Each of us were given something to do in the plan. Sokka was going to play spooky flute music, Appa was going to growl menacingly whilst Toph made a heavy thudding noise to create a scary ambience whilst I created the fog for Katara to hide in before I pushed it towards the village out over the lake, moving my arms and hands as I pulled at the water molecules and focused on the vapours just as she'd taught me, the condensed mist thick and eerie. The rest was left to Aang and Katara, who took out all the Fire Nation soldiers and scared them off by the time Sokka, Toph and I got there, the entire village applauding Katara as she stood before them dressed as their Painted Lady.
"Me and my brothers really owe you a lot." Dock was saying as the village shouted out their thanks, but as Dock suddenly squinted and looked at Katara's face, he recognised her and with some of her makeup being smudged, it was hard not to realise that she wasn't actually a spirit. "Hey, wait a minute! I know you! You're not the Painted Lady, you're that colonial girl!"
"Yeah, you're the lady that gave me a fish."
"You've been tricking us. You're a water bender!"
"She's a water bender! How dare you act like our Painted Lady?" Uh oh, this is bad. As the village started to grow indignantly angry and move towards Katara, the rest of us quickly moved to stand beside her, Sokka standing out in front as I angled myself to protect Katara so that she wouldn't get hurt.
"Maybe she is a water bender, but she was just trying to help you. Because of her, that factory won't be polluting your river, and the army is gone. You should be down on your knees thanking her!" Sokka intervened, speaking up for his sister but Katara shook her head as she stepped forward, touching his shoulder lightly.
"Sokka, it's okay." Turning to the villagers, she addressed them loudly so that they could all here. "I shouldn't have acted like someone I wasn't, and I shouldn't have tricked you, but I felt like I had to do something. It doesn't matter if the Painted Lady is real or not, because your problems are real, and this river is real. You can't wait around for someone to help you. You have to help yourself."
"She's right, but what should we do?" Dock questioned, scratching his head as Toph popped up within the crowd, calling out with a deeper voice that maybe they should clean up the river. "Yeah, we can clean the river!" The village cheered in approval and I relaxed, glad that things had resolved themselves. "Thank you. You know, you're not so bad for a water bender."
"You wouldn't mind keeping that a secret, by the way, would you?"
"No problem. Keeping my mouth shut is a personal specialty. My brother Xu, on the other hand, hoo! He's a blabbermouth." Well, I guess nobody is going to understand half of what comes out of Dock's, Xu's and now apparently Bushi's mouth considering he was absolutely nuts. We stayed with the river village to help them clean, Katara, Aang and I using our water bending to get the majority of the work done though it had caused more confusion to see more water benders.
"Oh, I may be a water bender but I was born in the Fire Nation." I assured them, giving them a smile and telling them all about the places I'd visited which seemed to satisfy them. Since we were helping them clean the river, they didn't really care either way. The water looked so much better once it was clear, crystalline and perfect, so when we flew away several days later, exhausted from so much work and smelling of fish, at the very least we were satisfied with our achievement, and that was something.
Having travelled a fair distance, we all rested for a night only to find that there was a meteor shower, which we all turned over to watch with admiration and wonder at the spectacular display, hundreds of lights dancing across the sky. "Wow, this is amazing to watch." Katara marvelled as we all lay side by side on our backs looking upwards.
"Kind of makes you realize how insignificant we are."
"Eh, you've seen nothing once, you've seen it a thousand times." Toph shrugged, not caring less so with a chuckle I started to describe to her what was happening to the best of my ability so that she could imagine it. Just as I was finishing explaining, we all noticed a rather large looking light beginning to streak towards us until the meteorite burst with blue flames, shooting down from the sky. Wasn't that thing looking like it was getting a little too close?
"Oh, man. You've never not seen anything like this." Sitting upright, my arms naturally lifted to grab Momo and hold him before he could fly off, covering his head as the meteorite flew over our heads and crashed with a fiery explosion that was so huge that even we could feel the vibrations from all the way over here.
"Guess you can see it now, huh Toph." I said to her before we all quickly climbed on board Appa, wanting to check out the meteorite and see what the damage was since we could already see a fire breaking out. The meteorite was a large chunk of rock but it had landed with such force that it had completely dug out the ground underneath where it landed and the fire was beginning to spread, quickly growing out of control.
"The fire is gonna destroy that town!"
"Not if we can stop it." Aang said confidently as he, Sokka and Toph all slid down whilst I stayed on Appa's back with Katara as she took the reins.
"There's a creek over here. Kayo and I'll bend the water on to the fire." Between the two of us, we were able to bend two huge orbs of water out of the creek and above our heads as Appa flew back to the raging fires, allowing us to pour and spray our collected water onto the flames to put out a great deal of the fire. Leaping down off Appa I started to make waves with the water, sloshing it back and forth as I moved forwards to put out more of the fire whilst Toph crushed the flames with a slab of earth she flipped over and over.
"Sokka, stand clear." Aang called in warning, having taken the rest of Katara's water and started to bend it from Appa's back.
"Right, stand clear. Got it." Poor Sokka, I guess it must kind of suck not being able to do much in these kind of situations. Aang rather masterfully shot the water towards the fire then froze it into a huge burst of snow which covered Sokka before he could move out the way in time. Everything very quickly became white and a little nippy, the fire being doused and no longer a threat to anyone.
"Good work, everybody." Aang praised as we all gathered together until Katara asked where her brother was and we all looked around only to find a very unimpressed Sokka emerging from the snow mound. "Oh, sorry about that Sokka." He spat out a mouthful of snow.
