Chapter 2
Minori watched in horror as they were thrown about in the storm, Aang clung to her as a huge wave came down on top of Appa. She couldn't see she couldn't breath. She knew this was the end she knew she would die. A brilliant blue light shown through the vast darkness, at first she couldn't tell what it was or where it was coming from. She looked to the light and saw that it was coming from her brother, his eyes and tattoos were bright blue. She was scared his face seemed angry, then everything went black again.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH" Minori screamed as she woke up from the nightmare. She had fallen asleep next to her brother, her scream made him sit up fast, the last time he heard her scream like that was when the platypus bear was going to attack them.
"Mini! What's wrong?" Aang asked as he sit up rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. His younger sister sat up too. She was still shaken from the dream but knew it would hurt Aang if she told him what it had been about.
"It's nothing Aang... just a bad dream."
"Mini... I know you better than that what's wrong?" Aang pressed. Minori was about to answer when Katara walked into their tent.
"Aang, Minori! Wake up! Everybody wants to meet you!" Katara said as she woke up the airbender siblings, pulling them out of their little tent. "Aang, Minori, this is the entire village. Entire village, Aang and his sister Minori." Katara was so excited to share what she found.
Aang bows to the village people. "Uh... why are they all looking at us like that? Did Appa sneeze on me?" Aang said, Minori held tight to her brother's hand.
A plump little old lady steps forward. "Well, no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years. We thought they were extinct until my granddaughter and grandson found you."
"Extinct? What do you mean extinct?! We... We just left our mom and dad only a few days ago! How can they be extinct?!" The Air Nomads said at the same time.
"This is my grandmother." Katara told them.
"Call me Gran Gran" The old woman said to them.
Sokka walked up to the pair and took Aang's staff from him to look at. "What are these? weapons? You can't stab anything with them." Sokka asked as he looked at Aang and Minori's staffs.
"Not for stabbing." Minori said
"They're for airbending" Aang said creating a jet of air to take his staff from Sokka. Aang and Mini opened their staffs at the same time.
The children of the village were in awe over the contraptions and how the two airbenders opened them with what seemed like magic to them. "Magic!" A little girl, about Mini's age said, "Do it again!"
"Not magic airbending!" Mini said.
"It lets us control the air currents around our gliders and fly." Aang said.
"You know, last time I checked, humans can't fly." Sokka said.
"Check Again!" The Airbender siblings said in unison. Both launching themselves into the air they flew high, doing barrel rolls around each other, they did loop-d-loops and shot themselves high into the sky, falling and swooping, like a well choreographed dance in the sky. The children of the village were amazed as they watched the airbenders glide like birds.
The village people were in awe, they had never seen a person fly before, the siblings were an amazing sight. "Whoa... they're flying... So amazing!"
Aang looked down at the beautiful blue eyed girl, she smiled at him, her smile distracted him and he slammed right into a odd shaped pillar of snow, it collapsed on impact. "Oof!" Aang said.
"My watchtower!" Sokka yelled, his voice cracking as he did.
Minori started laughing "That was a watchtower?" Sokka grimaced the small girl.
"You two are amazing!" Katara said to Aang and Minori, as she helped Aang stand back up. Aang shows off by twirling his glider to shut it.
"Aaahhhhh" Sokka yells as his watchtower collapses the rest of the way right on top of him. Minori started laughing even harder as she watched Sokka dig himself out of the snow pile "Great. You're airbenders, Katara's a waterbender, together you can just waste time all day long."
"You're a waterbender?!" Mini said excitedly to Katara.
Katara blushes a bit. "Well... sort of. Not yet."
Gran Gran took Katara's hand, leading her away from the airbenders. "All right. No more playing. Come on, Katara, you have chores."
"I told you! He's the real thing, Gran Gran! I finally found a bender to teach me." Katara said excitedly as her grandmother lead her away.
"Katara, try not to put all your hopes in this boy." Gran Gran told her.
"But he's special. I can tell. I sense he's filled with much wisdom." Katara said.
She looked over to Aang and Minori, all the children were laughing, Aang had his tongue stuck to his staff. "Sthee? Now my tongue ith thuck to my sthaff."
Zuko fire at a guard, missing his target. "Again," Zuko's uncle said yelled at him.
The guard launches another attack at Zuko, he dodges just in time, the attack missed. "Ha! Heeya!" Zuko cried out as he did couple back flips, landing behind the guards.
The plump man sighed as he got up "No! Power in firebending comes from the breath. Not the muscles. The breath becomes energy in the body. The energy extends past your limbs and becomes fire." He demonstrated the move to his nephew, he released a burst of fire. "Get it right this time!"
