Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.
AN: This is essentially some random ideas that I came up with when I was on vacation. If you find something that does not make sense that that's probably because it doesn't. :)
Please do review if you have any constructive criticism or just think that this is good..or have any ideas on what I could include in some other chapters or something :) Thank you !
The Sound Box
A bouncy, young, bald monk bounded into the red bedecked room, his pet flying-lemur on his shoulder. In his yellow and orange robes he fell back upon the red couch with a sigh, staring at his flying-lemur who was currently flying circles around the small room.
"So Momo," He asked casually, "What do you want to do today?"
The flying-lemur, named Momo, flew a few more circles before he flew into a pair of Fire Nation swords on the wall. Becoming temporarily stunned he fell backwards from the wall and landed on a wooden box; his tongue lolling from his mouth.
"Great idea Momo," Aang, the young monk, said excitedly, "We'll watch the Sound Box."
It had been nearly six months since Sozin's Comet and the fated day which Aang decided not to sit and watch the world burn to ashes. Since then he had been quite busy with keeping the world out of trouble. True, there had been no word of a war or revolution in these past months but Aang had been having trouble with the Earth Kingdom's new cabbage rage. It seemed that quite a few people around the Nation had been showing disdain to the leafy vegetable. The Cabbage Merchants were the ones who were suffering the most; claiming that this new Cabbage Epidemic had cost them their jobs…and oh, say it ain't so, their cabbages. Aang had spent a fair amount of time calming down the masses and trying to find the root of the cabbage-demic. It had taken Aang approximately 50 liters of Cactus Juice and 24 kilograms of Northern Ice to finally rid the Earth Kingdom of their phobia and intense hatred of cabbage. To help him he had called upon Toph, who was wandering around the Earth Kingdom looking for new ways to Earthbend. Somewhere along her journeys she had picked up the Sound Box. When she and Aang were done ridding the Earth Kingdom of its disease Toph had brought the Sound Box as a gift for Zuko; a smug smirk on her face when Zuko saw it.
The reason why Aang was hanging around Zuko's palace was because it was his first vacation. He had decided that once a while the GAang would take a break from whatever it is they were doing and come together to spend some quality time. As their first vacation they had all unanimously decided on Zuko's home, the Fire Palace. Obviously Zuko had been kept in the dark about their decision until after they showed up at the Palace with their belongings. They hastily promised him that next time their vacation would be somewhere else and that they would forewarn him but beseeched him to allow them to spend time at the Palace. It was the most lavish and well equipped 'home' out of the five of them.
Aang hopped over to the Sound Box and gave it a sound kick. The box shuddered and let out a low groan before a blurry picture appeared on the front screen.
Aang then settled back into the couch; watching as the blurry picture took on a sharper form. As the Sound Box settled he whistled a jaunty tune until.
"Finally," He said with great anticipation, "Let's see what's coming on TheAirChannel."
The GAang had lovingly named the moving pictures on the box 'TheAirChannel' after their resident Airbender. They felt that he needed some sort of recognition other than Avatar Day which was now being spread across the Earth Kingdom as they lay unmoving in their beds.
As the moving pictures finally came into focus Aang could make out a boy wearing what looked like a meat suit, there was a girl next to him, crying into a bucket and wailing something about hope.
"This looks strangely familiar," Aang mused to himself, "What do you think Momo? Doesn't this look familiar."
Momo rolled off the Sound Box onto the floor and stared at Aang with his great big green eyes.
"Yeah I thought so," Aang agreed with Momo's silence.
As the dynamic duo in the Sound Box skated around what seemed to be a large patch of ice the door to the room swung open.
"Hey Aang," a brown haired, blue-eyed girl said happily, striding into the room and sitting down next to him, "What are you doing?"
Aang pointed to the Sound Box wordlessly and continued watching as the meat boy struggled to get the meat off of his pants and into his mouth, as his girly companion sat in a puddle of tears while waving a spatula.
"Oh I think that's the new play," Katara, the blue eyed girl, said with little enthusiasm, "It's supposedly a remake of 'The Boy in the Iceberg' that we saw in Ember Island. Apparently this one was put on by the world renowned Knight Bandit Productions." When she saw the blank look Aang was giving her she expanded, "They are the ones who acted 'The Life as a Fighter Monk.'"
Immediately Aang's features lit up, "I loved that play; ever since then I had always wanted to be a Fighter Monk," Aang jumped high up from his seat and pulled out the curtain rod; as he landed he performed a variety of kicks and punches with the rod, finished as he pointed the rod at the door as he yelled, "Boom!"
