Luke

The first thing I remember thinking of was trying to remember how many people I killed that week. The number still couldn't come to my head.

It's interesting how when people always talk about near death experiences, they always talk about how they thought they were dead. About how when the world goes black they assume that's it. It's over. I've had that feeling before. Back in Citadel on many an occasion. So I knew at that moment, when I heard my breath, that I, somehow, was alive.

Everything around me was dark. There was no light to indicate how deep down I was, how many layers were between me and the open sky, and just how screwed I was. Then again, was I really alive? Maybe I was still breathing, but calling the situation I was in one of live would be a gross miscalculation.

The air was still, stale. Wherever I was, it stunk of smoke, gasoline, and death. Then again, I knew exactly where I was. I doubted I would have moved or been moved in my state of unconsciousness, but all the same, I had to make sure that wherever I was, I was where I had left off before the world went dark. I had to see if the world around me was still black or I had merely lost my sense of sight.

I tried to create a flame in my right hand, but nothing occurred. Then I realized I couldn't even feel the hand. Or the arm. I felt the pain in the shoulder, but that was the extent of it. And then I began to panic. Was I being restrained? Was I captive somewhere? I retried the process, but with my other hand, and felt relief when the first spark generated, assuring me that I hadn't gone blind. The spark, under my care, soon became a flame, and I saw my new world around me. I set the flame to the side, sparking a piece of cloth lying on the tanks ground, or what could had been its wall, or even ceiling. I had no idea what orientation the tank was in, but I suspected we were on our side by from what I had seen thus far.

The tank was hardly in the best of conditions. The first thing I saw was the gunner's seat, my seat, caved in by brown and black rocks, crushing the viewport and the chair, rendering any of the tank's capabilities inoperable. Not that it mattered. Not anymore. The crew was-

Then I remembered. "Gan!" I almost heard myself yell to myself as I struggled to get up, turning left to where the driver's seat would be. It was still there. And so was he. He was still strapped into his seat, staring blankly ahead of him with dead eyes, as shards of broken rock, glass, and metal protruded from every part of his body, rendering him a human porcupine. No spot on his body was clean of blood and guts. It didn't take a genius to know he was gone.

Was it quick? Was all I could bear to ask myself. I convinced myself he would have died either way, but by cutting the tank's connection to the wall, did I merely condemn him to a death of pain and suffering rather than the one that would have ensued had we stayed in that very spot?

I was alive though. I saved myself. For whatever it was worth. I looked at Gan again and remembered Gi Gu. I knew he was dead. He was when I pushed his corpse out of that seat, but where was he?

I moved my body around, having no control over my legs, and turned behind me towards the "back" of the tank, but only saw rocks and debris with a mangled leg poking out accompanied by an arm. Sad thing was that it could've been anyone. Hell, could've been my right arm. On that thought, I checked my own right arm and saw the state it was in. A rock spike, taking on the form of a small stalagmite, had entered and exited through my right forearm, entering clean and well formed, and exiting mangled, bloody, and gory.

I saw no bone so that was some consolation, but that arm wouldn't be usable for the next few months by the way it looked. The arm was broken too as I could tell. I had no feeling in it and it wasn't particularly shaped like a human arm anymore, but rather a tangled piece of rope. I looked away before it became too much to look at and returned to the issue at hand. The issue that was always of the most paramount import. Ow the hell am I getting out of this?

I had no time to think about Gan or Gi Gu, or of the Earth Kingdom, the War, any of that. I was buried alive, running out of air, and I had to survive this. I looked to my legs and saw what had rendered them inoperable. Well, putting it simply, they weren't there. Well. Not quite that extreme. I wanted to think they were there. I could feel my toes. Or that could just be phantom pain. All the same, I saw they were simply crushed. Simply. Fun word.

They weren't crushed by rocks. The hull of the tank had warped around my legs and were holding them in place. So it wasn't exactly crushing my legs, but snaring them more like. I tried moving my right leg and saw motion. I repeated the test with my left and, ignoring the pain that resulted from such tests, determined that not only did I still have legs, but they were still usable, and were merely snared.

