Tales of The Avatar As Told by RaeDyn Rae and Lady Ryuka

by RaeDyn Rae

This is a two Author story between me and /u/6994321/Lady Ryuka. We are changing some things and adding some things. We hope you enjoy it. We are following the script as well as adding things. We have pairs like Aang and Ty Lee, Katara and Zuko, Suki and Mai, and Sokka and Toph.

1. Chapters 1-4

1

See the blinding bright sun as it shines in the bright blue sky over a blanket of white snow. There's footprints in the snow.

There's a heavy line of snow out of place by the shore. There's a boy and girl in a two person canoe in the middle of iceberg laden waters. Both are wearing fluffy blue parkas with white furs attached for added warmth.

The boy, Sokka, has a warrior's pony, the bottom half of his head is shaved and the top half is pulled into a tight, high, ponytail, and is screaming "It's not getting away from me THIS time. Watch and learn, Katara. This is how you catch a fish.

Katara tries to show interest in her brother's babblings, but as she leans over the edge of the canoe to see the fish, it becomes harder and harder and his voice is drowned out by her own thoughts. Hesitantly, she removes her left glove. She takes a deep breath and begins to motion with her exposed hand. Suddenly, the fish pops out of the water, not of his own volition, but contained within a globe or sphere of water, swimming in small circles within the bubble of life in the new terrain.

With a well earned sense of accomplishment, Katara excitedly yells at her brother "Sokka, look!" But all he can do is whisper "Shhh, Katara. You're gonna scare it away." his shoulders slumped and relaxed and his slightly angered face softens to that of a child, "Mmmmmm… I can already smell it cookin'!" he says while a little bit of drool escapes his lips.

Katara, trying to lift the globe of water to her brother to see, says, "but I caught one! Just look."

Sokka does not. And because he didn't look back, when he cocks his arm back to spear the fish he was concentrating on, he bursts her bubble. Metaphorically and physically. The fish falls back into the sea and Sokka gets drenched.

"HEY" Katara screeches "I worked really hard for that"

"Mhmm… worked. I'm working here! Why is it that everytime you PLAY with your freaky deaky magic water, I'm the one that gets soaked?!" Sokka stood up, demanding answers.

Katara defiantly crossed her arms and huffed "It's NOT magic. It's waterbending, and it's-" like usual, Sokka cut her off at this point "Yeah, yeah, yeah" he said silently rolling his eyes "an ancient art unique to our culture" he starts mimicking the sign for talking "bladda, bladda, blah! I'm just saying" he starts rolling his wrist, "that if I had weird powers, I'd keep my weirdness to MYSELF." Katara unfolds her arms and stands up in anger "YOU'RE calling ME weird? Are you serious? I'm not the one who makes muscles at myself everytime I see my reflection." "huh?" Sokka wasn't paying any attention, he was glancing off the side of the boat, humming to himself "when will me reflectiiiiiiooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnn sssshhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, who I am…. Inside" and flexing his muscles in between syllables. He realizes what she said and gives her a curt "hmmph" before the boat is bumped, causing him to look up at the bow, and see that during their argument, they floated off to some ice packed area. The kids scream. "AAaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

Katara tells her brother to go left. LEFT! Icebergs are colliding all around them. Each time they manage to avoid getting crushed between the colliding icebergs, but their safety margins decrease rapidly each time. Finally the canoe is crushed when three icebergs collide at once. Sokka and Katara jump out in time onto one of the icebergs. They are now at the mercy of the currents.

"You call that a left?" Katara said groggily as she got back to her feet. Sokka, scrambling to his feet as to not let his sister have the high ground, said "if you don't like my steering, maybe you should waterbend us out of the ice." he said so casually, but with a hint of coldness. "So you're saying this is my fault?" Katara said, squinting her eyes, trying to understand Sokka's offhandedness. Without missing a beat, he said something even worse. "I knew I should have left you home. Leave it to a girl to screw up fishing."