"Enough!" The prince said angrily, "I've been drilling this sequence all day. Teach me the next set. I'm more than ready."
"No, you are impatient. You have yet to master your basics." the old man growled "Drill it again!"
The prince became very angry, he let out a growl, " Grrrr... huh!" he blasted one of the guards backwards, "The sages tell us that the Avatar is the last airbender. He must be over a hundred years old by now. He's had a century to master the four elements. I'll need more than basic firebending to defeat him. You WILL teach me the advanced set!"
The old man gave in to the brat prince and turned to his lunch. "Very well. But first I must finish my roast duck. Num num... num..."
Sokka was pacing back and forth, giving his troops a war speech "Now men, it's important that you show no fear when you face a firebender. In the Water Tribe, we fight to the last man standing. For without courage, how can we call ourselves men?" His 'Men' were a small group of little boys, most of which were still toddlers.
One boy raised his hand waiting for Sokka to call on him. "I gotta pee!" he wined.
"Listen! Until your fathers return from war, they're counting on you to be the men of this tribe. And that means no potty breaks." Sokka scolded them.
"But I really gotta go." The boy said again.
Sokka sighed, Okay... who else has to go?" he asked them. All of the boys raised their hands.
Katara came walking over to Sokka and his 'men' "Have you seen Aang? Gran Gran said he disappeared over an hour ago, Minori has been working on that snow man by herself for a while now." Katara had given Minori one of her thick parkas to keep her warm.
Katara walked with Sokka and the little boys to the village toilet. Aang came out, "Wow! Everything freezes in there!" the boys laughed at the goofy kid.
"Ugh! Katara, get him out of here. This lesson is for warriors only." Sokka told his sister.
"Wheeee!" Minori had abandoned her snowman and began to play slide with Appa's tail, it was propped up on what looked like a meat drying set-up. Several of the village children, and Minori's brother were playing slide with the cute little girl.
"Stop! Stop it right now!" Sokka yelled at the little boys that had abandoned their 'warrior' speech to play with the new kids. Sokka looked over at Aang, "What's wrong with you? We don't have time for fun and games with a war going on."
Aang gave Sokka a confused look, "What war? What are you talking about?"
"He's obviously crazy." Mini laughed.
Sokka thought the kid must be joking "You're kidding, right?"
Aang's mind wandered and so did his eyes. "PENGUIN!" He yelled excitedly. He yelled so loud that it echoed all around them. The penguin looked in the direction the loud sound had come from, it made a weird squawking noise and waddles away as quickly as it could. Aang grabbed Minori's hand and they both took off using their airbending skills to run as quickly as they could.
"He's kidding, right?" Sokka asked.
Katara followed Aang and Minori's footprints in the snow, they were oddly light. She wanted to make sure the two kids were okay, as she reached the top of a snow hill she could Aang and Minori waddling around and squawking like the penguins. "Aang? Minori?"
"Haha! Hey, come on little guy. Wanna go sledding?" Aang said as he and Mini chased after a penguin, he lunged at it but it got away. "Oof! Heh heh, I have a way with animals." Aang and Minori started waddling around again. "Yarp! Yarp yarp! Yarp! Yarp yarp! Yarp!" They said as they waddled around.
Katara started laughing, "Hahaha... Aang, I'll help you catch a penguin if you teach me waterbending."
Aang's eyes went huge and a grin appeared on his face, "You got a deal! Just one little problem. I'm an airbender, not a waterbender. Isn't there someone in your tribe who can teach you?"
Minori continued to waddle around "Yarp!" chase after the penguins
A shadow came across Katara's face, her smile disappeared, "No. You're looking at the only waterbender on the whole South Pole."
Katara being sad made Aang's smile fall. "This isn't right. A waterbender needs to master water. What about the North Pole? There's another Water Tribe up there, right? Maybe they have waterbenders who could teach you."
Katara looked up at him, still sad. " Maybe. But we haven't had contact with our sister tribe in a long time. It's not exactly 'turn right at the second glacier.' It's on the other side of the world."
Aang's smile grew as he got an idea. "But you forget: I have a flying bison. Appa, Mini, and I can personally fly you to the North Pole. Katara, we're gonna find you a master!"
Katara perked up at his idea. "That's..." she became sad once again, "I mean, I don't know. I've never left home before."
"Well, you think about it." Aang said casually "But in the meantime, can you teach us how to catch one of these penguins?"
Katara cleared her throat and made herself sound teacherly. "Okay, listen closely my young pupils. Catching penguins is an ancient and sacred art. Observe." She pulled a small fish from her coat and tossed it at Aang. As soon as he caught it he and Minori disappeared, giggling, beneath the group of penguins.
