CHAPTER FOUR
The Avatar's Elite Warriors
After a night of deep and refreshing sleep Aang and his friends woke up early in the morning it
was so early that the sun had not even come out. Aang and his friends helped Hackoda and his
Water Tribe Warriors pack up their things and put them in the boats. After a quick breakfast they
set sail. Since Aang is the Avatar Hackoda says that Aang should be the one to decide where
they are going. Aang doesn't want to have so much responsibility and says that he'd rather just
ride on Appa his ten ton flying bison. Hackoda tells him that Appa would only give away their
position and that it would it be better if Aang stays on the boat with them. Aang reluctantly agrees
with this and tells Appa to swim along next to the boat. Appa is only to happy to do this because
the water is cooling and soothing to his skin.
Momo Aang's flying Lemur takes to the sky's to fly around and scout out the area around them.
Aang quickly gets bored sailing on the boat, Sokka and Kattara however are having the time of
their lives, and Toph begins to wish she was on dry land because she is seasick. Aang asks where
they are going and Hackoda says that they are just coasting right now with nothing particular in
mind. Aang begins to day dream about Kattara, and is beginning to get happy and content when
one of Hackoda's watchers cries out "Look it's a fleet of Fire Nation Ships." Hackoda anxiously
asks "have they spotted us?" "I don't know" The watcher yells back. Hackoda becomes silent
and begins to ponder what he should do.
Usually they have only attacked at night when they had the cover of darkness and also when they
were more powerful because Water benders have a lunar sympathy while Fire benders have a
solar sympathy. To attack now would be suicide, but on the other hand they have the Avatar with
them. What to do Hackoda says to himself. Sokka and Toph both want to go fight the Fire
benders. Kattara is a little more cautious and points out to Toph that she wont be able to earth
bend because the Fire Navy Ships are built with smelted metal. Toph points out that she can bend
the ground under the water. Aang agrees with Sokka and Toph that they could probably attack
the ships and probably win. Hackoda finally decides that they should do it but first says that they
should come up with a plan. Aang tells them that the best thing to do is for him to go over to the
ships alone and confront the soldiers by himself. When the others object to this he says "This will
be the perfect distraction while I'm fighting them you can sneak up and surprise them. The best
way to do this is for everyone to get in the water, this way they won't see you as easily and that
way you'll also be in your element literally. The others agree that this is the best plan and decide to
go forward.
Aang goes over towards the Fire Navy Ships and starts mocking the sailors and the soldiers.
They shout out insults at him and try to capture him, while Aang is distracting them Kattara and
the rest of the Water benders swim over towards the ships. While they are in the water they
perform their moves in perfect unison and create a tidal wave that knocks the sailors of their ships.
When the ships have been captured Aang and the others search the ships below decks for
supplies. Even though they have taken the ships they are still very cautious because they know that
there could be other sailors onboard. After they have taken everything that they can use, they
decide to go back and search for the Fire Navy sailors that they have ambushed. They quickly
find the sailors most of whom managed to swim ashore, but they also found a few who were
nearly drowned. The sailors who had managed to swim ashore were almost naked because they
had stripped out of their armor to lighten their load so they could swim to the shore easier.
Hackoda and his warriors quickly rounded up the sailors and proceeded to interrogate them
about what they had done and what they were being ordered to do.
The sailors told them that they were just cruising around and that they were on leave because of
the wedding between Admiral Zhao and Princess Azula. When Hackoda found out that Admiral
Zhao had survived he was greatly distressed. He consulted with Aang and asked him what they
should do. "Admiral Zhao's reported death brought joy to me and to my people and to the other
nations of this world. The fact that he is alive will demoralize us and make us easier for the Fire
Lord to conquer." Aang told him that there was still hope and not to give up. Despite these words
Hackoda was still troubled. After the interrogation the Water Tribe warriors froze the Fire Navy
sailors to trees and left them there until they thawed out. They didn't kill them because they did
not want to be savages like the Fire Nation. After all it just wasn't right to kill someone unless it
was in battle. They then destroyed the Fire Navy Ships and set sail with their supplies restocked.