He turned to Katara with a childish grin on his face but saw that she was not amused. He quickly slunk back into his seat, leaving the rod on the ground.
"So this play should be pretty good," Katara continued, her own eyes attracted to the moving images on the Sound Box.
Her eyes witnessed the now half-dressed meat boy and still crying girl discover what looked to be like a giant paper platypus-bear's egg.
"What is that?" Aang asked in wonder, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.
Katara now eyed the two characters with skepticism, "Is that supposed to be –"
She was cut off as the door to the room banged open and a lanky, dark skinned, blue eyed boy confidently strode in, his boomerang on his back.
"What are you two doing here?" He asked, eying them suspiciously.
Katara unconsciously slid away from Aang on the couch who was pointing to the Sound Box, his eyes glued to it and his mouth in a circular O shape.
Sokka, the boy who just entered, crossed the threshold and sat in between both Aang and Katara.
"What is that?" He asked, as he watched the meat boy try to smash the paper egg with his crudely shaped stick as the girl took her buckets of tears and tried to splash the egg away.
"It's a remake of the 'Boy in the Iceberg," Katara said coldly, "Our play." She surmised.
Sokka stared at a screen a bit longer before yelling, "I do not dress in meat clothes!"
"Nor do I act like that," Katara sniffed.
Aang continued watching the scene before speaking, "And I certainly did not emerge from a paper platypus-bear egg wearing nothing but my staff."
The three groaned and turned away from the screen briefly but soon were back watching with rapt attention.
The screen then showed meat-boy who was named Soka and the distressed girl whose name was, amazingly correct, Katara. However Aang's name seemed to have taken on a slight mispronunciation which he went to the trouble of correcting every time somebody mentioned his name.
The three then went travelling on a large bison shaped piece of ice through the oceans and seas. It was not too long until they saw a metallic ship following their play selves in the water.
As the play progressed a wary, tall figure with golden-brown eyes peered through the open door to see the three staring at the Sound Box.
Zuko walked in, a confused look on his face, "What are you all doing? I didn't think you'd be here watching the Sound Box."
"Shush!" said Sokka, jumping up and pulled Zuko down beside him, "We're watching the Knight Bandit's remake of 'The Boy in the Iceberg.'"
Zuko watched the screen as a very tall man came up from below a ship; on his face was what looked like a mash of tomatoes and Fire Chilies; which was probably what was making the man's eyes water. His hair was attempted to be tied in a ponytail but his hair was so short they only managed what looked like a shortened Wolf's Tail.
"I must capture the Avatar to restore my honour," The play Zuko recited, his face not looking interested in any way at all.
"I never said that!" said Zuko astounded.
He turned away from the screen to see three sets of eyes looked at his skeptically.
"Admit it," Katara said slowly, "You said that a lot."
Zuko looked affronted, "I did not." He thought back to the times when he was sailing on his ship around the world with his uncle and suddenly blushed a pale pink.
"Uncle how many times I have to tell you, there is not time for tea I must find the Avatar!"
"No Uncle, no more stops, I have to find the Avatar to restore my honour."
"Uncle for my honour to be restored I have to find the Avatar, we CANNOT stop for a potty break."
"Forget Music Night Uncle, the crew has to work to get this ship faster, we can't capture the Avatar with a Sugi Horn."
"Don't even look at those vegetable Uncle, the Avatar is probably a day's journey ahead of us, I can find him and restore my honour."
It had been about half an hour before a fifth person stood at the door, "What are you wusses doing?" A bored voice called from the doorway. There stood a short girl with white eyes dressed in green. She stomped over to the couch and jumped on, causing the other four to fly in the air and then land back on the couch.
"Remake of the 'Boy in the Iceberg." Katara explained once again.
"They messed up my face," Zuko moaned, covering his face behind his hands.
Katara smirked at him, "There wasn't much to mess up."
His face shot out from behind his hands and he looked across to Katara; a glower on his face. She was lucky that Sokka was sitting between them otherwise…
"Hey wait…" Toph said slowly, "Is that me?"
The other turned their attention back to the Sound Box as a petite girl holding a rock skipped on stage while she hummed a happy tune. The only thing that could possibly show that it was Toph was the rock in her hand, and the fact that the actor had a blindfold around their eyes.
"I'm Toph because it rhymes with pretty!" The girl on the screen trilled.
Toph slumped in the couch, "Oh god, that's me."
