This chapter is going to be the last 'action' chapter for a while. I just wrote it so there may be a few mistakes- I proofread but anything I write is still subject to change.

Lolz disclaimer: I don't own Avatar. But Avatar owns me. That's not a very fair trade D:

Idiot Mai thought irritably, chasing her adversary in the most likely direction for him to have SPRUNG OFF to.

Honestly, she didn't understand why he'd want to protect the girl.

Yeah, he was an enemy to the fire nation, and yeah, he wanted to have the Avatar safefrom what she'd heard, but the waterbender was pretty much worthless.

Then again, since they were both stupid and both bad fighters…maybe he liked her. Mai snickered.

I'll NEVER fall for someone as stupid as him she thought cockily, remembering her long-held crush, Zuko. At least I always made good choices...I just wasn't good enough for him, that's all…

Mai spotted her target and aimed three arrows at him. To her surprise he immediately blocked them with one broadsword.

Ok, so perhaps he's not such a bad fighter…

"This is getting old, can you please just hand her over?" Mai droned monotonously.

The Blue Spirit stopped in his tracks as though contemplating this.

Before vanishing from sight again.

Mai rolled her eyes.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"This is my favorite rope, because it's nearly inescapable" Sokka said as he tied Ty Lee's arms to her sides several times over.
He didn't mention that he'd stolen it from Zuko when he'd untied Aang during that blizzard… But hey! It was quality rope.

Toph shook her head. "When you're done playing rough with your little girlfriend, we should probably find Aang and Katara."

"Oh! Yeah…"

Sokka finished the knot. Ty Lee stirred and her head lifted to look piteously at Sokka.
"We should take her with us. Maybe they'll want her back…I mean, what are we going to do with her?"

Toph snickered and muttered something under her breath.

"Well, look. I'll give her back to the nearest psychopath I can find, and hopefully they'll exchange her for peace."

Toph looked around the campsite.
"No. I don't think they'll leave us alone. We're already weak. They'll take the opertunity to strike us down the second they get it. We need to get out of here as soon as possible…"
Sokka nodded.

"So I'll pack up camp and Appa and I will meet you when we find you, Aang, and Katara."

"I'll give you some sort of signal."
"Whistle three times, like this." Sokka put his fingers in his mouth and did a sharp bird call.

Toph nodded, imitating the gesture.

"Go find Aang! Katara can take care of herself, but the leader girl is even crazier than the other two!'

Toph was already running off into the woods towards the Avatar.

Sokka sighed and continued to pack up camp, before he heard a soft voice coming from his prisoner.

"I never wanted any of this."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Aang found the courage to stand up, wincing in pain at his burns but ignoring them, knowing Katara would be there to heal them later.

Katara…

"You have no honor, Azula. You cheat and lie, and manipulate the only people who care about you. I have no fear of death, but I know you won't be the one to kill me. Not tonight."

Azula smirked.
"You never do stop rambling" she said to Iroh in an almost affectionate voice as the two continued to battle.

"I'm old! My spirit threatens to fly out my mouth at times."

Iroh shot a wall of fire towards Azula, who jump-flipped over it and landed in the pose of a tiger, ready to strike.

"That was impressive. Are you as good as your friend Ty Lee at acrobatics yet?"

Azula looked ready to shoot daggers out of her eyes. She hated Ty Lee for being better than her. She wanted to rip that girl's pretty hair out of her scalp and strangle her with it.

Instead of responding, she shot a lightening bolt towards Iroh's chest.

In one fluid motion, the old man directed the blue fire back towards her.

Azula ducked just in time, the top of her hair smoking. The tree behind her splintered with the force of their combined attack.

"You'll PAY for that."

"I'm sorry to say I'm broke, but I'm sure your hair will grow back sometime. Zuko's is doing quite well, you should see it!" Iroh said with a cheeky grin.

"I already have."
Azula decided to ignore him and finish off the Avatar.

Only…she had missed the point of Iroh's fighting with her. He was trying to distract her.

The Avatar was gone.

Azula's shriek could be heard from five miles away.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Toph's footsteps thundered precariously through the woods. She began to pant. Aang was fast. He was running and she was losing her sense of him.
She wanted to shout out but if he was in trouble and she distracted him…

She was distracting Aang a little too easily lately.

There were more setsoffootsteps nearby. One was fairly normal. The other was rather sluggish. She recognized both, but neither of them were Katara or Aang.

