Operation: A.V.A.T.A.R.

A

Very

Amazing

Trip

About

Role-reversal

It was quite beautiful; the Sun shone brightly enough to make even the grouchiest of firebenders indulge a little, flowers sprung up happily to drink the sweet rays, a slight breeze that spring had forgotten to pack up and put away kept things cool, and all the robinjays were singing their melodious tunes. Team Avatar was having some tea together in the Fire Palace Garden, taking advantage of the beautiful day. As Katara poured out some more of the steaming liquid into her cup, the ground suddenly shook, causing her to miss the cup entirely and pour it onto the table. Looks shot in Toph's direction.

"What? It was getting a little too serene for me."

"Well that doesn't mean you need to make the ground move," said Katara as she waterbended the spilled tea back into her cup.

Aang laughed, and then looked around. "Hey, where'd Sokka go?"

"Probably needed to use the bathroom again," muttered Zuko as he took another sip. "Probably missing his girlfriend, too. Needs some alone time."

Suki and the other Kyoshi Warriors had been called to some northeastern Earth Kingdom city for an award. The others had wanted to come, but she told them it was no big deal and they needed to rest after just barely rebuilding the connections between the nations.

"Geez, she's only gonna be gone for like a week," said Toph, who now rested her feet up on the table where everyone could see them.

"Still, you need to be considerate of other people's emotions," said Katara.

Then came Sokka out of the trees behind them, taking three of them by surprise, as Toph, of course, had felt his presence approaching a minute ago.

"Hey guys," he said with excitement.

"Yes?" asked Aang.

"Guess what I found!"

"What?" asked Zuko.

"Come on, just look at it!" So the rest of them followed him down a stream and to a bush. He had a huge smile on his face, and was practically bouncing with joy.

"Wow, it's a bush, whoopee!" sarcastically said Katara, although she wasn't that good at sarcasm, so it came out wrong.

"No, there's something under it. And it's earth. Strange earth…" said Toph.

"Way to ruin the surprise, Toph!" Sokka pushed the bush out of the way to reveal a dark rock with glowing blue minerals inside of it. "I found it here when I stubbed my toe on it on the way back from the restroom!"

"Told you," said Zuko.

Toph bent down and placed her hand on it. "What is this?" she asked.

"I have no idea," said Sokka, "but it looks cool, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, the coolest," said the earthbender sarcastically. "There seems to be some sort of energy coming from it."

Aang got down next to it, too. "Let me see," he said as he, too, placed his hand on it. His eyes grew wide, "Wow, this contains a massive amount of power…"

Sokka lifted it off the ground. "Don't pick it up!" scolded his sister.

"Relax, sis, it's okay." He replied calmly.

"Is it?" she asked. She walked over to it and took some water from the stream, coating her hands with it. The water began to glow, and she tried her x-ray thing on the rock.

"I thought that only worked on humans," said Zuko.

"It does," Katara said, "I just thought I'd give it a try." She took her hands off it.

"Let me see it," said Zuko. He took it and examined it closely. "It looks like it broke off of something," he observed.

"Are there any other pieces around?" questioned Aang.

"Haven't seen any," replied Sokka. "But we can look."

"Don't bother," said Toph. "There are none. I'd be able to tell if something else like this was around here."

"Oh, right, the short one has super-sense abilities, sorry I forgot," remarked Sokka snappily.

"Let's just leave it," said Aang. "It's most likely some spirit thing we shouldn't be messing with."

"We can't just leave it!" exclaimed Sokka.

"Listen to Aang, Sokka. We shouldn't be tampering with spirit stuff. If anyone knows that, it's him." Katara pointed out.

"But-"

"Sokka. Leave it."

"Fine," he said before treading back over to the tea table.

Zuko replaced the rock back where they had found it, and the rest of them returned to their chairs.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, I'm ready."

"Cautiously now, careful…"

"I- I got it."

"Good, now let's take it back to the Treehouse for analyzing."

Sector V of the Kids Next Door had just come across the strangest thing: a glowing blue mineral rock. They took it to the Treehouse, where Numbuh Two placed it in the Kids Next Door S.C.A.N.E.R.O. (System Can Access Nearly Every Recorded Object.) They all looked at the screen in await of what the reading would be. After what seemed like 30 minutes of loading, the results finally appeared.

