Wow, how long has it been? I'm sorry about my absence; I can't even remember a time when I went on so long a slump. Anyways, enjoy the chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender nor do I own American Dragon Jake Long.

Oh, and just a heads up: Rose probably won't appear in this series for a while, possibly the next chapter at the earliest. I'm just trying to find a way to write her in as of now.


Chapter 3: What Could Go Wrong...

"It's another threatening letter from that group." Zuko told her; reading its contents.

For several weeks, ever since their engagement was announced, Zuko and Katara had been receiving threats from both the Fire Nation and Water Tribes in response. Surprisingly, and ironically, both sides thought that the fiancé(e) was not good enough for the 'significant other' and that the fiancé(e) itself was nothing but a barbaric savage.

"Why can't anyone accept that we are to be married?" Katara asked with a sigh.

"D'you think that it was too early to announce it?" Zuko questioned; looking over the edge of the cliff towards the ocean.

"We've waited for over a year; most of the primary turmoil has been settled, and it…should have been safe." Katara sighed; wrapping her arms around one of his.

With a laugh, the first one in quite a few weeks, Zuko leaned forward to close the distance. All of a sudden, a blue flash filled their eyes and Katara found herself being shoved backwards while a familiar acquaintance of theirs took that kiss.

It took about three seconds for the two to realize that it was them and their lips that had been pressed against each other's. Reeling back, Jake and Zuko both threw themselves onto the ground; spitting and gagging profusely.

"A-Are you alright?" Katara asked; desperately trying to bite back the laughter that had manifested itself into her throat.

Zuko spat again; looking up at his fiancée. "Alright? I just locked lips with another man!" he almost shouted.

"Don't be such a homophobe." Jake said, standing up to brush at his dirtied clothes. He didn't like it either, thank you very much, but that was no reason to make it seem worse than it already was.

"Well, what are you doing here?" Katara asked as she helped her fiancé up.

"Long story. Long story short, in the future, there is something wrong and all of these paranormal events are somehow linked to you two in this time period. Someone is trying to eliminate both of you and we have to do something quickly. My grandpa tried to go back in time and right whatever wrong there was, but we've lost contact with him; so we also have to find him." Jake summarized.

"Maybe it's correlated with this." Zuko said; showing Jake the note.

"Um…boy from a different part of a time continuum who can barely read the modern Chinese his grandpa writes; see any problems there?" the nineteen year old said; waving the note.

"Oh, right. Basically, it's threatening us; that there will be an international insurrection if we marry." Zuko said.

"Well, congratulations, for the marriage, I mean." Jake said; then looked around. "Come on, we've got to get busy."

"But what can we do? The group members can be anyone; nobody knows much about them and even if they did, nobody tells." Zuko sighed; rubbing at his temples.

"Well, we've gotta start somewhere; who do you know would want to—um…eliminate, let's say—one or both of you guys?" As Jake was asking that question, Zuko saw something moving within the bamboo and a sharp glint of metal.

"Watch out!" he shouted; nearly tackling Jake as a silver dagger flew past their thighs and stuck onto the ground.

Katara sprung into action immediately; a water blade cut through the bamboo where the attacker supposedly was, but as the severed ends clattered to the ground, it was clear that he or she had gotten away. Zuko cursed under his breath.

"You know what? Maybe right now is a little too dangerous. Let's try this." Jake pulled out the mock-Eucronos hourglass and turned it forwards.

A flash, again, appeared, and then Jake found himself to be back in his dorm room.

"Where are we?" Zuko asked; pushing Jake off of him and standing up.

"We're at NYU, a university, and this is my dorm room." Jake explained, then noticed the messy state of his room. 'Oops.' He thought.

"Kid, you're back—WHAT DID YOU DO?" Fu Dog shouted upon seeing Zuko and Katara.

"I couldn't talk with them back in their own time so I brought them here." Jake replied, to which Fu slapped his own forehead.

"You idiot! Do you have any idea what you can do to the Time Continuum if you bring figures from the past into the future?" the overweight shar-pei shouted.

"Look, as soon as we get this fixed, we can send them back to their own time period!" Jake said irritably.

"And how long will that take? You still have no leads on who, why all this stuff is happening, and you might have permanently altered history! Jeez!" Fu was screaming by then.

"Mister Long!" a voice from his doorway sounded.

"Oh, shit. It's the Dean." Jake whispered; running to the window.

"Sorry about this, Fu." He said; then shut the window on the dog's fingertips. A muffled scream of pain was heard, but nothing louder than that.

"Quick! Sit! Act natural!" Jake dragged the other two to the vacant bottom bunk and pushed them onto it and, with a quick straightening of his clothes, opened the door.

"I came to investigate a noise disturbance." The Dean said slowly and crisply.

"Sorry, it was just me and my new roomies." Jake nodded towards Zuko and Katara, who were sitting up.

Upon seeing the scar on Zuko's face, the Dean cringed and then turned back to Jake; perplexed.

"I have not received any notification about new students." He said; again very slowly.

"These were last minute transfers; the papers will probably be on your desk the next morning." Jake fibbed.

"May I ask what their names are?" the elder said briskly.

"Sure. This is...Zeki, and he's from Turkey. Isn't that a laugh?" Jake asked; giving a few laughs for good measure. The dean did not look amused.