I moved my body into a sitting position, inadvertently extorting myself with the effort, resulting in heavy breathing and a prompt discovery of my limited supply of usable oxygen around me. I couldn't afford heavy breathing. Every breath I took would have to be careful and deliberate.

Slowly, I bent forwards, to the point that the top of my head was brushing against the top of the tank and managed to reach my legs. There was about a half inch of space between my leg and the steel encasing it. At least with my right leg. I'd deal with the left soon enough. A half inch, all the same, would suffice.

I looked around me for something long and hard and found what had once been a steam pipe in the tank, broken off from the collision. I grabbed it, pulling it towards me and checking the diameter to ensure it'd suffice.

It would.

I moved my leg as far to once side of the gap as I could and slid the metal pipe between it and the gap. The steel was thin, and should prove easy to warp. Indeed, in its broken and mangled state, it did. I pried the pipe inside, and using that, managed to shift the metal away from my leg, providing ample space to free it, only needing to adjust it once more to free my foot.

Then came my left, far more entrapped than the right had been. There was no space to pry the pipe. It was without a doubt trapped. I tried kicking the metal, hoping to warp it to once side to try to create a gap, but was only met with failure in the form of the metal shifting only a centimeter, scraping against my leg, tearing the leggings and my skin alike, in a combination I didn't particularly care for. I didn't dare the pipe, knowing it would be the same result, but all the more painful.

I dropped the pipe, and thought. Thought of some clever way out of this, but thought of nothing. The room was becoming dark again. It took me a minute of deliberation to determine if it was me, or the dying flame. Luckily, it was the flame. I cared for it, growing it, re-lighting the room, and was provided with the idea I needed, as painful as it would be.

There was one way out I realized, and I wouldn't like it. Unfortunately for me, there was no choice.

To avoid a fire from starting, I cut the pant leg, rolling it back, exposing my skin. This would hurt, but I preferred a burnt leg over a slow death of carbon poisoning. I adjusted my leg as best as I could, lit the small flame in my left hand, and moved it towards the metal.

I was new to fire bending. The strength of my fire at this point was hardly that of even an amateur, but that only meant I would be here longer. Unfortunately, time was of the essence, so I got started that second.

There were no results for the first 5 minutes. Then, the metal took a warm orange color. After 10 minutes, it was red, droplets of hot steel dripping onto my skin. I'd have to stop my burning process to wipe them off every number of seconds to avoid even worse results. Over the next 15 minutes, the frequency of these drops increased, and the pain was becoming excruciating until I believed it ready to warp. I grabbed the steam pipe, shoving it into the orange steel, piercing through it, moving the steel plate to the side, followed by a wave of warm iron falling over my leg, practically charring the section of skin and finally, freed my left leg, despite the cost.

I looked at the leg, and, well, it wasn't particularly good. I had managed to avoid most of the melted steel, but that which had fallen onto to me was leaving its mark. It would, however, have been worse. Interesting thing about when molten steel meets skin is that it takes time for the heat to transfer, giving me time to remove the droplets. All the same, in vast quantities such as I had just experienced, they take their toll. Could still feel the leg though which was of some consolation, but I had to get moving.

Now came the real issue. Getting out of here. I moved to the only potential exit, the gunner's port, but, of course, it was collapsed. There was no leaving through there. That left not natural exit. I couldn't see out of the front viewport where Gan's corpse was so there was no indication of what was the easiest way out. There was one piece of consolation, however. We were the last tank to go down. We were at the top. If there was anyone who could free themselves from this mountain of bodies, tanks, and rocks, it was me.

And I knew how to get out. The tank's fuel lines were intact. Th steam lines were broken, but the pipes that fed gasoline to the engine were still intact. The engine was at the front of the tank. If I could change the pressure in the valves, I could feed more gas into the engine, overloading it, and upon a trigger of the engine, If I could even start the tank, the front would explode. Assuming it didn't kill me, It might pave a way for me to escape.

So I did just that. I changed the pressure vials and was overjoyed at the sound of the gas moving, unmolested by breaches in the pipe-works. After a minute or two of waiting, I knew it was time. I just needed to protect myself. I'd seen it done before, but had never attempted it. The moment I ignited the gas, the engine would explode in an explosion that, if I was right in assuming it would blow the rocks out of the way, would definitely kill me.

