Chapter 9: The Fight

Hey guys! It looks like maybe that new story has gotten me out of my writer's block, because I've got the next chapter of Rock On for ya! It's not as good as I'd like it to be, but hopefully it's not too bad. I'm still warming my writing skills back up and it might take me a while. Anyway, sorry it took so long for me to update this, but I hope you guys like it and I'm praying that you all are doing well. Stay safe everyone!

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Aang couldn't help but smile as he and Katara took a walk through their neighborhood. The band had decided to take a break from their practice, and Katara had gotten the idea to take a nice stroll together. It turned out to be a great idea, as it was a beautiful day and a walk was just what Aang needed to clear his head for a little bit.

It also certainly helped that he and Katara were getting to spend some alone time together. Ever since they had gone on their date, they had only grown closer to each other, which made them both quite happy. Even if it meant that they would be teased more by their friends. Unfortunately, they did get teased quite a bit, but they were alright with it. They just were happy being together.

Though Aang had to admit, he was often rather surprised that a girl as beautiful and kind as Katara actually wanted to be with him. Not that he had a lot of doubts about himself, but it almost seemed too good to be true at times. But, regardless of what it felt like, he was grateful that she did want to be with him. He wouldn't be nearly as happy as he was now if she hadn't taken the chance she had at the park.

"Aang?"

Snapping out of his thoughts, he looked over to his right and saw Katara with a curious look on her face, her hand in his as they continued walking. "Yeah?" he finally managed to reply.

"You seemed a little out of it," she informed him with a slightly worried look, making him touched that she was concerned for him even though he was completely fine. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, everything's fine," he promised as he squeezed her hand gently. "I was just thinking about… things…"

"What kind of things?" Katara's interest clearly grew as she tilted her head. Aang knew that she had a natural curiosity about her, just as he did, but sometimes he wished she didn't so he wouldn't have to tell her how often he thought about her. Not that it was a bad thing, of course, but he didn't want to seem too obsessed or anything. The last thing he wanted was to drive her away from him.

Despite wanting to be honest with her, he decided to just leave out the parts of his thoughts that had been focused on her and opted to say. "I was just thinking about the band. We've actually been playing really well lately, and I think we might have a real shot for that competition Sokka said we should do."

Katara smiled as she heard this. "Yeah, we might actually win it. No matter what, we have to keep practicing though. Just because we sound good doesn't mean that other bands won't sound better," she reminded him.

"Yeah, I know," he chuckled as they took a turn and started making their way back to the house. "But I really think we can do this. We just have to remember that we're a team, and we can get through this if we stick together."

Just as he finished his sentence, they walked up to the garage door and heard what sounded like shouting from the inside. Sharing a look of confusion, Katara slowly opened the door and the two peeked in, seeing that their bandmates were indeed in a rather serious argument.

"Dude, you need to stop trying to upstage me," Toph yelled at Sokka as he set his guitar down and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Why should I?" he challenged with a smirk. "Everyone knows that the guitar players are more famous than the drummers in the bands that made it. Why can't I have a little fun with it?"

"Oh, please," Toph scoffed as she set her drumsticks down and crossed her arms in clear defiance. "No one's going to pay any attention to you once they hear my drumming!"

"Will you two stop it?!" Zuko grumbled as he took a step forward towards the two. "Who cares who gets to be more famous? Why can't you two just be normal?"

Toph rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Says the guy that tried to get his girlfriend into the band so he could get some extra brownie her." At this, Zuko frowned and was about to say something else when Aang decided that he had seen enough.

"Okay, that's enough!" he shouted as he walked in with Katara right behind him. "What is going on with you guys? Why are you fighting about these stupid things?"

"Why don't you ask Snoozles?" Toph asked as she jabbed a finger into Sokka's gut, making him wince as he did his best not to show how much it hurt. "He's the one who started all of this?"

"I started all of this?" Sokka nearly shrieked out in surprise. "You're the one who keeps talking about how badly you want 'The Love'. Why do you want it so bad, Toph? Why do you care about what people think?"

"Guys, seriously," Aang felt himself fearing where this might go if he didn't step in. "Let's just take a minute to calm down and-"

Toph wasn't going to have his peaceful resolution this time, however, as she interrupted him. "Stay out of this, Twinkletoes! This is between us!"

"Do I need to remind you that we're a band, Toph?" Katara spoke up as she took her spot at Aang's side. "We're in this together, so whatever problems we're having, we have to get through it together."

"Well, then maybe we just shouldn't be a band," Zuko suggested, making Aang and Katara's eyes widen. Sure, they knew that he wasn't exactly the most calm person ever, but he was usually more level-headed than the other two that were arguing. "If we're only going to fight, what's the point? Let's just end it now before things get worse."

"Zuko's right!" Toph agreed as she stood up. "This band is done!"

"Couldn't agree more," Sokka muttered as he stormed his way back into the house while the other two exited the building, making Aang and Katara share a look of disbelief. What on earth had just happened? Months ago, they had sworn to each other that this would never happen, and they were splitting up?

Katara appeared to be thinking along the same lines, as she looked just as confused and disappointed as he did. "What just happened?" she finally asked after a few moments of silence.

