First off to all the anonymous reviewers and xX Angel of Mine Xx, who reviewed last chapter, and anyone else who reviewed previous chapters, you guys are so kind. I'm really grateful for the time you took to review. Now onto the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender


"The Waterbending Scroll"

A day after they had escaped the Fire Temple, Aang paced the saddle back and forth anxiously. "Would you sit down?" asked Sokka, from up front on Appa's head. "If we hit a bump you'll go flying off. What's bugging you anyway?"

"It's what Avatar Roku said. I'm supposed to master all four elements before the comet comes," Aang said, still not sitting down.

"I thought we already went over this, Aang, we're already going to the North Pole as fast as we can. Then. we'll worry about finding you earth and fire bending teachers," Kai tried to comfort him.

"And think of this Aang," Sokka started sarcastically, "You pretty much mastered airbending and that only took you a hundred and twelve years. I'm sure you can master all three elements by next summer."

"Not helping," Kai hissed at Sokka, as Aang's face turned even more frightened.

"See, that's the problem I haven't even started waterbending yet and we're still weeks away from the North Pole. What am I going to do?" asked Aang.

At this point, Katara had grown annoyed of Aang's constant pacing and pulled on his arm for him to kneel down next to her. "Calm down, it's going to be okay. If you want, I can try to teach you some of the stuff I know."

"You'd do that?" he asked, smiling at her.

"Of course she would," Kai added. "I can teach you what I know and with us combined, I bet you would at least have some of the basics before we reach the North Pole."

"That would be great!" he answered, cheered up.

"We just need to find a good water source, first, to teach you," said Katara, looking at the ground below.

"Maybe we can find a puddle for you to splash in," said Sokka, grinning.

"For the last time it's not splashing! It's waterbending!" Kai corrected Sokka.

"Eh, what's the difference?" he said joking.

"The difference, is once we land in our 'puddle' you're going to get 'splashed' a lot," said Kai deviously.

"I take it back, I take it back," Sokka said, panicking, knowing from growing up with a waterbender as a sister that when you get a waterbender mad, you aren't dry for many days.

Kai only laughed in response though and said, "Whatever, Sokka."


The 'puddle' they landed in turned out to be a large waterfall and a river. It was surrounded by tall trees that blocked them from any wandering travelers or Fire Nation soldiers. "Nice puddle," commented Sokka, frowning when he saw the three others ecstatic faces, knowing being here in basically a giant playground for waterbenders would being nothing but trouble. Kai, to his left, squealed in delight and rushed towards the river in clothes and all. "It's so warm," she declared, swimming around in it.

Appa landed in the river next Kai, which got Kai even more soaked. Aang, seeing the two happily in the water, yelled, stripping down, "Yeah! Don't start without me, you guys!"

Katara interrupted saying, "Remember why we're here."

Aang stopped, mid run and said, "Oh right, time to practice waterbending."

Kai blushed sheepishly, and climbed out of the water too. Dripping all over, she walked over to the group. "Great. So what am I supposed to do?" Sokka asked sarcastically.

"You could clean the gunk out of Appa's toes," Aang suggested innocently.

Sokka frowned at the group, so Kai suggested, "Or I could help you plan our path to the North Pole, so we could get there the fastest, since Katara can help Aang first."

"Your choice," Aang said, shrugging his shoulders.

"I'll go with the planning. My talents would be wasted just picking Appa's toes," Sokka said cocky.

Katara giggled, "Your talents, like getting constantly beaten by Fire Nation soldiers."

"Hey, if it weren't for me, we would never have gotten anywhere close to where we are now," Sokka defended. "I keep us on track and out of trouble."

"You call, getting caught by a spirit and being trapped in the Spirit World for 24 hours staying out of trouble?" Kai asked, laughing.

Sokka only glared at Kai in response and said, "You know, I really hate you right now."

"Oh, Sokka, you wound me," Kai said dramatically, falling to the ground pretending that she had been stabbed, but even her pathetic dying noises could not crack a smile out of Sokka. "Come on Sokka, you set yourself up for that."

"Fine," he said huffing.

"Let's go Aang, we better get you started working on your waterbending," Katara said, walking with Aang away from the group a little bit farther down the river. She began lecturing him, so Kai turned back to Sokka, who had already gotten their map out and asked, "So what's our plan to get to the North Pole?"

