The sibling-fight went on, until they landed at the meeting-point next to the watertribe-ships. Then they both suddenly shut up and pretended nothing had happened at all. Aang and the siblings climbed from Appa quickly to greet the siblings' father. Lu Ten and Iroh hastened to follow. Toph stood back with Zuko, who couldn't get down from Appa without help, because his leg was still refusing to carry him. "Traveling-methods go from bad to worse…" Toph complained "Now they want us to go by ship? Are they nuts?" "Going by ship isn't that bad…" Zuko put in "At least you aren't that high up as when flying. And there is more space to wander around…" "Yeah, right…" Toph grinned evilly "I want to see you wandering around right now… And I fear I won't see anything on those ships, so I will keep wandering to a limit too." Zuko sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
Meanwhile the others greeted Sokka's and Katara's father, chief Hakoda. Sokka briefly filled him in about the news from Ba Sing Se. "Well, we have spotted quite some Firenavy-ships out there…" Hakoda answered "Maybe it is best if we capture one or more of that ships to have a disguise… We could try to sneak into Firenation that way, bringing you closer to the Firelord without a fight, of we are lucky." "Sounds better than the plan we had…" Sokka nodded. "What plan did you have?" Hakoda asked his son. "Uh… none…" Sokka confessed "How do you plan on capturing a Firenavy-ship?" "Well, I might have an idea as on that…" Iroh put in grinning "Do you happen to have some black powder?"
The watertribe-warriors watched in awe, as Iroh and Lu Ten mixed together a little firework and set it off. The effect was a red light raising high into the air like a signal. "What have you done!" Sokka hissed at once "Now they know where we are!" "Exactly…" Iroh nodded "Or better, they know where some Navies in distress are. They will send a rescue-ship…" "And we will take them by surprise." Hakoda added "Great plan!" "It's not really a plan…" Iroh smiled "I just tried to make your plan a bit easier. Now we better hide those ships and men, or they will assume a trap and won't come…"
Quickly all ships were sailed behind some rocks, so they wouldn't be seen by incoming forces, and the watertribe-warriors hid behind vegetation or on their hidden ships. Appa was hidden away behind some trees as well, together with his two passengers Toph and Zuko. Aang, Katara and Sokka joined them. Only Iroh and Lu Ten remained on the beach, looking out for a rescue-ship. They weren't disappointed. Soon later a firenavy ship appeared on the horizon and drew closer quickly. It was only one, as they had planned, and it didn't suspect a trap, until it was too late, and the watertribe-ships had closed in behind it. Team Avatar, except for Zuko, jumped out of hiding and attacked, as did all the water-tribe warriors as well as Lu Ten and Iroh. Before any of the firenavy-solders knew what had happened, the fight was over and victory theirs.
The ship was big enough to have room for all of them, including Appa. So they all boarded and left the island. The watertribe-ships were safely stored away behind a cliff again. Maybe after the war, they could be reclaimed and sailed home. "Next stop… Firenation!" Sokka announced. "Yay…" Toph muttered. Luckily there were enough clothes and armoury on the ship for all of them to disguise. They stored Zuko in one of the beds safely and Toph decided to stay with him, since she already felt seasick. Katara would look for them ever so often to make sure they were alright. "I guess you would feel better on deck…" Zuko said to Toph, after a while of listening to her complaining "Feeling the wind in your face kind of helps against feeling seasick, you know…"
"If you say so." Toph decided and got up "Hey, that's a metal-ship…" she then found out. "Uh, yeah?" Zuko answered "So what?" "No one had told me!" Toph complained "I can see something!" "Since when can you see on metal?" Zuko asked irritated. "Oh, sparky… I haven't told you yet…" Toph answered generously. Her seasickness seemed gone all of a sudden "I invented metal-bending… Two of the idiots from Earth-Rumble six captured me as I wandered around in Ba Sing Se, and they put me in a metal-container, so I couldn't escape. But I figured out that metal is just a very tight earth, and that I can bend it. Cool, huh?" "Great." Zuko nodded. "See you later, Sparky…" Toph decided and stormed off. Zuko sighed and let himself drop back into the tower of pillows Katara had built to support him in sitting up. Then he took a map Lu Ten had left on his bedside table and studied it closely. Now he kind of regretted not paying closer attention in his geography-lessons. Remembering something about Firenation would maybe help them find a good hideout.