They loured two penguins to the top of the hill. Katara was sitting on her's and Minori was sitting on the other, "How do yo make this go?" She asked.
"Like this!" Aang jumped onto the bird behind his sister causing the penguin to start sliding down the hill.
"Hey! No fair!" Katara yelled as she push-started herself laughing as she picked up speed. They laughed and giggled as the penguins zoomed down the slope in the landscape on their bellies, rocketing off of the ice bank, Katara and her penguin took a tunnel as Aang and Minori's took a jump landing just in front of Katara, Minori squealed with joy as her tummy got a tickling feeling inside. Katara took a jump as well as taking the lead, "I haven't done this since I was a kid!" Katara yelled behind her.
"You still are a kid!" Aang hollered to her.
They came up to some tunnels each penguin down it's own, every once in a while there was a break in the tunnels allowing them to see each other. They exited the tunnels at the bottom of the hill ,the penguins slid to a stop at the bottom of the hill all of them where laughing as they rolled off of the penguins. The penguins penguins got up and waddled away from them.
Aang turned "Whoa... What is that?" There was a huge metal ship on the ice, it was lifted into the air by slanted ice pillars, you could tell it had been in some kind of battle.
"A Fire Navy ship, and a very bad memory for my people." Katara said, she looked sad, but very serious at the same time.
"Lets go look at it!" Minori says pulling her brother's hand.
"Aang, Minori, stop! We're not allowed to go near it. The ship could be booby trapped." Katara told the siblings.
"If you wanna be a bender, you have to let go of fear." Aang told Katara.
Katara looked at the ship, deep down inside she knew she should, she didn't really want to.
"Katara?" Minori said as she extended her hand to her, waiting for Katara to take it. Katara got a little smile and took the little girl's hand following Aang to the ship. The three of them climbed into the raised ship through a hole in the hull. They curiously, but carefully explored the dilapidated ship.
"This ship has haunted my tribe since Gran Gran was a little girl. It was part of the Fire Nation's first attacks." Katara told them.
"Okay, back up. I have friends all over the world, even in the Fire Nation. I've never seen any war." Aang said, he was becoming very confused, he wasn't understanding anything she was saying to him.
"Aang, how long were you two in that iceberg?" Katara had realized that if he knew nothing of the one hundred year war he, and Minori, must have been in there quite a while.
"I don't know... a few days, maybe?" He sighed.
"I think it was more like a hundred years!" Katara's words shocked and confused the airbending siblings.
"What?! That's impossible! Do I look like a hundred-twelve year old man to you?" Aang asked her.
"Think about it. The war is a century old. You don't know about it because, somehow, you were both in there that whole time. It's the only explanation!" Katara said in awe.
Aang was hit hard by this idea and takes a few steps backwards, he slid down the wall he had backed into. "A hundred years! I can't believe it." Minori sat down and hugged her big brother, she was also in shock she couldn't understand any of this either.
The looks on their faces broke Katara's heart. "I'm sorry, Aang. Maybe somehow there's a bright side to all this." She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around them.
Aang lifted his head and looked into Katara's sparkling blue eyes. "I did get to meet you."
"You're pretty!" Minori said.
Katara couldn't help but smile, she extended her hands out to help them up. "Come on. Let's get out of here." They took her hands and she pulled them both up. "Aang? Lets head back. This place is creepy."
"Huh?" Aang said as his foot caught on some sort of wire. Metal started clinking as he triggered a mechanism that brought down a grate blocking their exit. "What's that you said about booby traps?" Machinery in the room starts turning on as the clinking sound continued, steam blowing out of cracks in the piping the pressure caused wheels to start turning. Suddenly they heard the the scream and loud explosion of a flair being launched. Katara Aang, and Minori could see the bright colors burst forth and twinkling as they fell back towards the ice. "Uh oh!" was all Aang could think of at the moment. He looked up and saw a hole in the ceiling. "Mini, Piggy back!" he called to his sister and she hopped onto his back. "Hold on tight!" He said to both girls as he picked up Katara. Aang launched himself, both girls holding tightly, out the hole.
Prince Zuko saw a Fire Nation flare go off in the distance, he got out his telescope to see where it had come from. He stops on the ship on the ice, he saw a small figure hop out of the ship, making great leaps that a regular person could not. Once it landed back on the ice Zuko could see the figure turn into three, all running to the south. "The last airbender. Quite agile for his old age. Wake my uncle! Tell him I found the Avatar..." He ordered. He scans the ice in the direction the figures were running, stopping on a tiny village consisting of one large igloo and several small tents "... as well as his hiding place."
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