"Unknown Substance!" cried out Numbuh One.

"Chill, Numbuh One, we'll find out what this means," said Numbuh Two.

"Seriously, what's so important about some big dumb rock?" asked Numbuh Four as he carelessly picked it up and swung it around.

"Hey, give that to Numbuh Five!" shouted Numbuh Five, taking it from Numbuh Four's hands and carefully placing it back on top of the S.C.A.N.E.R.O.

Numbuh Three approached it with wide eyes and felt it. "It's so pretty!"

"It may be pretty, but it could still be dangerous," said Numbuh One as he picked it up once more and placed it in a box. "I'm sending this to Moonbase. Maybe they'll find out what to make of it."

"Yeah, and after all this it could still be some sort of adult trap," Numbuh Two pointed out.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and find out," said Numbuh Five.

Ten children sleeping,

Two worlds colliding,

The magic comes creeping,

It's come out of hiding.

A switch in the night,

A shock for our friends,

Nothing seems right,

This mean the world ends...?

Out of bed rolled an extremely sleepy Wallabee Beatles. Dragging his feet across an expensive carpet, he hadn't yet noticed the fact that he was now about eleven inches taller. Or that he wasn't in his own pajamas. He walked out the door and, somehow, managed to make his way into the restroom. He started the sink and looked at the mirror. He brushed his blonde bangs away from his eyes, and saw a massive red scar covering the left half of his face, which seemed even odder in comparison to his bright green eyes. This startled him, of course, who wouldn't be startled by suddenly having a gigantic scar that wasn't there yesterday. He rubbed his eyes and took a closer look to see if it was really there. It was. Jaw dropped, he began rubbing it over with his fingers to see what it felt like. It didn't hurt, but the skin was rough and dry. Freaking out and blubbering unintelligibly, he ran out the door. He looked around and for the first time took notice of his surroundings. He wasn't in the Treehouse at all, but some huge mansion with ornate carvings all over and paintings of old dudes hanging on the walls. A door opening down the hall caught his attention, and when a bald figure emerged, he ran towards it. "Numbuh One! Numbuh One!"

"Numbuh Four? Is that you?" Numbuh One turned around, obviously just as relieved to see someone familiar.

"Where are we?" Numbuh Four asked.

"I don't know. I suppose we've been kidnapped in our sleep."

"Um...Numbuh One...why is there an arrow on your head?"

Numbuh One rolled his eyes up in an attempt to see for himself, but of course, he couldn't see it himself. "I don't know! Why are you tall all of a sudden? And what happened to your eye?"

"I don't know! I was hoping you'd be able to tell me!"

Numbuh One looked around. "Where are the others?"

As if in immediate answer to that question, Numbuh Three skipped in just at that moment. "Hey guys!" she said cheerfully.

"Numbuh Three!" Numbuh One was even more relieved at the sight of another familiar face. Obviously, the rather airheaded operative had not yet noticed the situation. "Haven't you noticed anything strange about this place?" he asked.

"No..." she replied. "I don't think so."

"Open your eyes, Numbuh Three," said Numbuh Four. "Isn't there something strange about Numbuh One's head?"

She opened her eyes. "Hmm...Ooh! Ooh! He got a new haircut?"

Both boys enacted in a facepalm. "...Numbuh One doesn't even have any hair."

"Oh. But what about that blue mohawk thing?"

"That's it!" exclaimed the boy in question. "I think it's a tattoo."

"Whooaaa...hold on there, when did you get a tattoo?" questioned Three.

"I was just wondering that myself," replied One. He looked around for a moment, "Let's find Numbuhs Two and Five, they've got to be worried sick...or maybe worse."

So the three ten-year-olds...or, whatever age they were supposed to be now, headed cautiously off down the hallway.

It wasn't long before they found their way to a kitchen, and in it, of course, an obviously distressed Hoagie Gilligan stuffing his face with all the pastry he could find. He, like Numbuh Four, had grown a bit and was now a foot taller than before. He wore a shade of light blue, and his signature hat and goggles were nowhere to be seen.

"Numbuh Two!" called the other kids.

