Hey everyone.

First Fan-Fiction here... I'm pretty excited.

It's a pretty interesting story, and I'll try to update at least twice a week.

Please review! I want a little bit of feedback on this. And who knows...

the more reviews... the more updates? (just a thought)

and I thought I owned Avatar once in my dreams… But even then it was copyrited… DARN!

Chapter 1: The Beginning

When Sokka was required to complete the hunt before entering manhood, he didn't know it would be this challenging. It was dawn of the fourth day and all he had accomplished so far was almost emptying the contents of his food pack, falling into the freezing water, and getting hopelessly lost. Sitting cross-legged in a little cave with a humble fire in front of him, Sokka was pretty close to giving up.

"But I can't abandon my task now," he softly muttered under is breath. "If I give up now, who knows what the guys back home will say. That is, if I am able to get back home." He reached for his machete and started hitting the interior of the cave wall, cursing silently.

"Four days… four days… four days and I can't even capture a single polar bunny. I can imagine it already. I'm going to arrive back home, and Katara is going to laugh at my face. And think of the shame I'd bring to dad!" He threw his machete at the wall at the thought of this. It struck the cave with a dull thud and fell to the ground. Sokka gave a sigh and heaved himself up to retrieve his weapon.

A cold gust of wind blew into the cave, extinguishing the fire, and leaving the inside in partial darkness.

Sokka stared blankly at the entrance. Throwing his arms up in the air, he yelled, "Great. THANK YOU WIND! THANKS A LOT!"

After much fumbling around in the dark, Sokka was finally able to pack up his few belongings. He had decided to give it one more day of hunting, and if he couldn't find anything, he would start heading back home.

He emerged out of the cave and looked to the horizon. The sun was still taking shape as the light of the early morning slowly grew. Sokka shuffled his feet a little bit and continued his hunt.

Back in the village, it was a fresh start to a new day for the villagers. The main task for the population of men this particular day was to repair one of the ships that had unluckily crashed into a rather big ice wall on a recent chartering mission. The ship was now resting in the dock. In charge of most of the construction was the tribe leader Hagoda. Hagoda was admired by many and known as a brave, caring leader who made sure that whatever decision was made; it was best for the entire tribe.

"Hey Hagoda! I'm gonna need a hand with this."

Hagoda turned around and noticed that his friend Bato was attempting to remove a section of the bow of the ship all by himself. He hurried over and together, they were able to pry the section apart. Both men walked to the edge of the boat and looked down to survey the work. Below them, many people were rushing around trying to remove the damaged parts of the ship before replacing them with newer parts.

Hagoda turned to Bato and chuckled. "How is it, that you were able to crash an entire ship into a block of ice?"

"You know very well it wasn't a block of ice." Bato replied. "The whole section just started moving toward my ship. I didn't want to totally destroy the entire ship, so I just crashed into it!"

"That makes plenty of sense Bato. I'm just kidding with you. It was the wise thing to do. Good thing no one was really hurt. C'mon, lets get some breakfast." With that, the two men walked off the ship and back to the village.

As they entered the village, many women gave the two men warm smiles and waved hello. Both Bato and Hagoda waved back. Hagoda slowly faced Bato and asked, "How do you think my boy Sokka is doing right now? It's been four days and he still hasn't returned. Do you think anything happened to him?"

Bato patted his good friend on the back. "Sokka is a very capable young man. I don't see him getting into any trouble right now. You can be sure he is all right Hagoda. Why, I'll bet you when he comes back, he'll have a whole herd of polar elkpenguins following him."

"I'm sure you're right Bato, but sometimes I worry about that boy. He's always trying to prove himself as a wise, able-bodied man. But he's not quite a man yet. He still needs someone to take care of him."

As far as he could see, everything Sokka saw was flat and white. The only colors that could be seen were the occasional glimpses of his coat and feet. If anyone were to be observing the area, Sokka's light blue, furry animal skin coat would easily stick out in the kind of terrain he was hunting in. Sokka scanned the area for any moving shapes. It was hazy at first, but he saw what appeared to be a large herd of arctic moose bears in the distance. He squinted his eyes to make sure the shapes he was seeing wasn't just big black rocks. There was movement, or what appeared to be movement. Something is definitely there. Instantly happier, Sokka tore off in the direction of the hazy black shapes in the distance.

When he neared the scene, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Right there in front of him was a whole load of large black rocks.

"Rocks!?!? I came running all this way for a bunch of stupid black rocks!?!?" Sokka grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be a smaller black rock, and chucked it as forcefully as he could at the black rocks. The rock ricocheted off of the bigger one with a vibrating pang and landed in the snow.