"So, we are around here, near this port you see," Sokka said, pointing to the middle of the coast of the Earth Kingdom. "To reach the Northern Water Tribe, we're going to have to go first a little bit east and then north, so we can avoid most towns controlled by the Fire Nation. We can first fly over the village of Gaipan, and then we're going to have to cross the Great Divide. This harbor town back on the coast might be a good place to restock supplies, and we should probably stop there. I think it might be one of the few on the coast that isn't controlled by the Fire Nation," pointing to a town on the inlet of the Earth Kingdom. "From this point on, it would be a good idea to travel up the coast. Then ta da, we reach the Northern Water Tribe."

"Sounds like a good idea, but how are we going to afford the supplies we need? We're almost out of the money that King Bumi gave us," Kai asked curiously.

"I don't know, maybe one of us could get a job or something on the way. We can survive for a little bit on food from the forests we camp in, but we'll need to stock up on food when we leave the Earth Kingdom to get to the Northern Water Tribe, it's at least a three day journey, maybe more if we get lost," said Sokka.

"Well I had an idea-" Kai began to say before a huge wave came crashing down on both Sokka and Kai. Her reflexes proved to be useful though as right before it hit her, she had airbent a dome shaped air shield around her, preventing water to come in. Sokka was not so lucky though and he got drenched in the water. "Nice bending, Kai," said Aang. "Sorry Sokka, but looks like I got the hang of that move. What else do you got?"

"I think that's enough practicing for today," Katara said, slightly annoyed.

"Yay, I'll say! You just 'practiced' our supplies down the river," Sokka ranted.

"Oh, no," muttered Kai and she started to swim down the river and was able to retrieve her guitar in its case, that had floated to the bank. She opened the case quickly and to check that the guitar wasn't too waterlogged, by strumming the strings. "It's okay you guys, my guitar is alright," she yelled to the others.

"What a relief," said Sokka sarcastically, and now it was Kai's turn to glare at him.

"Uh, sorry," Aang said hesitantly. "I'm sure we can find somewhere to replace all this stuff."

"My life was hard enough when you were just an airbender," Sokka complained sinking back under the water.


They decided to try and go into that port that Sokka had mentioned before to try to replace some of the supplies that they had lost. Thankfully, it wasn't everything that they owned that got swept down the river. Mainly their basic camping supplies like food and spark rocks and so forth. Kai protectively held her knapsack close to her as they walked through the streets of the port. It definitely had a seedy feeling. "We have exactly three copper pieces left from the money that King Bumi gave us. Let's spend it wisely," Sokka told the group.

"Uh, make that two copper pieces, Sokka. I couldn't say no to this whistle," Aang said, showing the others his whistle that was shaped vaguely a bison. He blew into the whistle, but only a faint sound came out of it.

"It doesn't even work," Sokka complained. Momo landed on Aang's head and chirped loudly. "See? Even Momo thinks it's a piece of junk."

"No offense, Aang, but I'll hold the money from now on," Katara said kindly, holding out her hand for the remain two coins.

They continued walking down the pier when a man was yelling next to a boat advertising his shop. He ran up to the group and said, "Oh! You there, I can see from your clothing that you're world-traveling types. Perhaps I can interest you in some exotic curios?"

Aang giving the man the benefit of the doubt innocently asked, "Sure, what are curios?"

The man gave Aang a puzzled look but then replied, "I'm not entirely sure. But we got em'," leading Aang onto the ship.

Sokka, Kai, and Katara rushed to catch up with him. They entered the poorly lit ship that contained a whole variety of things. There was a creepy statue of a monkey, fancy vases, and boxes of assorted junk. She was walking next to Aang when a voice came from the dark doorway saying, "I've never seen such a fine specimen of lemur. That beast would fetch me a hefty sum if you're interested in bartering," while the exotic bird squawked at the two.

Aang cuddled Momo protectively and said, "Momo's not for sale."

Then, Katara called the two over to what she was looking at. "Look at this you guys. It's a waterbending scroll! Check out these crazy moves."

Kai ran her hand over the designs and said, "They're laid out just perfectly, step by step. I think even I could do these."

