Trouble - Mission Entry 4
Shepard was about to respond to that when a bald headed kid burst through the tops of the trees on a pseudo-kite glider. Following his was some huge six legged beast with three people atop. They landed in the clearing between the trapped kid and the ship, then ran over.
Toph decided that it would be best if those people around Zuko weren't to interfere, and they would be given plenty of time to explain themselves. She encased them in earth and stone, earning some bewildered yelps, then began to help Aang in the tree removal.
"Wait Aang, don't move it yet," Katara said quickly, just as Aang was about to raise some earth up at both ends of the log. "There could be more injuries, like a branch end, sticking into Zuko's leg. We should check before moving it."
Carson was surprised that someone that young girl's age could think about something like that so quickly. Of course she might be the best thing that the young group have towards the way of medical help.
"Toph, can you look for us?" The boy identified as Aang said.
"Yea," The girl known now as Toph stepped forward towards the tree, and it was then that the Stargate group realized that she was blind. Toph slammed her hand down right next to Zuko's left leg and waited a brief moment. "It's good on this side, just broken, the leg that is. But there is something halfway into his right leg."
"Okay, Toph and I 'll get the tree off. Sokka, you hold Zuko down, and Katara, you be ready to stop the bleeding as fast as you can. Got that?" Everyone nodded as Aang looked at Zuko, who met his stare with an equal one, and nodded as well. "On the count of three…" Aang positioned himself to Zuko's right, while Toph got on the other side. Sokka sat down near Zuko's head and, rather uncomfortably, for the both of them, pinned Zuko's shoulders to the ground. Katara had pulled out her special water from the vial at her side and had it doing circles in mid air.
"Three" Toph and Aang went through the first move and began to channel the earth's power.
"Two" Everyone tensed.
"One!" Aang and Toph shot two long columns out of the ground, releasing the pressure from Zuko's leg, and the pressure that was keeping Zuko's wound from bleeding. Zuko let out a blood-curdling scream and thrashed violently under Sokka's firm hold, fainting just as Katara placed the water over a bleeding hole that had just missed Zuko's femur bone.
Aang used his wind power to blow it high in the air and throw it away from them. He then knelt down to take a look at Zuko's leg, just as Katara had finished healing it up. There would be a scar, but not as bad as the one on his back.
"Wow…." Shepard said as his reaction to about everything he had just seen.
"I don't think wow covers that," Rodney remarked. "Half of that is just, impossible, and the rest is like something from X-Men."
"X-men?" Ronon asked.
"We'll talk about it later," Sheppard sighed.
Aang turned his attention off of Zuko and onto the group of rather curious men. When he had arrived at the scene, he had noticed right away that they weren't enemies. Mostly because they didn't seem evil, not by the way that they dressed, but the way that they had acted. If it was anyone from Azula's group, they would have put up a fight, and maybe even would have an ambush set up. They did react rather strangely to elemental bending, almost as if they had never seen it before. So unless they had been living in a cave all their life, there was definitely something going on. He might as well tell who he was, because they would have already known if they had seen one of the numerous wanted posters that the Fire Nation had spread around the world.
Aang cleared his throat and walked closer to the strange men, painfully aware of everyone's eyes upon him. "Hi, I'm Aang, the Avatar." He put his hands on his hips and gave one of his famous beaming grins. After a moment of almost complete silence, he opened his eyes. The men just looked at him completely clueless. "Um, you know, the Master bender of all four elements? The A-V-A-T-A-R." Aang stressed each letter as he looked for any reaction. Still nothing. Things just got curiouser and curiouser. He sighed.
"Well, now that you know who I am, care to introduce yourselves?" That seemed to shake them out of their stupor.
"I'm Colonel Shepard, this is Ronon, Dr. McKay, and Dr. Beckett." Shepard indicated each member with a movement of his head as his body was still encased in rock. "We came from Atlantis to investigate ways of combating the Wraith. We found some notes about this planet from the Ancients and decided to check things out." He waited for their reaction of fear that he had come to expect from the descendants of the Ancients. Instead he was meet with some of the clueless stares he had ever seen.
"Wraith?" Sokka was the first to speak. "The name sounds familiar, but I can't remember just where…." He pause as he scrunched up his face in concentration. He's eyes lit up, "I saw that in a book in the lost library of the desert. It was in one of the first books I picked up to try and find the way to defeat the Fire Nation. Only looked over the text before I went to check another book." He paced back and forth, an intense look of concentration upon his face. "Nope, the only thing that I can remember was the snatches of sentences."
"Well? Hurry it up and tell us already," Toph nearly growled.
"Um.. I think it went, 'Wraith defense research complete failure. Can not control random subjects. Abandon planet before utter destruction of Homeworld. Balancing power may cancel out pervious environmental problems. Destroy all samples and research subjects. Leave no trace.' It was pretty cryptic, and really didn't have anything to do in relation to the Fire Nation, so I didn't think anything of it."
"I'm sorry, 'Leave no trace'?" McKay scoffed. "Sure, they must have done a really good job. The defenses they left on the moon certainly was still in place. It nearly killed us on our way here."
"The – the Moon?" Sokka walked a little bit towards McKay, "What about her- The Moon."
"It attacked us, out of nowhere. There must have been automatic defense set up to attack anything that attempted to land – though I don't know why they would try and destroy their own ships. Anyway, it directed some type of pulse at us while we were in the upper atmosphere. If we had been any higher up, we would be some smoking wreck within the orbit of this planet. Though I can't say for certain that we'll ever leave. Maybe if I could start working on it now we might have a very slim chance of gett-"
Sheppard's radio crackled to life, annoying McKay who had just been interrupted out of a very important rant, and made the Avatar's group all jump into attack mode.
"Colonel Sheppard? This is Dr. Weir. Do you copy?"
John looked down at his rock encased arms and sighed. "Hey, little girl, you mind letting on of my hands free?"
Toph glared at him, meeting his eyes with her milky gaze. "Well Aang?"
Aang sighed. It was kinda annoying that they always looked to him for direction. "Yeah. I think we can trust him."
Toph 'hmmped' as she tapped her foot against Sheppard's stony feet. The part of rock that was covering his right arm receded and gave him the room he needed to reach the radio.
"Yeah, I copy ya Weir. We made it in one piece, though the Jumper wasn't so lucky." He surveyed the wreckage and felt relieved that they had all come out of it with barely anything injuries. They were getting lucky. "We've made contact with the inhabitants. Things are going, just a little rough."
"Do you require any assistance Colonel?" Weir's voice came across as worried.
'Yea' Sheppard thought, but decided not to say anything for now. "We're fine, though we have no way through the gate. Send a jumper through so we can stay in contact, but don't under any circumstances, have them try to enter the atmosphere. We'll figure something out."
"Alright, I'll send a team then. Are you sure you can handle this?" Concern was almost dripping out of the radio onto John's shoulder.
"Yes," he sighed .
"Okay, Weir out." The radio's crackling soon died, and John was relieved when he didn't feel the rock creeping back up on him.
To Be Continued... Review or die by Azula's cooking.