Katara gave up on trying to understand anything.

"You are THE MOST sexist, immature, nut brained…" She starts angrily, staring in her brother's direction, throwing her arms down after every insult "I'm embarrassed to be related to you! Ever since Mom died I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier..." Sokka, noticing the iceberg cracking, tries to interrupt. "I EVEN wash all the clothes! Have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you, THEY WREAK MORE THAN A HALF SKINNED ARCTIC HIPPO!"

By the end she's screaming. As she finishes, the iceberg behind her splits open entirely. It disintegrates and the major pieces fall into the water, pushing their iceberg away. They hold on desperately until the iceberg settles. "OooooKay" Sokka said, half confused, half aghast. Taken aback at what happened. "You've gone from weird to freakish, Katara."

Katara straightens her stance, "You mean I did that?" she cynically asked her brother. "Well, who else would've? The King of Omashu?" Sokka asked sarcastically. "Of course it was you. Yup. congratulations!"

They both are leaning over the edge of the iceberg raft. Suddenly, the water just in front of them begins to glow an incandescent blue. They move backwards on their raft as another, lighter colored iceberg breaks the surface. It is unclear whether this is part of the one Katara broke apart or not. As the new iceberg settles, Katara walks to the edge of their iceberg raft to get a better look. Deep in the ice, the figure of a boy in a meditation pose is seen. He has white arrows on his fists and on his bald head. Suddenly, his eyes glow and his arrow markings glow white.

"He's alive!" Katara shouts. "We have to help." she takes Sokka's spear from him and starts running from their iceberg to the new iceberg. "Katara, get back here! We don't know what that thing is!" once she crosses to the new iceberg, the one that Sokka is on starts drifting away from the pressure of her kicking off to jump to the next iceberg. Sokka reluctantly follows Katara to the new iceberg, lest he sail away to his doom.

When he gets there, he sees her whacking away at the ice. After a few big whacks, she cracks open the ice. It looks like air is released, as if the iceberg had a hollow chamber within it, but it is not entirely clear. The iceberg then cracks from top to bottom and explodes open. A huge shaft of white blue light shoots straight into the heavens.

Out in the freezing cold ocean miles away.. An iron hulled battleship with a spiked prow cutting through the sea is also nearby. It is apparently steam powered as it has a single smokestack. The foredeck is much longer than the afterdeck. The bridge appears to be several decks above the main deck.

On the main deck is a young man, dressed in red, with a warrior's pony of his own, staring intently at the shaft of light with his good eye, and his burnt eye. This is Zuko.

Fina-Fuckin-Lee" Zuko sighs. He turns to address the man he left sitting at the table. "Uncle, do you realize what this means?" Uncle Iroh takes a sip of tea and places his cup back on the table. "It means that I won't get to finish my game?" "No, Uncle. Well, maybe." Zuko says "it means that my search- it's about to come to an end. That light had to come from someone powerful. It HAS to be him." Iroh groans. "OR it's just the celestial lights. We've been down this road before, Prince Zuko. I don't want you to get too excited over nothing. Please, sit. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming jasmine tea?" Zuko, exploding with anger, responds with "I don't need any calming tea! I need to capture the Avatar. Helmsman, head a course for the light!"

From the glacier exploding, Sokka is still shielding his sister from the blast that just dissipated. They look up to see residual blue light still swirling around the top of what is left of the iceberg. Suddenly, the boy appears, his eyes and arrow markings still aglow.

Sokka raises his spear to the boy. "STOP" he commands in the strongest voice he can muster. The boy stands up as the glow and residual energy fades. He seems to pass out and slides down the side of the ruined iceberg to Sokka and Katara, who lunges forward and catches him as he falls. Sokka pokes Aang in the head with the blunt end of his weapon. Katara yells at him to stop. Less strong than his command, but more powerful. She gives Sokka the Heisman and turns to the boy. She gently turns him over so that he is lying on his back. He begins to wake up. He slowly opens his eyes, taking in the beauty of the strange girl who woke him.