"Where'd you get the waterbending scroll?" Aang asked the man, excited.

The man slammed his hand down on the scroll, picked it up, and rolled it back in place before telling them, "Let's say I got it up North, at a most reasonable price, free."

Sokka, who had been listening on this exchange the whole time, turned around towards them and realized, "Wait a minute...Sea loving traders, with suspiciously acquired merchandise, and pet reptile birds? You guys are pirates!"

The first man put his arm around Sokka's shoulder and said, "We prefer to think of ourselves, as high risk traders."

Katara then tried to coily ask, "So, how much for the, uh, traded scroll?"

The captain harshly answered, "I've already got a buyer, a nobleman in the Earth Kingdom. Unless, of course, you kids have two hundred gold pieces on you right now."

Aang motioned Kai and Katara over for a mini group huddle. "I know how to deal with these guys, Kai, Katara. Pirates love to haggle," Aang held out his hand for the money. "Watch and learn," Aang walked over to the counter.

"Just don't do anything stupid," she whispered at his retreating back.

"Let's say to the price of one copper piece," Aang smiled, and presented the coin in a flashy manner.

The pirate laughed heartily at Aang's antics, but then turned serious saying, "The price is two hundred gold pieces. I don't haggle on items this rare."

Smirking, Aang tried yet again bargaining with two copper pieces. But the pirate only became more frustrated with him. So Kai, seeing the disappointed look on Aang's face, walked up beside him and said, "Look, what's an Earth Kingdom noble even going to use it-"

But she was cut off when Katara tapped her shoulder and whispered. "Kai, can we get out of here? I feel like we are getting weird looks..."

Kai sighed, but followed Katara out of the ship. Once they were on the street Aang asked, "What was that all about, Katara?"

"Yeah, I was just starting to browse through their boomerang collection," Sokka whinned. "And Kai didn't even see the scrolls of music they had."

"Aww, there was a music section, can't we please go back?" Kai pleaded.

"No," Katara said firmly. "I'll just feel a lot better once we get out of here," hugging her arms.

The first pirate yelled after them though, "Hey you! Get back here!"

Aang turned around and smugly said, "Well, well. Look who's come to their senses. Told you the haggling would pay off."

But then, a whole pack of pirates jumped out at them, flaunting their weapons and whispering to themselves. "I don't think these pirates are here to trade with us," Katara said, starting to back away from them.

Soon enough, the whole gaang was running away from the pirates. They were close on their tail. The four cut down an alleyway to hopefully lose them, but they were still close behind. Katara managed to waterbend some water from a nearby barrel and freeze it to make the pirates slip. But unfortunately, only one pirate fell on entered another alley and passed by a cabbage merchant's stand. Kai, Katara, and Sokka all ran into it knocking a few cabbages from it, but then Aang used the stand to stop the three pirates following them by blowing it back into them. The merchant of the stand called angrily after them, but Kai could not hear over the wind in her ears as she and the others continued to run away. But, in their path was another group of pirates, so she and the others had to do a complete 180 and run in the opposite direction. They ducked into another alley, but it turned out to be a dead end. They turned around and the lead pirate asked them menacingly, "Now, who gets to taste the steel of my blade first?"

"No thanks," said Aang, blowing dust at them to make a smoke screen of sorts. He then began running towards the pirates and opened his glider. "Grab on tight!"

"Aang!" Katara yelled. "I thought we were running away from the pirates!"

But she, like Sokka, grabbed on to the end of the glider. While, Kai grabbed onto hers and Sokka's legs. Slowly, but surely, Aang was able to pull the three up away from the pirates and back to the forest where they came.


Aang flew them back to the 'puddle' that they had practiced before. Putting his glider away he said, "I used to kind of look up to pirates, but those guys are terrible."

Flopping down on the ground, Kai groaned and said, "I know, that whole trip was terrible. We didn't even get any of the supplies we needed, only Aang's broken whistle."

"Well, that was partly why I took this," Katara said, holding out the waterbending scroll from the store.

"No way," Aang said in disbelief.

"Now wonder they were trying to hack us up," Sokka exclaimed. "You stole their waterbending scroll!"

"I prefer to think of it as high risk trading," Katara joked.

