A/N: This is a story involving four OCs, characters from our world, who are sent to help Aang restore balance. This is post Sozin's Comet. The first few chapters don't deal very much w/ATLA, but please bear with me, it will get there. Read and review!

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own ATLA.

Chapter 1: A Strange Visitor

Hot….was the only coherent thought that could be formed from amongst the jumbled emotions and words swimming through Kiera's head. It was true enough. The mercury was pushing dangerously close to record levels at 106 degrees Fahrenheit, which was hot even for Virginia. The humidity didn't help either. If only I was a waterbender…Kiera thought, a wry smile flicking over her face, then I could bend the humidity out of the air…couldn't change the heat, though…

She was distracted by a fly buzzing past. She followed it with her eyes until it came to a rest on her nose. She let it be, feeling too lazy to swat at it. So hot…

"KIERA!" shouted her friend Kayse, who seemed to not be slowed down at all by the heat. "Snap out of it!"

"Huh?" Kiera sat up, startling the fly, which flew away, buzzing. "Wha?" All her friends were looking at her expectantly. Christine, the slight Vietnamese girl, was wearing her usual smile with a slightly concerned look as well. Lilly was raising an eyebrow and putting her long, brown hair up in a bun, waiting for a response, while Kayse just looked exasperated. They were sitting outside on Kiera's front lawn. It was mid August, and summer boredom was in full swing. However, none of the girls were anxious to return to school, knowing that junior year would bring tough workloads.

Kayse sighed. "We were asking if you would drive us…" the girl with the wavy brown hair and bangs prompted her impatiently.

"Where?" Kiera asked, still confused. She mentally cursed herself for zoning out. She did that way too much…one moment she would be just talking, and the next staring off into space, lost in fantasies and daydreams.

Kayse shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Wow, you were really out of it, weren't you…"

"To downtown. " Lilly explained, bluntly. "It's hot and boring, so we thought we could go look through the shops there. In the AC." The girl smiled, emphasizing the last two letters. She waved a hand at the sky to indicate the heat.

Kiera looked up at the sun, which was glaring down at her. It was hot as hell and she was bored to tears, so she agreed immediately. "Perfect. Let's ditch the heat." In one fell swoop, Kiera slipped out of her chair and to her feet, grabbing her keys and jingling them as she called to her mom that they were leaving.

Twenty minutes later found Christine walking down a bustling town street with her friends. Passersby swirled past in a hurry, a crushing rainbow of color. Christine began to feel a touch of claustrophobia. She stuck to her friends like glue. Lilly was texting a boy who had been in their English class the past year, and Christine was looking down at what she was typing to distract herself from the trapped feeling of the claustrophobia. She heard coughing behind her. Whirling around, she found it was merely Kiera. They were passing a smoker. Christine smiled, rolling her eyes slightly. Kiera always made a point of coughing as she passed someone smoking, thinking that it might make them quit. As if. But the smoke wasn't doing anything to help with the sweltering heat, especially not coupled with the belches of car exhaust mixing in from the road.

Out of the corner of her eye, Christine saw a flash of white fur slinking behind a large man in khakis with a purple umbrella. "Hey, did you guys see that?" she cried, pointing to where it had been.

"See what? That guy?" asked Lilly, frowning and staring at Christine, slightly weirded out.

"Let's try to find it again. Wait – there it is!" called Christine, sprinting after an odd white creature about the size of a small cat. It had brown markings on its back, a long tail, and huge ears.

Christine weaved through the crowd, every now and then seeing a flash of white darting around someone's feet and changing her course accordingly. She knew she was attracting attention, running through the crowded sidewalk like this, but she felt strangely compelled to follow the animal, as if it were a magnet and she a piece of iron. She just had to catch the creature. It slipped into an alley, and she followed. It had stopped in front of a doorway and was staring at her. Christine stopped too, to catch her breath.

Looking around, she saw that no one else was looking at the creature. That was odd. She thought that someone would pick it up and try to find its owner, at least. She figured that it had to be a lost pet. But no one seemed to notice it. A woman was walking along and texting at the same time. She was going to walk right into the creature! Christine made a move to help the animal, but before she could do anything, the woman walked right through it. The creature didn't even blink. The realization made her stiffen. No one else could see it. She looked at it harder. There was something very familiar about the creature, like it was a childhood memory she couldn't place. Then it came to her. She recognized it from TV!

Just as she was starting to freak out, her friends finally rounded the corner, panting.

"Christine, pardon my language, but what the hell?" asked Kiera, who really didn't enjoy running on hot days.

"What took you guys so long? I found the animal, but it's…well, I think it's a ghost!" Christine was speaking very fast, her eyes huge, waving her hands over her head.

"Some of us aren't as thin as you and can't really squeeze through crowds like that…" Lilly began scolding her. "Wait, what?" she blinked.

Christine pointed to the creature on the doorway, which was still staring at them. She looked at her friends. Kiera and Kayse froze, while Lilly just looked at it in annoyance, because it had made her run. But they all definitely seemed to notice that it was there.

"So you can see it too." Said Christine. It wasn't a question. "I think it's from…"

But Kiera had suddenly gone pale. "Oh…my…God. It can't be…." She trailed off, but her eyes flickered in recognition. Kayse beat her to it.

"MOMO!" Kayse yelled excitedly, causing the few passersby in the alley to glare at her indignantly.