"Where'd all the salt go?!"

"You already used it all Sokka."

This made the brown haired boy spin towards his younger sister, "Whuzzat? When?"

At this question, Suki looked up from the meat on the spit, "To preserve the Saber-Toothed Moose Lion that Zuko took down for you."

"Hey! He didn't take it down for me! He helped me take it down!"

"So says the guy who was holding onto the things antlers, screaming like a girl," the blind speaker smirked without facing Sokka, accepting a massive thigh of meat from Suki.

Defeated, the warrior 'harrumphed' and crossed his arms, one of the now cooked thighs of the very Saber-Toothed Moose Lion they were speaking of sticking out of his crossed arms comically.

The entire Anti-Sozin/Ozai-Freedom-Squad (As Sokka, The Duke, and Teo had collectively named them in a moment of boredom) was gathered around the campfire, large hunks of meat roasting over the open flame. Dinner was an usually quiet affair tonight, the food was already cooked and being passed out, and Sokka's outburst had been the only interruption of the quiet.

It was only a couple minutes later, when the rest of the cooked meat had been handed out, that Sokka dug into his meat with a scowl.

And moments later, his head popped up, and he tried to speak, mouth still full with half chewed meat, "Ifth nah rah-"

Thankfully, his girlfriend's hand reached out and clamped his jaw shut.

"Chew."

He did.

"Swallow."

He did that too.

"Talk."

"Like I was saying, it's not right! Good meat without salt!" the admonished warrior continued unabated, waving his thigh around for dramatic effect.

Zuko swallowed, a smirk forming on his lips before he spoke, "And second prize in the trained poodle-monkey show goes Suki of Kyoshi Island and her trained Sokka," with that he took another bite of his Saber-Toothed Moose Lion on a stick.

Sokka did not like this, "Hey!"

"Yeah," and apparently, neither did Suki, "Why not first place?"

The former prince of the Fire Nation mused a moment as he finished chewing and swallowed, "I'm not sure if he's house trained." (1)

This amused everyone but Sokka in some way, from Suki, who covered her grin with a hand, to Toph, who almost fell off her seat laughing.

When the laughter died down, meaning when Toph climbed back into her seat, Sokka tried to speak again, "Ha Ha... But anyways! Isn't this like, the fourth thing we've ran out of?"

At this, Aang stopped and thought, "Now that you mention it... we are running low on good fruits and vegetables... no one's found any around the temple..."

"Ooh! You know what this calls for?!" everyone groaned, knowing what was coming from the brown haired and skinned boy, "SHOPPING!!" He squealed, clapping his hands eagerly.

Katara groaned particularly loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes, as she spoke, "So who's going with him this time?"

"What?! I can go get everything myself!"

This earned a resounding, "NO."

"Wha-?"

His sister almost snarled at him, "Remember what happened last time you went shopping alone?!"

Sokka wilted at the question, "Yes...?"

She continued, not letting up, "And what did we all agree on?"

The warrior's face fell, and he looked down in shame, "That I will never go shopping alone again."

"Exactly. Now, who's going to go with him?"

Teo held up a hand, the other still holding his meat, "I can't obviously," while the 'Thankfully' at the end of the sentence went unsaid, though not unheard, making Sokka grumble to himself under his breath, and surprisingly, making Zuko think.

At this, The Duke piped up, "I wouldn't be any use," Sokka should've seen this coming, now they were going to go around the circle with everyone giving the various reason's why they didn't want to or couldn't go with him till they decided who had the worst reasons, and those two would get stuck 'babysitting' him as he went shopping, for the good of the group too! Zuko's sudden pensiveness remained unnoticed by all those gathered.

But, when Hadoka opened his mouth to speak, something surprising happened.

Zuko cut him off.

Now this in of itself is not surprising. No, it was what Zuko cut Haru off with that was suprising.

"The Avatar and I should go."

Everyone assembled stared at the former prince like he had grown a second head; Sokka in particular couldn't believe what he was hearing. He hopped up, waving his arms around spastically, "Are you crazy?! You two are the most recognizable ones here! And if Aang gets captured... it's game over man!"

At this, Katara decided to throw in her silver piece, "Sokka's right, it's far too dangerous."

The banished prince held up his hands to stave off any further questioning of his sanity, "Just hear me out. The avatar needs practice in a hotter environment than this one, and the way to the nearest town is quite warm-"

Katara snorted and rolled her eyes at this, "Last I checked that doesn't change the fact that you two are going to be seen by the whole town."

Zuko grit his teeth, "I was getting to that. Look, we can wear disguises, and we're only going to actually be in the town for an hour or two."

The blue-eyed master waterbender scowled, "And if you are seen? The Fire Nation will find out where we are."

With a scowl, Zuko retorted, "They already do! The bounty hunter I had hired to go after you guys found us, and we didn't even show our faces in town!"

Katara recoiled as if struck for just a moment before diving right back in, "He followed us everywhere! Wasn't he supposed to be the best in the business? So what makes you think the rest of the Fire Nation knows where we are? Why should we take the chance?"

"I know that at least my sister knows we're here! If he could find us then she certainly can the exact same way!"

"Well, Aang and you have huge bounties on your heads! What if someone does recognize one of you and tries to collect that bounty?!"