"Good one, Katara," Aang laughed.

Seeing the disapproval on Sokka's face she reasoned saying, "Sokka, where do you think they got it? They stole it from a waterbender!"

"It doesn't matter," Sokka continued. "You put all of our lives in danger just so you could learn some stupid, fancy splashes."

"What do you want Katara to do, Sokka? Go back to the pirates and give them back the scroll? Do you honestly think they'll just let her go if she brings it back?" Kai asked Sokka who said nothing in response. "Besides these are real waterbending forms. You know how crucial it is for Aang to learn waterbending. We're going to have to break a few laws if we want to win this war."

"Whatever," said Sokka, walking away from the group.

"Well, what's done is done. We have it, we might as well learn from it," Aang said trying to comfort Katara.

The three walked over to the water's edge and Katara said, "I just want to try this one move first and then it's all yours," handing the scroll to Aang. "Here, hold it open for me. The single water whip looks doable."

Kai took a seat on a stump slightly off to the side and watched as Katara attempted the water whip. She knew that it might take herself a little while to master these moves as it did take her longer to master most waterbending moves. So she already knew that the other two would advance quicker than her. Though she was a little bit jealous of the other two for it, she was at least glad that she could progress quickly in airbending. Katara was becoming more frustrated that she couldn't master this move. So Aang, trying to be nice, attempted and completed the move giving Katara some tips on bending. But that was when Katara lost it, "Will you please shut your air hole?! Believe it or not your infinite wisdom gets a little old sometimes! Why don't we just throw the scroll away since you're so naturally gifted?!"

Kai saw that Aang had tears in his eyes because he was not only being yelled at for doing something right. But he was also being yelled at by his crush. This pushed Kai over the edge so she walked up to Katara and yelled, "You have no right to say that to him! All he was trying to do was to try and help you! So he gets waterbending a little bit faster than you, it's not a race! He is the Avatar if you have forgotten!"

Katara sheepishly looked away from a seething Kai and turned to Aang and said. "I am so sorry Aang. I was thinking when I spoke, I don't know what came over me. I didn't mean any of that. But you know it won't happen again," giving the scroll to Aang. "I don't want anything to do with it anymore."

"It's okay, Katara," said Aang softly.

"Really Katara, I didn't mean for my emotions to take so much charge, you don't have to give up from learning from the scroll," said Kai.

"No, I've seen what is has done to me. I don't want to learn from it, or at least not for a while," responded Katara.

Kai looked suspiciously at Katara, not trusting this complete transformation. But then she saw the sincerity in her eyes, true regret for what she had said to Aang. Sokka spoke up asking, "What about Momo? He's the real victim here."

Momo had been hit in the process of Katara learning waterbending, so Momo did deserve as much as an apology as Aang, even though he was only a lemur. "I'm sorry, Momo," Katara said kindly, petting his head.

"And what about me? There was that time you-" Sokka prodded his sister.

"No more apologies!" Katara exclaimed sharply.


Later that night Kai tossed and turned, but she could not fall back asleep. She had been able to fall asleep for a while, but now after she had awoken in the middle of the night. Huffing again, she turned over and willed her body to sleep. But, she had all this unnecessary energy at the most inconvenient time. Deciding to do the only thing she could think of, she pushed herself up into a sitting position, and slowly got up to take a walk and maybe use the scroll. After the incident in the afternoon, things had gotten rather awkward around the campsite. Nobody had used the waterbending scroll since, but Kai really was itching to try some of the moves. She could practice for an hour or two, burn off all that energy and then fall back to sleep. Maybe at that point she could master one of the moves. Moving over to where the scroll was when she went to sleep, she noticed the scroll was gone. She also saw that Katara was also missing.

'Damn,' Kai thought. That girl would do anything to learn waterbending. Though Kai understood her desire to learn waterbending and unlock her abilities, she didn't understand why she took it to this extreme. They were already going to the North Pole, why did she have to learn it right now. Also, breaking a promise to one of her best friends, only hours after making it. She trudged through the forest, not even caring that she had not told the others where she was going. Kai was headed back to the river where they were practicing before. There she found Katara, struggling to perform the water whip, bending a stream of water back and forth. "I thought you said you wanted nothing to do with the scroll?" Kai asked coming out of the shadows of the trees.

