko takes a moment to catch his breath.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Zuko says before taking stock of the others. "Where's my uncle? And Toph?" he asks.

"He's with one of the generals on the wall, Toph is underneath the drill trying to stall it for as long as possible." Yue responds as Zuko looks down the hallway trying to see if anyone is coming towards them.

"We need to find them then, it'll be a hell of a lot easier to take down the drill with their help." Zuko says before looking down at the engineer at his feet. "Sokka, help me hide the body."

"Right." Sokka nods before grabbing the engineer by the shoulders and helping Zuko carry him into an adjacent room.

"Zuko we have a problem. That general we mentioned said he was gonna execute your uncle if the drill even touches the wall. We're on a time limit." Yue says as Zuko and Sokka throw the man into a side room before Zuko breaks off the handle and melts the door closed behind them.

"Great, is there anyone else who wants to fight?! Just raise your hand now." Zuko growls sarcastically. "Fuck it, let's go. We need to stop this thing already." He declares before taking off running down the catwalk with them close on his heels.

"Got a plan for how we're going to take this thing down?" Katara asks as they dart through the hallways and round a corner. The quintet comes to a stop in a side room to get their bearings and review the schematics of the drill for a moment.

"I hope so," Zuko begins as he unravels the paper scroll and begins to look through it. "It looks like the drill is made up of two halves, a steel armor outside and the interior where we are now. There's engines in each compartment of the drill's body and there's six engines." He says as he traces his fingers along the page pointing out the massive engines. "We're going to go kill the first engine, the one that is driving the main drill bit. Once the engine breaks down, they'll be scrambling to fix it which gives us a chance to take down the others. The first one we're going to take down is the head of this thing."

"The engines are probably crawling with firebenders and guards." Yue says as Zuko scrunches up the scroll and shoves it into his waistband.

"That's the easy part. This entire drill is run on steam power, meaning we have all the water in the world to deal with them. We have to do this as fast as possible and take out the guards just as quickly. When we get there, wait for my signal." When Zuko says this Yue's face lights up with a mischievous and slightly malicious grin. Katara is slightly unnerved by her sister-in-law's excitement but that same excitement is plastered on her brother's face as well.

"Let's go knock some firebender heads." Sokka grins as their plan is put into action.

With a plan now in action Zuko directs Aang, Katara, and Sokka to split off from himself and Yue to the other end of the first engine bay. Their plan relies on creating as much of a delay and damage as possible so doing this stealthily is key. He and Yue sneak through the side corridors up to the front end of the first engine room being careful to avoid any patrols or engineers along the hallways as they sneak around the drill. With a nod to Yue, Zuko puts on the helmet that he had stolen from the sergeant before motioning for her to duck out of the way of the door. Opening the large doors to the engine bay, Zuko scans the room looking for guards and other exits where one could escape and sound the alarm.

The engine bay is set up in two levels, the ground level on the reinforced steel floor with the massive boilers and turbine in the center and an upper level of catwalks and pipes feeding water into the boilers. Above him, patrols of guard pairs walk along the catwalks with engineers tending to the pipes and checking pressure valves. The lower level has guards patrolling the outside out the engine bay itself with engineers shoveling coal into the furnace below the boilers. Zuko passes by one of the guards as he walks towards the center of the room, being careful not to look up at the rafters too much to find out where the other guards are. As he nears the side of the boiler, he sees one of the small pipes is leaking water and this gives him an idea. Double checking his surroundings, Zuko pulls his arm to the side in a quick motion and bends the steam and water through the leaking pipe.

The moment the water is pulled into the weakened pipe, the steam pressure bursts through the seams of the pipe and sprays the boiling water into the air. He fakes a pained scream and falls over as he bends the steam in the air to conceal himself and cool the steam so it doesn't burn him. His fake shouts of pain draw the attention of the guards and engineers who immediately bolt down to come to his aid. The heavy fog in the air conceals his form as he lies on the ground waiting for as many of them to get close as possible. "Sergeant Aminai!" One of the guards yells as they dart into the steam cloud and rush to Zuko's side.

With a sudden jerk, Zuko lunges upwards and pulls his arms in towards his body instantly pulling the steam in the air around himself and the guards that rushed towards him. The fog freezes on contact with their armor and skin entombing them in place as he begins his attack. From the window looking into the engine room, Yue bursts through the door and slashes a guard on the catwalk with a waterwhip before grabbing the man and throwing him into the engineer and guards behind him. Across from her on the other catwalk, Sokka bursts through the door and plunges his sword into the stomach of an engineer before whipping his boomerang forwards and clocking the man behind him in the side of the head. From behind him, Katara slashes across the steel pipes unleashing a torrent of water into the room that she uses to wrap herself in tendrils and grab the remaining guards on the catwalk.

Aang darts in behind Katara before dropping down to where Zuko is before kicking a firebender in the side before the man could reach the alarm. The force of the impact launches the guard into the door causing him to hit his head and fall unconscious. "Aang, Choke out the furnace, cut off any air flow to it. I'll take down the boiler." Zuko commands as he pulls the water up from the floor and over his hands. He launches a tendril up to the top of the boiler before whipping his arms forwards, slashing the water blades through the steam vents of the boiler and turbine. Beneath him, Aang opens the door to the furnace before spinning his hands around creating a rotating sphere of air that he bends over the front end of the furnace. The bright burning coals on the inside slowly begin to dim as Zuko finishes cutting apart the boiler dumping gallons and gallons of water out the back end of it. "Aang move!" Zuko shouts, prompting the airbender to jump upwards towards the catwalk as the boiling water gets to the base of the engine. Zuko forces the water into the furnace extinguishing the flames before shredding the rest of the engine. For good measure, Katara and Yue freeze the rest of the tubes leading into the room making sure that the engine is irreparable.