"I don't know," Aang admitted as he looked around at the now quiet room, feeling a sudden sense of courage as his eyes narrowed in determination. "But we can't let this be how our band ends. We've come too far to give up now. Come on, let's go talk some sense into them."

"You're right," Katara nodded her agreement as she took his hand and started leading him into the house. "Come on. We'll start with Sokka. He'll probably be the easiest to convince."

After quickly making their way up the stairs, they walked down the hallway until they reached Sokka's room and knocked on the door, being met with no response. Knocking again, silence was once again their only answer. Becoming frustrated, Katara decided that her brother was being a big baby and opened his door anyway, seeing that Sokka appeared to be mindlessly strumming his backup guitar on his bed.

Looking up as he saw them come in, he frowned and rolled his eyes. "Stop barging into my room when I don't answer the door," he muttered crossly as he strummed a few more chords, making Katara roll her eyes as she put her hands on her hips.

"Then stop acting like a big baby and answer the door," she shot back at him, getting no response from him as he continued playing his guitar.

Seeing that maybe she wasn't the best person to talk to her brother about this, Aang stepped forward and said. "Sokka, don't you think it's a bad idea to break up the band? We've come so far. We can't stop now."

"Why not?" Sokka asked seriously as he looked up from his guitar at his friend. "You're cool, Aang. And Katara's…" he trailed off and looked at his sister with a clear lack of joy. "Katara." Katara stuck her tongue out at him, but he ultimately decided to ignore it. "But Toph, Zuko, and I all have different ideas of what the band should be like. Maybe we just weren't meant to be a band."

"Sokka, that's ridiculous!" Katara felt the need to speak up as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Everyone has different ideas about how they want their band to be, but that doesn't mean that one person gets their way. The whole point of being in a band is being in a team, where we share ideas and work together to play music and have fun," she reminded him, making him frown as he thought about it.

"She's right, Sokka," Aang agreed. "The whole reason we started the band in the first place was because we wanted to have fun making good music. And that's what we did. I don't know what happened to make you guys fight like that, but that's not who we are. We're friends."

"No we're not," Sokka disagreed, making Aang and Katara's smiles melt as they heard him. After a few moments, he sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "We're a family. And family sticks together no matter what."

The couple smiled again as they heard this. "So," Aang began hopefully as he looked down at his friend. "I take it that means you want the band to stay together?" After a few more moments of silence, Sokka nodded, making their smiles grow even more. "Good. Thanks, Sokka."

"No problem. It was nothing," he answered with a grin, making Katara roll her eyes again. "Though I wouldn't thank me yet. You still have to convince Toph and Zuko that we need to stay as a band."

"Leave that to us," Katara assured him before turning to Aang. "I'll take Toph and you take Zuko?" Aang nodded his agreement. "Okay, sounds like we have a plan. I'll call you when I've talked Toph into it." Giving him a quick kiss, she gave him a hug and walked out of the room, making Sokka groan in disgust as he covered his eyes. Aang would have laughed if he wasn't a little dazed from her kiss, but after pulling himself together, he felt his determination get renewed and started making his way to Zuko's house, knowing that he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

"No," Zuko said simply as he laid back onto the couch with Mai at his side, making Aang sigh in annoyance.

"Come on, Zuko! We're a band!" Aang argued with his hands waving wildly in the air. "I already got Sokka to agree to stay. Why won't you?"

"Because I'm tired of seeing Toph and Sokka argue about who's going to get more attention when we play," Zuko answered him honestly. "You probably haven't noticed since you've been spending so much time with your girlfriend lately, but they do it all the time. I don't want to deal with that anymore."

Aang's face fell as he heard this, but his face brightened as an idea came to mind. "Okay. What if I can promise you that they won't fight anymore?" Zuko gave him a look of pure doubt, and Aang couldn't say he blamed him. "Okay, what about if they don't fight in front of you anymore? We can figure out something so that they work out their problems somewhere else."

To his surprise, Zuko actually seemed to be considering it for a few moments, and after a short time of musing on the idea, he finally responded. "Alright. If you can promise me that they won't argue in front of me, then I'll come back."

A sigh of relief escaped the young guitar player's lips as he heard these words, being relieved that he had actually managed to convince him. "You've got a deal. They won't fight in front of you anymore," he promised, making Zuko nod in satisfaction. With that taken care of, he couldn't help but wonder how things were going for Katara with trying to convince Toph.

Katara was not having any luck trying to convince Toph to rejoin the band. She had always known Toph was as stubborn as stone, but it was more clear than ever why that saying had been made. "Why not Toph?" she asked in exasperation, clearly not being very happy that her efforts thus far had been unsuccessful.

"Why should I, Sugar Queen?" Toph asked as she kicked her feet up on the table in the living room of her family's lush living room. Katara wasn't quite used to wealth, but despite how beautiful everything looked, she felt rather grateful that she wasn't rich. Everything seemed just a little too lush. She much preferred the comforts of her own home. "Dunderhead clearly doesn't respect me. Why should I be in a band with him?"