Katara jumped, obviously startled by Kai's presence. She dropped the water that she had been holding. "I thought you said that you didn't want to learn from it, as it made you yell at Aang," she continued. Katara only looked down at her feet ashamed. "Spirits Katara, you lied directly to mine and Aang's faces. We both trusted you, what else did you say that wasn't true?"

"I really did mean what I said, when I said it," Katara claimed. "I did feel bad about what I said, but the scroll was just there and you were all sleeping. It was calling to me. And I thought that if we were ever in a fight then, I could use what I learned and help you guys. I just feel so vulnerable sometimes. I'm a waterbender, but I can't help you and Aang or even Sokka fight because I'm untrained. I just want to help win this war and protect the ones I love."

Kai had not been expecting this response from Katara. She had expected some selfish answer about how she wanted to desperately learn waterbending for knowledge sake. But she truly wanted to help other people and she felt waterbending was the only way she could. She wanted to protect, like Kai. "Oh Katara, if you had told us that was the reason why you wanted to learn waterbending so badly we would've understood,"

"Well, I did also want to learn waterbending too, just to learn it. But mainly I wanted to help you guys," Katara admitted.

"I guess, we can talk about this with the boys in the morning, but I guess we can practice now," Kai suggested.

She took the scroll from Katara's hand and unrolled it. Spreading it out on the ground she asked Katara, "You were trying to learn the single water whip, right?"

Katara nodded. "It looks like you need to basically bend a stream of water into a ball and then direct it into a stream in the direction you wanted to go," Kai observed.

Kai decided to try this. She was able to get out of the river into the stream she wanted, then into the ball, but after that it seemed like the water just didn't want to work with her. Dropping it to the ground, she groaned falling onto her back. "Why won't it work! I mean I'm doing everything I can! I'm shifting my weight through the stances, I'm having a clear head. The water is just too stubborn. It's like it just doesn't like me."

Katara laughed, "I don't think the water hates you, Kai. Maybe we're missing something really elementary. Here let me try," Katara stepped closer to the river.

She bent the water out of the river and began twisting it back and forth shouting and random intervals about what she could better or what she could try. Kai just sat and watched her, "Maybe you're too tense?" she suggested.

Katara only groaned again, but then the two of them both heard a loud clank on the other side of the bushes to their left. They peered through the bushes to find out what it was. Katara gasped as she saw it was a small Fire Nation docked on the shore. "Shit, shit, shit," Kai muttered under her breathe, they both began to back up. Kai ran towards the forest so they could get back to Aang and Sokka, while Katara ran towards the river to grab the scroll before they left. But, she had backed up into a muscular pirate. He grabbed onto her shoulders, but she twisted and shouted, "No, let go of me," and threw a jet of water at his face.

She broke free of the man's grip and ran forward, right into Prince Zuko's hands, which latched onto her wrists. "I'll save you from the pirates," he told her.

"Not on my watch," said Kai, jumping out of the line of trees and charging towards the two, getting ready to airbend slice the other two apart. She did exactly that, pushing Zuko straight into the bushes. She grabbed Katara's hand and pulled her towards the woods. She vaguely heard Zuko groan, but she kept pushing on, until she heard someone yell, "After them!"

Then she pushed herself faster. Breathing hard next to her, Katara managed to gasp out, "You do know we're leading them straight to Aang."

Kai cursed and asked her, "Do you have any other plans?"

Katara shook her no and so Kai said, "Then our best bet is to outrun them and try to get to Aang and Sokka as fast as we can."

They continued running through the forest dodging trees and boulders. They heard that the pirates and soldiers were on their trail, but they dared not look back, for fear that they were right behind them. That was when Katara decided it was best to start making a lot of noise, "SOKKA! AANG! PIRATES AND FIRE NATION!"

"What are you doing?" Kai hissed, "Do you really want them to know exactly where we are and where we're heading?"

"It's to get them up, to give them some sort of warning about what's coming for them," Katara replied.

"I knew you were a smart one," Kai complemented, smiling still trying to keep up the pace.

