Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar.
Warning! The following prologue contains every plot-ruining spoiler in the history of spoilers. Don't read it unless you have already seen Day of Black Sun, and have already read The Lower Ranks and The Lonely Waves.
The Story So Far
Pakoda was born into a very misfortunate water tribe family. Shortly after birth, Pakoda's father left him and his mother by themselves. The two were borderlining on poverty at best and they had to struggle to find everything they ate. Despite his circumstances, Pakoda grew up relatively normal. As a child he attended school just as any other kid would, and he even discovered that he was a water-bender. Ever since discovering his gift, Pakoda idolized Pakku, the young and arrogant water-bending master. When Pakoda found out that Pakku was holding classes, Pakoda eagerly showed up to learn, but was turned away when Pakku would not teach him for free. With no other options, Pakoda eventually dropped out of school so that he could go and fish all day for his mother's and his food, while training himself in the ways or water-bending. Unfortunately, his mother was captured one day when she was caught grabbing some fish without paying for them. She was taken to the water tribe prison, and Pakoda was left alone to fend for himself.
Pakoda lived like this for a year or two when one day, he was overtaken by Fire Nation spies that wanted information on the North Pole. Pakoda cooperated temporarily, but refused to release information about secret entrances to the tribe. Unfortunately, it was to no avail when the Fire Nation attacked the North Pole that very night. The North Pole withstood the attack, but blame was still placed on Pakoda because he was poor and the pathetic excuse would not upset anyone. As a result of a very biased court ruling, Pakoda was sentenced to banishment from the North Pole the day before his mother was to be released. Unwilling to break any more rules and upset the chief of the tribe further, Pakoda refrained from waiting to see his mother, knowing that the hurt would have been too great had he only been able to visit her once before he left.
After a long and difficult journey, Pakoda found himself on the healing table of a mysterious man named H after Pakoda had plummeted over a large waterfall. H and Pakoda quickly struck up a friendship and eventually, H told Pakoda of a secret brotherhood called the White Lotus Society. Told that he would be granted entrance to the brotherhood, Pakoda made his way to Omashu for the annual Pai Sho Days tournament. Upon arriving, Pakoda stumbled across Pakku, who claimed to come to the tournament every year. It was later revealed that Pakku had other intentions for coming to the tournament in the form of the woman he had loved, Kanna.
Pakoda was breezing through the first rounds of the tournament, with Pakku as his makeshift manager, filling him in on what kind of competition he would be facing. Pakku told Pakoda that he was being watched by last year's tournament winner, a fire nation general that people just called, "the new guy." Pakoda battled his way through the playoffs past future friend Gi Fong, an Earth Kingdom soldier, and winning by way of disqualification of Kanna. 'The new guy' had also been able to win all of his matches and Pakoda would end up facing him in the final match the next day. At a specially prepared lunch, Pakoda and the general, who told Pakoda to refer to himself as Dragon, made pleasant conversation and gained a respect for each other as an opponent.
All through the tournament, Pakoda had been remembering the real reason why he came to Omashu wasn't to win the tournament, but to find who H called the gatekeeper. At the final match, Pakoda realized that Dragon was the gatekeeper he was supposed to be finding, and the match ended in a draw, much to the disappointment to the thousands of fans that had come to see the tournament. In no time at all, Pakoda was inducted into the order. When it was discovered that he had been appointed to be an elite member of the brotherhood, he was immediately given permanent placement in a small village by a lake. Dragon told Pakoda to meet him at a village halfway between Omashu and his new home so that Pakoda could meet his new waterbending master.
On his way to the village, Pakoda stopped to rest at a rest stop, where he casually joked around with a hyperactive little boy named Lao Bei Fong. Lao jokingly gave Pakoda the nickname "Iceberg" and Pakoda in return gave Lao the misnomer, "Toph." Lao resented his name because it was a girl's name, but then decided that the first girl he falls in love with, he will give the nickname, "Toph."