Toph headed in the direction her earth sense was taking her, and when one set nearedit, she created defensive sinksand around her.

A surprised 'umph' and a splat told her the trap had worked.

"Hey! It's you again!" said a cheerful voice.
"Old man?" she said questioningly.

"It's Iroh. I thought I told you that" he mused, wiping muck from his face.

"What in the name of all things humane are you doing out in the forest by yourself? Where is this infamous nephew of yours that won't leave my friends alone? He left you alone when you were injured?"

Toph sounded a mixture of enraged and concerned. Both were rather unusual for the snarky little earthbender.
but she liked Iroh.

"Oh…heh heh…he's off chasing some girl. I've known about it for a while now but I never let him know I know, you know?"
"No…"

Iroh chuckled again. Toph offered him her hand and pulled him out of the muck with a bizarre smacking sound.
He groaned.
Toph's mocking tone changed to concern.

"Look…I know he's your enemy but I need to know about my friend Aang. Have you seen him?"

Iroh frowned.
"Yes, I have seen him. He's injured and being perused by a ravenous psychopath who wants to capture him and keep him prisoner until the arrival of a comet that will give the fire nation absolute power" he said in a tired voice.

"So…no pressure…Hey- need a ride?" she asked suddenly.

Iroh cocked an eyebrow. The little earthbender put her fingers to her lips and whistled sharply three times.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

It was a full moon, and he was riding Appa with a crazy girl, but for some reason Sokka was

n't as depressed as he thought he'd be. Perhaps because he was too busy worrying about his sister and Aang.
Not Toph, Toph would rip someone's gizzards out with millions of rock fragments and grind their skin off with sand before they ever laid hands on her, but Aang and Katara had this annoying tendency of…trying to make friends with the enemy.

He'd never talk friendly to a firebender. Never.

"So…" started Ty Lee, who had been silent most of the time, and hadn't really tried to escape. "You really like your friends, huh?"

"Yeah" said Sokka in a confused voice. "Usually that's what happens seeing as, you know, they're your friends."

Ty Lee looked upset.

"Not for me."

Sokka frowned, turning around from his navigation and looking at the unhappy circus girl.

"What do you mean?" His voice was curious, but not compassionate.

Ty Lee shook her head.

"When you're with Azula…you have to pretend to like her. Everything she says is right- you aren't allowed to have an opinion, a personality. You're just a branch of Azula, doing what she wants you to do."

"Why don't you just leave then?"

"I can't."

"Because…she'd kill you."

"worse."

Sokka quirked an eyebrow.
"What could be worse?"

Ty Lee shook her head again, trying to wipe some dirt from her cheek, which was stinging. It was impossible without her hands. She began to cry.

"hey- hey! I'm sorry. Look, don't do that. Why don't you come with us if it's that bad!"

Sokka jumped down from Appa's head and joined her into the cargo area.
what are you doing? This is stupid, she's a crazed firebender-

who is crying and tied up.

yeah, yeah. Don't come crying to me when she bites you or something…

"I can't do that. She'll find me no matter where I go. She doesn't want me to be happy. She won't let me go until I become obsolete- useless. Then she'll kill me. When I'm no longer useful."

Sokka wiped the dirt from the girl's cut with his sleeve. She smiled.

"I guess you aren't that bad. I always thought that fire-nation people killed because they wanted to." Sokka looked a bit angry.

Ty Lee frowned.
"Most of us don't even want this war any more than you do."

Sokka sighed, the angry look not leaving his face. Hands shaking, he pulled out his knife. Ty Lee closed her eyes, expecting him to kill her.

The sound of him cutting through rope was all she heard.

"if you want to leave, you can."

Ty Lee paused, rubbing her free arms and looking at him with big brown eyes overwhelmed by surprise.

You were always too emotional, Ty Lee…
"I would rather be here with you than with any of them." Not thinking, the enemy wrapped her arms around Sokka's neck and buried her head into his chest, continuing to cry.

Sokka wasn't sure what to do. He patted her back, wondering if she was going to stab him. But her 'show,' if it was one, was awfully compelling. He felt really bad for her. Really bad.

Eventually she let go and turned her back to him, and he climbed back onto Appa's head.
Toph's whistle reached his ears.
"That's my cue."

Sokka dipped Appa down towards the direction of the earthbender's call.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Zuko panted behind his mask, back against a particularly large tree.