In the Helm of the Drill.

"Sir! We just lost all power to the drill bit head and engineering one is not responding!" The frantic voice of one of the guards on the lower levels echoes through the intercom of the control room.

"Send a repair team to the engine room immediately, and what's the status of the avatar? Is he still in confinement?!" War Minister Ching barks through his receiver, as he does so a droplet of sweat leaks down the back of his neck.

"We have had no contact with Sergeant Aminai, but the door to the avatar's holding cell has had its handle sheared off and melted. We believe that the avatar has escaped." War Minister Ching freezes in place when he hears this, feeling the ire filled stare from the princess boring into his skull.

"War Minister. Tell your men to double the guard around the engines, I will deal with the avatar personally." Azula says as she stands from her throne and gives a wordless command to both Mai and Ty Lee. "This will be a test of your loyalty to me. Mai." Her voice is cold, almost robotic.

"Yes princess." Both Mai and War Minister Ching respond, the war minister turns and pulls down the intercom again and barks into it.

"Attention all staff. Double the patrols around the engine rooms and get the drill operational again. The Avatar has escaped." Through several speakers he gets a chorus of responses all saying 'Yes sir' and for a moment the war minister breathes a sigh of relief now that Azula has left the bridge.

In Engine Bay 2.

"Looks like they know we're here." Sokka says as Zuko rips an iron door off the wall with waterbending and launches it into the turbine of the second engine. "Got any other ideas? They're gonna be swarming us in minutes."

"Split up. I can take down an engine on my own but there's still 4 more. Take the others and take this thing down. I'll be fine!" Zuko declares as he lunges forwards and spins, wrapping several tendrils of water onto the pipes leading into the boiler before wrenching them apart. The destroyed pipes flood the entire engine bay with water, drowning out the furnace.

With the entire furnace and boiler flooded, Zuko Katara and Yue use the water in the room to shred apart gear boxes, pistons and the moorings holding the massive steam engine in place. The weight of the turbine crushes the boiler beneath it as the massive steel rotating body drops onto the boiler. With the second engine down for the count, they split up once again with Zuko heading onto the third engine bay and the others heading to the rear most engine. Zuko bursts through the steel doors of the second engine room and sprints across the catwalk, shredding everything around him with the torrent of water flooding in behind him.

As he rips open the doors to the third engine room, he quickly dodges out of the way of a wave of flames launched towards him by the guards that are swarming the engine bay. Seeing his quarry in the center of the room, Zuko jumps over the edge of the catwalk moments before another fireball would have connected with him. Thinking quickly, Zuko throws a hard punch to the side and floods the furnace with as much coal as he can, trying to cause a flashover. The coal is condensed into a dense ball of rock as it's crammed into the mouth of the furnace blocking off the fires inside from any air. Suddenly, Zuko has to dodge out of the way of an attack from one of the engineers swinging at him with a massive wrench. He side steps the attack before driving his knee into the man's chest then rotating his arms up and forwards launching the engineer into three other guards behind him with airbending. With a lull in the fight, Zuko creates a ball of air in his hands before shoving it through the coal stopper he had shoved into the furnace. The added fuel and massive inflow of air causes a flash ignition that spews fires out of the mouth of the furnace igniting the remaining coal storages.

With the intense flames burning around him, Zuko begins bending as much air towards the flames as he can, increasing the temperature hotter and hotter. The yellow flames now touching on shades of white, Zuko pulls the fire from the furnace and blasts it through the supports of the boiler melting a hole straight through it and the turbine above it. With the engine now little more than molten slag, Zuko severs the pipes around the engine bay and flash cools the molten metal causing it to crack from the strain. The abrupt quench of molten metal into water causes the structure of the massive engine to become brittle and collapse under its own weight as the steel shatters like glass. The molten metal hitting water instantly turns it to steam concealing him from the guards entering the room to try to control the damage. With the cloud of steam concealing him, Zuko sneaks out of the third engine before melting the handles of the doors behind him.

As he sprints down the hallways towards the fourth engine room, a bladed knife strikes against the steel vambrace on his right arm giving him a warning a fraction of a second before Ty Lee would have blind sided him with a punch. Zuko spins and grabs Ty Lee by the wrist before launching her down the hallway with a gust of air at her back. The chi blocker hadnt expected him to move so nimbly, let alone evade the attack from her and she's sent almost a hundred yards down the hallway just as Zuko lands back on his feet. "You missed." Zuko says as he turns to face his sister who is standing between him and the entrance to the fourth engine room. "Before you ask, or jump to conclusions. Mai didn't help me escape. Ty Lee doesn't know how to stop airbenders from bending." The statement causes a sneer to form on his sister's face. "And while you're wasting time here, my friends are taking down the rest of this metal monstrosity." He smirks, taking off the helmet over his head and cracking his neck. "Go on, Azula. Take the bait." He monologues, hoping that she'll separate herself from them.

"Mai. Ty Lee. Deal with the avatar's little pets. I'll deal with him." She commands and Zuko's smirk grows even more as Azula attacks.