"And the lady?"

"That's Kat, which is more of a nickname considering that her real name is Katarellia, and she was teased so much when she was younger because of her name being so close to Cinderella's."

"I see. Well, I will be going to check for the papers. Good night." The Dean said and turned.

When Jake closed the door, both 'Zeki' and 'Kat' were staring at him.

"What? Those were the only things that I could think of." Jake protested.

"What happened to the talking dog?" Katara asked; looking towards the window.

"Fu!" Jake shouted; rushing over to the window and throwing it open.

"A warning would have sufficed." Fu snapped at him as Jake pulled him into the room.

"Sorry, really. Anyways, what can we do?" Jake asked; glancing over at Zuko and Katara.

Fu Dog sighed; knowing that the time span was up. When he'd made the copy of the Eucronos Hourglass, which was technically a very powerful magical device, a rule was incited in the Magical Realm's year of 1295 stated that a powerful magical item to the eighth degree or above could not be completely duplicated. As time passed, some crafty people found a few loopholes and ways to get around the decree, but there was still the catch that the user of the duplicated magical item was allowed only an hour—believe it or not, an hour had almost passed when Jake came back to the modern world—before the magical object would cease to work and disappear.

"Well, let's at least find them some clothes." Fu replied.


"How does it fit?" Jake asked from the other side of the door.

"It's…a little tight." Zuko replied; opening the door.

Dressed in Jake's old shirt and a pair of jeans, he looked almost like another guy; if you ignore the scar and hair, the longest part almost touching his shoulders, and the fact that his posture was regally straight.

"Uh…right. We can say that you shopped in Europe." Jake offered.

"I still don't understand why we have to be here." Zuko said; pulling at the shirt.

"It's obviously too dangerous for you two to go back to your own time, besides; I need your help." Jake said.

"Well, there are still those papers you were talking about; how can you get them there?" Katara asked.

"I made a few calls; don't worry." Jake flopped down onto the top bunk; wiggling around a bit out of habit. "Anyways, good night."

Long after his snores filled the air, Katara poked Zuko awake from her top bunk. "He drags us here, gives us new clothes, and still doesn't tell us anything." She whispered. "Not the best host in the world." Zuko conceded.


"…And so, this is Zeki and Kat." Jake introduced them by his made-up names.

Politely, Zuko and Katara said a few words to the students who listened to Jake, and were staring at them for whatever reason, and took their seats. A few minutes later, the teacher entered the large room and immediately began his lesson.

"Did you have any luck with those messages?" Jake whispered to them.

"It looks like an ancient form of Fire Nation writing." Zuko whispered back; remembering his lessons.

"Do you know any of it?" Jake questioned, to which the other male shook his head.

For once, Jake didn't bother to pay attention to the lecture; there was this feeling in his gut that whatever was written in the supposedly un-decipherable cipher would be the grand answer, and his current thoughts were clinging to his mind as if someone had pasted it in there with krazy-glue.

After another hour of whatever it was—weapons, or something else that had to do with warfare—that the professor was talking about, the session ended.

Once they were outside, Katara placed a hand on Zuko's shoulder; feeling his body shake.

"Zuko, don't—." she began.

"Did you hear what he was saying? '…they were, in every sense, savages; they destroyed and plundered, everything you'd heard about when reading those stereotypical good versus evil books, and then some…'? That is a damn lie!" He hissed.

"Dude, that's biased history; I'm sure the Fire Nation didn't skewer babies or rape every woman they saw…" The glare from Zuko's eye seemed to misplace Jake's voice box.

"Look, do you think I found it any better? He called people of my kind dumb cowards, just because they weren't successful in combat for their first few battles!" Katara sighed angrily.

"Okay, before either of you do something rash, remember that this era is a time when humans can't control water or fire; let's just go." Steadily, Jake pulled at their jacket cuffs and guided them back to the dormitory.

"Cut him some slack; he fought in at least three wars and his side has always had the short end of the stick. He keeps saying to us, those whoever-else-was-their-ally came in late, and got all the credit. He's just cynical." Jake tried to explain.

"He called my people cowardly, lazy, and self-aggrandizing!" Katara protested.

"Even if that's true, I mean him being cynical, does it give him the right to criticize the supposed enemy? Or is he really that bigoted?" Zuko demanded.

"Come on; yes, he probably did overly praise the Earth Kingdom for its 'valiant efforts' and for 'fighting the full war' but—." The combined glare of fire and ice was too much; even for the American Dragon.

A knock at the door broke off their stream of conversation. Upon opening it, Jake came into contact with a stack of duffel bags and what looked to be old-fashioned hat boxes.

"Uh…Hi." At the sound of his voice, the person dropped the boxes.

"Jake!" She exclaimed. The young woman before him looked strangely familiar; Jake just couldn't put his finger on it. He gazed from her long wavy chestnut hair to her tan skin and dark eyes to her small nose to her lip gloss-covered lips…nothing.

He looked at her hands, the striped polo shirt that she wore, her black skirt, still nothing.

He stepped back for a moment, to see the whole of her, and then it hit him. "Oh, hey, you!" What was her name? What was her name? Jake thought desperately.


Oh, gosh, Jake! You're in big trouble if you don't remember a girl's name.

Again, I'm sorry for my long absence; it has been too long. I resolve to update my stories more often this year.