While Aang and Zuko try to figure out some of the scrolls that they brought from the archives, I spend the next few days trying to figure out the one I've got. From what I can tell, the steps go from firebending, to creating lightning, and finally, to removing the uncontrollable aspect of the lightning, as well as the danger of electrocution, and creating a force of light. Like firebending, but without the scorching heat.
It doesn't seem complicated at all, it's just hard. And the worst part of it is that I don't have anyone to teach me how to do this. The scroll says something about light being the heart of the technique. But the words are so archaic, that it's hard to figure out exactly what it means. I could be a riddle, or a pun, or maybe just a play on words. Frankly, I wouldn't put it past whoever wrote this scroll to have made up pure nonsense about it. But I've got to try.
"More ferocious! Imagine striking through your opponent's heart!" I jump at the sounds of Zuko's voice. And I look over to see him trying to coax Aang into more powerful firebending.
I glance at Aang, who releases the fire in his hands. "I'm trying."
But Zuko is getting impatient. "Now let me hear you roar like a tigerdillo!" Aang looks at him, then tries to roar, only to produce some pretty weak flames. And Zuko doesn't fail to notice that. "That sounded pathetic! I said roar!"
Finally, Aang gives a mighty roar, and huge bursts of flames come out of his fists and mouth. That impresses Zuko enough to get some acknowledgment. Though frankly, I know that I can roar better than both of them, so I really don't think that Zuko should be too hard on Aang for being so behind in his firebending training.
Katara comes out with watermelons in her hands. "Who wants a nice cool glass of watermelon juice?"
Aang abandons the idea of training and starts to run over. "Ooh, ooh! Me, me, me!"
"Hey!" Zuko grabs onto the back of Aang's robes. "Your lesson's not over yet! Get back here!"
"Come on, Zuko. Just take a break. What's the big deal?" Suki sits back, watching the ensuing chaos with Sokka.
Zuko gets mad, but lets go of Aang. "Fine! If you want to lounge around like a bunch of snail sloths all day, then go ahead!"
"Maybe Zuko's right. Sitting around the house has made us pretty lazy. But I know just the thing to change all that. "Sokka gets up, and strips off his clothes. "Beach party!"
And of course, everyone but Zuko is totally fine with going to hang out on the beach. Aang makes a sand sculpture of Appa, Toph makes a model of Ba Sing Se using sandbending. And Sokka makes a very bad sculpture of Suki.
Toph starts laughing hysterically. "Suki, we'll all understand if you break up with him over this."
"I think it's sweet." Suki looks at Sokka so nicely, that I have to wonder if maybe she's the most tolerant person in the entire world.
Aang looks at it carefully. "But it doesn't even look like-Aah!" A fireball comes out of nowhere, and out of instinct, I jump to my feet, swirling fire around me, prepared for a Fire Nation attack.
But instead of a Fire Nation attack, it's Zuko. What the hell is he doing? Is he trying to get Aang killed? This isn't training time, so what the hell does he think he's trying to do? I back down on the fire, but with Zuko chasing Aang, I feel compelled to run after them to figure out what the hell is going on.
But the two of them are running, fast, and they get up onto the roof of the beach house. But they don't stay up there for long, and they take their fight inside the beach house. I roll my eyes with a groan, and wait for them out in the courtyard. Aang blasts Zuko out of the house as the others come running up. And since I'm the only one with any real brains in my head, as soon as everyone is within range, I circle us all with fire.
I'm seething. "Alright, that's enough! Both of you are going to stop fighting and calm down right now! Otherwise I promise, you two are going to wish that you'd never been born. Am I clear?" I look at Aang, who gulps nervously, and pulls back his staff. Then I glare at Zuko, who glares right back, letting out a very strained breath as he gets up.
Katara isn't pleased. "What's wrong with you? You could have hurt Aang!"
"What's wrong with me?" Zuko looks absolutely appalled. "What's wrong with all of you? How can you sit around having beach parties when Sozin's Comet is only three days away?" Then, ne notices the looks he's getting. "Why are you all looking at me like I'm crazy?"
Aang looks a little upset. "About Sozin's Comet…I was actually gonna wait to fight the Fire Lord until after it came."
"After?" And something about the shock in Zuko's voice makes me nervous. It sounds like he knows something that we don't. But now that everything has calmed down, I let my flames die down so that we can all talk properly.
Aang shakes his head. "I'm not ready. I need more time to master firebending."
"And frankly, your earthbending could still use some work too." Aang grimaces at Toph's criticism, but he takes it quietly.
Zuko, on the other hand, looks almost afraid. "So, you all knew Aang was going to wait?"
