Ba Sing Se

Waking up to the sound of dripping water, Bo groggily opened his eyes and orientated himself.

Recalling his last memory which was the sight of Makos corpse, Bo winced in pain.

Looking within himself he realized his chi vein the arteries in which chi moved where strained.

It seemed that they were pushed to their limits and reached new heights at the cost of stress which Bo guessed would take a few days to heal.

Looking around, Bo was in a dark, damp cell. The only thing that made a sound was the flickering torch outside his cell in a hallway, and a leaky pipe dripping inconsistent water drops.

"Looks like being a fire bender comes with its downsides…" Bo said to himself.

It seemed like after he fought off the earth kingdom soldiers and passed out, he was brought to a cell.

'Where am I? Is this a cell in Ba Sing Se?' Because if so, then Bo had already accomplished what he had set to do and then some, after all he skipped the entrance and entered the capital.

A few moments later, Bo heard a duo of footsteps and activated his sharingan…

"Have you heard? The avatars arrived at the inner ring!" One of the guards spoke excitedly.

"Huh? How do you know that?" The other guard asked in a gruff tone.

"I saw a flyer land on the ground with his face on it, apparently he's looking for some buffalo."

"…" The other guard didn't have time to respond, instead he was starring at the cell that was suppose to have a prisoner.

"Hey! Where's the fire bender?" He yelled.

The other guard jerked his neck and was shocked to see the cell was empty. "How did he escape!"

The older of the duo jangled his keys and opened the gate to look inside and see if there were any escape hatches.

Walking into the darkness of the cell, the guard looked at his surroundings closely before a pair of red orbs appeared in the darkness.

With two swirling tomoes the glowing eyes floated in the abyss, the guards eyes widened and was about to scream before being interrupted by a jab to the stomach.

Keeling over and falling unconscious, his fellow guard only saw his comrade collapse and charged inside.

"Where are you!" He yelled, terrified by the encroaching darkness enveloping him in the cell.

Suddenly, a hack to the back of his next sent him to the ground to his fellow guard.

Appearing from the darkness, Bo's glowing sharingan eerily disappeared and the unnatural darkness vanished.

Replacing the darkness was a duo of unconscious guards and an empty cell…

———-

Dashing through the winding corridors in the prison, Bo saw a open window and jumped out into the night sky.

He was 5 story's in the air and times seem to stop as the moon backdropped his descent onto the empty streets below.

With his sharingan activated, Bo memorized the view ahead of him.

Landing like a badass, Bo got up off his knee and looked at his surroundings. Trash was heaped in piles and the homeless slept on the side of the road.

The buildings were skewed and little more than shacks, with only the prison being built out of stone.

This was the outer ring of Ba Sing Se, rife with poverty and corruption.

Recalling the layout of the dense city streets from his time in the air, Bo wasted no time and bolted forwards and jumping from one building wall off another onto a houses roof.

Bo then jumped across the outer city skyline making his was way towards the massive wall he saw in the distance, the middle ring.

On the way he saw various flyers scattered around the city streets with pictures of the avatar and Appa.

"Those guards where on point, Aang and the gaang should have been in Ba Sing Se for some time now."

From what Bo could remember, Aang only resorted to tossing the flyers around after the secretariat refused to help him in finding Appa.

"Appa may have already been captured by the dai li…" Bo whispered to himself as he zipped through the outer ring and the distant middle rings wall got closer and closer….

———-

Before long, Bo was standing at the base of the middle rings wall.

Realizing climbing wasn't an option, Bo had an idea.

Taking a deep breath, Bo recalled the scattered memories he had from his fight with the earth bender.

With those memories, came a searing pain. It was his intense emotions fueling his flames.

Clenching both his fists tightly, they erupted into a ball of flames.

Jumping onto the wall as leverage Bo shot the ground below him with a jet of fire, propelling him like a rocket up the side of the massive wall.

Every second was painful, Bo's chi had yet to recover from his previous outburst and already he was pushing himself.

Activating his sharingan, Bo deftly found any footholds in the side of the wall to use as a springboard to keep momentum.

A guard patrolling the wall yawned tiredly, "*Sigh* I should have listened to my mom and become a musician…"

Then suddenly a red streak shot in front of him causing him to reel back in surprise and fall on his butt.

"What in the name of-"

Looking into the sky, the guard saw a red arc descending back to the earth like a meteor towards the inside of the middle ring.

Realizing he had seen enough, the guard set down his spear and went to turn in his resignation. And that's the beginning of the tale of Fud, the legendary musician.

Meanwhile, Bo was debating his life choices as he made a crash course towards the middle ring. He had lost control and was just doing his best to slow his descent.

Feeling the strain on his chi reserves hit a maxim, his flames suddenly died out.

Looking at his bare hands and the hundreds or so feet he had remaining to the ground, Bo saw hope.

Doing what he remembered from mission impossible, Bo managed to turn off of the concrete surface and towards a park that had a lake in the center.

Crashing at breakneck speeds, Bo smashed into the water and skipped a dozen times off the surface like a stone before coming to a stop.

Once again, Bo found his world going dark…

———-

Awakening to yet another cell, though this one with green crystals portruding out of the corners, Bo thought, 'Am I cursed? Two jail cells in the same day can't be normal…'

In front of him was a light bulb on a rack that went around his head, the lightbulb just sat there and was etching afterimages into Bo's eyelids.

Shortly after awakening tied to a chair, the door opened and in came the infamous secretariat, Long Feng.

His head shaved in half and dressed in black and green robes, the man looked like a cliche villain with his facial expression and posture.

Following Long Feng was a Dai Li agent with the iconic conical helmet covering his eyes.

"Well well well, it isn't everyday someone crashes down into Ba Sing Se from the sky." Long Feng said while scrutinizing Bo with a viscous smirk.

Bo, not in the mood to entertain the secretariat stayed quiet.

Eyebrow twitching in annoyance, Long Feng spoke again, this time to the Dai Li agent, "Commence the procedure, I want this one turned into a brainless fool."

And with a dark chuckle, Long Feng strolled out of the cell and back to more important matters.

Nodding his head in understanding, the Dai Li flipped a switch and stood in front of the seated Bo.

As the lightbulb began to move and pick up speed, the Dai Li agent spoke, "You are nameless, without purpose, a mere-"

The Dai Li agent creased his brow in unease, the once indifferent black eyes of the subject had morphed a blood red with two spinning black dots.

Unsure what to do, the Dai Li agent was about to go and inform Long Feng of the anomaly before suddenly!

The wooden chair that Bo was tied to erupted in flames and soon collapsed to the floor in a heap of charcoal.

Rubbing his wrists in annoyance, Bo thought, 'At least after all this trouble I'm now in the center of Ba Sing Se…'

Looking at the backtracking Dai Li agent Bo said, "Thanks for saving me the trouble."

From the outside of the cell door and beneath the cracks, all that could be seen was flames…