Katara must've weighed about a thousand tons. Probably all that seal fat those water-tribe peasants stored in their bodies during the cold winters. Or the fact that she was wearing such a heavy dress. Fire nation people wore light clothing and armor to make their movements faster.

Had he lost Mai? She didn't seem to be perusing him any longer. Perhaps she'd given up. Katara didn't mean anything to her.

Zuko blanched. Wait- she didn't mean anything to him either.

Katara rolled over in his arms and groaned.

"Aang?"

Zuko wanted to drop her, but he'd committed to the act of saving her so far. It would be dishonorable to drop her in the middle of the forest when he'd already taken her out of the way of her element. She couldn't heal the wound on her neck without water, and she was still bleeding.

"I never wanted this" he muttered to himself, lifting up his mask for air. The first words he'd spoken for hours. The air was cool against his sweaty face. He imagined that he smelled terrible, but Katara didn't smell like a bed of roses either.

Zuko tore fabric off the black portion of his outfit and continued to tear it up to his elbow. He wrapped the fabric around Katara's neck. All it was really doing was soaking up the blood, but he was no nurse. He knew nothing about treating wounds beyond common sense. Which meant…stop the bleeding.

He noticed a pool growing on the back portion of her dress, which was torn a bit. Might as well get that one too.

He attempted to rip the hole in the dress bigger but really couldn't get a look at the cut.

The dress would have to come off.

Zuko growled and remembered she had that white training outfit on underneath. He lifted the bulky dress over her body, causing it to get stuck on her head, and grumbled to himself. Finally he freed her from the dress and examined the wound on her back.

It wasn't deep at all. It was just one of those wounds that bled a lot. He wiped up some of the blood with his sleeve.

This is what I get for being a nice person.

The masked man flipped her over again and lifted her up, smacking her ckeek lightly a few times in effort to wake her up.

"No Toph…I'm not going to eat that" Katara managed weekly.
Zuko twitched, wondering what on earth her delirious mind was imagining.

He was pretty sure he heard voices nearby.
Standing up and throwing the now scantily clad girl over his back, he continued to make his way to the Avatar's camp site. The last thing he needed was some delirious girl clinging to him.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"What on EARTH are you doing with HIM?" Sokka bellowed in confusion.

"Oh, who, me?" Iroh said good-naturedly. "If I'm being a burden then I'll be happy to-"

"Shut up Sokka! You untying that freak girl is no worse than me helping a crippled old man"

"Hey- in my defense" Iroh started before being interrupted by Sokka.

"You were supposed to find Aang. You know, the Avatar. The one that that girl-"
"Azula!" piped Ty Lee

"Azula, is trying to kill-"

"Excuse me" started Iroh gently

"Well I'm sorry, I just wanted to help a friend who was helping us protect the Avatar-"

"Excuse me" Iroh tried again

"Oh, yeah! A friend who is the mentor for the scarfaced boy who is always stalking us, and trying to KILL US!-"

"EXCUSE ME!" Iroh bellowed. A few birds were startled from their sleep and flapped away from their perches. Sokka, Toph and Ty Lee all quieted to look at the old man in astonishment. He grinned and waved sheepishly.

"I know where the Avatar went."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Azula was getting really tired of this. Really, really tired. The last thing she needed right now was being interrupted by her old uncle only to find that her prey had escaped.

And she had been SO CLOSE!

Wait-

The firenation girl heard a stirring from the bushes nearby.

A grin grew on her wicked face as she neared said shrubbage.

"Why don't you just come out and face me instead of hiding" Azula started, ready to pounce.

Before something furry jumped out and landed on her face.

Azula shrieked and began firing lightning in random directions, and the furry thing climbed on top of her head, making chirping noises. Its tail hung between Azula's eyes and she grabbed it, pulling the clawing thing out of her hair, which was as of now, ruined.

Surveying the creature, she discovered it to be a lemur. A big, ugly thing with wings and green eyes. It waved at her and then stuck its hand in its mouth, before trying to climb up its tail and onto her arm.

Azula shrieked againand dropped the creature, and it scurried off into the woods.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Momo found himself a bit disappointed. The nice lady had smelled so deliciously of cheese, he had hoped she was hiding some in her ears. Unfortunately, he found no such delectables on her person.

Oh well. There was Aang! The rodent scurried towards the Avatar and climbed up his back. The Avatar peeled Momo's fingers off his eyes, probably wondering why the creature was being so skittish.

