A/N: I'm glad that you all liked the first chapter so much! I don't believe in dragging out the plot, but let me know if the pace is to fast.
Chapter 2: Further ComplicationsThe sun rose on a clear day the next morning, and the group had already seen Iroh off and had been walking for nearly an hour before the sun cleared the top of the trees. Aang, Katara, and Momo walked in front, while Sokka trudged sleepily behind them.
When he noticed that Zuko was lagging further behind, Sokka slowed down slightly so he was walking beside the Prince.
"Come on, sleepy head," Sokka teased, "you wouldn't want to get left behind."
"This is stupid," Zuko muttered. "We don't have time for any of this! We should be training, preparing. Not going to look for some useless child!"
Personally, Sokka agreed but he chose instead to defend the current arrangement, as there was no way to change it now. "Look, any psychological advantage we can get over the fire lord is a good thing for us. Heck, an advantage we can get is good."
"If you really think my father will fall for something like this, then you're a fool," Zuko mumbled, shifting the weight of his pack slightly.
"I'm not saying whether he will or won't," Sokka reasoned. "I'm saying if he does then we'll have a powerful advantage."
"How? We won't find this ocean child. How is putting someone fake in his stead going to help at all?"
Sokka tapped the side of his own head with his pointer finger and smiled. "You underestimate the power of the human mind to be self-defeating."
Zuko raised his eyebrow in a questioning manner, and Sokka sighed.
"Look…have you ever really wanted something so badly that you were willing to believe anything so long as it was true?"
Zuko looked at him evenly for a minute, as if deciding whether or not Sokka was trying to get him to admit to something. Once satisfied that there was no trick behind the statement, Zuko nodded.
"The human mind has the power to do that," Sokka said, looking ahead now. "It will believe in something to its own defeat."
"Meaning…"
"If you believe you're going to die at a certain time, you will simply because you believe it. The Fire Lord believes he'll be defeated if we have all the pieces. We know this from all his efforts to destroy the water tribes."
"So?"
"So, if we don't have at least representations of everything we need, he'll think he's invincible and consequently will be. The reverse is true also. If we have all that we need, or at least the appearance of it, he'll think his defeat is inevitable and allow us to win subconsciously."
"Or he'll fight that much harder."
"Oh come on," Sokka sighed, looking at Zuko again. "You're just determined to see the worst in this situation, aren't you?"
"I know it's your job regularly, but you seem a bit distracted."
Sokka scowled, adjusting the weight of his bag so his boomerang was easier to reach. "Look, I'm not exactly happy about this either, but there's nothing we can do about this. Katara and Aang are determined to at least try, and we can't just leave them alone."
"You don't trust them alone, do you?"
"No."
"Your sister is a good fighter, peasant. She's mastered her element."
"She's still my little sister. I have to protect her no matter what."
Zuko fell silent at this, and Sokka suddenly felt uncomfortable. He'd forgotten about Zuko's relationship with his own little sister. Shifting his weight, Sokka forced himself to grin. "Come on. Let's catch up to them."
Zuko grunted, but kept up with the pace as Sokka walked a bit faster to catch up to the three in front.
"But Katara," Aang was saying as they caught up with them. "Momo's hungry already."
"Then Momo can find his own food," Katara said, obviously exasperated as the little lemur leaped from Aang's arms onto her head. She sighed, and pulled him down again.
"Well I'm hungry too," Aang sulked, and Sokka had to struggle not to laugh.
"You'll survive until lunch," Katara said. "We don't have time to stop and eat every few hours."
Aang sighed, nudging a rock with his foot, as Momo leaped from Katara's arms after a bug.
"We should have sent the rat with Uncle," Zuko muttered, and Sokka snickered in agreement.
They had only walked a few more feet when they heard Momo give a shrill cry. All four kids whirled around to see the small white animal flying toward them with a ball of fire on his tail. Zuko pushed Sokka down, caught Momo, and then used his own bending to break the ball with a shield of heat of his own.
"Ow," Sokka said, rubbing his elbows as he sat up, "hey!"
"Don't complain, peasant, I just saved your life."
"Did you have to throw me down?"
"You guys," Katara yelled, already running down the path, "this really isn't the time!"
Sokka scrambled to his feet and pulled out his machete as Momo climbed up onto Zuko's head.
"Fire nation soldiers?" Sokka asked after a minute. Zuko gave him a disbelieving look, which Sokka returned with a grin. "You guys have the worst timing."
"We also have rhinos," Zuko muttered darkly as he jumped over a tree root.
"Oh," Sokka said as he ducked under a tree branch. He didn't even see that Aang had stopped in front of him until he collided into him and both of them fell to the ground.
"What's going on?" Zuko demanded. He'd managed to stop before hitting Katara, but only just and Momo had been thrown off his head in the process.
Katara didn't say anything, instead pointing grimly to the only way across the small canyon they had come to. Sokka and Zuko both looked over to see a rickety old rope bridge spanning the space. It was swinging in the slight breeze, the old boards creaking with even that much movement. The ropes were frayed in several places, and one of the boards looked to have completely rotted away.
"Great," Sokka muttered, disentangling himself from Aang and crawling over to the edge of the mini-canyon. The morning mist still clung to the shadowy place, and it was impossible to tell whether the ravine was twenty feet deep or two hundred.