"Honestly, if Aang tries to fight the Fire Lord right now, he's going to lose." Sokka glances at Aang as he says this. "No offense."
Katara finally speaks up. "The whole point of fighting the Fire Lord before the comet was to stop the Fire Nation from winning the war, but they pretty much won the war when they took Ba Sing Se. Things can't get any worse."
Zuko looks away, very upset. "You're wrong. It's about to get worse than you can even imagine. The day before the eclipse, my father asked me to attend an important war meeting. It was what I dreamed about for so many years. My father had finally accepted me back." And then, he tells us that at Azula's suggestion, his father has decided to use the comet to raze the Earth Kingdom, and burn it all to the ground, the entire continent. "I wanted to speak out against this horrifying plan, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't. My whole life, I struggled to gain my father's love and acceptance, but once I had it, I realized I'd lost myself getting there. I'd forgotten who I was."
Katara sinks to the ground, horrified. "I can't believe this."
"I always knew the Fire Lord was a bad guy, but his plan is just pure evil." Sokka is putting that just a little mildly.
Aang is shocked and horrified. "What am I gonna do?"
Now, Zuko has some sympathy and understanding. But that doesn't change the fact that he has to deliver this hard truth to Aang. "I know you're scared, and I know you're not ready to save the world, but if you don't defeat the Fire Lord before the comet comes, there won't be a world to save anymore."
Aang is distraught to hear all of this. "Why didn't you tell me about your dad's crazy plan sooner?"
"I didn't think I had to. I assumed you were still going to fight him before the comet. No one told me you decided to wait." Zuko does make a good point in defense of himself. We did kind of neglect to tell him that Aang was planning to wait.
Aang sinks to the ground, holding his head. "This is bad. This is really, really bad."
But Katara is determined not to let Aang feel like it's hopeless. "Aang, you don't have to do this alone."
"Yeah, is we all fight the Fire Lord together, we got a shot at taking him down." Toph's optimism, as always, knows no bounds.
Sokka starts celebrating. "All right! Team Avatar is back! Air. Water. Earth. Fire. Fan and sword!" After referring to each of us, he holds up a leaf, pretending it's a sword.
Aang finally seems reassure. "Fighting the Fire Lord is going to be the hardest thing we've ever done together, but I wouldn't want to do it any other way."
I grin at Aang as everyone starts gathering for a group hug. "To be fair, we've gotten out of plenty of tough situations alive. What's one more? At least we'll have some kickass stories to tell everyone when this is all over!"
That gets a little laughter from around the circle, but Katara notices that we have one person missing. "Get over here, Zuko. Being part of the group also means being part of group hugs."
I make room for Zuko right next to me in the circle, and though he looks a little weird about joining a group hug, he walks over and joins the circle. I smirk at him playfully. "Welcome to your initiation, your first group hug." That gets me an eye roll from him, and we all break out laughing. It's good that we can still laugh. And we should laugh while we have the chance, because as soon as this circle breaks up, it's going to be right back to training. That is, after Appa flattens our group hug, and Aang coaxes him off of us.
Later in the day, we all get together at Sokka's request. And he gets up in front of us to propose his idea. "Gather round, Team Avatar. In order to take out the Fire Lord, or in this case, the Melon Lord, our timing has to be perfect." He gets down and draws the plan. "First, Suki and I will draw his fire. Then Katara and Zuko charge in with some liquidy hot offense, and while the Melon Lord is distracted, Aang swoops in…and bam! He delivers the final blow."
Toph points to herself. "Uh…what about me?"
Sokka glances at the two of us. "For now, you and Ciara can play the Melon Lord and his forces."
Toph gets excited. "So we get to chuck flaming rocks at all of you?"
"Whatever makes the training feel more realistic."
Toph likes that. "Sweetness."
I grin, feeling a little overexcited. "This is going to be so much fun."
So the two of us set up at the top of the hill with some oil covered boulders. And Toph breaks out a terrifyingly stupid laugh. "Mwah-ha-ha-ha!"
We launch flaming projectiles down the hill, some with rock, some without, trying to stop Sokka, Suki, Katara, Zuko and Aang, from getting up the hillside to us. I raise up walls of fire, and Toph makes soldiers out of rock. And our antics get so dangerous that Sokka starts yelling after Tioph nearly flattens him with a flaming boulder. "Watch it, Toph!"
But she's enjoying this way too much. "I am not Toph, I am Melon Lord!" And she starts doing that weird laughing again.
But at the end of the game, Aang has a perfect shot to take out the Melon Lord, and he stops. He pulls back his attack and backs away, much to Zuko's confusion. "What are you waiting for? Take him out!"
But Aang looks pained, and he shakes his head. "I can't."
