AUTHOR'S NOTE: I love reviews, they are my soul food. That and popcorn. It makes me happy to note that I got reviews almost instantaneously too. A gracious bow to you, sirs and/or madams. Since I'm on a caffeine rush I decided to write the next chapter/fic almost immediately as well. ( Look, a day or so is almost instantaneous after months of not publishing a single chapter.) Here you go.

The Story of Waking up Awkwardly in a Forest with an Archenemy in a Difficult Situation

One second, there was peace and tranquility in the forest, the mighty eagle shrieked from high up in the sky. An elk raised its head from some lichen on a stone to gaze for predators foolish enough to attack it. The next second was complete chaos. The poor elk disintegrated to make way as a trio of mismatched characters dropped into what was now a burnt spot on the ground. One of them lost his mask in a bush he rolled past, another rolled down a shallow sinkhole near a tree, the last rolled into a puddle. None were happy, all were completely knocked out.

It took Katara a few minutes to wake up in a small hole at the base of a great ash tree. Of course, she probably didn't know it was an ash tree since they don't exist in her world. The very first thing she noticed was the pain of a million bruises. She searched for her water pouch only to find it was empty and torn. She slowly staggered to her feet and looked around for water. All she saw was some ash of the burned kind, a charred spot on the ground and a very large forest. Then her vision cleared and she saw a teenager lying with his back to her. She staggered over to see if he was hurt. The shock of who it was made her tumble back into her hole. As she lay there her head spun and memories came out from nooks and crannies in her mind. It looked somewhat like this

TEASHOPZUKORAINBOWTEASPINNYWALLSWAVYFLOORSGINSENGWTFAANGSOKKA WHERE AM I?!

It didn't feel very pleasant, but the shock took away the pain as she rushed from her hole and started beating the crap out of Zuko's still body. He moaned and woke up.

Zuko's first thought was very similar to his last in his own world. Sort of like

But seriously am I really that bad at tea?

Then he noticed the pummeling and beating he was getting from an all too familiar face. He ignored the pain and kicked himself up, firing off some flames in her direction. They missed and only scorched some grass.

"STOP!", some random voice called. A man in a light brown robe carrying a gnarled staff came out of the trees, his robe was very wet. "Who the hell are you two?", he shouted. "And what are you doing here with me?" They didn't know what to say. One rarely does when a weird old man dressed in a wet robe asked who you were. After a few moments of mutual puzzlement, Katara gave the man some pity.

"I-I am Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, who are you?", instead of answering the man turned to Zuko.

"Like I'm just going to tell a random stranger my name!", was the only answer the man's inquisitive stare got.

"Horseturds", he said rather bizarrely. He then started muttering to himself, pacing back and forth. "this...bad...HORSECRACKERS...it had...happen...me", were the only things they heard.

"Who are you?", Katara said once more. He seemed to notice she was still there.

"I am Sigmund, for now, before I was Simon, but that was the past.", he answered after a few moments.

"So who are you?", she asked for clarification.

"I am Cyrus, but that's in the future or the past for all I know. You see I have a different name for different times, and different times for a different name. Of course, my whereabouts matter a lot as well. Never doubt that."

Neither Katara nor Zuko saw what he meant and exchanged a look for possibly the first time ever without glaring.

"So what is your REAL name?", Zuko asked, for further clarification.

"I sincerely wish I remembered that, but ah well, the consequences of a misspent youth."

They still weren't sure about him, in fact if anything they thought he was being even more untrustworthy.

"So where are we and what are we doing here?", Katara asked, deeming that those were the most important questions for now.

"Hm... I knew that would come up sooner or later. I don't really know. I think something threw me off course when I passed through that teashop, was any of you making ginseng tea while on the exact opposite of the world someone stepped on a crack in the road just as I was passing through the wall between the Middle and the Inner Rings?"

Zuko's eyes widened a bit and then he scrunched up his nose in disbelief.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, I don't make the rules I just try my best to bend them and this time it didn't work. Though that would explain it all, this isn't a million to one chance, no, this is practically a googleplex to one chance and I'm incredibly unlucky to have fallen for this, and you two are as well, of course."

This didn't explain anything to either of the two teenagers. So they resigned to staring at the man they now thought was completely mad. He just kept going.

"However I don't think that answers your questions, does it? Um...how to put this. If you saw a map of the world right now. You probably wouldn't recognize anything." He flinched at their shocked stares.

"Are you trying to say that we aren't in our own world?", Zuko asked with a slight trepidation for the answer. The awkward silence that followed gave him all the answers he didn't want but really needed. He fainted. Well, more like fell to the ground as if his legs couldn't carry him anymore and just quietly shivered when the full realization of what just happened struck him. "This can't be happening, this isn't happening.", he mumbled under his breath.

Meanwhile, Katara had been sitting back just trying to take in everything, twisting and bending the situation until she'd seen all the angles she could make out. Now she felt she should take a stand. She stepped forward a bit and looked straight into Sigmund's eyes and asked what she felt most important.

"Sooo... can you take us back at once, please?" He looked at her for a few seconds, seemingly appraising different ways to get them home. At least she hoped he did.

"I can take you back all together at once if you'd like to have his bladder instead of your heart and vice versa." She got a bit paler and felt bile at the back of her throat.

"Then could you take someone first and then return and take the other one?"

"No, no, no, I can't do that, either. See, every world has its own time controlling device called a Chronolith at the center of the world, and they all work differently. For example, yours work by counting down to the Comet and then skipping ahead 80 years. While this one could skip potentially 100 years while I'm gone with the one who goes first. This means I'll return when the second one is either very old or dead. Not ideal, especially seeing as you two are rather, well, big in your world."

"Then what CAN we do?", Katara hated how much of her desperation and confusion slipped through that sentence, but she didn't care anymore. The prospect of never meeting her friends and brother again... She wondered what they would think when she didn't return. She had left a note that said she would be gone to shop a bit for a few hours. A NOTE! Knowing Sokka he would freak out just because of the note, what would happen if she didn't return. What would her father and Gran think when they heard that she was nowhere to be found? What would Aang think? That she had abandoned them? No, he would never think that. Would they believe she had gotten kidnapped by the Dai Li? She knew they would search for her, and she knew their search would be fruitless. Not even the Avatar could travel to another world. Except he could but that was the Spirit World. Was it there they were? No, it felt too solid for what she thought was the Spirit World. Too real, even if their situation felt very unreal. She wondered what Toph would think, would she too try to search for her? Perhaps, most likely, absolutely. She felt a tear welling up as a single raindrop fell on the tip on her nose.

"Fantastic, now it's raining as well, this does NOT help the thought process", Simon yelled at the sky as if that would solve everything. "Get up, Mr. Angstypants, Miss, we need shelter. Not only would that get us out from this miserable rain but it would help in the long run as well by telling us where in Hell we are." With a little help from Cyrus she managed to get Zuko up before he started yelling at them in the tongue of Sailors. He literally exploded, well not in the gory sense, ew, but in the sense that he made a second charred stop near the first bigger one. This singed Katara and left some burns on her palms, Sigmund thanked luck for having it rain so that there wouldn't be more damage to the forest. And so they started walking, Simon in the lead cursing to himself, Katara in the middle trying to heal her hands with the rain, and Zuko trailing off behind them, glowering at everything in his way.