"Can we climb down?" Zuko demanded, getting uneasy as the sound of rhinos could be heard coming closer.
"The side are too steep," Sokka said, dropping a rock over edge. He listened, but couldn't hear it hit the bottom. He looked up solemnly at the rest of the group, "and I wouldn't recommend jumping either."
"We're going to have to cross," Zuko concluded, starting toward the bridge. Katara grabbed his arm, a worried expression on her face.
"What if it doesn't hold?"
Zuko looked in the direction they had come from. The sound of the large komodo-rhinos was drawing ever closer, and now they could hear the shouts of the soldiers urging them faster. He looked at Katara with a frown. "It's going to have to."
He started onto the bridge, but had only gone a few steps when the twang of a few dozen bows being released filled the air. All four teens ducked as flaming arrows shot out of trees on the opposite side of the chasm.
"It's a trap," Aang yelled as one of the flaming arrows zoomed by the already breaking ropes and caught it on fire. The snapping of the rope fibers filled the air as the bridge shook slightly.
"Now what?" Katara asked, standing up again.
"We still need to get across," Zuko said, looking determined as he stood as well. "We stand a better chance against the archers than the rhinos."
"Can't you at least put out the rope?"
"It wouldn't matter. It's going to break either way now, and I don't want to waste the time we could use to get across."
Aang nodded, and used his airbending to jump over Zuko and land in front. Using his staff, the young Avatar began to block arrows that were aimed at them as they ran. Katara followed close behind Zuko, preparing her water skin for the battle that awaited them on the other side, with Sokka bringing up the rear.
He was about half-way across the bridge when he heard the sound of rather distressed chirping behind him. Turning around, Sokka couldn't help but groan as he realized they'd forgotten Momo. He ran back across the bridge to where the little lemur was hissing at the now rattling foliage, and just managed to pick Momo up as the soldiers and their mounts broke through. One of the soldiers threw a spear at him, but Sokka blocked it with his machete before turning and running back across the bridge.
"Someday, Momo," Sokka growled as he approached the middle of the bridge for the second time, " I'm going to save myself the trouble of having to rescue you and just cook myself a big pot of lemur…"
A soft whistle in the air was the only warning Sokka had before white-hot pain shot across his shoulder. As he fell to his knees with a yell of pain, dropping Momo to grab his shoulder where the arrow had grazed him, Sokka realized too late that Aang had gone on too far ahead to protect him from the arrows any more.
Momo began meeping shrilly as he raced for the other side, and it was this noise that got Katara's attention. She stopped her battle with one of the archers and looked up to see her brother kneeling on the bridge, his face pale with the pain from his wound.
"Sokka!" She yelled, knocking the man over with her water before rushing to her brother's aid. Sokka looked up at the sound of his name and let go of his shoulder to motion her away.
"Katara, go back! It's not going to hold much longer!"
"I'm not going to just leave you here," she protested, kneeling beside him to see if she could help him stand. The bridge groaned, and Katara looked up to see one of the soldiers guiding his rhino onto the bridge.
"Stop it," she yelled to them. "It's going to fall!"
They ignored her however as first one, then another made their way onto the bridge. It groaned and shuddered with each new step of the beasts. It could take no more as the last of the four stepped onto the bridge.
Katara barely had time to register the stupidity of this action before there was another loud snap and the bridge beneath her feet tilted. She gave a startled yell as she began to fall.
"Katara!" Aang yelled, turning to see his friend in danger, but unable to reach her as he tried to fight off another archer that attacked him while he was looking her way.
Katara closed her eyes, preparing for the fall and listening to the yells of both the soldiers and the beasts, when she felt a handclasp around her wrist. She looked up to see that Sokka had grabbed onto the rope on the side that hadn't been burning with his injured arm. She could see that his face was contorted in pain from the effort, but she held onto his wrist tightly.
"Can you pull yourself up," he managed to ask, tightening his hold on her wrist. Katara tried to swing her foot up onto the tilted bridge, but Sokka gave a gasp in pain as she moved, and his hand slid down the rope. They both yelped before Sokka managed to catch himself again.
"This isn't going to work," Katara said, looking tearfully up at her brother. "You're arm will give out first."
"Don't worry," Sokka said through gritted teeth. "Aang and Zuko will be here soon."
Katara looked over at the two boys in question, and could easily see both were being overpowered by the sheer number of enemies on that side and wouldn't be able to come to their aid any time soon. She looked up at the evident pain in her brother's face, and something inside her steeled itself for what she realized she had to do. She loosened her grip on her brother's hand.
Sokka's eyes immediately snapped open wide. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm saving you," Katara answered, trying to pull her hand a way a little more. Sokka's grip tightened.
"I won't let you!" He yelled down to her. She could see that saying those words hurt him, but how and why she couldn't tell. Instead, she continued to look up into his eyes.
"If I don't we'll both be killed!"
"There has to be another way!"
"I'm sorry, Sokka," Katara said, "I have to do this…" Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and let herself go completely limp. Her dead weight was too much for her brother's grip, and she could feel herself falling.
"No!" Sokka yelled, his eyes wide as he watched his sister disappear soundlessly into the mist. "Katara! KATARA!"