I would have to stop the explosion in its tracks. I turned off the pressure to the. Valves, trusting enough had gone to the engines, waited a second or two, and opened the pipe, avoiding the small amount of gasoline that leaked out. Then I focused. I created the spark of fire in my left hand, raised it to the pipes, and sent it through. Then I focused. Focused on the world around me. Then I felt it. The ignition as the spark met the gasoline. I felt the heat around me grow and prepared myself for the explosion. I extended my arm, focusing, concentrating, and felt the ignition and held. The force grew, the fire grew, the explosion grew. The world around me shook, but I stood my ground. The explosion grew, parts of the tanks collapsed, rocks broke apart, but I held. The front of the tank exploded in fire as the metal of the tank's bow ripped apart in the sheer impact of the explosion, but I focused, and held it back, and then, realizing it wasn't enough, redirected it. I turned the force of the blast around, and sent it towards the rocks that had me buried all this way underground and the earth shook, and the explosion, finding its outlet, escaped, and died, and I fell to the ground, exhausted.

When I woke up in what I could tell was 5 minutes or 5 hours, I saw the open sky ahead of me. I saw the stars, the black sky, and the moon, looking down on me, telling me I was alive. And so I was.

I stood up, and crawled forwards, past the tank, past Gan's mangled body, ordering myself to ignore it, ignore him, and crawled past the charred rock I had created, and exited into the open world, against all odds, still alive. I stood up on that mountain of dead men and machinery and made my way down the mountain, the wall of Ba Sing Se right behind me.

Soon enough, I was at the bottom. I turned around, and saw what lay behind me. A mountain of rocks, tanks, and bodies. I ignored the thought of just how many more soldiers like me were buried underneath, begging for a quick death or just trying to get out to make it back home. Then I looked upwards, and saw the wall of Ba Sing Se, the killer of all these people, the only thing protecting the killers inside that city. The only thing between me and them. And I was going to tear that wall down.

I made my way back to the camp of the 5th Corps. Or at least, what was left of it. I walked in the night, limping the 2 kilometers between the wall and the camp. The evidence of the battle that had apparently ensued surfaced slowly but surely. First, there were craters, all burnt out, accompanied by Earth Kingdom forces. There were the bodies of soldiers, mangled and limbless on the ground, dried blood painting the ground. I moved on, passing more bodies and craters, some still burning. I began to think the battle of the camp had been won. At least, that's what I was thinking as I passed the Earth Kingdom's worm-like tanks, overturned, split apart, charred, and still burning, but such wasn't the case. I passed the perimeter of the camp, over the trenches, and saw the devastation of. The 5th Corps. The trenches had become mass graves of Fire Nation soldiers, stacked in piles atop each other, nearly filling the trenches to the brim.

Fires still lit throughout the camp, whether be it soldiers or the tents. All the same, it was all gone. The entire 5th Corps. Then the rain began, only adding insult to injury. Damn, how I hated the rain. The tents of the 22nd and the 15th were looted and burnt to the ground. The weapons were stolen, the armor too. The doctor's tent was looted and he lay dead on the ground, slumped against the wall of the tent, bleeding from a spear in his stomach. I went to the command tent next, past the battlements and three mounds of bodies and saw the corpses of two of the three men who had seemed so invincible before, commanding our fates with their voices alone, slumped on the ground, in a line of two, all dead, executed.

I didn't feel joy or anger. I felt empty. This was the second time it had happened now. It just kept happening. The Hornets. Now the 5th. Everything around me was dead. The soldiers, the engineers, the doctors, the cooks, the mounts. The Earth Kingdom killed everyone and everything, burning what the couldn't take. How did they claim this was a war of morality when this was how they fought?

I thought that for hours as I headed to the South and West, because I had made my decision. Gan and Gi Gu had considered it, but I wouldn't. I wasn't a deserter. If I deserted, how would. Ever get a chance to take this city down? So when I saw the lights in the distance followed by the Fire Nation banner, I knew that not only would I live, but I would get my chance. I would get my chance to burn this city to the ground.