Disclaimer: Don't own nothing but the plot--but if would own anything, I would own Zuko. Yep.

A/N: Okay, so I was listening to this particular song, by Paramore, off their Riot! CD, all while brainstorming for a good Avatar fanfic. It (the plot) just hit me like a ton of bricks, and later, when I tried to do a one shot, it ended up being a monster and I just had to break it up into this. Is this close to finished? Uh...nah :)

Misery Business

By: Shuramai

Summary: Oh, it's on. Severe AU. Kaatang. Maiko. Sokka/Yue?/Toph?/Suki?

A few days after the tragic humiliation of Song, Sokka was starting to wonder why there appeared to be hordes of dateless girls around school, and why they appeared to be hanging around together in packs. He almost swore that Teo, who had the tendency to run around campus with a camcorder in one hand and a microphone in the other, was making a report on this strange phenomena.

Sokka did not envy that boy. The life of a school reporter was not an easy one, especially when one might accidentally anger someone as psychopathic as Zuko's sister and end up in the hospital. Which Teo did once, and Sokka finally got around to asking him exactly why, and please Teo, don't skip over the details, Teo gave him this freaked out look and told him that he was not going to die.

Poor boy nearly began to hyperventilate on the spot, and needless to say, the small bribe that Sokka had offered him did not even make Teo consider spilling the beans.

It kind of made Sokka wonder how Zuko was able to survive his sister for so long; if there was a trick to it, Sokka wanted to know, because Katara was giving him these intense vibes the last few days, where she seemed to either be channeling 'Zula's rage, or becoming something on par with a nuclear explosion.

He absently wondered if this had something to do with the fact that Aang had accepted Meng's invitation.

In any case, really strange things were beginning to happen around the school. For one thing, The Zuko Fangirls, who had long ago tried to stay away from Zuko in order to be safe from Mai's wrath, were now starting to stalk Zuko again.

And Mai, who most of the student population suspected of being the one that had caused Song's tar and feathering, was acting surprising calm--and nobody knew quite what to make of that.

Although Sokka believed that maybe this was all just an act to put the Fangirls at ease--and then attack them mercilessly.

Zuko was not the only one being stalked.

Jet appeared to be having a similar problem. Fortunately, the boy was single, but unfortunately, this only made him slightly more cocky than he normally was. So far, there was only two more weeks until the dance officially started, and he already had promised five girls that he would go out with them.

By the time that the dance did come around, he would have fifteen.

Sokka did not know of this, however. He was a little too preoccupied with what was happening to himself in particular.

His best friends were all starting to act a little more crazier than normal--that was including the people whom he thought would not act crazy at all. As in, under any circumstances--whether it be a surprise pop quiz or a sudden surge of undead zombies rising out of the ground, intent on taking over the world.

Sokka blinked, looking down at his math textbook and telling himself that he had to stop playing so much Resident Evil.

Anyways...

He was trying very hard not to fall asleep. It was the last class of the day, which meant he should've ditched it and snuck out of school. Toph did that often enough without getting caught, and if she could, so could he. He figured. He hadn't tried doing so yet, and when he had mentioned attempting it once to Suki, she immediately began to lecture him.

Blah, blah, blah, bad, blah, blah ,blah, moron, blah...

Yue had just laughed at him. It's the last class, silly. It's not like it'll make much of a difference to ditch school an hour early.

Toph simply had punched him in the arm. Then do it, and stop telling everybody about it.

He sadly began to doodle on his desk, only half listening to Mr. Long Feng drone on and on about...fractions or something, and only half caring when he was finally caught "vandalizing" school property.

"It'll erase," Sokka grumbled, as Long Feng's face purpled. "It's an eraseable pen, sir."

"It's a Permanent Marker," Long Feng said, and the next thing he knew, he was made to stay after school and scrub his desk. So another hour of his life was wasted, and he figured that he would start listening to Toph from now on.

When he finally was allowed to go home, though, he almost was boweled over on his way out of school by Longshot, who was running faster than Sokka had ever seen him run. Longshot disappeared somewhere in the halls before he could question him, and Sokka's undeveloped warrior instinct suddenly awakened.

Get cover!

He did...running into an empty classroom and hiding in the shadows as he saw several girls pass by, in a quasi-stampeding rage.

And then he felt like an idiot. Why was he hiding in the first place anyways? It wasn't like he was taken--and besides, girls? Stamping hot girls?

There was plenty of Sokka to go around!