With his new alias, Iceberg met Dragon at the village and the two were talking when all of a sudden, H walked into the building where the two were conversing. Both H and Iceberg suddenly realized that the two would be living together in the new village. The two made their way to their new home, where they lived and studied all kinds of properties of water for the good of the White Lotus Society. Eventually, H died and left Iceberg alone to run the shop and continue the studies the two had started together. Iceberg and Dragon were both eventually made to be council members for the order, and they both made the trip to Omashu every year, where they would share stories of all the wonderful things that happened to them the past year.
One year, Iceberg's first real competition in Pai Sho, Gi Fong showed up at the tournament again, this time much older and a very skilled earthbender as well. As it turned out, Gi Fong had returned because he too was to be inducted into the order, and it just so happened that Iceberg got to be Gi Fong's gatekeeper. Gi Fong was also to be an elite member, and was given instructions to join the Dai Li and to report on anything he found once a year, just like Pakoda did.
Not very long after this, Iceberg got a messenger hawk from Dragon saying that hope had finally come to the world in the form of the avatar's return. Dragon told Iceberg that he would be following the avatar to make sure that nobody harmed him. Eventually, the avatar had found his way to Ba Sing Se. But the fire princess had also made her way to Ba Sing Se and had overthrown the government and taken the Dai Li, along with Gi Fong and Long Feng, the Dai Li's leader, back to the Fire Nation with her to serve as the heads of the lower half of the Fire Nation army, also known as the Lower Ranks. When Long Feng began to bend to the will of the princess, Gi Fong decided that it was best to leave the Dai Li and find somewhere safe deep within the order.
However, the night that Gi Fong made his escape from the Dai Li, the captured avatar was brought into the stronghold Gi Fong had been stationed at, unbeknownst to him. The avatar had been flying on his bison and the Fire Nation was able to take him from the air with their war balloons and bring him into the stronghold to once again face Long Feng.
The avatar's friends had stopped for the night and needed supplies, so Katara; a female waterbender that was traveling with the avatar along with her brother Sokka and the avatar's blind earthbending instructor, Toph Bei Fong; had journeyed into a nearby town for some food and other necessities. It just so happened that the village was the same village where Iceberg was stationed. She eventually found her way into his store and was looking for food when she stumbled and knocked herself unconscious on the floor of Iceberg's shop. When she woke up, she found herself on Iceberg's healing table. The two talked for the rest of the night and explained who they were and where they came from. When Iceberg learned that the avatar was in trouble, he knew that it was his duty to help save him. The two made their way back to the camp and explained the plan to rescue the avatar from the stronghold that Iceberg had familiarized himself with through letters from Gi Fong.
When Iceberg met Toph, he recognized the name instantly, and found himself to be very fond of the young girl that, in a way, he had named himself. He never told her this of course, seeing as she was already very sensitive about matters with her parents, but he felt the need to comfort her and help her get through this difficult time without her friend, the avatar.
At one of their stops, Toph sensed someone in the distance. She ran to find out who it was, and realized that the man was a Dai Li agent. Unfortunately, she was discovered, and was forced to play a blind girl act to keep the man from finding out who she was. Eventually, she found out enough that she knew that she needed to leave. As she took off back towards the camp, the man followed her all the way there. When she arrived back at camp, she turned around ready to face the man who had been chasing her, but she was stopped by Iceberg who claimed to know the man, Gi Fong. Gi Fong claimed to know all about the stronghold where the avatar was being held, so they all agreed that Gi Fong should join them on their journey towards the prison.
Upon arriving at stronghold, the five rescuers went underneath the stronghold and using Toph's metalbending, broke into the stronghold from underground unnoticed. Since Gi Fong had not left the stronghold too long ago, he figured that the authorities probably didn't recognize that he was gone yet, so he would be able to slip in and rejoin the Dai Li for a time while the rest of the group acted as prisoners. The group walked to the prison cells, but were discouraged to find no avatar. Regrettably, the group had claimed that they were prisoners to the jail guard, and so Gi Fong and Iceberg had to leave the three younger travelers to themselves in the prison cell while they went after the avatar.
