Luke

The artillery had stopped. We were right below the walls. Unit 350 was where Zand had told us to be. We weren't first in line this time, but more so third. Directly in front of us was the Iron Gauntlet and in front of them, Zand's command craft. At the very front of the line. The tanks came to a stop directly in front of the wall, awaiting what came next.

We all knew that this was where the fun began, but all the same, it didn't feel right. We weren't supposed to be here. Not yet. I couldn't shake the feeling that this was all wrong. Though, then again, it was too late for second thoughts now.

Zand's tank aimed the grappling hook up at what seemed to be an 85-degree angle and fired. The hook caught, was yanked to test it strength, and the first tank began its ascent. Then was the iron gauntlet, it fired, and began its ascent as well. And then it was us, but we weren't alone. Our tanks were in a tight formation. 15 columns of ten tanks. And we were in the center, 14 other tanks to our sides. 7 to the left. 7 to the right. The synchronization of it was beautiful. A single working machine, moving forward to the wall as one, angling our ascension hooks as one, and firing as one, the echo of the rattling of the guns and tanks creating a single loud boom of mechanical marvel. The tanks tested their hook and drove.

The shift in angle was sudden rather than gradual in any way. One moment we were flat on the ground, and next, well, I could hear all of our unfastened equipment falling to the back of the tank, my helmet included. Well, that's against protocol. There was no fixing that now. I remembered what Zand told us and checked my hatch. It was closed and locked. Good.

I looked out the gunner's viewport and saw I was looking straight up at the dark gray sky that threatened rain at any moment, but never delivered as it wasn't gaseous water giving those clouds that grayish tint, but rather the sorrows of war.

I could see the height of the wall now. I remembered what I had read. 330 feet tall. It sounded small when read in a book, but when you remembered that you could stack ho humans on top of each other and not even get close to getting to the top, you got a perspective of just how tall it was. And now, these tanks scaling that wall, well, you definitely felt its height every foot you advanced forward.

Being the center of our line, our grappling hook went over two other tanks, being those of Zand and Zaedra, but it was rather harmless, the links merely scraping against their hull, doing no harm as the hooks of those behind us did the same with our own vehicles.

The tanks lumbered forward. There was no resistance to be felt. Could Zahckrael have been right? Was this really the opening we needed? Was the wall really that clear for us to get over that easily?

Of course. It wasn't. I could finally see the top of the wall and get that hint o hope when I felt the rumbling of the wall. I didn't know what it was until I looked through my port and saw hundreds of grappling lines unhook themselves from the wall, falling hundreds of feet down to the surface, crashing into our tanks and clattering off. I had no idea what was going on and couldn't even hear the yelling inside my own tank, too questioning of what the hell was happening. I turned the gunner port around with my seat, no longer facing straight up, but straight down, expecting to see over one hundred tanks still sitting there. However, that wasn't what I saw. What I did see was the ruins of what was once that portion of the wall, reduced to rubble, falling to the earth's surface, with it, carrying over 300 hundred Fire Nation soldiers in tanks that I could no longer see under the piles of rock and dust that had accumulated at the base of the wall.

And from that point on, there was really no point denying just how screwed we were. "Oh shit" was what I heard coming from Gan's seat. When I turned around to look upon what he was seeing, that's when I saw it.

Our tanks were stopped. Dead in our tracks. I wasn't sure if it was because all drivers had just decided to stop moving, or if we were literally being held in place by the wall and those manning it. I looked above, back towards the sky, and saw them, over 500 Earth Kingdom soldiers, clad in dark green clothing, hats shading their eyes, ready for the kill. It was once continuous motion and I knew what it would result in. I wasn't waiting. I fired the first blast before the last piece of the wall took us down to our graves.

The blast struck, the man fell, and the battle, no, the slaughter began. Only one row of tanks persisted behind ours. That, coupled with Zand and the Iron Gauntlet, meant only 32 tanks. 32 tanks against 500 soldiers. Maybe that sounded fair, but when you were in a position like that, I guarantee you, it wasn't.