"Hey, Turtleduck, why do you look so stern?" Lu Ten greeted him soon later, walking into the room. "I don't know where we can hide…" Zuko sighed, letting the map drop from his hands "Azula will find us, no matter where we go." "Hm…" Lu ten sighed, sitting down next to Zuko on the bed, taking the map from Zuko's blanket. "Let's see…" His eyes wandered over the map quickly, jumping from one location to the next. "What about… Ember Island?" he then suggested "We do have a house there…" "Exactly…" Zuko sighed "Don't you think Azula will go there? It's beach-season after all…" "When have you last been there, Zuzu?" Lu Ten asked "I know I haven't been there for ages… Like when the two of you had been tiny kids enjoying burying someone in sand, or building sand-castles with buckets…" "Yeah…" Zuko murmured "Something like that…" "You see. So I doubt Azula will be there this year either. Despite she is still looking for us in Ba Sing Se." "I wouldn't be so sure about that…" Zuko put in "One hardly could have missed us bursting out of a roof on a giant bison… I'm sure she already knows we have left."
"She can't possibly know we have liberated a Firenavy-ship…" Lu Ten put in. "Well, maybe not… But maybe she has figured it out somehow…" Zuko shrugged "Somehow luck seems to be on her side…" "We will see about that…" Lu Ten decided "Besides, we still have some days of travel ahead. We can think about a plan until then… Now, change of topic. Tell me about your girlfriend…" "Katara's not… I mean…" Zuko stammered confused "We just kissed once…" "Well, back in my days that meant having a relationship going on…" Lu Ten shrugged "Let me assure you, it didn't stop me from having several girlfriends at once… I couldn't decide, and as I said… pushing you around in your stroller was really a girl-magnet…" "Did anyone knew about that?" Zuko asked huffing. "Of course not!" Lu Ten grinned "Your mother would never have allowed me to borrow you, if she knew what I was actually doing when I borrowed you from her…"
"Am… am I interrupting?" Katara asked, appearing in the door to his room. "No, no, not at all." Lu Ten hastened to assure her and got up "I was just about to leave…" With that he hastened to the door "Have fun…" he added, shoving Katara inside and closing the door behind him. "Sorry, he's a jerk…" Zuko sighed, feeling himself blush. "Uh, I… actually I just wanted to see how you're doing…" Katara muttered, stepping closer "How do you feel?" "Useless?" Zuko shrugged "And embarrassed by my cousin… But I guess you already figured out that my family is all nuts…" "Uh, I kind of meant your sister and father…" Katara murmured, blushing too "Your uncle and cousin seem quite ok…" "Thanks, I guess…" Zuko sighed. "How is your leg…" she quickly came back to topic "Does it still hurt?" "Not badly… I just wish I could get up and be of some use…" Zuko huffed, watching her as she pulled his blanket aside and rolled up his pants' leg to check the burn. "Are you sure I shouldn't use the spirit-water? This will leave a scar…" she asked again.
"We can still decide on that after the eclipse." Zuko answered "When the war is over and we find no better use for it, we can think about scars again… But until then…" "Yeah, I know… better safe than sorry…" Katara added "You are right, but I don't want to think about any reason we would need it." "Then don't." Zuko answered "Thinking about stuff that hadn't happened yet is not really useful… well, at least not in this case…" Katara simply nodded and cuddled herself into his arms. "I'm afraid something bad will happen…" she whispered "Something we can't repair." Zuko only kissed her, for he had no answer to that. Either way this was going to end was horrible for him. If they would lose, the war would continue, until there were no other nations left. If they would win, the Avatar would have to kill the Firelord, his father. And despite he knew that his father had been the worst father of all history, he still felt sorry and angry about that. Deep inside he wished that somehow something would change so that he had a normal family again, who loved him. And deep inside he knew that it was never going to happen, and when the war was over, he would have to accept the fact.