Almost right after the rock was thrown, a gigantic beast appeared from behind one of the rocks. It was the dreaded polar wolf bear. A huge carnivorous beast with the strength of a bear, speed of the wolf, and teeth and claws like both of them.

Sokka slowly took in the image before him. Here he was, a fourteen year old boy, stuck alone in the frozen tundra, with a boomerang, a machete, and a knife, against a giant predator with twenty razor-sharp claws along with who knows how many even sharper teeth. "Ohh man. Stupid black rocks!" Sokka quickly removed his pack and took out his two main weapons.

The polar wolf bear charged. Sokka reacted quickly and fell to the ground with his machete and boomerang ready in a dual sword combat fashion. The beast jumped over Sokka. With its back faced to him, Sokka charged at the animal, weapons raised. He gave a slash at the backside followed by another. The animal howled in pain and rage and turned to face Sokka. Once again, the beast charged. Sokka threw his boomerang at the charging animal. The wolf bear dodged the boomerang easily by shifting its head to the side. Sokka started running to one of the big black rocks hoping to evade the wolf bear. The animal was quickly gaining ground on Sokka. Just when it was about to claw out at Sokka, the boomerang knocked the beast on its head. The beast gave a moan as it fell to the ground. Sokka stopped his wild escape from the beast and looked back. For a moment, Sokka thought that he had defeated the polar wolf bear. He ran towards the beast to retrieve his weapon. He bent down to pick it up when all of a sudden, the polar wolf bear swung one of its clawed paws out at Sokka. He barely had enough time to hold up his machete to dodge the sharp claws, but the force of the animal sent him flying. He landed with face first into the ground with snow flying everywhere. He looked up to see the animal get up and turn towards him. Sokka rushed to get up while the wolf bear slowly advanced upon him. Sokka readied his weapons for the oncoming assault. But right before the beast was going to charge once more, it gave a whimper and ran off into the distance, leaving a trail of blood from the back wounds.

Clearly puzzled and not knowing what to think, Sokka went to retrieve his pack. He was glad that he didn't have to face the dangerous predator anymore, but that was his only chance at getting some sort of animal to bring home. Saddened and disheartened, but happy that he was safe, he cleaned off the blood from his weapons and sheathed them. Then very slowly, he continued to trek onward with a single question on his mind. Why did it just suddenly flee?

"Mom! Mom!"

Back in one of the snow huts, Mayoli Just made up a name for her was busy trying to make food for the hungry men at the dock. "What is it this time Katara?"

"I'm SURE I got it now. Watch this."

"Katara, I'm sure you can make the water rise up. I just don't have time to see it right now!"

"Nononono mom. It'll be quick." Katara concentrated on a little bucket of water placed before her. She slowly lowered her fingers to the bucket and took a deep breath. In a single motion, she began to wave her hands back and forth trying to make the water rise from the bucket. She extended her arms out and raised them ever so carefully. The water in the bucket started to shift a bit.

Mayoli prayed to herself that this time Katara would succeed. For over a week since Katara claimed to have filled a bucket of water by raising the water out of the river and sloshing it into the bucket, it hasn't been a single day that she hasn't tried raising the water for at least hours on end.

And to both their surprises, the water in the bucket slowly started rising. Over half of the water in the bucket was levitating now. It looked like a giant bubble filled with water that kept shifting. The bubble of water was slowly getting higher…

"Is breakfast ready yet?"

SLOSH!! The water still in the bucket fell to the bottom the water that was above the bucket sloshed all over the ground.

"DAD!!! I WAS WATERBENDING! AND YOU JUST BROKE MY CONCENTRATION!" Katara was furious. She was so close to actually the water out in front of her, and then her dad burst in asking for food. She started waving her arms madly around herself. "WHY COULDN'T YOU COME IN JUST A FEW SECONDS LATER? DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO GET THE WATER A COUPLE INCHES OUT OF THE BUCKET?"

Involuntarily, Katara's rage and arm swinging caused the water to fly from the bucket right into her Hagoda's face.

As if paying no attention to her husband at all, Mayoli grabbed Katara around the waist and the two of them started jumping up and down with happiness. "You did it Katara! You actually did it!

"I know mom! I know mom!"

Bato appeared at the doorway and looking at Hagoda's drenched face asked, "What just happened here?"

Hagoda unable to get angry at Katara for splashing water all over his face proudly said, "My daughter is a waterbender."

Please tell me how it was. Any comments are welcomed.

Thanks everyone!

Lordcheeezzee