Regular disclaimer: I DO NOT own avatar in any way. Oh and also all that other stuff that might get me sued too.

The Traveler:

I did not know how far I had gone from the fire nation, but I did know they were still in pursuit of me. I realized I only had little time, money and resources and decided not to stop escaping for the night. The tiny Earth kingdom village had provided me some shelter during this thunderstorm, but I continued on after only staying there for two hours. What I held in my hand was a book that nobody could see and what I held in my head was knowledge that nobody could know. I knew I had to reach them in time as the rain camouflaged my tears streaming down my face.

Aang, the Avatar:

"Come on Sokka! Wake up! We have a lot do to today."

"Just gimme a few minutes…"

This happened every day and was a regular ordeal between us now. I had always found a way to get him out of his sleeping bag and awake, but the thunderstorm last night had kept us all awake, so I couldn't blame him. Toph, strangely enough was still asleep, even though she sleep through the entire thunderstorm like a rock. Well, she was an Earthbender after all.

"Aang, maybe you should take a break from training today." said Katara. She always nice to me…and I kinda had a big crush on her so I tended to listen to her a lot. "After all, there is such a thing as over training."

"Yeah" I agreed. "But I have to get all the elements mastered before Sozin's Comet arrives! We haven't really got a lot of time to kick back and relax."

"Come on, what if we just went to gather supplies in the next town over for a few hours? After all, we are running low on food and I don't feel like hunting all the time like my brother over there." She pointed to Sokka, who was still sound asleep with his mouth wide open. "Please?"

At this chance, I could not resist. A few hours alone with Katara was too big of an opportunity for me to miss.

"Ok." I said, finally giving in to relaxing. We started to head into town after leaving a note for the rest of the gang so they wouldn't worry so much. One could still see the damage left from the thunderstorm, as portrayed all around us. We were lucky that trees didn't fall on our campsite last night.

"You! Halt there!" A voice rang out from down the path, and a little muffled too, so I assumed it came from under a fire nation soldier's helmet. Katara assumed the same; that the voice came from a fire nation soldier and we both prepared us mentally and physically for a battle. True enough, a small group of firebenders appeared in front of us.

"Hey you. Have you seen this b—" he was about to show us a picture of whatever he was searching for but then recognized me as the Avatar. He stood seeming astonished for a split second but then came out of his shock. "Abandon the other mission men! This one is the Avatar! His head is worth scores more!" The leader shouted orders of attack at his men at this moment but they had already lost. Katara already had out her water whip and was dealing with five of them leaving me with the rest.

Piece of cake.

I launched an air blast at the four rushing me from the left and froze the feet of three running over a puddle leaving the rest of my attention to the ones in the middle. One was brandishing a spear and the three surrounding him had their hands out ready to launch a volley of fire balls at me.

They came pretty slowly and I leaped over them with such ease as to mock them. I laughed which made one of the three so angry as to start his barrage of fire. The fire balls launched at me were easily blown out by airbending and the air blast continued to hit the rest of the men. Wait…something was off…weren't there four of them?

"AANG!" I heard Katara's shout before it hit me. The guys with the spear had snuck around me and had thrown it at my back. I turned around to see the spear just inches from me. There was not time to react, so prepared for pain as I tried to deflect the spear with only my bare hands. But suddenly a wall of earth sprung up in front of me. I turned around for a second time to see Toph and Sokka standing behind me. I smiled to see that the two had my back.

"Thought you two could sneak away without me noticing, huh, Twinkletoes?" she said

"Thanks for the save, Toph. I should have been more careful, but I'm glad you got my back."

"Don't get too used to it Twinkletoes. Earthbenders have to face their own problems most of the time."

And for the second time that day, I didn't mind that nickname in the least.

The Traveler:

"Hey kid, are you gonna buy any actual food, or are you just gonna keep drink distilled cactus juice?"

Ugh. The waitress was becoming more annoying every time she visited my table. Again.

