note : Yes, I know I haven't been around for a while... I sincerely apologize for that. I will try to update this story as well as my other ones that haven't been updated for over a year as frequently as possible. A lot has been happening lately and I've been far too busy or just not in the mood. Here's a new story for ya! :P

CHAPTER ONE:
The Con Artists

"Hey... Wake up..." I heard someone grunt. I groaned and put my arm over my face in an attempt to make the talking stop. I felt a hand gently graze my shoulder and begin to massage it. A few seconds later, that relaxing massage turned into someone trying to rip my shoulder out of its socket.

"WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" Jian yelled.

I knocked his hand away and sat up from my sleeping bag. "I'm up! I'm up! Sheesh!"

Jian snickered and I shot him a glare. "What time is it? Why are you waking me up so damn earl- AHH!" I was interrupted as a large section of earth came up from below me and made me jump up.

"What the hell, Jian!" I yelled. Jian knew I was not a morning person, yet he still loved to mess with me like this. I groaned at him as he snickered at me. I threw my pillow at his head as he continued to laugh.

"C'mon, pack your stuff up. We're leaving. I'm tired of lying around in the dirt." Jian said.

"That's surprising, coming from an Earthbender..."

"Hey, just because I'm an Earthbender, does not mean I like constantly sleeping outside when I can be sleeping in a nice comfortable bed at an inn. Now let's go. I'm starving!"

I sighed and got out of my sleeping bag. I rolled it up and put it next to my pack.

"Can you pack up any slower? I wanna actually try out what we planned on doing yesterday... Today... As in now..."

"You are so impatient! Spirits, can't you even wait five minutes?" I yelled back at him. Jian and I always got into little scuffles like this. Sometimes they even turned into physical fights, but I loved him like he was my own flesh and blood. We'd been best friends since I was eight and he was ten.

I pulled my clothes out of my pack and got changed as slowly as I could behind a bush nearby, ignoring Jian's calls for me to hurry up.

"Finally! C'mon, let's go!" Jian said with a huge smile on his face. He earthbended my pack and sleeping bag into the air. I caught them and strapped them onto my back. All his stuff was ready to go already as well.

I held my ground, struggling against Jian's pulls.

"Whatsa matter?" Jian asked as he turned around.

"I don't know about this, Jian... Even if we will get a lot of money from it, I think it's a little too risky..." I said.

"Oh c'mon, Tao! We've been practicing this for weeks, and besides, we made sure that there's no fire nation soldiers in this village for the past couple of days."

"I'm kinda nervous still..."

Tao put his hands on my shoulders. "Look, you'll be fine. We'll be smart about it. We'll walk around for half an hour to make sure no fire nation soldiers are there and then we'll do it okay? You got this."

I didn't reply for a couple seconds, but then I flashed him a small smile. "Okay."

Jian smiled back at me and then we began walking towards the village.

"Look the rumors are true! The Avatar has returned!" Jian shouted.

I gave Jian a weird look and let out a nervous laugh.

Jian projected his voice so other people could here, but not to make it so obvious that others would realize he was trying to get our attention "The Fire Nation has made us submit long enough! We now have our hero back! The spirits have answered our prayers! I can't believe you've returned after so long!"

"The Avatar?" a middle aged man questioned. As soon as he came up, a small crowd began to form.

"A mere girl such as you cannot be the Avatar!" another man shouted.

"Have you not heard of Avatar Kyoshi? Women are not inferior to the eyes of the Spirits!" a woman shouted.

The man grunted "If you're the Avatar, prove it!"

There was a little silence. "Alright..." I answered

At this time, Jian had already meshed with the growing crowd. He was wearing civilian clothes so that people wouldn't realize that he was an earthbender. My heart was racing. This was it. The trick Jian and I had been working on and perfected. I spotted Jian in the crowd. He nodded to me, meaning that he was ready. The silence was deep and now the crowd was huge. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in, exhaling slowly. My eyes shot open. As I took one large step forward, into a fighting stance, I bended a gust of air towards and above part of the crowd. Everyone let out a gasp and had a look of shock on their face. As I whirled around to my left, right next to the fountain behind me, I blasted a gust of wind into the water, picking it up. I thinned out the air around it and controlled it to make it seem like I was waterbending. I slowed myself down, going through my Tai Chi stances and the water danced around me, being channeled only by air. I raised my hands above my head and rotated by wrists around each other in a clockwise motion. The air-channeled water did the same. I played with it a little more and then returned the water to the fountain. I took another deep breath and brought my legs together. I brought up my left hand in front of my face, my pointer and middle fingers up against my forehead, while the others were folded down, and closed my eyes. This was merely a distraction. I sparked a flint in my right hand behind my back. No one noticed because they were looking at what appeared to be me concentrating in the front. The fountain was behind me, so no one from behind could see the flint. Once there was a spark, I encased it in air and dropped the flint into my robe. I whirled around again, swinging my hands over my head. As I faced forward again, I released the pressurized air ball in my right hand and blasted air into it from my left to amplify it. It appeared as if I had bended a large, fanning column of fire from my hands. I locked eyes with Jian for a second and he nodded again. I got into a strong horse stance, stomping my feet on the floor as I did so. Then I forcefully brought my hands up. At the same time, Jian tapped his foot once and a large wall of earth came up. I stepped forward, making two motions with my hands. At the same time, Jian raised his chin a little bit. A wave of earth came, and two spikes of earth destroyed the wall I had just made. I brought my hands up once again at shoulder level, palms facing down, and then forcefully brought them to waist level. All the earth that "I" had just bended went back to ground level and looked normal again. I brought my legs together once again, standing tall and bowed. There was about five seconds of silence before the cheers began. I looked at Jian and smirked as he meshed out of the crowd when they all ran close and surrounded me.

