Once again, a huge thanks to all my wonderful reviewers and readers.
Disclaimer: Despite all my blackmail attempts, I've still yet to gain ownership of the show. Maybe I'll have better luck with the movie...
Seriously, am I the only one who thinks it's neat that we get a movie? Though I must say, I'm kind of holding my breath in the 'you've* managed to ruin several cartoons into movies attempts so far, but somehow I still have hope that this will turn out to be awesome' sense. Fingers crossed in any case. (*Nothing against the director - I mean movies in general).
Aang was feeling rather bored. Appa was fed, Momo was off chasing some bird-like creature, Toph and Sokka had decided to go hunting and Zuko had proclaimed him to be the worst firebender he'd ever seen and had stormed off in a huff to go calm down. Aang had considered suggesting that the prince try some of the tea that his uncle had left them, but had fortunately realised that reminding the temperamental firebender that his uncle was off on some secret mission might not be a good idea.
This left Aang with nothing to do, so he decided to see if Katara wanted to practice waterbending with him. Even though they were both quite proficient at waterbending, he'd noticed that she liked to stay in practice. Given that it seemed to help her calm down, no one in the group was complaining, though her waterbending sessions had increased tenfold ever since Zuko had showed up and announced that he would teach Aang to firebend. The young Avatar suspected that there was a connection there, somewhere.
Heading towards the section of the temple where he'd seen her last, he was surprised to find that she was nowhere to be seen. Even more disturbing was the presence of several large puddles and a few icicles scattered around the campsite. Given that the weather was fairly sunny, if a little cold at nights, he surmised that Katara was responsible for the icicles at least. What puzzled him though was the fact that she'd left them lying around like that. He scratched his head, considering the matter. Out of the entire group, Katara was the tidiest, with Zuko coming in a close second - though the fact that he never seemed to eat may have contributed to that. It seemed odd that she would start leaving water and ice lying around where people might slip on them all of a sudden.
As if in response to his silent musings, a loud scream pierced the air from some distance away. Startled, Aang leapt several feet in the air before calming enough to realise who the scream belonged to.
"Katara," he yelled in anguish, grabbing his kite and leaping into the air. Desperately he wished that one of the others, any of the others, had stuck around instead of wandering off to do their own thing. It would have been nice to have someone else to help him rescue Katara.
It didn't take him long to locate her - after all, tying someone to a post in the middle of a clearing wasn't exactly the most efficient way of hiding someone. If Aang had been thinking clearly, he might have considered that the entire situation spoke rather loudly of a trap, but he wasn't, so he simply proceeded to rush into the clearing without even stopping to look for the person who had put Katara there in the first place.
This was rather unfortunate, given that the person was watching for him. Aang made it halfway across the clearing to where Katara was struggling against the ropes tying her to the post before he was confronted by a menacing looking person dressed entirely in gray and wearing a scowling black mask. The figure reluctantly approached Aang and half-heartedly brandished a non-descript looking sword with a red hilt, possibly poached from a firenation soldier.
"Move another step and the girl gets it," the figure growled, his voice unnaturally deep.
Aang glared at him. "Leave her alone," he yelled. "I won't let you hurt her."
The man hesitated for a moment, but a slight tremor in the earth convinced him to continue. He pointed his sword somewhat warily in the direction of the tied up waterbender. "If you want to save her, then you'll have to defeat me," he announced bravely.
Aang responded by hurling a blast of wind at him, ignoring the man's startled yelp.
He stumbled back a bit, then recovered his footing. "Hah, like a little bit of air is going to hurt me. You'd have to be the greatest firebender in the world to stop me," he taunted, his posture wary.
"You can do it Aang," Katara called out encouragingly, twisting about in her bonds in order to get a better view.
The masked figure glared at her, then adopted a poor imitation of a bending stance. "Prepare to die, Avatar," he announced in his deep voice and swung the sword wildly.
Aang leapt back in surprise as a wall of flames rushed towards him. Apparently the man's rather unorthodox style of bending worked after all. For a moment he wondered wistfully if he could somehow convince the man to teach him - it looked a lot easier than all the exercises that Zuko was making him learn. Shaking his head to clear it, he forced himself to concentrate on the battle. Using his airbending, he managed to leap up out of the reach of the flames.
Landing, he quickly twisted himself into an earthbending stance and made to send a wall of dirt at the rather nervous looking attacker. To his surprise and horror, the earth refused to obey his commands. He managed to create a sluggish ripple in the ground which faded to nothing long before it reached the masked stranger. Aang frowned, confused. If the man hadn't already established himself as a firebender then he would have suspected that another earthbender was controlling the ground.
Glancing around, he realised to his dismay that there was no water to be seen. Katara's water pouch hung empty at her side, clearly having been used in her attempt to defend herself earlier, and despite all her nagging, he'd once again forgotten to carry one himself. That left air and firebending, and he knew from experience with Zuko over the years that airbending wasn't all that efficient against fire.
"Aang, do something. Don't just stand there," Katara yelled, apparently frustrated by the length of time that it was taking to rescue her.
Making up his mind, Aang took a deep breath and moved into one of the stances that Zuko had spent the last couple of days trying to drum into his head. Focusing his energy, he punched the air, sending a huge ball of fire towards the hapless kidnapper. The man yelped, scrambling to get out of the way before the inferno hit. At the last minute a wall of earth appeared in front of him, sheltering the man from the worst of the blast.
"Dammit, why did you wait until I was nearly toast?" the man yelled furiously into the surrounding woods as soon as the danger had passed, the target of his anger apparently hidden among the trees.
"Don't be ridiculous Snoozles, you were in no danger," his accomplice replied, Toph calmly making her way out into the open. "Congratulations on firebending Twinkletoes.
Aang looked on open-mouthed as the man removed his mask to reveal Sokka. "What? How? I don't understand," he spluttered.
"We were trying to help you," Katara explained, freeing herself from the ropes with ease. "It worked, didn't it?"
"Sure, if you ignore the fact that he tried everything but firebending first," Zuko muttered, making his way out of hiding where he'd been providing Sokka with his firebending abilities. Granted the Avatar was finally starting to show some improvement, but it would have been nice if he'd actually checked the terrain before rushing into battle. That way he wouldn't have had to run through all his available options in the middle of a fight, wasting valuable time.
"Don't be such a killjoy," Katara chided him, hurrying over to check Aang for any injuries. "He did very well."
"Hey, what about me? I almost got roasted here," Sokka spluttered indignantly. "Isn't anyone going to ask if I'm alright?"
Looking around, he realised that he was talking to himself. Katara had already taken off with Aang to fuss over him and Zuko and Toph were happily exchanging perspectives of the mock battle as they headed back to camp. "Save the day and this is all the thanks I get?" he muttered, picking up the sword and trudging back to camp. "And it's Zuko's turn to cook. I know he doesn't eat much, but it had better be edible this time."