Author's Note: I am sorry for the slight delay in my stories, just had some trouble getting motivated due to some events earlier this month. I hope you are all enjoying the story, and for those of you who are worried that I might abandon the story: I. Never. Abandon. On a side note, I do not bash characters but Mew will point out their mistakes for her own amusement.
Talkingbirdguy: People see Mew as a lot of different things: Avatar, Spirit, Savior, Master of the Elements, Enemy, and Friend. But the real question is who she sees as an enemy or an ally, and what does she think of the world around her.
Ultima-owner: Mew does the impossible, thus why it is so easy for people to think she is either the Avatar or not even human.
Multipule-Characters1-Acct: I didn't know you wrote anything. I'll have to check them out.
ShadowCat444: Interesting that people are now starting to rank the Mews. I guess it was going to happen sooner or later with how many there are.
Chapter 3: Fire Boys
Act I
(2 Weeks Later)
Zuko entered his room, ignoring the greetings given to him the guard outside of his door. Once the door was closed behind him, Zuko collapsed onto his bed with his face facing down as he grumbled about the source of his aggravation: The Avatar.
Ever since those idiot tribesmen attempted to rescue her, and the fact that she didn't go with them, led Uncle to trust her enough to let her have free roam of the ship! What was he thinking to let their prisoner wandering around where she could escape at any time she wanted!
'But she hasn't tried to escape…why?' This stray thought entered Zuko's head, causing him to sit up. 'Why hasn't she tried to escape? There has been multiple times where she could have easily left us all behind, but she hasn't.' Zuko's mind now began to rush with thoughts and ideas of why The Avatar hasn't let.
He began to think back to certain events that had happened since The Avatar has been 'captured' that didn't add up.
-Flashback-
"I don't like it," Zuko stated as he glared out the bridge's window. His eyes following The Avatar as she wandered around on the deck, and many of his soldiers watching her as well incase she tried to jump ship. "She should be down in the holding cells. She is a prisoner, not a… tourist."
"Came yourself nephew," Iroh stated calmly as he sat not far away, taking sips from his tea cup. "She is an honorable person who will not break her word," He stops to take a sip of his tea. "So I trust that she won't try to escape."
Zuko remained quite after that, continuing to watch Mew as she wandered around the deck, attempting to talk to the soldiers. Zuko was prepared to turn away and leave the bridge, but something caught his eye as one of his soldiers approached the Avatar this time.
As the conversation between the two went on, Zuko began to feel that something wasn't right here… and was proven to be correct as the Avatar turned away from the soldier and to the edge of the ship and jumped off!
At the sudden sight of their captive escaping, the soldiers starting panicking and rushing to the railings to find her.
"The Avatar is trying to escape," Zuko snarled and rushed out of the bridge, leaving behind Iroh who was getting up calmly before following his nephew at a normal pace.
"Report," Zuko called out to the soldiers, catching their attention. "Who let the Avatar escape," He demanded, looking over his soldiers to find the one who was talking to her. "Speak up, now!" Zuko further demanded, fire flowing from his hands in anger.
"I-It was supposed to be a joke," A soldier in the middle of the group spoke up, causing the others to back away from him, creating a path for Zuko. "I-I-"
"What did you do?!" Zuko shouted as he walked to the soldier.
"I just m-made a comment about her water bending, and about the tribe we left," The solider spoke quickly, fearing for his life. "So I made a joke about-" He was cut off by the sound of splashing off the ship.
Everyone turned toward the sound and saw a fish plop down onto the deck, still thrashing around. Before any of them could question where the fish just came from, soon more splashing was heard from off the ship and fish began to rain from the sky.
The soldiers had to move out of the way to dodge the fish falling down on them, a few of them still got slapped by the fish as the fell.
Once the splashing died away, so did the amount of fish falling onto the deck. The soldiers cautiously looked around for anymore falling fish and were relieved where none were seen.
"Hey, solider boy," Mew's voice called out as she sat on the railing, water dripping off her. "This is how I fish, so I can get plenty to eat." She said with a smile, ignoring the glare being sent to her from a certain prince who got slapped by a fish.
"Oh my," Iroh called out, an amused smile on his face as he looked around. "Looks like we are going to be having fresh meat for once," He chuckled.
-Flashback ends-
Zuko felt humiliated that he was made a fool of by the Avatar once again; it passed quickly after only a week. But it did bring validation to his idea that the Avatar could escape quite easily with her show of her mastery of water bending.
It was common knowledge that a waterbender could use their powers to swim great distances of a few miles, and that would be more than enough to get to a nearby island if they sailed too close. It was how they had lost so many waterbenders at the beginning of the war since they were not prepared for them.