A gentle breeze wafts across the trio gently and the boy takes his first fresh breath in who knows how long.

*sigh*

Whispering in a weak voice, the boy said "I need to ask you something." Katara, thinking this is important and his life is hanging in the balance, frantically asks what it is. "Please, come closer." the boy says. "What is it?" Katara asks again. The boy, in a normal, even excited voice, asked "will you go penguin sledding with me?" Katara agreed, with no clue as to what she truly signed up for.

The boy airbends himself to his feet as he starts to rub the back of his head.

Sokka freaks out. "Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" "What's going on here? Why are you yelling? There's no reason to scream as such." the boy said while getting Sokka's spear waved around his body. "You tell us! How'd you get in the ice?" Sokka then proceeded to poke the boy, "And why aren't you frozen?" The boy could do little more than shrug his shoulders while batting the spear away absently. He didn't seem to know any more than the other two as to how he got there.

There's a weird animal-like noise from the broken iceberg, and the boy begins to frantically climb back up. He jumps over the lip of what is in fact now a crater and lands on a huge furry animal. "Appa! Are you all right? Wake up, buddy." Katara and Sokka come around the corner and their mouths drop in shock as they see the monster, whose mouth opens and licks the boy trying to wake him up. Hugging Appa, the boy cries out with joy, "Hahahaha! You're ok!"

"What in the everliving Blubber even IS that thing?" Sokka demanded.

"This is Appa, my flying bison." The creature is huge, beautiful, with fluffy looking fur, six legs, and horns like a steer. "Riiiiiiiggghhhhtttttttttt." Sokka scoffs. "And this is Katara, my flying sister!"

Aang is about to reply, but doesn't as Appa begins to sneeze. Aang ducks in time as Appa proceeds to sneeze all over Sokka. Sokka expresses his extreme disgust, Katara giggles, and the boy says, "Don't worry, It'll wash out." which only makes Sokka heave in disgust even more.

Trying to make conversation, the boy asks "So, do you guys live around here?" Sokka screeches, "Don't answer that! Did you see that crazy bolt of light? He was probably trying to signal to the Fire Navy!" All but frothing at the mouth. Katara rolls her eyes and throws her hand over her shoulder, "Sure, he's a spy. You can tell by the eeee-viiiiiiiilllllll look in his eye." Behind her, sits the boy, new, but not evil. As she turns to face him, she says, "The paranoid one is my brother, Sokka. You never told us your name. The boy opened his mouth to speak, and… "I'm A... aaaahhhh... ahhhhhh... aaah aaah aaah AAAAAAACHOOOO!" As Aang sneezes he zooms off the ground far into the air. He responds to her question after. "I'm Aang." He sniffles and rubs his nose. Sokka incredulously states, while scrunching his nose, and flailing his arms, "You just sneezed... and flew ten feet in the air.

The newly identified Aang responds with, "Really? It felt higher than that."

Katara gasps, a sudden realization hitting her, and hitting hard. "You're an airbender!" "Sure am!" Aang says, standing proudly, in all of his yellow and orange hues. While he basks in the light, Sokka slowly backs away from the middle of the iceberg, towards the edge, muttering, "Giant light beams... flying bison... airbenders... I think I've got Midnight Sun Madness. I'm going home to where stuff makes sense." He turns close to the edge and looks around to see if there's any path of icebergs to lead him, but it's desolate.

Aang, very chipperly, adds, "Well, if you guys are stuck, Appa and I can give you a lift." Aang airbends himself onto Appa's head, then to the top of his back where rests an enormous saddle. Reigns are attached to both of Appa's great horns.