The boy happily went back to the hallway, hoping to make conversation with the group of Dateless Girls, completely oblivious of the fact that Toph and Yue had just exited the school moments after.

....

"So...why did you want to talk to me after school, Toph?"

Toph and Yue got along slightly. They did not argue with each other, nor did they make veiled threats or subtle insults in an attempt to get an upper hand on one another. They aknowledged the fact that they were rivals, and they also included Suki in the same category, but weren't mean and underhanded.

At least, not yet at any rate.

The same could not be said of Zuko's potential girlfriends, Mai, Song, and Jin, who of all the Zuko Fangirls, were very likely trying to start the next World War Three in a high school campus.

Toph crossed her arms, as she leaned back against a secluded spot in the school's courtyard.

"I want to talk about Sokka." The girl was quite calm, and Yue tensed slightly, but forced herself to relax. Under no circumstances, was she going to freak out and start to drown Toph, in the school's Koi pond. No, she was not.

"Okay."

"See...I think that I can really trust you, Yue." Toph looked completely relaxed, and she put her arms behind her head, bored. "I mean, I like to talk to Suki and all...but really. Don't you think that its time we got rid of her?"

Yue blinked. "What?"

"I have a proposition." Toph let herself sit on the grass, ignoring the fact that it was probably ruining her school uniform. "We gang up on Suki, and then we get her out of the picture--that way, it'll only be two of us, and we won't have so much stress trying to ask Sokka out."

Yue looked blank. "What? You mean, you want us to kill Suki--"

"No--I didn't mean it that way!" She looked like she was about to start laughing. "I mean, we do something to her to make her not want to ask Sokka to the dance. We have to do this, before all the girls realize that Mai is going to start disembowling them for attempting to ask Zuko out. See, once that happens, they are going to start flocking over to the Next Best Thing, which is our friend."

"Sokka," Yue stated, trying to clarify it with herself.

"Sokka," Toph agreed, nodding. "I propose a truce between you an me. We gang up on Suki--and we try to either prank her, or get her another date. After we succeed, the truce is off, and we have a fair go at Sokka."

Yue looked pensive. "Let me get this straight...you basically want to gang up on Suki--make sure she doesn't have a chance with Sokka, and then we have a fifty percent chance of going out with Sokka to the dance, rather than the mere thirty percent chance we each have?"

Toph grinned. "So, you in?"

"You bet." Yue agreed, a pleasant smile on her lips and a sadistic twinkle in her eye. "Where does she usually hang out after school?"

Before Toph could inform Yue of Suki's whereabouts, however, they felt rather than saw a murderous aura that seemed to come out of the very school itself, and the next thing they knew, they noticed Katara standing several feet away from them.

It is quite reasonable to say that Yue and Toph were both relieved and terrified, if such a thing could be felt at the same time by two different people. In one hand, it was not Suki who had overheard them talking, but on the other, it was Sokka's younger sister who had, and it was likely that Katara would now be Suki's accomplice, and she would make sure that they were going down.

"Someone is going to die," Katara spoke, before they could stammer out some kind of excuse,"She is going to die. A slow, painful death."

Confusion.

"What?" Toph asked, but could not ask more as Katara suddenly began to spew out more words than an English teacher on crack.

"Her! Meng! Does she actually think that she is going to get away with this? I mean, it took me forever to get that other girl away from Aang! Not to mention those goddamn fangirls that flock this school like a plague of locus on a wheat field! And then he says yes. He says Yes. What is he, on drugs? Oh, I'm going to kill him!"

Yue and Toph breathed silent sighs of relief, but not for long, as Katara turned an eye towards them.

"I need you guys--you have to find a way to make Meng break up with Aang. Or Aang with Meng--I mean, I know that he has a good head on his shoulders, and he should realize what a floozy she is, but I can't trust him to do that. You guys have to help me, please!"

"What do you want us to do, Katara?"

Toph tensed as Yue asked the question. As far as Toph was concerned, Yue was not supposed to be trying to help out Katara, not if Toph and Yue had a truce. If Yue helped Katara, then if was likely that the girl would, in turn, try to put in a good word to her brother about her. Something along the lines of Hey Sokka, that Yue really helped me out. You should go out with her sometime.

And if Sokka was a dedicated brother, he probably would.

Oh, it was on.

"Yeah, we'll help," Toph said, smiling at her friend with the most sincere look she could pull off."I mean, we got like two weeks to bust them up. What could go wrong?"