It had worked...

Jian sat back in his chair and patted his stomach. "Damn, that was an amazing meal! I am stuffed! I'm not gonna be able to eat for days!"

"You were saying the opposite about three hours ago... Wouldn't stop complaining about how hungry you were..." I retorted.

"You know, you have been in such a sour mood since we got here. It's ironic that now that we're living in the lap of luxury you're miserable. You seemed so much happier when we were camping in the forest with our stomachs grumbling!"

I sighed. "I still kinda feel bad about this."

"Oh c'mon, Tao! Cheer up! We're getting what we needed and we did a good thing. The people of this village all looked as miserable as you do now before our little show. We gave them hope. Now, they think the Avatar actually returned." Jian argued.

"I guess so... But we have to careful when we do this next time... Don't want to run into the fire na-HEY!" I protested as Jian scooped up my bowl of noodles and slurped it greedily.

"Those are mine! You finished yours already!" I yelled trying to reach for him. Jian ducked out of the way and shoved his foot in my face to keep me away from him.

"EWW! GET YOUR NASTY, DIRTY FEET AWAY FROM ME!" I yelled, smacking his foot away.

He laughed and began to choke on the noodles.

"Good, that's what you get..." I said, crossing my arms and looking away from him.

"T-T-T-ao...C-Ch-oking..." Jian barely got out. His hands were around his neck.

"Oh, shut up... You're not-" I was interrupted by seeing Jian's face turning purple as he attempted to gasp for air.

"Spirits, Jian..." I said as I slapped him on the back hard. He coughed loudly, but that still didn't help. I got up and went behind him and gave him the Heimlich. After three squeezes, he spit out a wad of noodles and breathed deeply.

"Haha, that woulda been a story to tell... Jian, the mighty earthbender, defeated by four strings of noodles... You're such an idiot..." I said with a laugh.

"Hey! I coulda died! You shouldn't be laughing!" Jian retorted.

"Like I said, that's what you get... What can I say, Karma is on my side. You got that for putting your nasty foot in my face, stealing my food, and being glutinous. I don't see how you earthbenders walk around without shoes anyway..." I said.

"I don't see how airbenders walk around with shoes! You guys wouldn't even touch the ground if you didn't have to!"

"Every other person besides earth benders wear shoes... Some earth benders wear shoes too, you're just a weirdo..." I said.

"Who you callin' a weirdo!" Jian said.

I laughed. "Here, you can have the rest of it." I said, moving my bowl of noodles towards Jian.

"I don't think I'm gonna eat anymore right now..." Jian answered. I laughed."Yeah, yeah. I got that covered..." Jian muttered as he greedily.

In the middle of my laughter, the elderly woman who had allowed us to stay at her inn for free and cooked us the insanely large meal we were eating knocked on the door.

"May I come in?" she asked.

"Yes, of course." I said.

She entered with a smile on her face. "I don't mean to interrupt, but I was just wondering if you two needed anything else."

"Well, I think we co-"

I interrupted Jian before could be anymore a burden than we already were. "No, we're fine. Thank you so much for letting us stay here. You really didn't have to."

The woman smiled again. "It is my pleasure to accomodate you and your friend, Avatar Tao."

I faked a smile back at her. It hurt me to trick people like this. But, Jian was right when he said that we were giving people hope this way. Everyone in the village seemed a lot friendlier. It almost seemed like the Fire Nation or the war no longer existed in their minds. I thought about my family... They definitely wouldn't be proud of what Jian and I were doing.

"Is something wrong, dear?" the woman asked.

I shook my head a little, getting out of my thoughts. "No sorry, just a little tired. That's all."

"Alright then, I'll leave you two be. Don't hesitate to ask if you need anything at all." with that, she gave us one more smile and then left. My fake smile faded away the second she closed the door. My thoughts haunted me once again.

"Tao..." Jian cooed softly.

"Tao-ran..."

I looked up at him. "Huh?"

"You're thinking about them again, aren't you?"

"Kind of hard to forget something like that, you know..."

Jian slid his foot back, making my chair slide to him. He my head fell on his shoulder as he brought me into a hug.

"I know... I know..."

I stayed silent and closed my eyes, holding back tears. I counted from ten down to one slowly and then raised my head with a sigh.

"Just another day." I said.