As We Know It
Notes:
Current Ages-
Sokka: 16
Katara:15
Toph: 14
Aang:14
Italics- Sokka's thoughts at the time the story is taking place. Basically his commentary.
"Italics"- Quote from dialogue that happened in past events/memories.
(Normal Font) Katara's commentary
(Underline) Aang's commentary
(Bold) Toph's commentary
Aang changes according to his needs (and occasionally emotions) at the time, similar to the Avatar State.
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar
Sokka half-willingly shimmied out of his comfortable sleeping bag, scratching and exposing his bare torso to the dry desert-like air. He lethargically exited his tent and saw the evening sun's final rays of light slowly disappear beyond the jagged rocky horizon. It'll be time to head out soon, he thought with a hint of sadness. As much as he would have preferred to sleep in (just five more minutes, really), the nights were getting shorter which would severely limit travel time, and he had a schedule to stick to.
Sokka rested his back on a comfortable-looking rock and silently whined to the spirits (because no one else would listen) about his current situation. His mind absently wandered to easier times: when the world wasn't half-destroyed by the giant nuclear weapons created by the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation; when his biggest concern had been stockpiling his seal jerky, not making sure his sister and he had enough food to make it to the next day; when he was more worried about how he was going to get two fishing hooks out of his thumb instead of worrying how the fallout radiation was going to effect him. It's been years since the bombs rocked the earth and shook his world upside-down. After that, people were less focused on the war and more focused on surviving.
The Fire Nation bombs had been designed simply for massive explosions, equaling massive damage. They attacked cities in the only two opposing powerful countries left- the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe. The entire Si Wong province was annihilated in seconds, with most of the once-powerful Southern Water Tribe equally destroyed soon after. They had already managed to obliterate the majority of Air Nomad civilization through conventional warfare. The Earthkingdom was quick to reply with full force, using similarly destructive weapons. The two warring nations hadn't counted on the radiation having biological effects on the victims. And they were weird effects.
At first Sokka was skeptical about the purported rumors of what was happening to people around the world, but his healthy levels of skepticism failed him when his sister started levitating the sea water into a miniature gravity-defying river. "I'm dreaming, right? This isn't actually happening. It's midnight sun madness! I'm crazy. Katara, tell me I'm crazy." "You don't need me to tell you that to know it's true." That didn't make him feel any better. He could no longer deny it- his sister had magical water-manipulating powers. He knew she could be controlling at times, but this was just ridiculous.
It turns out that the price of "bending," as it was being called, was a steep one. Scientists said that "the sub-atomic gamma radiation educed a transmutation within the genetic matrices' constitution, causing irrevocable physiological transformations." Sokka, understanding half of the words spoken, asked them, it not so many words, to repeat what they had said so that he could better understand them (really, it more like a confused "Huh?"). They reiterated that the nuclear fallout from the bombs was also causing people to have brain issues. "Oh, don't worry about her; she was always like that. Ow! Katara, that huuuuurt!" Sokka snickered at the flash-back. It wasn't his favorite memory, but it was a simpler life than the one he had now and he missed it.
The dark-skinned teen rose from his rock and headed back into the tent to wake up his rag-tag crew. Now that the sun set, it would be cool enough to continue their trek through one of the many barren wastelands. He woke up his sister first, per his brotherly instincts wanting to make sure she was alright. Katara may have been a pain, but she was his baby sister (and the only tangible family he had left) and he took care of her, even if she ended up saving his butt more often than he did.
Yet as powerful as she had become thanks to her new abilities, she couldn't fight off the brain damage happening to all new benders. As the months had gone on, Sokka had noticed a subtle change in one aspect of her character. She was still Katara, always would be, but she had developed a strange form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Not like everything had to be perfectly aligned or anything like that, but it was more of a person-to-person thing. She couldn't help but try and fix everyone's lives, whether they wanted her to or not. And while it was noble and all, Sokka couldn't help but feel that they had bigger issues at hand. Like surviving.
"Kataraaaa" he whispered loudly to his sleeping sibling. Nothing. "Katara" he repeated, this time with several experimental pokes to the arm while he crouched beside her. She stirred and faced him.
"Ugh. What is it Sokka?" she yawned to her brother now standing above her.
"Time to go." He replied, reverting back to his normal voice.
"What? Can't we sleep in just once?"
"I already told you, we have to get to Ba Sing Se as soon as possible. I have a schedule. It's all planned out." He was proud that he had kept most of the excitement out of his voice. Sokka just had this thing for schedules.
