Kuvira's Assistant

Chapter 29

An Earth Empire mechanic ran to the west 'internal controls operation' room, reporting his observations in staggering pants, "Commander Guan! I ran as fast as I could. I checked the main control room as you'd asked me to, and the reason we're not moving is because it was broken into!!"

"No shit, Satoshi!!!" A tall, angry, moustached man barked at the young mechanic, "We've been trying to rewire the intruder alarms for the past ten minutes!!"

The young man gulped as he tried to catch his breath, "Yes, I know, I meant to explain that the operators were knocked out and tied down!"

Commander Guan growled at this news, adding, "Anyone in here confident enough to metalbend AND operate the mecha?! ... You, Ak-"

"URGENT! Sorry to interrupt, but the weapon's loading mechanism has malfunctioned!!"

Guan swiftly turned around to pay attention to the operator behind him, "Must be one of those metalbenders that broke in..." he scowled.

"AKARI, SUKI! You two are metalbenders, right? Rip the right arm off!! Those metalbenders must be in there trying to crush us from the inside!!"

The women looked at each other from the sides of their eyes.

"Sir, we haven't been trained to operate spherical controls," one of them began to explain before they were abruptly interrupted by Guan's stressed and intimidating stare.

"GO!" Guan's voice boomed. He pressed his thumb and index finger against the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes in frustration and thought.

"Any sign of Kuvira yet?" He grumbled to the rest of the operators in the room.

"No, Commander Guan." Another operator responded to him while fully concentrated on his task.

"Mako!!!"

The firebender jumped, not expecting to hear Bolin calling out to him. He answered, "Huh?! You've gotta get out of here!!"

"What?! Why?! What are you guys doing?!!!" The earthbender asked with concern, trying to speak over the zapping sounds of the spirit energy brain, "Wanna fill me in...?!"

"Mako, we don't have time!!" Iroh peered his head over to see what was going on.

"Just one sec!!" Mako replied as he approached Bolin.

"Well?!"

"... We're going to zap it with some electricity."

"Ohhh-ho-hoo, let's back it up. Are you INSANE? That'll make it explode!!!" The earthbender cried, "Did you even try the levers?!"

"OBVIOUSLY we did!! They didn't work!! ... Bolin, this is our only way of shutting this thing down... Unless you know another way?"

The younger sibling paused in thought, and as a mournful expression washed over his face, he clarified, making his brother sigh in frustration, "... No. I don't."

"Well, we can handle it." Mako explained as he turned to walk back to his original position to the left of the spirit energy brain.

His younger brother stretched out his arm to hold him by the shoulder, "No! You can't!" This isn't the time to prove how awesome you are! I already KNOW how awesome you are!!" he frowned, "... You're awesome."

"I don't have time to argue!! We're already doing this, so get out of here!!" The firebender snapped, "And where's Chief?!"

Pouting, Bolin replied, "We pretty much crushed the insides of the spirit cannon... Well, she did. But there were too many guards to hold off. I escaped while she distracted them and came to find you. I think she's still inside the cannon fighting a couple of those guards..."