Disclaimer: Refer to Ch.1
Chapter 2: Enigmatic Message
Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, and their newest addition Iroh were at the market of the town of Chow Seng. Iroh was trying to teach Aang the fine art haggling at a vendor selling tea, and Toph laughing at their antics the whole time. Sokka was enamored with all the foods he was seeing at all the different vendors, a local sweet on a stick already in his mouth. Katara spent her time buying the actual supplies she knew they needed, using the large new bag Sokka had bought. As they had managed to find both earth bending and fire bending teachers for Aang they really had no place to go in a hurry until he learned the two arts.
Katara had just rounded the corner to another street of vendors when at the other end of the street came a group of five Fire Nation soldiers. She tried to act casually, but any hope of that was lost as one pointed her out to the rest of the group. Soon she was running from the soldiers, trying to find a large enough source of water to fight the group or any of the others to help her. She looked back to see that they were catching up so she ducked into an alleyway. Once in it she immediately found that it ended after about ten feet. Why was it that people built these dead end alleyways in pretty much every town or city? They really get annoying after a while.
As the soldiers came into the alley a shadow descended upon them from above. Katara watched as the front most soldier looked up toward the roofs, and a look of shock crossed his face. Before she had the chance to look up at what was there, a figure in black with a blue mask and two swords drawn dropped down in front of her. Immediately the person flung himself at the group, and became nothing more than a black and blue blur with two flashing blades. The one thing she noticed was that he wasn't killing the soldiers only knocking them unconscious.
He slammed the last one against a wall, and let the man slide to the ground. Then the masked figure walked straight up to her, stopping a foot away from her. She tried to look through the eyeholes at his eyes, but was interrupted when something poked her stomach. She looked down at a scroll in his hand, 'AVATAR' written upon the side. As soon as she took hold of it the man nodded and jumped back up onto the roofs and disappeared. Katara was still looking at where he'd gone when Toph came up to the alley.
"You alright Katara? I felt some trouble over this way." Toph said.
Katara replied, "Huh, oh, oh yeah I'm fine. Lets uh, let's go find the others."
It didn't take too long to find the rest of their group as they'd begun trying to find them. Even in the few minutes since it had happened it appeared that everyone in the market knew what had happened. Aang and Sokka were their usual worried selves after they learned she was attacked. The only one who seemed to take it almost as nothing was Iroh. It wasn't that he didn't care that she'd been chased, but he was too worried with what was to happen now. The only reason those soldiers would have been there was if they were part of a larger force. After all this wasn't a Fire Nation controlled area.
"I believe we should move out as soon as possible." The elder man suggested.
Sokka turned to him and asked, "But where are we supposed to go?"
Katara held up the scroll, and said, "I'm not sure, but the guy that saved me gave this to me. Here Aang."
Aang unrolled the scroll to find that it was a map. The town was indicated by a dot with a line going from it to circled portion.
With his normal smile, Aang said, "Hey why don't we go here."
Toph replied, "That sounds pretty stupid. How do we know this isn't some kind of trap?"
"But the guy saved Katara. Why would he want to trap us?" Aang reasoned.
Sokka reasoned, "Because almost every time we go someplace that we're told to it's a trap."
Iroh looked up from the map and said in a serious tone, "Either way it would not be wise to stay much longer in the area. I have no doubt that Azula will soon be here, looking for us. Besides this at least gives us an idea of someplace we could go."
It was quickly agreed upon that they would at the least give the destination a chance. After arriving there they would choose their next course of action. They made a few last minute purchases of supplies they'd need, and were soon off again on Appa. They could see out in the distance the smoke from the motorized wagon that Azula's team used. It was still a ways out from the city, but it was drawing closer. They decided to keep near the treetops to keep from being spotted too quickly.
They'd only been traveling for about ten minutes when Katara noticed that Iroh was gazing off into the distance, lost in his thoughts. She had a good idea what, or rather who, he was thinking of. She still thought back sometimes on the day that Zuko had brought Iroh to them. Iroh's shoulder had gotten worse, beyond Zuko's limited ability to care for, and brought him to her. One night he'd just walked up to their camp leading the ostrich horse with his uncle lying across the saddle. He'd gently pulled the man down, laying him before her. He'd then bowed down and petty much begged her to do what she could for Iroh. When she'd agreed he got up and lead the ostrich horse away, leaving only a note for his uncle. They'd not seen or heard of him since.
A volley of arrows soaring up past Appa disturbed their thoughts. All of them but Toph peered over the side of the large saddle, but saw nothing but the trees below. Another arrow came at them, and Iroh's hand shot out and snatched it before it could hit Sokka, who'd stood to look over the others. He made a careful examination of the arrow from tip to knock.
"We have a new problem. It would appear that Azula has added the YuuYan Archers to her force. They are the most fearsome archers in the world." Iroh explained quickly.
They had begun a number of evasive maneuvers, swerving from side to side, taking sharp turns in various directions, etc. It worked for the first few minutes, but they were soon met by a loud cry of pain from Appa. He'd been hit in the left flank, the arrow about two thirds of the way in. As he went on they began to lose altitude.
Sokka yelled, "Oh no, we do NOT want to go DOWN! Come on Appa, yip yip! You can do it, please go back up!"
"It's no good! We'll have to set down over by that chasm!" Aang shouted back to the others. "Hang on!"
Appa hit the ground on just the opposite side of the chasm at a slide, only stopping after about twenty feet. They each climbed off staggeringly, and after shaking off the shock of the crash they went to see about the arrow. As Sokka carefully removed the arrow, Katara was preparing to heal the hole it left. They all froze at what they heard next.
A girl's voice called, "Having trouble with your oversized throw rug?"