So, so far he has seen her mastery of nearly all the elements with the exception of air but with the sight of that surviving air nomad during the attempted escape shows that there are still airbenders out there that could have taught her. The very fact that this one knew the Avatar just shows even more that she would know it.
Just as it stood, the Avatar could easily take over the ship with her powers and take them as hostages, and yet she hasn't… As it stood, she was being far too friendly.
She had been playing Pai Sho with Uncle; they exchanged wins and losses so often that some of the soldiers have started betting on the outcome of the matches.
Even thou no soldiers prompted her to, she kept taking her 'swims' that provided the ship with a constant stream of fresh fish that caused some of the solider to start to like having her around. They understood she was a prisoner, but after eating dry and salted meat so often during their travels they truly enjoyed eating anything fresh.
'The soldiers…' Zuko's mind began to trail off again. 'She had been surprising nice to the soldiers, despite the war. Despite being enemies, she has reached out to them… and some of them were growing to actually enjoy having the Avatar on the ship.' Zuko began to think these facts over.
The more Zuko thought about, the more one idea kept coming back but was pushed away at the absurdity of the thought. But it kept returning as he kept thinking everything over: Does the Avatar see us as enemy?
'It oddly makes sense,' Zuko though as he began pacing his room. 'She has shown no aggression towards any soldier. She didn't attempt to escape with her allies. She has provided food for us whenever it was needed. She hasn't even spoken badly of the Fire Nation once,' Zuko listed off in his head.
As these ideas echoed around in his head, it began to sound less and less insane.
Zuko turned to his door, about to go down to the holding cells to talk to the Avatar about this, but the ship's horn blew and echoed across the entire ship followed by cheers of joy from the soldiers. Even Zuko cracked a smile at the sound; they had reached the Fire Nation.
XxX
Act II
Since her arrival on the ship, Mew has been trying to find some way to entertain herself without breaking her word or revealing her true powers. This had caused her to try to occupy her mind with trying to get information from the soldiers on the ship to understand this new world.
But the only person who readily gave information to her at first was Iroh during their games, and it was from him that she now knew of the standing of this world and of who she is pretending to be.
War… Mew had found a place that was in basically a global war, and that really bristled her fur when she found out. All Pokémon had a love for battle, but the idea of war was something that they never wanted to come to be. Usually a legendary or one chosen by a legendary would stop the war long before it could start.
It was only luck that she had managed to summon one of her followers to now watch Aang and the rest in this war torn world.
Mew was currently down in her holding cell reading a book that she got Iroh to let her read from his personal collection. She might not be able to read the odd writing in the book, but she liked the images that it had of the animal life in this odd world she found.
While she was reading the book to distract herself, the ship's horn went off causing her to look up from her book. The sound of the sailors cheering could be heard all the way down there in the belly of the ship, getting Mew curious of what had happened.
"So…" Mew trailed off as she closed the book, catching her guards' attention. "What does that horn mean?" She asked innocently.
"It means we have returned home," The left one said, joy obviously in his voice.
"We have been on a chase after you for quite a few years," The one on the right looked at Mew as to continue the sediment. "Many of us had begun to think we would never be able to return home to our families." He said grimly at the thought.
"Glad I could help then," Mew smiled as she got off her bed slab, placing the book on it. Once she got up, she walked past the guards without any resistance. "Come on then, let's go see your home." She offered and her guards followed her above deck to 'Keep an eye on her'.
As they reached the main deck, it was full of activity as the sailors prepped the ship for landing while the others were excitedly talking about returning home. Mew's guards went to go join in with the rest of the soldiers to talk about what they plan to do on returning.
"Ah, hello there Mew," Iroh spoke up politely to Mew, causing said Pokémon to turn around to look at him. Standing next to Iroh was Zuko, who glared at Mew, like every other time he found her out of her cell. "It appears that our journey is starting to come to an end," He said, some sadness hidden in his voice as he looked over the ship.
"Yeah, it is almost over," Zuko agreed, his eyes not leaving Mew as he leaned in closer. "And you have no chance to escape now, so you best accept your faith." He said to her, but his eyes spoke of the confusion inside of him of what Mew will do now in the Fire Nation.
"Don't worry," Mew said with her hands up. "I don't plan on escaping from you anytime soon Fire Boy," She mocked lightly, causing him to further glare at her. "I'm actually looking forward to see what the Fire Nation holds for me," She grinned, ignoring the concerned look from Iroh.
Mew looked out at the sea and saw in the distance a large land mass that covered the horizon, and while to the soldiers on this ship it meant home, to others it meant the enemy, but to her it simply meant one more adventure for her.
Arceus help the poor Fire Nation once she was done with them.
