So, this is my first AU, so i don't know exactly how this is gonna play out. cut me some slack? Plz?
Based off of "The Waterbending Scroll" episode plot.
Inspired by: Avatar, specifically Episode 109.
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar
Queen of the Slopes
Chapter One:
New Kid
"Toph!"
The junior called out her best friend's name down the main locker-hall of their small-town highschool. Currently, said friend was peering into her locker. She didn't look up when Katara called out, so Katara decided to come to her instead, shoes pattering and echoing down the hallway.
"Did you hear? Toph, I did it! Azula bet that I couldn't do that kind of flip, but I did! Haven't you heard? Sokka's put it on Youtube, and—"
"Wow, Katara! Could you get any more obnoxious?"
This shut up Katara rather effectively.
"Wait, don't answer that, yes you can. Your brother Sokka..."Toph poked her head out from behind her locker door and finally turned to face Katara, looking very seriously up (Toph was two grades and a full head shorter than Katara) at her. "Don't turn into him."
It was rather like being told "Don't do drugs." Katara didn't know exactly how to respond to that.
Toph smirked. "Sheesh, Sweetness, I'm only kidding!"
"Oh." Was Katara's only reply, until, "...So you did hear?"
Her freshman friend rolled her eyes and turned back to the insides of her (severely-tagged) locker. "Duh. How could I not? Everyone's been going on about it." Katara didn't see her face, but she could tell that Toph was smirking. "Smooth, by the way." Her first compliment today.
"Thanks Toph."
"Yeah, yeah, sure."
The warning bell rang. The one that was downright annoyingly loud.
"Guess I'd better get to class then." Katara said.
"Alright, little Miss A-plus-plus-plus-plus..."
Katara pretended not to hear as she headed down to room 201.
* * *
All through first and second periods, Katara got compliments via text-messaging. A few that stood out were:
"Alright Katara!"
"Way to go!!! I saw your vid, it was sweet!!!"
"Katara 10 gajillion guys asked me for your number so I ended up punching half of them in the face. Get ready to pay big bucks for their plastic surgery."
"OMG Katara! You were awesome!"
"Katara, you had better not be getting any texts from guys. I swear I'll kill them."
"You S.O.B. that was fake."
The last [edited] one was from Azula.
So all-in-all, it was a rather perfect morning for her. That is, until lunch period came.
Standing in the lunch line, Katara couldn't help but listen in on two girl's conversation...It was hard not to; there were only a few people seperating Katara from them, and they certainly weren't trying to hold back their rather interesting talk:
"...So what'd you hear about the new kid?"
"—Oh, he is cute!"
"—How would you know?"
"—Smart one, I'm Teacher's Aid for first period! So I was filing all the new records for transfer students for next semester, and I saw this!"
Out of the corner of her eye, Katara barely saw one girl flip out a piece of paper. It undoubtedly had a picture on it.
"...He's mine!"
"—And he's athletic...I hear he snowboards!"
This made Katara lean in a little more as she grabbed some grilled cheese and tomato soup from the line and placed it onto her dull tan plastic tray.
"—Yeah, I heard he's even better than Katara."
"Really?"
"Sweet, he can teach me..." Said one girl in a flirtatious tone of voice. It was then that Katara left the lunch line. The girls didn't seem to notice.
Katara sat down at her usual lunch-table, the one she sat with Toph and Suki. Or that's the way it used to be: since Suki had developed a thing for her brother, she had sat with Sokka more and more often. So that left Toph and Katara—the two most unlikely friends, perhaps only rivaled by Azula and Ty Lee. Katara looked around at the cafeteria boringly as she slurped her tomato soup. It wasn't very tomato-y. She bit into her grilled cheese; it didn't taste like much, except maybe a bit rubbery. She poked it idly with her spoon.
Stupid cafeteria food.
Toph came up to the table, carrying her usual huge load of sweets-for-lunch meal, except for a hunk of last-night's steak on the edge of the platter. For once, Katara figured that Toph had the right mind set: skip school lunches, bring leftovers and go buy sweets. If only she had as much money as her rich friend...