"Guys? Guys! Thank goodness!" he called. He walked over to them, a partially-eaten...cake..type...thing in his hand. "Boy, am I glad to see you! I just woke up in this weird place and walked around and...I found the food. You guys know how hungry I am in the mornings. Anyway, so Numbuh Five came out and-"

"Wait, you said you saw Numbuh Five?" asked Numbuh One.

"Yeah, her room was right next to mine. We split up to look for you guys, she should be somewhere around here."

They looked down the hallway both ways, and did the same in an identical one across the kitchen. That's when they heard footsteps. Carefully, they peered around the corner. The sound of humming began to grow louder until the source was visible. A large, grey-bearded man came strolling through. He entered the kitchen, and the four friends ducked behind a table to hide. He came in and took out two bowls of leaves, and a pitcher of water. He poured the water into a pot, not stopping the humming for a second. And then he breathed fire into the pot to boil the water. Then he breathed fire to boil the water! All the children's jaws dropped, and eyes were opened so wide you could use them as bowling balls.

"...Definitely something to do with Father," whispered Numbuh Four through gritted teeth. "Who else do we know with fire powers?" He tried hard to keep his anger as silent as possible. Numbuh Three elbowed him with a "Shhh!"

The man continued to stir the leaves into his pot until he found the concoction just right. He then poured it into a tea cup, and merrily went on his way out of the room.

"What. Was. That?" Numbuh Two couldn't believe his eyes, especially now that no goggles protected them.

Numbuh One just shook his head in disbelief. "It's important that we find Numbuh Five now more than ever," he said.

"Why so...?" came a familiar voice from right behind them. They all turned around to see the tall girl, standing with arms crossed, and lacking a red hat atop her braided hair.

"Numbuh Five!" excited shouts from everyone. They all crowded her and tried to explain what they had just seen.

"So, what you're sayin' is...we're in a whole lotta trouble," she concluded.

"Yeah, and there's no 2x4 technology anywhere," pointed out Numbuh Two.

"I guess we'll have to make do with what we got," she said, looking so strange in clothes that seemed to match Numbuh Two's, yet face as determined as always.

And yes, they would need to make do with what they've got. But what they don't yet realize is they've got more than they could ever hope for resting in their very own hands.

Back in Sector V, almost the same situation was taking place. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko, and Toph had woken up in a large, elaborate, labyrinthine treehouse.

"Look guys, I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for all of this," explained Aang to his troubled friends.

"Oh, yeah, one minute I'm dreaming about gigantic seal jerky and then BOOM! We're inside a tree!" remarked Sokka. "Do you have an explanation for that, Aang?"

"Well, you were probably hungry so that explains the seal jerky-"

"FORGET ABOUT THE SEAL JERKY! WHERE ARE WE?!"

"Calm down, Sokka!" scolded Katara. "What if other people are here?"

"Good then! Maybe they can tell us just what in the world is going on!"

"She means, what if there are enemies here, Sokka," snapped Zuko angrily.

"Well, that'll be easy, just give me some rocks-oh, wait, there are no rocks in trees," complained Toph sarcastically, who was annoyed at the fact that she couldn't see a thing in this place.

"But they are made of wood, and wood can burn," suggested Sokka, looking in Zuko's direction.

"Yeah, one problem with that, we're still in it," said Katara.

"Look, I'll try flying up to the top to see if I can see anything, okay?" said Aang, hoping to find a solution as soon as possible. Everyone was angry today, because they woke up here, because all of them were suddenly smaller, because they didn't have their own clothes on, because Zuko's scar had disappeared, because Aang's arrow tattoo had done the same. Nothing was right. And things were about to get worse. The airbender tried to lurch up, to make the wind carry him up as it would a leaf. But nothing happened. He tried once more; again, nothing. He, embarrassed, turned towards the four behind him. "...I can't airbend."

"What?" they all asked at once. Immediately Zuko shot his fist in the air. Nothing. "I can't firebend either!" he shouted.

Toph started to freak out. "No, no, this can't be happening. I can't see without my earthbending."

Katara looked around at the room full of confused, frightened, panicked faces. "Aang..." she started, staring hopelessly at him for some sort of answer.

"...I don't know. Really, I don't. If I did, I'd be explaining it to you all as best as I could. But I can't."

Suddenly, a loud beeping and red flashing begun in the room as some sort of alarm went off.