"How did you know it was you coming on screen, you can't see," Zuko pointed out, completely vexed.
Toph looked at him sagely and answered, "I can feel the Sound Box's vibrations."
The quartet all looked back from the Sound Box to Toph, nodded in agreement to her reasoning and turned back to the screen.
At this point play Toph was skipping around Soka, Katara and Aang whilst telling them about her pet rhino-monkey and how she liked to paint her nails the colour of the sunset.
"I don't even know what a sunset looks like," Toph growled, her teeth bared at the Sound Box.
Katara craned her neck to look to Toph, "Don't worry about it Toph, this play has everything wrong."
"Yeah!' Aang said passionately, "This play portrays me with no emotion," He pointed accusingly at the Sound Box, "I haven't smiled once!" Aang started hyperventilating.
"Better than me," Sokka whined, "I haven't said one joke yet," He paused and then wailed, "And I'm dressed in tasty meat!"
"You guys all have to calm down," Katara said wisely, "You are taking this much too seriously."
On screen, play Katara was smiling as the others were fighting what looked like crippled Fire Nation soldiers, "Oh look here a fight! But of course I'm not going to fight; I'm just going to stand here until someone tries to kill me. Then I'll wait for someone else to save me at the cost of their own life."
Only moments later a maniacal Jet surfaced a pool of water and somehow saved Katara from a barrage of paper rocks, only to have a terribly small one fall on his head, effectively killing him.
"WHAT!" Katara shrieked, "I would never do that! NEVER!"
Toph rolled her unseeing eyes as the girl on the other side of the couch began clawing at the red fabric in anger, "Talk about anger management issues."
Another few minutes later a girl clad in a white leather suit looked upon Soka.
"Sorry Soka, I must leave you now, for the purpose I was to do since I was born." She kissed 'Soka' and then, along with the help of two suspended strings flew into the air until all you could see were two white combat booted feet.
"This is worse than Ember Island players," Zuko commented, watching as Soka then tried to drown himself in a puddle of Katara's tears after Yue left.
Suddenly out of nowhere a near transparent Yue dropped out from the ceiling, sitting on a sliver of the silver moon.
"This is very bad, very bad indeed," She said mystically, gracing them all with a smile before disappearing along with the moon.
"Yue!" Sokka yelled, and then fell out of the couch onto the ground and gesturing to the sky beyond the ceiling, "WHY!"
Zuko rolled his eyes as he watched Sokka's antics, "You've got to be kidding me."
Sokka turned to Zuko, his eyes filled with unshed tears, "If you can't deal with my emotional stress," He sniffled, "Then leave."
Zuko matched his stare and responded, "I'd love to but while we were watching this 'oh so wondrous' play someone locked the door from the outside."
Everyone's heads swivled to look at Zuko and together in unison yelled, "WHAT?"
"So now we're all trapped here," Katara said hopelessly.
Toph grimaced, "Thanks for pointing out the obvious Sugar Queen."
Sokka sniggered, forgetting all about Yue, "Heh, Sugar Queen."
Katara glared at Sokka and crossed her arms, "Well you shouldn't be talking…Snoozles."
Appalled, Sokka turned to Toph his shock written on his features, when Toph didn't respond Sokka then remembered that Toph was blind and decided to verbally show his shock.
"Snoozles! Why Toph! Why did you have to pick Snoozles?"
Toph shrugged, "Well, you slept a lot. Actually most of the time I spent around you, you were either eating, sleeping or polishing that stick of yours."
Sokka pulled the boomerang from his back and hugged it, "It's not a stick," He said in an affronted tone, "It's a boomerang and more importantly, it's my boomerang."
"Oh I'm sorry," Toph said sarcastically, "Do you want me to apologize?"
Sokka stuck his nose in the air, "That would be preferable."
Before Toph could get any words out of her mouth Katara pointed to the Sound Box and yelled, "Hey Aang, you didn't turn into a Koifish here… you just kind of went to the Fire Nation battalion and attacked them with your…Metalbending."
Katara turned to share confused looks with the others.
"Obviously the chronological events in this are wrong," Zuko pointed out, as Toph was Earthbending the ice in the Northern Water Tribe.
Zuko continued watching the screen until they got to a part where Aang and Zuko were shooting what looked like rotten fish from barrels in the Northern Water Tribe.
"You never did that," Zuko confirmed, "As a matter of fact we didn't even get to fight there."
"Yeah," Katara agreed, "You only fought me."
