The sun rises in the early morning. Light shines through Aang's windows. He and Katara had been on vacation on a fire nation island, far away from the capital. He was supposed to calm down and relax himself here, but instead, he stayed up all night meditating.

Katara, two rooms over, yawned and walked into the teenaged avatar's bedroom, slightly confused by his cross-legged pose so early in the morning.

"Aang, are you meditating again?" Katara inquired. "It's, like, 6 in the morning. You should get some sleep."

"No. I can feel something coming, something evil. And I don't know what."

"You've been saying that for weeks, honey," Katara groaned, "Whatever it is isn't coming for you yet."

"But it's so close, Katara, I can feel it." Katara knelt beside her boyfriend and sighed.

"We've been on vacation for the last week and a half," she began, "and all I ever hear from you is death and doom. The Fire Lord is defeated, Aang! You can sleep without fear of assassination again."

Aang looked in her hurt eyes and got up.

"You're right, Katara. I should be more relaxed." He kissed her cheek. "Let's go get some food."

Half way to the market, Aang realized Katara was avoiding eye contact. He stopped in front of her and turned around.

"Look, I know I've been annoying these last few weeks," Aang confessed, "I'm sorry if I upset you." Suddenly, her eyes shot up. Not to him, but to something behind him. Her eyebrows furrowed, then her eyes widened and she pointed.

"Watch out!" she yelled as she grabbed Aang and jumped into a nearby bush.

Aang airbender-backflipped back up and readied himself. As he looked on for a potential threat, he found nothing but a wide, empty hole. He looked in the other direction to see an rooted tree the length of appa sitting 20 feet from them.

"What just happened?" Aang asked. Katara opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, a 6-foot, dark-skinned man blurs out of the hole and gets into a horse stance.

He wears a green, sleeveless shirt and brown shorts that cover the knee. His hair is in short dreadlocks, and from the avatar's angle, he had what looked like an intricate, black tattoo covering both arms.

The three stared at each other in silence, all waiting for each other to strike first. The man loosens his stance and looks Aang dead in the eyes.

"We come in peace," Aang begins, "don't attack us, and we won't hurt you." The man laughs in a thick accent.

"What makes you think you can hurt me?" He grunts. Aang lowers his hands. "I'm the avatar," He says, shocked, "Where have you been all last year?"

The man's orange eyes grow wide and his lips quiver. "Avatar?" he whispers, "but... how? The avatar cycle was finished years ago." Katara puts her hands on her hips. "Seriously, where were you last year? Aang was frozen in a block of ice, but I accidentally freed him, and -"

"Frozen in ice?" The guy gasps, "How did you manage to do that without dying?"

Aang walked towards him now with the slightest hint of a grin. "I'm the avatar. I can control all four elements, remember?"

"Four? There are four elements?"

"Well, I guess there could be more, but I only know the four. Water, earth, fire, air. Primarily Air, but the others as well."

"You have the ability to bend air?"

"Yeah," Aang chuckles, wondering if this guy was serious.

"And earth? I mean, how does that even work? What qualifies as 'earth', anyway? Like, any thing with rocks in it?"

Katara looks at Aang with a concerned expression. "Is he new or something?"

"New to what? Life?"

"I don't know if we can trust this guy. He seems pretty sketchy."

"Well, he's not from around here."

"But then where's he from? The spirit world?"

"Not everyone has a much of a formal education as us, Katara. Maybe he grew up in a small, secluded town away from benders."

"I think he's playing du- OH MY RAAVA!"

"What?" Aang says before looking to see a floating tree behind him.

A floating tree behind him.

A floating tree.

It took a bit of time to register, but when it did, Aang screamed like a little girl and jumped backwards 20 feet.

The man looked at their reactions and slowly lowered the tree to the ground with his left hand.

Katara and Aang stood in shell shock as the man put his hands up defensively. They stood in very awkward silence for some time before the man spoke.

"Oh, uh, I'm a life-bender, in case you didn't know," he trails off, holding the last syllable like a fermata, before letting it fade into an even more awkward silence.

"Yeah..." he begins, before clapping his hands together, "so, this is probably something you're unfamiliar with," he chuckles. "Let's start over. Hi, I'm Kento. And I can bend living things."