Zuko snorted, "The avatar, a master swordsman and the prince of the fire nation. If we can't handle a bounty hunter or two... what chance do we stand of defeating my father?"

Her mouth opened, then closed, she didn't really have a good retort for that one, "I still don't like it."

"It sounds like a good idea to me," Toph stretched, a belch escaping her before she scratched her stomach with one end and tossing the now clean bone behind her with the other, "Between Twinkletoes' reluctance to actually buy something and Hotpants usually level head they should be able to keep Snoozles in line."

Aang rubbed the back of his head, he didn't really want to go against Katara's wishes, but Zuko's logic was sound... "Well, if Sifu Hotman thinks it'll help..."

After the usual glare following his nicknames, Zuko turned back to the group, "Alright then, if that's settled, we need to get a list of things we need to get-"

"You mean a shopping list?"

"Yes Avatar, a shopping list."

"Why are you two coming again?! I mean seriously! Having fire shoot past me was bad the first time. It's even worse the sixteenth time!"

This garnered a sigh, "I've already told you six times."

The water-tribe member of the group pointed an accusing finger at the offending speaker, "Hey! It's not my fault that your 'magic' is so hard to understand!"

"Aw, c'mon Sokka! It's not that hard to understand."

The dark-skinned adolescent fumed, his reply almost childish, "Yes it is!"

Zuko sighed again, "The point of this training is for the avatar to learn how to channel the heat of the environment through his bending and so that he can acclimate himself to higher temperatures. He's learning how to use his environment to his advantage, just with bending, not swords."

It took several moments more of walking for this to fully sink into Sokka's brain, "... oh... Why didn't you just put it that way in the first place?!"

"I did."

"... Oh... right..."

The three of them continued walking for several minutes in relative comfort, with Aang trying repeatedly to get a bigger ball of flame without using greater energy with 'Sifu Hotman', then Sokka spoke up again, much more subdued this time, "I still don't like the fact that the two of you are coming with me into town. Are you sure that there's no way you two are going to be recognized?"

"That's why we've got these!" the airbending monk pointed out gleefully, holding up a pair of large hats that would put Zuko and his' faces in shadow once they put them on.

After the obligatory eye roll, this garnered further protest from the warrior, "There's still a good chance you two could be spotted."

Zuko almost snorted, his voice coming out louder than he intended, "We're just getting some supplies," he forcefully softened his tone before continuing, "We'll be in and out in an hour, two at most."

At Sokka's unconvinced look, Zuko turned and glared at him, "Last I checked, you aren't allowed to go shopping alone."

The water-tribe boy wilted, then pulled himself back up for another try before they got too far away from the temple, "But why do you two have to come?"

Unfortunately for him, Aang spoke up, raising a finger in the air even as he put the hats into the pack on his back, "Because too large of a group would attract attention, so we limit the shopping crew to three people. And this is the perfect opportunity for me to train in a hotter environment!"

"Rote memorization, nice."

"Thank you."

With that, Sokka sighed in defeat, now he had to endure the two day trip to the town with flaming balls of fire flying past his head. And with that, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and grumbled to himself, "Stupid jerkbending."

Aang collapsed, his back making a solid 'thud' as it hit the packed dirt, "Ooooooh..." at the sound that came from his mouth he winced, that groan was usually only reserved for Toph's earthbending training, this was the first time that Sifu Hotman had pushed him that hard.

"The campfire could've been better, but it'll do," this elicited another groan from the prone avatar.

With that Zuko pulled the beginnings of dinner from his pack, seeing as he was the only one of the three of them that could cook at all; a remnant of the time that he and Iroh were refugees.

"You brought the meat right?"

"Yes Sokka, I brought the meat."

"Good, no meal is complete without meat!"

Zuko sighed and rolled his eyes, sometimes it was hard to believe that the water-tribe boy was almost as old as himself... Oh who was he kidding?! It was almost always hard to believe that!

He took the several minutes to set up Sokka's hunk of meat on a stick and Aang's shishcabob of various veggies over the fire, then sat down beside his still prone student, "This is why you have to do this, we've only been doing some light exercises and you're still completely worn out. I know that you've been working on your stamina with Ms. Bei Fong-"

Aang immediately raised an arm and corrected his Sifu tiredly, "She doesn't like being called that... It's Toph, just Toph... or Toph, the Greatest Earthbender... but not that... she hates that..." he trailed off.

Zuko considered addressing the issue, but decided to let it be, "My point is, you definitely need to work on your ability to tolerate heat and work in it. So rest up, we're going to do even more work tomorrow."

"Oooooooooooh..."

A.N.): Okay, several things to talk about here. First, I'm sorry about the delay on The Wounded Hero, my 360 died on me when I was going to start working on the fanfic again, I only recently got it back and I'm going to update as soon as I can. Two, this thing has been bugging me to be written for a while, I finally got it on the computer and written, and I'll probably alternate updating between the two stories.

For those of you who are new to my stories: HI! This is my first foray into Avatar fanfiction. Don't pull your punches! Tell me what you honestly think.

(1): Full credit of this joke goes to marvel26. I love the joke, and I couldn't resist plugging it into the story when I had the chance. I just want to spread the laughs. XD