"He does respect you, he just… isn't great at showing it," Katara admitted, making Toph snort in agreement. "But I know that if we talk to them, we can work something out."

"Pfft. Please. The only way we could work something out was if we had a boxing match everytime we fought," Toph snickered, making a lightbulb turn on in Katara's head.

"What if we did that?" she asked seriously, earning a look of confusion from Toph as she tilted her head at her friend.

"What are you talking about, Sugar Queen?"

"What if you guys had a little fight every time you wanted to settle something? I'm not talking about actually boxing," she felt the need to say, making Toph's smile diminish a bit. "But you both are stubborn and have your own ideas. You guys could settle your differences in a different way than yelling at each other."

Toph had to admit, she was quite interested in this idea, as she had wanted to fight Sokka for a long time. Thinking about it for a few moments, she finally nodded her agreement. "Alright. I'll come back if I can fight Sokka when we're arguing about something."

"Alright, but we have to have some ground rules for this," Katara added, even if she knew that she wouldn't hate seeing Sokka get his butt whooped. "No broken bones, no black eyes, and nothing below the belt. If either of you do any of these things, the other one automatically wins."

"Deal," Toph agreed as she stuck out her hand, which Katara then shook. Feeling excitement at this thought, Toph stood up from her comfortable position and stretched. "Alright. Let's go rock!"

"Hold on a minute, Toph!" Katara stopped her from walking out of the room as she grabbed her shirt and pulled her back. "Before we go, we're going to have to practice."

"Practice what?" Toph asked in confusion and a little annoyance, clearly being excited for her future cage fights with Sokka as she waited to hear what else needed to be done.

Barely managing to hold herself back from laughing as she knew what her friend's reaction was going to be, she finally said. "To finish this, you three are going to have to apologize to each other, and that means that we're going to have to practice your apology before we go." Toph's smile immediately melted at this, knowing that this was not going to be fun for her. At all.

About an hour later, Katara practically dragged Toph into the garage as Aang, Zuko, and Sokka waited for them, unable to keep a smirk off their faces as they saw that Toph was trying to run away. Katara's conviction to fix things was far stronger than Toph's will to not apologize, however, and Katara managed to throw her into the room before shutting the door behind her.

Seeing that she wasn't going to be able to get out of this, Toph let out a sigh of defeat and just stood still, making Katara smirk in satisfaction. "Alright, now that we're all here, who wants to be the first to apologize?" After a few moments of silence, Zuko saw that the other two weren't going to say anything first and decided that he would just get his apology out of the way.

"I'm sorry for suggesting that we should end the band and I'm sorry that I fought with you guys earlier," he said aloud, making Aang give him an appreciative smile before turning to Sokka.

"Sokka, do you have anything you want to say?"

Sokka, despite usually being proud and arrogant, decided that he would be honest and said in a humble tone. "I'm sorry that I was acting like a jerk. I let the idea of being famous get the best of me, and I promise I won't do that anymore."

"Thank you, Sokka," Katara smiled as she squeezed his shoulder before everyone turned to Toph, seeing her look somehow both demure and defiant as they waited for her. After nothing but silence for a few moments, Katara became annoyed and said in a clear warning tone. "Toph…" Sighing again as her shoulders slumped, Toph looked down at the ground and mumbled something. "What was that?"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Toph growled in clear annoyance. "I wanted to do things my way and I didn't like hearing that Sokka would get more of 'The Love' than me." She looked at Katara. "There. Is that better?"

"It'll do for now," Katara agreed, enjoying seeing Toph like this after all the times that she had dealt with her friend's obnoxious remarks and teasing. Looking back to her friends, she gave them all a grateful smile. "Thank you, guys. I know things can be difficult, but I know we can get through it if we stick together."

"Katara's right," Aang agreed, giving her a warm smile that made her heart skip a beat before looking at the rest of them. "We're a team. Even more than that, we're a family. And as long as we work together, we can do anything. So let's just forget about today and focus on tomorrow, because we're going to win the battle of the bands!" The rest of them cheered in agreement at this, making him smile. "Come on. I think we've had enough practice for today. How about we go get something to eat?"

Sokka grinned as he heard this. "Sounds good to me!" Everyone started making their way out of the garage, and as they made their way to their favorite restaurant, Katara remembered the deal that she had made with Toph.

"Oh, Sokka," she whispered as she took Aang's hand in hers and led the way. "Just so you know, part of the condition for Toph to come back was that you and her would have a fight to settle your arguments instead of yelling at each other." Sokka's eyes widened as he heard this, hsi fear rising rapidly as he looked at her with terror. Just as he was about to say something, she interrupted him and said. "Sorry, big brother. It's non-negotiable."

The couple watched as his demeanor immediately dropped, making them laugh as he continued walking. "We sure do have an interesting band, don't we?" Aang asked quietly in amusement to Katara.

"Yeah, we do," Katara agreed as she gave him a kiss on the cheek, making him smile as he looked at her. "But I wouldn't have it any other way." And with that, the band went to enjoy a night on the town together, knowing that despite how things had gone that day, they were still a family and were going to give this competition their all. Even if that meant they would have to figure out how to settle their differences along the way.