Obligingly, she rose and prepared her pack as Sokka moved outside to a rock-tent erected a few meters away from his own. Knocking softly on the stone wall (he had learned not to knock hard after being launched ten feet into the air), he called to the person inside.
"Toph, c'mon. It's time to go." He waited a few seconds before knocking again, preparing himself for any stray columns of earth that may decide to attack him. Raising his hand to knock once more, the side wall swiftly fell back into the earth and Sokka flinched (I did not! It was a purposeful defensive maneuver.), raising both arms and a leg, protecting him any theoretical assaults. Sensing a lack of instant bodily harm, the warrior slowly lowered his limbs to observe a sleepy-eyed bald teen looking up at him with calm, dreary grey eyes, one arm behind him to support his sitting position, the other scratching the back of his head as he yawned. Doing his best not to succumb to the contagiousness of the yawn, Sokka's muddled brain began working out why Aang was in Toph's tent before Aang addressed him.
"Oh, hey Sokka" the sleepy figure addressed him with a smile. Well at least he's in Airbender mode. I think.
"Hi Aang" he responded half-heartedly. "Hey, uhmm, what are you doing in Toph's tent? And where's Toph?"
Aang looked at him quizzically for a second before replying.
"Sokka, Toph's tent is over there." He pointed to the other side of Sokka's shelter, where a slightly smaller earth-tent stood. "I bent this one last night after everyone went to sleep."
Oh. How did I miss that? She has the only… earth-tent… wait…
"You Earthbended that tent? (Earthbended? Why is that the past tense? Shouldn't it be "EarthBENT" or something like that? Quiet, Snoozles. No one wants to hear you whine all the time) But you weren't in Earthbender mode!"
"Yea… I kinda switched last night when I couldn't fall asleep. Sorry" Aang responded sheepishly with an innocent smile.
"But you're normal now, right? Good old Airbending Aang?"
"Yup!" Aang responded with a wide, toothy child-like grin, his eyes gleaming.
"Alright, well we're heading out in a little. I'm gonna go wake up Toph."
Walking past his own tent, Sokka berated himself for lack of observation skills, a surprisingly useful skill in a world of outlaws, bandits, and benders when you weren't one yourself. His thoughts drifted to when he had first met the (sometimes) happy-go-lucky kid behind him.
The siblings had first stumbled upon him unconscious on an empty beach, soaking wet and blue-skinned, but still alive. Katara was able to Waterbend the water out of his lungs and Sokka prepared a fire to warm the stranger up. He had come to soon enough, and was surprisingly animated for someone who had just almost drowned. Introducing himself as Aang, he explained that he had escaped from the battle between Air Nomads and Fire Nation soldiers. He had wandered around for years, traveling from nation to nation in secrecy, learning to control his new and unique ability of Airbending and planning a way to destroy the bombs in the Fire Nation that had killed so many lives. He considered it his duty as one of the last of his people to make sure no one else suffered the same fate. Sokka deemed him normal enough and (after some optimistic convincing from his sister) allowed the refuge to join them on their travels, but not before giving him a stern warning after noticing one too many googley-eyed stares. "Listen Aang, you're cool and all, but if you hurt my sister, I'll make sure that your family line ends with you. Got it?" This was accompanied by a machete coming precariously close to where no machete should go for someone hoping to have children. Aang's slow nodding indicated that he had, indeed, "got it."
The siblings learned soon enough that their new traveling partner was… "unique." They knew that benders had issues, but Aang's took the cake (Mmmm, cake). Aang had what the siblings dubbed "Multiple Personality Disorder"- the multiple personalities each gave him the ability to bend air, water, earth, or fire. The problem was that he couldn't control who he was, so sometimes he would have more mood swings than a pregnant woman. The "disorder" part generally came when Aang decided that he just wanted to destroy stuff as a Firebender or argue with everyone as an Earthbender (and then destroy some more stuff). As a Waterbender, he was quite (too quiet. It got really awkward sometimes) and compliant, and as an Airbender, carefree and childlike. Sokka decided that he would go with the theory that "Airbender Aang" was the original (Air Nomads. Airbender. Problem solved!), but Sokka could never be certain since each Aang claimed to be the real one. Eventually, he just stopped caring. Not like it would change anything.
Coming out of his reverie, Sokka walked up to the wall of the only other rock-tent and knocked gently.
"Toph? We're about to head out. You awake?"
Sokka had hardly finished the question when the wall dropped down and a ruffle-haired youth walked out and punched him playfully (playfully? My arm is numb from all the bruises) as she strolled past him.