The rocks came down, and the crossbow bolts went up. It was hard to remember that I was the Only firebender in the 15th armored, but today it showed. There were some undeniable truths in this world. Chief among them being that when it came to a clash between a bender and a nonbender, the bender will likely win. And it showed.

Some of the bolts found their marks, more didn't. More of the Earth Bender rocks did find their marks, however. I didn't have to see them go down, I just had to hear the screeching and clanging of metal as steel plates were warped beyond all repair and disconnected from their lifelines, plummeting to their cold graves below. I fired my shots, keeping us alive as long as I could, but we were sitting ducks. There was only one direction we could go: up. There was no left. No right. No down without death. Only up.

There was no time to become distracted by the death around us. There was only survival at this point in time. It was that way when the tank to our right went down. It was that way when the tank to our left went down. It was that way when a boulder took off the top half of Zand's command vehicle, sending it plummeting straight down into the Iron Gauntlet, completely crushing it, and sending it down to the growing pile of metal and bodies below, just narrowly missing our own tomb.

And then. It was only us. And we fought. I fired another blast, catching an Earth Bender in the arm, sending him backwards. I shot another one, catching one in the leg, sending him off of the wall while I saw a crossbow bolt make it way into one of their necks, sending that one down in a tumble of green robes as well. I saw another bender move into position right above us, gathering a piece of the wall, breaking it apart, and reshaping the shards into dozens of small spikes, more than small enough to get into the tank's opening, no doubt what the bastard intended. I readied myself to take the shot, but it was too late. There were coming down. There was one thing to do. I ducked. I heard the clanging of the shards against steel and took the moment of respite to fire. I ignored the yelling inside my tank, oblivious to what they were regarding, and I fired my blast and it caught him square in the chest, sending him backwards, hopefully dead. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gi Gu, a bloodied shard entering through the front of his neck and exiting through the back of his seat, blood red. I cleared my mind. There wasn't time to worry about that. He'd be fine. I moved to make another blast until a rock the size of a single bed crashed straight into my gunner's port, sealing the opening shut, blocking my view of anything at all. I was cut off. "Luke!" I heard Gan yell from the driver's seat and looked down, only then noticing the earthen shard that had taken him in his shoulder and more importantly, saw the Earth Bender raising a boulder twice the size of our tank and I took the chance. I opened the hatch, stuck out, and fired. He was hit, dropped his rock, fell.

The rock hit. Not as hard as it would have, but it hit, scraping against the port side of the tank, devastating the port side. I looked to my right to the wall and saw the other Earth benders, attention completely towards us and ducked right back inside the tank the second before a rock hit where the hatch had previously been, caving it in. There was no way for me to fight here. We were unarmed.

I unbuckled myself and crawled up to the driver's seat. I looked over to Gi Gu, knowing, but refusing to acknowledge him. The slight tumble downward accounted for a miss from those aiming at us, but it would last. The front viewport was too small for me to shoot through, but it was enough to see what was coming. "Gan! Detach!"

He knew there was no choice. He cut the cable, and we fell. It was a straight fall and I saw the rocks miss. He fired the spare chord in the nick of time and it caught the wall once again, going right through a soldier who had been at the top, using both the wall, and his body as an anchor.

It wasn't enough, and the same rocks shards came down again. I turned my face away and raised my arms to protect my head and felt the pain in my arms, lowering them once it was over, ignoring the rock spike that had lodged itself in my forearm. One had taken Gan in the left shoulder and the attack was coming again. Rock and spikes alike. We were dead. Unless. "Gan. We have to detach!"

"We have no spares." He muttered between blood filled coughs, spitting out the blood only onto himself thanks to gravity.

"It's that or we die."

He nodded his head, but nothing happened. He couldn't move his arm. I saw the look in his eyes as he looked towards me, unaware if it was him apologizing or readying himself to say some last words. I told myself he wouldn't need to, and I reached over, pushed the dead Gi Gu out of his seat, buckled myself in, reached over to Gan's side, and cut the connection. And then we were falling. I heard and saw the crashing of the rocks above us as they exploded, and it was the last thing I saw before the world went dark.