The two found a secret entrance to Long Feng's hall, which was where the avatar undoubtedly was and made their way in. The hall was big and Long Feng's throne was surrounded by a large pit that fell hundreds of feet and ended with a metal bottom. The two were soon stopped and forced into combat with Long Feng, who knocked Gi Fong unconscious, and barely defeated Iceberg, who had hidden on the wall of the pit and was waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike back at Long Feng. Suddenly, the other door burst open, and Katara, Sokka, and Toph barged into the room quickly disabling Long Feng and knocking him unconscious. Gi Fong had by this time woken back up, so the avatar, Toph, Katara, Sokka, and Gi Fong were about to go look for Iceberg when Long Feng regained consciousness and began charging at the avatar without the group noticing.
Knowing that it was the only way to ensure the group's safe exit from the stronghold, Iceberg made his reappearance and charged at Long Feng. Long Feng went tumbling over the edge, but unfortunately, so did Iceberg. Overwhelmingly upset at Iceberg's demise, the group finally made it out of the stronghold and back to camp, where they gave Iceberg a proper burial ceremony.
The four kids went on their way and Gi Fong returned to Iceberg's village where he took over as the store manager until he received further instructions from the order.
Meanwhile, Dragon had been captured by the fire nation as well, and had been taken back to the fire nation to an even stronger prison to be held for the rest of his life. While in prison, he began to train himself enough to break out of prison on the day of black sun when all of the guards would be at their weakest. During the eclipse, he tore through the bars of his cell with his tremendous new-found strength, and escaped the prison and made his way to the nearest place that he knew he would be safe.
He trudged into the familiar shop and found the man he was looking for, Gi Fong. He requested a game of Pai Sho with Gi Fong, and the two played until Gi Fong finally realized who Dragon was. The two embraced and formally greeted each other after much time and many changes.
A/N: Well, here it is. A few housekeeping things first of all, once Grease is over at my school, I will probably be updating nightly, but dress rehearsals start next week, and they will last until 9:30 each night, so don't expect much of anything else to be written until after Grease is over in mid-March.
Second item of business, I will be including A/Ns at the bottom from now on. I like being able to openly talk about things at the end of a chapter rather than try to mask what is going to happen with things like, "this didn't turn out how I expected it to." I may from time to time stick in a little note at the top, but from now on, A/Ns will be at the bottom.
Lastly, is the story itself. Here is what I said at the end of The Lonely Waves, "After much thought, I have decided to make The Lower Ranks into a trilogy, with the final installment following the adventures of Gi Fong and Iroh as they meet up at the next Pai Sho days with some new characters to the story." I'm sorry, but about half of that is a big fat lie. I thought about it afterwards, and realized that there had just been a Pai Sho days, and so it wouldn't make sense for them to go to another one so soon after the last one ended. Plus, I doubt there will be too many new characters to the story. I'm sure there will be one or two, but I have a feeling it will be more like last story where I make connections with existing characters rather than just make up new people to suit my needs. Other than that, yes, this story will follow the adventures of Iroh and Gi Fong as they undertake the quest of something important. I'm kind of in a toss-up between to debates going on in my head. One of them, I can't talk about because it would be a huge spoiler if I did decide to go through with it, but the other is exactly what aspect of the war Iroh and Gi Fong and the rest of the White Lotus are going to end up resolving. I guess if you wanted to, you could leave me suggestions, and I promise you that if it is good, it will definitely make it into the story.
Lastly, I've been thinking of putting makeshift review quotas up for this story. I've seen it done where authors refuse to put up new chapters until they get X amount of reviews. As a reader, I hate it and I sometimes get sick of waiting days for something that someone already has written, so I doubt that this will ever happen. But on the other hand, I don't want it to have to happen. I write for my own enjoyment and nothing else, but it really makes me feel good when I get reviews, and sadly enough, I've had a total of four reviews for the three stories I've written. Like I said, I doubt that I will ever put up a review quota, because that is not why I write, but maybe I am saying is that if you are a regular reader of my stories, maybe you should think about how lucky you are that I don't do that. Not that I think my work is amazing, but...well...you get it I think. Most of us Avatards are smart people.
I think that's it. I guess you can review now if you want, but if you have read the other two stories first like you should have, then I don't think it is necessary to review this part of the story. Unless you read the first two stories and didn't review. If not, shame on you. I review almost everything I read, and I would really appreciate the same amount of respect from other people who enjoy reading fanfictions as much as I do.