"Yea, yea, Snoozles. I got it. Schedule and all that junk. Kinda hard to sleep with you stompin' around anyways" she said as she walked away, looking for some overly large boulders that would provide enough shelter to take care of business while Sokka cringed and whimpered, tenderly holding his arm and fiercely trying to hold back tears.
Sokka remembered his first encounter with the blind earthbender (Seriously Sokka? Another flashback? This is like, what, the fourth one so far? Katara! Get out of here! I'm feeling nostalgic, okay?But you weren't even actually there. Why don't you let Aang take care of this part?Mehmemehmehmeh. Fine. …women. Pfft.).
It was really Toph that had found them first. And then they found her…trying to steal their food. Aang had been on watch and found her rummaging through their bags and smelling everything she grabbed (Wait, if you were on watch, how did she make it to our food? Uhm… I took a little nap? *facepalm*). Freezing the stranger's legs to the ground, Aang approached her and asked her in a quiet, timid voice
"Can I, uhm, help you…?"
Her response was to raise a pointed shaft of earth straight to his chest and another two to break her ice shackles. Dodging the rock column with a single fluid motion, Aang called for Katara to help while the girl just smirked and launched another attack. Katara was by his side a few seconds later, tossing him a water skin to make up for the water he already used. She herself had a tubular water skin snaking down each arm from a larger pack on her back, the ends of the tubes reaching the base of her wrist- this was an invention of Sokka's. He had designed it so that the sleeves of her shirt could cover the tubes for a surprise attack. It also allowed her to summon water without having to reach for her pack, a useful ability in the case of her hands being tied behind her back, and she could dual-wield water weapons that were still connected to her main supply, essentially allowing her to change their size and mass at will. Of course, this all required practice, but with little else to do during spare time, it didn't take long to master many useful skills.
Katara was a finger-flick away from unleashing her water whips when she saw her opponent for the first time- there in front of her stood a frail-looking girl, partially illuminated by the moonlight. Pale skin, messy raven hair flowing down past her shoulders and covering her eyes, a look of pure terror and sadness clearly evident in thee rest of her face.
Katara shot Aang a dirty look.
"Aang! She's probably just lost and alone, looking for some food." She turned to face the new-comer.
"Is that right? You just want some food and shelter?" The girl nodded timidly. Katara approached her and the small girl flinched.
"Don't worry, we're not going to hurt you." As soon as she was a few feet away, the oh-so-fragile girl smirked and raised both arms in a quick powerful motion, swooping them back down, and bringing up a hollow column of rock to trap Katara up to her neck.
Katara had a look of surprise on her face for a split-second before it was quickly over-powered by anger as she tried to squirm her way out. The little girl laughed at the water-bender's futile attempts, her demeanor suddenly appearing a lot less innocent than before.
"Gah! You brat! Aang, get her!"
"Going!" Aang yelled determinedly, already running forward and jumping onto a sphere of swirling air he had just formed.
After that, the bandit just started raising spikes from random spots around her, trying haphazardly to hit something, anything. Aang, trying to figure out the reason for the lack of coordination behind this attack, easily swerved around the jagged earthen points and spiraled to the center of the increasingly-spiked area while launching a few airburst of his own. Stopping a few feet in front of the source of all this trouble, Aang just sat and starred, examining.
She stopped raising death spikes for a moment and called in no particular direction
"What's your deal? Can you fly or something? You wanna fight or keep dancing around?"
Aang dropped off his air scooter, a smirk on his face and a hint of malice in his eye.
"Heh. Dance? Let's see how a blind girl dances with fire," Aang's hands now matching eyes in fiery fervor. He brought his right foot forward and, with his right fist following quickly behind, punched out a powerful burst of flames. The earthbender was going to impale him and his arrogant voice on a pike until her confusion at the situation quickly turned to realization and she instinctively raised a wall of earth to block the scorching flames, now harmlessly warming up the air at her sides from behind the wall.
"Wait, you can bend water AND fire? You're a freak!"
"Ha! I can bend all four elements!" With this, he swung both arms upwards, trapping the entire girl except her head in a coffin of rock. With a reverse downward swing, Katara was released and hurried beside her ally. She opened her water pouches from her wrist and brought out two curving streams in front of her, preparing for either an offensive attack or defensive position. Aang looked over at his opponent, surprised to see her smiling mischievously.
"So what? I can still kick your butt! I'm the greatest Earthbender ever! This weak sauce is nothing." Just to prove how powerful she truly was, the self-proclaimed greatest Earthbender ever didn't just make the earth surrounding her fall back down. No, she made it explode. Rock shrapnel was sent flying and Katara was just realizing what was happening when a wall erupted in front of her face, Aang beside her with arms raised, fists clenched, in a cross formation in front of his chest.