Katara sees the reigns and trust this boy has in the creature, "Sure, we'd love a ride! Thanks!" Sokka doesn't have much more iceberg to maneuver around, but he instinctively scoots away from the animal, calmly, practically screaming, "OH, NO! I'm not getting on that fluffy snot monster!" whether it was to quell his fears or make him more scared, nobody knows, but Katara calmly says, "Are you hoping some OTHER kind of monster will come along and give you a ride home? Ya know… before you freeze to death?" Sokka opens his mouth several times to respond, but nothing comes out, leaving him to look like a human fish. He slouches in defeat, sighing. He gets on.

On Appa… Katara looks excited, Sokka looks grumpy with his arms folded over his chest. Aang, very excitedly throws his head over his shoulder and bellows, with a full smile, ear to ear, stretched across his face, "First time flyers, hold on tight! Appa, yip yip!" Aang shakes the reins and Appa makes a low rumble. He flaps his huge beaver tail and then launches into the air. He spreads his legs wide, but then comes right back down into the water with a huge splash. He begins to swim them forward. Aang starts shaking the reins again, "come on Appa, yip yip." He says, just a touch desperate.

Sokka throws an arm over the side of Appa, and puts a singular finger in the water, leaving smaller ripples alongside the larger ones the creature was making, "Woooooooowwwwwwwww… That was truely amazing." he said, completely deadpanned and straightfaced, no whimsy or excitement present at all. Aang half assed turned around and stated, "Appa's just tired. A little rest and he'll be soaring through the sky." He makes a hand gesture to match his words, "You'll see." As he says this, his eyes finally get to rest on Katara, a smile crosses his face as he looks at her. Katara looks up from her hands, and notices. "Why are you smiling at me like that?" Now, to add to his smiling, he's blushing. "Oohhhhh… I was smiling?" Sokka took the one finger he had in the water out and used to pretend to gag, "Uuuugggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!" he said, disgusted.

As the night descended on the freezing arctic the ship appears to be one of few things moving through the freezing waters. Zuko, on the spotting deck off the bridge looking forward, is approached by Iroh. It is now night. Iroh places a hand on Zuko's shoulder, "I'm going to bed now." he removes the hand he just placed on Zuko to make an exaggerated yawn, "Yup. A man needs his rest. Prince Zuko, you need some sleep. Even if you're right and the Avatar is alive, you won't find him. Your father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all tried and failed. Zuko squints his eyes, but doesn't turn to see his uncle any better, "Because their honor didn't hinge on the Avatar's capture. Mine does. This coward's hundred years in hiding are over."

Even as night came about Appa still refused to fly but to still swim in the freezing cold waters. Aang lies back on top of Appa's head. Katara, in the saddle on Appa's back with her brother, crawls forward and looks down from the saddle at Aang. they exchange glances, and "hey" "Whatcha thinkin about?" Aang asked Katara, seeing the face she was making. "I guess I was wondering – your being an airbender and all – if you had any idea what happened to the Avatar. Aang, looking pretty disconcerted, replies, "Uhh... no. I didn't know him... I mean, I knew people that knew him, but I didn't. Sorry." Katara lowered her eyes, and her hopes, "Okay. Just curious. Goodnight." "Sleep tight." Came Aang's reply. Both of them turn from each other, Aang with a look of fear spread across his face.

Aang had unknowingly drifted off to sleep. The colors are grays, crèmes and pale browns. He wakes up on top of Appa and the view rotates with Aang in Appa's saddle, then cuts to Aang struggling against Appa's reins with heavy rain coming down. Cut to an underwater shot, where Aang and Appa suddenly penetrate the surface and enter the watery depths. They come up briefly for air, Appa groans, but they are once again driven under the storm tossed waves. As they drift downward, Aang drops Appa's reins and begins to lose consciousness. Suddenly, Aang's eyes and markings glow white. He puts his hands together and he freezes himself and Appa in a huge ball of ice.

"Aang! Aang, wake up!," He wakes up, gasping, "It's okay. We're in the village now. Come on, get ready. Everyone's waiting to meet you." Katara tells him. Aang gets up and puts on his shirt and hood. Katara looks at his airbender tattoos. She grabs Aang by the hand and drags him outside. He carries a staff with him.