The two broke into the clearing where the fire was still dimly going. Kai wondered how long they had been really been out practicing waterbending. She saw that Aang and Sokka were blearily waking up from the call that Katara had made. "Get up," Kai yelled to the boys. "We ran into trouble."

"Yeah, and they brought company," Katara added, letting her bit of Sokka seep through.

Kai began rushing to the far side of their campsite, where her belongings were located. Quickly, she scooped them neatly up in her arms when the pirates and soldiers took this time to enter the campsite. The four screamed as fireballs were launched at them and Kai dropped her stuff. They landed right in the middle of their group, cutting off Kai from the rest of the gaang. Now, there was a wall of fire stopping her from her escape, and it was growing higher with every second. There was no way that she could make it through there with no water. A nearby tree that had caught on fire fell on this wall of fire, spreading embers everywhere. Kai ducked the glowing splints as they came closer to her. Looking for an easy way to get around this wall, she saw none. There were now pirates approaching and trying to safely climb over the flaming tree to reach Kai. At that moment, Kai made a split second decision, she yelled to the others, who she could see were getting cornered by approaching soldiers, "Get out of here! Don't wait for me! I'll be fine!"

"No!" Aang yelled back.

"I'll meet up with you guys later," she screamed back. Noticing that the pirates were now clearing the fallen tree, she took off farther into the forest. Running away from the danger but also her friends.

Aang had tried to get through the wall of fire, when she had heard Kai's plan. But he was held back by the other two, and they all saw Kai run off in the opposite direction and they knew they wouldn't be able to catch up with her. Even on Appa, the forest would be too thick to see Kai through it. The approaching firebenders were getting dangerously close to their group and we're now directing all their attention on them. Aang used his staff to divert incoming fireballs as they backed up towards Appa. "Just give up, Avatar, you're outnumbered," Prince Zuko said.

"On the count of three," Sokka hissed into the other two ears.

The firebenders kept closing in on the three, thinking that they made have given up.

"One, two, three," Sokka whispered and the three made a mad dash for Appa's back. The two siblings quickly hauled themselves up onto the saddle, while Aang gracefully landed on the bison's head.

"Stop them," the captain yelled, noticing they were getting away. But before anyone could stop the group, Appa launched himself into the air, quickly climbing to create distance between the two groups.

Prince Zuko only glared at the bison as his chance at regaining his honor once again flew away from him.


Kai was still running away from the pirates. At least she was small and nimble enough to be able to dodge any incoming weapons thrown at her. This was a skill that she always had possessed. In games at her village, she was always the one to catch up to. But unfortunately, this talent would fail her soon, unless she rested, because this dodging always took up an immense part of her energy.

She spotted a cavern of rocks a little bit away from the path she was on. Looking behind her, she saw that it was dark enough that she couldn't see her pursuers, so she guessed that they couldn't see her. Kai guessed that they were far enough away that she could only barely hear their footsteps. They definitely weren't the quietest bunch, so they must be far away.

She veered herself towards the rocks, and dove into them, placing the rocks that she had moved back in front of her. It turned out to be a shallow hole, covered by rocks. Small, but not enough that she was completely crushed. Kai could manage in here. She tried to slow her breathing so they wouldn't hear her, from her hiding place. But soon enough, she heard their footsteps coming closer, so her heart beat a little faster. But then they faded away, and she let a sigh of relief.

Kai decided it was a good idea to at least stay here for tonight, then she could venture out and see if everyone was gone. Hopefully by that time, she could return to the campsite and be able to gather her stuff again. They wouldn't pay attention to the discard bag, blanket, and guitar. At that point, she would be able to start traveling north and met up with the others. Kai hoped that Sokka would stay to the plan that they had mapped out, so she would be able to follow them. She would just need to move fast and she could catch up to them, Kai though optimistically. Kai wrapped her arms around her body, wanting to get warm and curled up into a tighter ball, to preserve heat. Hesitantly, she closed her eyes. Kai would open them every few minutes and listen to her surroundings, but she only heard the natural birds calling and crickets. Soon, she couldn't even will herself to do this anymore, and she allowed her body to finally rest.


Oh no! Kai does seem to get into trouble, but don't worry she's a big girl. Please, please, please review. More reviews equally a faster chapter to come out, since they give me more confidence.