Sokka walks up, now that we've stopped hurling flaming rocks everywhere. "What's wrong with you? If this was the real deal, you'd be shot full of lightning right now."
""I'm sorry, but it just didn't feel right. I didn't feel like myself." And I have a sneaking suspicion that I know where Aang is coming from. He's a monk, and from what I've heard of monks, they aren't fond of violence. And judging by what I know of Aang, and what I've learned about him in the last year, he's not fond of violence either.
But Sokka just takes out his sword and slices through Melon Lord's head. "There, that's how it's done."
I sigh, and shake my head. "That's enough simulation for today. Let's get back to the beach house. I've got a date with an ancient scroll."
A few hours later, after I've had ample time to get absolutely nowhere with learning what this scroll is trying to teach me, I join the others for some dinner. But Katara is determined to try and lighten the mood. "I have a surprise for everyone!"
"I knew it! You did have that secret thing with Haru!" Toph's guess weirds out the rest of us, especially seeing as I highly doubt that she would be this excited if she was carrying around some evidence from having a secret thing with Haru. That, and I think Aang would get really mad.
"Uh, no. I was looking for cooking pots in the attic, and I found this!" she unravels a scroll to reveal a picture of a dark-haired little baby. "Look at baby Zuko. Isn't he cute?" That gets a scowl from Zuko, and Katara laughs. "Oh, lighten up, I'm just teasing."
Everyone laughs, but Zuko takes one look and looks away. "That's not me. It's my father." And that darkens the mood immediately.
Suki takes another look at the picture. "But he looks so sweet and innocent."
"Well, that sweet little kid grew up to be a monster, and the worst father in the history of fathers." Zuko spits out the words like the venom of a cobra, not that I blame him. He must have had a pretty rough childhood.
Aang fiddles a little, still not making a lot of eye contact. "But he's still a human being."
"You're going to defend him?" Zuko isn't the only one appalled at Aang's apparent forgiveness of that man's existence.
But Aang rises to defend himself. "No, I agree with you. Fire Lord Ozai is a horrible person, and the world would probably be better off without him, but there's got to be another way."
I glance at Aang. "Well, he gets most of his power from the fact that he's a firebender. So if you take that away, then he's not a threat anymore. The only problem is that I can't think of a single way to take someone's bending away, apart from killing them. Even those metal spikes in my back didn't stop me from firebending, even though they were supposed to encourage me not to. You need a foolproof method. And I can't think of any that are both effective and humane…"
Aang perks up a little. "Oh, hey! Maybe we can make some big pots of glue, and then I can use gluebending to stick his arms and legs together so he can't bend anymore."
Zuko rolls his eyes. "Yeah, then you can show him his baby pictures, and all those happy memories will make him good again."
Aang gets excited, the poor boy. "Do you really think that would work?"
"No!"
Aang loses his excitement from earlier, and gets up, pacing worriedly. "This goes against everything I learned from the monks. I can't just go around wiping out people I don't like."
"Sure you can, you're the Avatar. If it's in the name of keeping balance, I'm pretty sure the universe will forgive you." Sokka's lack of tact is as strong as ever. Even I wince at his callousness.
And Aang loses his temper. "This isn't a joke, Sokka! None of you understand the position I'm in!"
Katara tries to calm him down. "Aang, we do understand. It's just…"
"Just what, Katara? What?" It's been a long time since he last blew up like this. And frankly, the angry look really doesn't suit him.
"We're trying to help!"
"Then, when you figure out a way for me to beat the Fire Lord without taking his life, I'd love to hear it!" He storms off, taking his anger somewhere else.
Katara moves to follow him. "Aang, don't walk away like this."
Zuko stops Katara, holding her back from following Aang. "Let him go. He needs time to sort it out by himself."
With that, the rest of us head to bed. It's going to be a long couple of days, full of stress and frayed nerves. And we're going to need all of the strength we can get. And that means an ample amount of rest. Because I remember what happened before the invasion, and I'm determined not to end up as crazy as Aang was.
In the morning, we're ready to get going again. And Sokka is in charge of packing. "Okay, that's everything."
But Toph shakes her head. "No, it's not. Where's Aang?" And what she points out has us all alarmed, and fast.
We run through the beach house, all of us splitting up to look for Aang. I open up door after door. "Aang? Where are you? Aang! It's time to go!" But I can't find him anywhere. It's so weird, it's like he just up and vanished.
I meet up with everyone else back in the porch. "I couldn't find him, it's like he's-" Then I notice the staff in Sokka's hands. "He's gone…? And without his glider? What's going on?"
Zuko frowns. "Aang's not in the house. Let's check the beach."