"I told you. I barely have enough money for the juice itself."

"Well if you need money, you can work of a meal in the back or sell that fancy book you have there." She pointed to my book on the table next to my glass of juice. "Never seen anything like it…" her voice trailed off.

Not the book…Never the book. "The book's not for sale." I said. "And I have no time to work a few days for you. I have to keep traveling."

"Jeez, kid, you win. Just hurry it up. We got other customers to you know." Then mumbling to herself, "What kind of kid drinks cactus juice, let alone this early in the morning?"

"Thank you. I knew you'd see my way ev—" I stopped as I saw the next group of customers walk in the door. "You know, I think I'll leave now. Here'sthemoneythankyouagain." Oh god why her? Of all people WHY HER? She was alongside that Fire Nation Princess (what was her name? Oh right…Azula) and that other girl who was indifferent all the time.

"I just sayin' if we actually looked in nature more we'd find them faster." She said

"For the last time Ty Lee, we are not looking for the Avatar; we are trying to take over the Earth kingdom. Besides. Nature really isn't my style." Azula eyed her finger nails and exclaimed disgust at her disguise. "Ughh. The Earth kingdom has a really bad fashion sense. When we take over I'm going to change that sooo fast."

"I'm hungry. Let's just eat now." Said that indifferent girl.

"I agree with Mai, Azula. I'm hungry too."

I asked the bartender where the back entrance was and he showed me it very quickly.

"One of those girls used to be your girlfriend, son?" He pointed toward the three girls waiting to be seated.

"S-something like th-that." I stammered. I hadn't realized how nervous I would be when I saw them. Then she noticed me and her faced lit up for a second and then fell. Without her comrades noticing she waved slightly and moved her hand across her neck while pointing toward them, signaling for me to leave very quickly. I nodded and hid behind the bar.

"Ah I can see which one now." said the bartender, taking notice of the whole silent conversation. "You wouldn't believe how many of you young kids I do this to." He, like all other good bartenders had a secret exit under his bar, through which I made my escape. How cliché. I thanked the bartender and gave him the last of my money as a tip. Escaping the fire nation soldiers had seemed like a breeze compared to escaping those three. And trust me I didn't want to do it again.

Toph Bei Fong:

"So that's the last of them." Sokka had done a nice job of tying up all of the fire nation soldiers. "Let's head into town now…What were we doing again?"

Katara and I let out an exasperated sigh at the same time and I punched him in the arm as I said "to get food, Snoozels. I thought that was what you liked best." We were walking down the path again.

"Oh right!" he said confirming what I had just said. "We should get meat. Why aren't we hunting again?"

"Well to be truthful, I wanted to see a famous local restaurant; the townspeople say it's quite good." Katara finally admitted. "They've especially emphasized the breakfast items."

"I hope they have meat" said Sokka as he salivated. I could feel the spit drop to the ground. He was disgusting as ever, yet still kinda cute in that way.

"Yeah, well I want some fresh apples, is all." Aang had been walking much slower now that he saw the whole gang was here. I guess he wanted to spend some time with Sugar Queen alone. Oh well.

We had reached the outskirts of the small Earth kingdom village now. It was very small, only about 200 inhabitants.

"Hmm, that's weird." I said out loud without meaning to.

"What is it Toph? An Earthquake? A rampaging mob?" Sokka was hoping for a little excitement I guess.

"No, nothing like that; there's a teenager escaping through an underground tunnel leading out of a bar. Usually that doesn't happen until late in the day or night."

"Do you think we should check it out?" Sokka was clearly thirsting for adventure more so than usually today.

"Well I think we should check out the restaurant he's escaping first and see why if we can. Look, if hes right under us, he's coming out of the restaurant that I wanted to go to earlier." Katara said. She walked up to the entrance and opened the door before closing it immediately.

"What's wrong Katara?" said Aang. "Who's in there?"