Toph's eyes sparkled, "Jealous Twinkle Toes?"
Aang looked at all three of them before scratching his bald head, "Um...no. Should I be?"
Meanwhile Momo had taken up a perch on Sokka's shoulder before dropped off to sleep, drool spilling out from his open mouth.
"Oh and I never got to thank you guys for rescuing me from the blizzard," Zuko added, watching as Soka, Aang and Katara dragged play Zuko across a stretch of slush only to dump him in a seal-lion pool.
Sokka waved his hand, as if dismissing it, "No problem, it's our thing, we save people, even the bad guys."
Katara looked at Sokka warily, "If I remember correctly Sokka, didn't you vote to leave him to die in the cold?"
Sokka blushed deeply and pulled Momo to hide his face.
Zuko scowled at Sokka and responded grimly, "Thanks Sokka, that warms my heart."
Sokka tried to shrug as if he didn't care but decided to come up with an exsuse, "You were trying to kill us."
"No," Zuko corrected, "I was just trying to capture Aang so I could take him back to my father and restore my honour." He paused and then slapped himself in the forehead, "Wow, if only I had said that out loud back then, maybe I would have realized how stupid I sounded."
Toph snorted, "Yeah, no kidding." She lowered her voice trying to imitate Zuko, "I have to restore my honour…my honour, oh no, where did it go?"
Aang, Katara and Sokka joined Toph's hearty laughter as Zuko crossed his arms in anger.
As Aang wiped tears from his eyes he looked at Zuko and chuckled, "Don't worry Zuko, we still love you."
"Afraid the feeling isn't mutual," said Zuko throw gritted teeth.
Suddenly the doorknob of the unfortunately locked door started rattling.
"Guys, someone's at the door," Katara yelped.
This time Toph slapped herself on the forehead, "Thank you Captain Obvious."
"WE'RE IN HERE!" Aang yelled, flying towards the door and hitting it face first.
"OPEN THE DOOR!" Sokka yelled, running past Aang and banging on the door himself.
"HEY!" Katara shrieked, joining Sokka at the door.
Toph let out a large breath of air and pulled a sleeping Momo off Zuko's lap to position him as a footrest.
"I had to get stuck with these idiots," Zuko groaned, slumping downwards.
"Hey," Toph looked at Zuko, as she dropped Momo on the ground, "Are you calling me an idiot?"
He eyed her warily, "No, I'm the idiot for hanging out with you people."
"Don't worry, I'm sure the whole Fire Nation is searching for their beloved Prince by now," Toph rubbed her hands together, "They probably think that he has been captured by dangerous bandits who are asking for a large ransom in exchange for his freedom." She looked at Zuko hopefully.
Zuko expelled a breath and shook his head, letting his dark hair fly, "Don't think so Toph."
Sokka, Katara and Aang all returned to their previous positions on the couch in defeat, rubbing their sore arms and in Aang's case, face.
"We would get a lot of money," Sokka mused.
"By cheating," Katara pointed out, "And we all know how well that worked out." Katara flipped her hair loopies back and forth now, tired of watching the Sound Box.
"Yeah," Aang agreed thoughtfully, "That didn't go too well."
"What do you mean?" Zuko asked curiously.
Sokka turned to Zuko, "Well before you joined us and everything we got to this Fire Nation village and we needed some money."
"So Toph used her Earthbending to cheat the cheaters in the village," Aang said victoriously, before Katara slapped him on his bald head.
"It got slightly out of hand," Sokka admitted.
"Slightly?" Katara said with disbelief, "You were pretending to get knocked down by horse carts in the middle of the road!"
"Yeah," Sokka said slowly, rubbing the back of his head, "It was pretty bad, so we decided not to cheat anyone from then on."
"I am so glad I waited all that time to join you," Zuko said thankfully, "I have no idea how I would deal with your stupidity."
"Hey," Aang said excitedly, "The movie's over!"
"Good riddance," Katara said with a shake of her head. "That was by far the worst thing I have ever seen."
"What did you think?" Aang asked the rest of them.
Zuko stared at him blandly, "For once I agree with Katara."
"I third that," Toph called.
"But the effects were decent," Sokka muttered, watching as the end credits swirled around the scene in the form of dancing people holding name plates.
"You say that all the time," Katara said accusingly.
"No, I'm serious," Sokka retorted, wiping a tear from his eye, "Just beautiful."
Katara rolled her eyes for what seemed like the umpteenth time in that day, "Alright, now we have to focus on getting out of this room."