He looked to his side, meeting Katara's quivering azure eyes with his own determined grey ones.
"You stay back here. I'll take care of the blind girl."
"Wait, how could you tell she's blind? She bends so well!"
"Well the fact that she couldn't see me right in front of her might be a hint. And the fact that her eyes are covered in cataracts. That's how. Now stay here."
"But I can help-" she didn't have a chance to finish since he was already running back to fight. "He's so stubborn sometimes!"
The two Earthbenders faced off, neither moving from their stances for a few tense seconds before the thief addressed him.
"You must not be as dumb as you look to already figure out I'm blind. Usually takes everyone else a lot longer."
"Most people are probably too busy trying not to be impaled, am I right?"
"Pf, don't get so cocky. Now enough blabbering. You're move, Twinkletoes. Ladies first."
"If you insist" his voice now dark and wicked. He lifted his left foot and planted it firmly behind him, bringing both hand back to his left side and forming a bright yellow ball of fire between them. He let it grow bigger and hotter before thrusting both hands forward and yelled dramatically, clearly enunciating each syllable, "Kamehameha!" (Hahahaha, oh man. I can't believe you actually gave your attack a name. Who does that? You should have given it a manlier name, like… Hadouken. Quiet Sokka. He can call it what he wants. Hehe, thanks Katara. I thought it was cool.)
The intended target of the fireball quickly brought up another rock wall for protection, the flames dissipating on contact and leaving a dark smoky scorch mark directly in front of her unscathed face.
"Ha! I take back what I said about you being smart. If you're going to shoot some more fire, don't announce it to the whole world." (She does have a point there. 'Course I do. That's why your sneak attacks never work, Meathead.)
She jabbed at her new shield, sending fist-sized clumps of stone at Aang's head. Aang responded by expanding the leftover flame in his palm to cover his fists and punched the rocks he couldn't dodge into smoldering pebbles. As the last batch of projectiles came at him, the aura of flame hugging onto his hands dispersed to nothing, leaving his air around his hands steaming. He quickly shifted forms and summoned a thick stream of water from the pouch hanging at his side, the half-dozen flying rocks sinking into the defensive stream. As the stones floated in the water for a moment, Aang swirled the liquid into a horizontal ring, twisting it faster and faster, the rocks spinning along with the circling motion of his arms.
Uninterested in whatever plan he may have, the girl launched herself forward, propelled by a large mound of dirt pushing her faster and faster. Seeing an opportunity, Aang blasted the revolving rocks from their watery hold, one after the other, at his opponent. Not bothering to slow down, she easily punched through two rocks in one move, smashed together another two, and shot down the last ones with small earth spikes. She was mere meters away from pummeling his face in when Aang streamed the water straight at her, lifting her off of her moving hill, and froze her entire body in a case of ice.
After a few seconds of struggled grunts, the bandit acknowledged defeat.
"Alright, alright, you won. You beat a blind girl. Congratulations. Now get me out of this thing! It's freezing!"
After solemnly swearing not to attack, steal, or trap them, she was set free from her icy prison. She wanted to leave, too ashamed that she had lost, (I was undefeated before you guys showed up) but they asked her to join their group.
"Woah there Sugarqueen. You're offering me, someone who just tried to attack and rob you, a spot in your crew? You guys are crazy."
"A wise elder once told me that it's wise to make friends with your enemies rather than enemies with strangers."
"And if you have to steal food from travelers, it seems pretty clear that you could use some help. What do you say? We're heading to Ba Sing Se and we could use someone as good as you."
The prospective crew-member contemplated the possibilities. Sugarqueen was technically right. She had runaway from home to live a life of adventure with her Earthbending skills, but she hadn't managed to do much more adventuring than spend all her money and beat up a couple punks now and again. She had never really traveled farther than her hometown until she actually ran away a few days before the fight. During those days, she quickly learned that she didn't have the skills needed to survive in the wild (being blind didn't help much either). She needed other people with those skills so she could mooch off of them. These people seemed to have those skills and were practically offering to let her mooch. Plus, she might actually get to do some real adventuring. Seems like a good deal to her.
"Fine. I'll join your little team. But don't think this means we're friends, got it? I'm just in it for the adventure."
"Haha, okay. If you say so."
And so began the adventures of four teens in a world of chaos.
I'd write some more if people actually like my writing. If not, I'm satisfied with this being a one-shot.