As per usual, Toph friend plopped herself down, gave a casual, "Hey Sugar Queen," in Katara's general direction, and stabbed a fork into her steak, which was completely slathered in salt, pepper, and barbecue sauce. Katara might've jumped back in surprise if she hadn't already seen it all before. Toph wasted no time in beginning to devour her steak, and was near half-way through it before she noticed something was off with her friend.
Some BBQ on the edges of lips, Toph licked off the traces, saying, "What's up, Sweetness? You're usually talking nonstop at this point."
Katara merely pushed her plate farther away.
"That time of the month?" Toph asked, to which Katara replied with a wide-eyed stare.
"That's what you think this is about?!"
She threw her hands up in the air. "Hey, just guessing here."
"You are so sick-minded. And no, I'm not."
"Sure sounds like it to me..."
Katara sighed in frustration. She had been on Cloud Nine until now. How had that even happened? Morning was great and noon was suckish. Was she really this annoyed by some guy? She could probably beat him, no problem. She beat everyone at snowboarding; it was Katara's thing, and she made sure everyone knew it. She proved it regularly; it just might get her somewhere in life with what little money her family had. The prospect of going to ROTC to pay for college wasn't as exciting to Katara as it was to her brother Sokka.
Toph's next comment didn't improve her mood: "So did you hear about that new kid, the transfer?"
Facing the younger girl, Katara's eyes narrowed down at her, but Toph just stared right back.
"Yes, I have." Katara replied.
Toph waved it off, saying: "Eh, you'll beat him anyhow. Don't get so worked up over it, Sugar Queen. You'll make people think that you are PMS-ing."
Figuring there was some truth to that statement, Katara took a slow, steady breath. "So you've heard about him."
"Small-town highschool, remember?" Toph reminded her, gesturing around the cafeteria with her fork and spattering dribbles of sauce on the table. "Prob'ly everyone knows by now."
"Is our school really that nosy?"
Toph smirked. "I wouldn't be talking if I were you."
"I am not nosy!" Katara said, gritting her teeth.
"Uh-huh." Toph said slowly, still chewing. "And you heard that he's won quite a few medals while traveling 'round."
"Where'd you hear that?" Katara asked, a little too eagerly.
That Oh-So-Smug look appeared on Toph's face before she continued: "He's real good. Got some records in the high-schools and middle-schools. He's moved around a lot, apparently. Too bad. If he's anything as good as they say he is, then he'll beat you and you won't be able to pay him back."
Katara folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. "That was a bit uncalled for..."
"Wow, why all the proper English all of a sudden? Where's the Katara with that farmer accent?"
"Shut up, that was in grade school, and it wasn't that bad."
Toph snorted. "You should've heard yourself. You might as well have been the local hillbilly to my parents."
Memories came flooding back to Katara of her parent's meeting the Bei Fong's. It had been quite an interesting visit; the ones that could've been genuine Silver-Screen moments. Suffice to say, the Bei Fong's were not impressed, and were more-than-pleased to get them out of their rich, mansion-like house. Most of all, they were appalled when Toph started hanging out with Katara and the Kuruk family, all against their wishes.
"Sokka was worse than me, anyways."Katara shot back.
"Riiight." Toph said, unconvinced. "So this hot-shot is coming into town next week. And he's the only reason why you're all messed up?"
Katara sighed."I am not messed up, Toph. So you'd know how to reach this guy?" She pressed on.
"Friend of a friend of a friend of mine, sure. Why?" Toph asked, "Already want to go out with him?"
"To-oph!!" Katara cried, annoyed. Was it just her, or was Toph trying to get on her nerves today?
"Okay, okay, I get it." Toph said, slicing another piece and eating it, muttering a "Sheesh." underneath her breath. "Why?"
"I'd like to meet this guy. I want to meet him at the slopes, race each other, see just how good he really is..."
"Hmmm....reckon we could make a few bucks offa that?"
Katara's reply was a stern look. Toph kept right on eating her steak. "I'll take care of the bets then, and you just take it from there."
"You already have truck-loads of cash from your parents, Toph; why the heck do you want more?"