So we all head down to the beach to search for Aang. And Sokka finds the trail. "Look, there's his footprints." We follow them out to the water. "The trail ends here."
"So, he went for a midnight swim and never came back?" Somehow, I'd like to avoid shooting down Suki's theory, but I highly doubt that Aang would go for a midnight swim, and just leave. There has to be something else going on here.
Katara is getting worried. "Maybe he was captured."
Sokka looks back down at the footprints, then shakes his head. "I don't think so. There's no sign of a struggle."
"I bet he ran away again." I elbow Toph for her comment. "Hey, Aang's not going to just run away, not from something this important."
"Ciara's right. He left behind his glider and Appa." Sokka stands back up, and brushes the mud off his clothes.
But Toph is still skeptical. "Then what do you think happened to him, oh sleuth one?"
Sokka holds up his finger, like he does whenever he's about to tell us one of his wild theories. "It's pretty obvious. Aang mysteriously disappears before an important battle? He's definitely on a Spirit world journey."
Zuko pokes a hole in the theory immediately. "But if he was, wouldn't his body still be here?"
"Oh, yeah…" Sokka loses all his steam. "Forgot about that."
"Then he's got to be somewhere on Ember Island. Let's split up and look for him" Katara proposal is sound, and I also think it would be a good idea to split up and search.
Toph immediately latches on to Zuko. "I'm going with Zuko!" But when we stare at her, everyone going quiet, she gets defensive. "What? Everyone else went on a life-changing fieldtrip with Zuko. Now it's my turn."
I shrug, then look back out at the water. "Actually…there's something else bugging me. You guys can go ahead and search, but I'm going to stay here and look around a bit. I think that Sokka's idea about a Spirit World journey has merit. And if that's true, then Aang might have hidden himself before going off to the Spirit World. If that's the case, then there's a chance that he's still here somewhere. Remember, he's got airbending and waterbending. If he wanted to seemingly disappear into the ocean, he could probably do it. I'm a pretty good tracker, so I might be able to find something."
Sokka nods. "Then we'll leave the beach to you." And the rest of them run off to look through the rest of the island for Aang.
I walk up and down the beach, looking for any trace of footprints, or something that the ocean might not have washed away. I really do think that Aang is off on a Spirit World journey. Considering how anxious and uncertain he's been, I can only think that he's gone looking for help in his past lives, like what he did last time with Avatar Roku.
I spend hours looking for Aang, and I find nothing. Well, almost nothing. After wading a ways into the water, and swimming out. I go diving, wondering if maybe Aang made a bubble of air down at the bottom of the ocean. And I see something very interesting. It looks like a footprint, though only a faint impression, caused by the shifting of the sand on the ocean floor. But it's enormous. I've never seen any animal big enough to make a footprint that size. It would have to be the size of an island. I go back up to the surface, and I look out towards the horizon. Whatever made that footprint is long gone. And Aang might have gone with it.
As I wring out my swimming clothes and change back into my dry clothes, I see Appa heading in my direction, and everyone is in the saddle, and obviously ready to leave. "What's going on? Did Aang come back and I missed it?"
Zuko lands Appa right next to me. "No, but we're going to find someone who can find him. Get on."
This new initiative surprises me, but I run around behind Aappa, climb up his tail and hop into the saddle. "Alright, following Zuko's lead this time, interesting choice. Just don't fly us into any loops, and I'm good."
Zuko scoffs and I can almost see him roll his eyes through the back of his head. "Just hold on, we've got a long way to go."
Soon, we're up in the air again, and Sokka starts noticing what direction we're flying in. "Zuko, I don't wanna tell you how to do your job, but why are we heading towards the Earth Kingdom? There's no way Aang's there."
"Just trust me." And he angles us towards the northern tip of the Earth Kingdom. Obviously, he's got a plan in mind. And considering how badly he wants to find Aang, it's probably going to be a good one.
We touch down hours later in the Earth Kingdom, and Zuko leads us into a town. Katara, for one, is a little put off by our location. "And the reason you've brought us to a seedy Earth Kingdom tavern is what now?"
"June." He points over to a table, and I see that bounty hunter that he used to track us to that abbey when we met up with Bato.
"Oh yea, that weird bounty hunter with the giant mole." Sokka sounds pleased to see this woman again.
"Mole? Her skin is flawless." And Suki obviously has absolutely no idea what we're talking about.
Zuko offers an explanation. "The shirshu. It's the only animal that can track Aand's scent anywhere in the world. It's the one shot we have of finding him."
June causes a ruckus at the table when she flips a guy over, which makes Toph grin. "I don't know who this June lady is, but I like her."
I roll my eyes. "Of course you do, Toph…of course you do…"