Boy, tonight had been crazy! He had quite a story to tell Appa. Momo reached into Aang's shirt to find the bison whistle. Aang reached in a pulled him out, looking confused and a bit freaked out.

"Guurshmuurrshmuurssh booder" Aang said slowly, patting him on the head and putting him on his shoulder. Momo looked at him. Humans were irritating, nothing they said ever made sense.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Heh heh, I've always wanted to ride this thing" Iroh chuckled as he pointed Sokka in the direction where Aang had run.

"Hey look! There he is!" said Sokka.

"I don't see him" Toph said, annoyed.

"Of COURSE you don't!" Sokka said, exasperated. "Aang! Up here!"

The airbender looked up as the shadow of the buffalo passed over him. He took out his glider and prepared to fly, when something sharp struck his side.

"Not so fast."

The Avatar spun around just in time to see Mai, sharp objects and all, grab him around the stomach and hold something pointy to his throat.

"I don't understand why this is so troublesome. Just give yourself up so I can get back to being bored" the girl complained.

Aang looked seriously perturbed.
"Th-that's ok. I don't think you want to kill me anyway" he tried.

"No, really. I do" Mai said stoaicly.

Appa landed near the two.

"Let her go!" Sokka bellowed. Toph jumped off of Appa, ready to strike.

Ty Lee rolled her eyes. She grabbed Sokka and put her face close to his, forcing his arms to wrap around her in a threatening way.
"Play along" she whispered into his ear. "Oww! Get off of me!"
Sokka didn't understand at first. She'd thrown her arms around him, and now she was asking him to get off of her? Like a math equation this played out in his head and he tried to make sense of it.

Then Mai's attention turned to him.
"Mai, he's got me by the neck!" she shouted. Sokka grabbed Ty Lee around the neck, finally catching on. He pulled out his knife again, holding it to her throat.
"Hand over the Avatar and I'll let her go!" he bellowed in a super-tough manly guy voice. Toph rolled her eyes.

Mai sighed.
"Ty Lee, you can't even defend yourself?" She said in an annoyed, flat voice. She poked Aang with her double-bladed weapon, and he began to bleed a little. This still wasn't very fun…

"He Slammed me in the head five times! I didn't even have a chance!"

Mai rolled her eyes.
"Whatever, Ty. If you want to take the heat from Azula later…"

Ty Lee grimaced.

"You know as well as I do, she's going to be angry no matter what."

Mai let go of Aang and pushed him towards the buffalo rather violently.
"Fine. Whatever. Take the stupid kid."

Sokka let go of Ty Lee, who bounded down from Appa and threw her arms around Mai. Mai sighed.

"Whatever, Ty, let's go find Azula."

Toph threw her arms around Aang, who blushed furiously.

"Don't EVER scare me like that again, twinkletoes."
"I scared you?" said Aang, sounding rather proud of himself.
Toph sniffed, nodding. Her soft babyish face was scrunched up. She proceeded to smack him across the cheek and make her way back to Appa.

"Now we need to find Katara" Sokka said seriously. "And get this old fuddy-duddy back to Zuko before the boy goes homicidal."

Mai's voice turned around. She heard the word 'Zuko.'

As though she'd been smacked in the head, it all made sense now. The Blue Spirit, him not wanting to help of attack either of the girls, but still getting involved in the fight-it was Zuko! That's why he refused to speak, and why he kept himself masked…how many other boys would be out in the forest this time of night? He was the right size and build for Zuko…it all made sense now.

Mai felt a pangof jealousy, angry that he had chosen Katara over her, but stifled it with a smirk. Two could play this game...
"I know where your friend is" shetaunted the people on the buffalo. "But you might not like it…"

"Where is she?" shouted Aang, but Mai and Ty Lee continued to walk away. "Wait! Come back!"

"If one hair on Katara's head is hurt, I swear!-" Sokka threatened the girls.

It was too late. They were both gone.

Ok guys, I know I don't say a lot to you but I've really appreciated your comments, construction and help! It's what keeps me writing!

that little Momo bit was unexpected and random. I dunno, I felt like putting something from his perspective in since I leave him out a lot XD

oh- Mai doesn't mean she knows WHERE katara is, but who she's with. She's just trying to piss them off, since she's mad Zuko didn't want to help her.

So thanks, I'll take everything you say into consideration, and keep reviewing!