"Oh, just Azula and her friends taking a stroll through the Earth kingdom." Katara tried to sound calm but her voice was wavering just a bit.

"What? They aren't in the capitol trying to take over the kingdom?" I was just as thirsty for a fight as Sokka.

"Let's fight. We can take them!" Sokka had realized how much I wanted to fight and was happy to see someone like him.

"Wait." said Aang. "One of us should check out that guy leaving the bar. Not too many people actually recognize Azula and her group. The problem now is who should meet him or her?"

I stomped my foot and the whole group looked at me. "What? He was leaving the tunnel just now so I trapped him using earthbending for the time being. Problem solved."

"You can't just do that to people Toph." Aang shook his head.

"Worry about it later Twinketoes. We've got bigger things to worry about now." I spat at the ground and strode in.

The Traveler:

The Earth closed up right over the entrance. "Damn." I cursed under my breath not out of frustration but of joy. I had found them at last. It had taken months. "Damn." I cursed again but not out of such joy again. Where was it? I had it right with me…

The book was missing and it had the power to destroy the entire world with it.

Aang, the Avatar:

I was second in line after Toph walking into the restaurant. I don't know why we all felt so compelled to fight. Maybe it was because of the rejuvenation one has after waking up in the morning or perhaps it was because of the recent victory…

They saw us immediately.

"Avatar!" Azula shouted and pointed at me, her fingers sparking. "Ha! We have found you and now will kill you."

"Ugh do we have to? I just ate."

"I agree with Mai again, Azula. After all you wanted to not capture the Avatar anyway."

Realizing that her odds are against her she decided to retreat by burning a hole in the wall "Fine! We shall settle this later Avatar!" She ran out with her comrades setting fire to other buildings as she ran.

"Get back here!" I wanted to follow her, but I realized that I had to save the town first. "Katara, Sokka, Toph help get this fire under control." I ran after her ignoring my better instincts but lost them in the fire after a few moments and returned to the fire. Toph managed to smother some fire on the ground but didn't want to get dirt and rocks all over the buildings. Sokka was helping bystanders and Katara was trying to take out fires with her limited water supply. I knew we had to end this fast if we wanted nobody to get hurt. I jumped up in the air and used some airbending to blow out some fires. It was helping a little but was not enough in the end.

A high pitched noise flew through the air and Toph began screaming something about the guy in the tunnel, and utter chaos broke out. People ran everywhere but I noticed the fires slowly going out on their own. Or were they? I couldn't tell. I just kept blowing out fires while the noise came in waves.

It went like this for a few minutes until I noticed a teenager, about Sokka's age and height somehow blowing out the fires in correlation with the noise. He walked slowly and went on like this until the last of the fires went out.

He walked over to me and said "Hi I'm –"

Toph stopped him before he could finish his sentence and 'handcuffed' him earthbending style. Two pillars rose out of the ground and circled around his hands. A third one muffled the rest of what he was saying and blocked his mouth.

She walked over to him with anger and confusion. "How did you escape? Who are you? I. WANT. ANSWERS."

"Ok Toph, there's no reason to assume he's not friendly." I said. Being the Avatar and all, it was me duty to keep peace and therefore save this boy from Toph. Let's say he wasn't very calm right now.

"Aang! Is this book…yours?" Sokka held a book in his hands and was reading it. It was a very fancy book and probably could have been sold for a lot of money.

"No, why?" I was curious as to what it was. The guy trapped by Toph was now sweating and more nervous than ever.

"…"

"Sokka."

"…"

"Sokka! What is it?"

"Aang, this is a book with information about all four nations, their strengths weaknesses and cultures but that's not the weirdest part…"

"What is it?"

"Well…it has pictures and stories of us, except depicted in exact detail. You would have to have been there."

I turned to the handcuffed guy but he wasn't there. He had escaped Toph's prison again and I found him on Sokka wrestling for the book.

"You don't know what that is! You are sooo lucky right now." The stranger screamed after saying this.