"It's not for the money," Toph told her seriously. "It's because I can and it's fun."She waved it off, still chewing. "I'll share profits, don't sweat it. You get...ehhh...10 percent?"
"Wow." Katara said, narrowing her eyes. "Nice to see that your morals are alive and well."
"What, you want more? Sheesh, I'm being generous here: giving you all the glory while I do all the work? Hardly my style—"
"Toph!"
"Yeah, yeah. By the way, I'm waiting for my thank you."
"For what?" Katara asked.
"For setting this thing up. It was you who wanted to start seeing this guy..." Katara shot Toph a nasty glare, which she ignored with painstaking ease. "So I should get credit for that, at least."
Sighing as she blew a stray piece of hair out of her face, Katara said grudgingly, "Thanks Toph." The freshman nodded in response. After a small hesitation as she looked at the steak again, she added, "Cut me a piece of that?"
Toph shook her head, hoarding the meat. "Nuh-uh. My steak."
Katara sighed. "You are just like Sokka when it comes to food, did I ever tell you that?"
"That's an insult! At least I have better manners."
"You hardly use them."
"Details, details..." Toph said, slicing off one-third of her steak and stabbing her fork into it. Placing it on Katara's plate next to the grilled cheese and tomato soup, she shoved the hunk of meat towards her. "You should eat.' Toph told her seriously. "Not good if you don't. You'll PMS on me."
"I'm not—!"
"Whatever."
Rolling her eyes, Katara grabbed her fork and began to eat.
* * *
Later that day, Katara was idly fiddling around with her pencil, supposedly solving a math problem but really spacing out. She really hated math. And Sokka—whom for whatever reason happened to be good at it—was going straight from his job to a movie date with Suki. Gran-Gran would have absolutely no clue how to solve it, and with Dad serving in the war, it left a rather lonesome house.
Gran-Gran was currently sleeping the day away (she took a rather lot of naps when she wasn't hard at work making food or traveling up and down the stairs). Her usual opera music was droning on and on in the background. Katara wished she could turn it off, she had heard this CD far too many times, but Gran-Gran had the uncanny ability to tell when her opera music was off. Maybe it put her to sleep.
Her cell-phone rang. The caller ID said "Toph". Katara picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Sugar Queen."
Katara rolled her eyes. "Would you stop calling me that already? It's Katara. Ka-Ta-Ra."
"Really? I was supposed to call a Mrs. Sugar Queen. Must've gotten the wrong number..."
"Toph!"
There was an rather put-out huff over the phone, with a barely discernable: "Sugar Queen?"
Rubbing her forehead, Katara asked: "Toph, tell me you called me for more than just a stupid prank call!"
"Prank call? Sweetness, if that's what you think my prank call is like, then you've been hanging out with your brother too much..."
"Get to the point, Toph."
"I got you your date with Mr. Macho Snowboarding Machine."
Ignoring the 'date' bit, Katara asked her, "Really? When?"
"Saturday."
"Great!" Katara replied eagerly, being sure to add, "Thanks Toph."
"Yep. Now do me a favor and invite me over. I'm bored to death over here."
"Toph you live one block away from me. You could've just shown up."
"Ehh, it's polite. You should be encouraging me to be polite. Plus, I need help with homework."
"What subject?"
"Math, duh." Somehow, Katara wasn't surprised. Mr. Pakku was the toughest teacher around.
"Sokka's not here, and you know that I'm no better than you."
"So? Amuse me."
Smirking, Katara replied, "Come on over." Toph hung up immediately, and Katara did the same, still thinking about the recent news.
"Saturday, huh?" Katara said quietly to herself. It was Thursday today; that meant two days. Katara grinned, thinking back to all the times she had beaten her fellow guy-friends at snowboarding, ever since she had started taking to the slopes. She had been nicknamed "Snow Queen", which hadn't sat with Toph too well and was eventually adapted into "Sugar Queen". Fortunately, only Toph used it. This however, didn't phase her: snowboarding was something she took pride and pleasure in.
She would definitely enjoy showing this guy how it was done.
Like it? Hate it? Please comment!
So yeah. It'll get more interesting next chapter. Should be up in one week.