A small crowd has gathered to greet him. It is composed of women of various ages and children. "Aang, this is the entire village. Entire village, Aang." Katara makes a great hostess and makes introductions with a large smile spread across her face, she throws her arms as if to say Tadaa, my people! Aang bows to them in a friendly manner, but the people pull back from him anyway. "Uhh… Why are they all looking at me like that? Did Appa sneeze on me?" He starts to check himself for snot, when an elderly woman approaches him. "Well, no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years. We thought they were extinct until my granddaughter and grandson found you." "Extinct?" Aang says, a little frazzled. Katara steps up, making this introduction a little more personal, "Aang, this is my grandmother." "Please, dear child, call me gran gran."

Sokka grabbed Aang's staff, "What is this, a weapon? You can't stab anything with this. This is useless." "No. It's neither." Aang says as he creates a jet of air that sucks the staff back into his hand. "It's for airbending." Aang opens the staff into a glider with red wings. A little girl from the crowd starts jumping happily, "Magic trick! Magic trick! Do it again!" Aang would normally oblige, but this time he needed to teach. "Not magic, Airbending!" He said grandly. "It lets me control the air currents around my glider and fly." Sokka crossed his arms over his chest and jutted his left hip out, "You know, last time I checked, humans can't fly." and with the biggest shit eating grin you ever seen, Aang said "check again!" Aang launches himself into the air with his glider. He soars through the air, doing loops as the villagers on the ground point to him in wonder. Aang looks down at Katara who smiles at him. He is so enthralled with her attention that slams right into Sokka's guard tower. He pulls his head out of the tower and falls to the ground with his glider. Katara helps Aang back to his feet. He twirls his glider shut as Sokka examines the damaged tower behind him. After Aang closes the glider a huge bank of snow buries Sokka. As he digs himself out, he grumbles, "Great. You're an airbender, Katara's a waterbender, together you can just waste time all day long." Aang gets really excited upon hearing this news, "You're a waterbender!?" Katara kind of blushes, "Well… sort of… Not yet…" Gran gran cut her off, "All right. No more playing. Come on, Katara, you have chores." and Gran gran leads Katara off. While doing chores inside, Katara tells Gran "I told you! He's the real thing, Gran gran! I finally found a bender to teach me." Gran gran tries to reason with her hot tempered granddaughter "Katara, try not to put all your hopes in this boy." But just like her mother, Katara lets her feelings lead her. "But he's special. I can tell. I sense he's filled with so much wisdom." She looks over to her right. Aang has his tongue frozen to his staff, children gathered around him. Laughing.

Out in the freezing waters appears Zuko's ship cutting through the waves, then cut to Zuko facing two Fire Navy seamen. Iroh sits nearby. "AGAIN" Zuko blasts fire from his hands at the guards, but misses. Then the guards attack Zuko with blasts of fire from their fists, but Zuko dodges. He backflips over the guards to land behind them. Iroh sighs and gets up. "No! Power in firebending comes from the breath. Not the muscles. The breath becomes energy in the body. The energy extends past your limbs and becomes fire." Iroh demonstrates, releasing a controlling plume of flame that bursts in front of Zuko, but does not hit him. "Get it right this time." Zuko screams out in rage, "Enough. I've been drilling this sequence all day. Teach me the next set. I'm more than ready." Iroh looks his nephew dead in the eyes and says "No, you are impatient. You have yet to master your basics." More forcefully, "Drill it again!" Grrrr... huh!" He blasts one of the guards backwards with a gout of fire. "The sages tell us that the Avatar is the last airbender. He must be over a hundred years old by now. He's had a century to master the four elements. I'll need more than basic firebending to defeat him. You WILL teach me the advanced set!" Iroh sits back down, saying "Very well. But first I must finish my roast duck." Iroh begins eating. "Num num... num…"

Back in the small village, Sokka is clearly addressing an audience as he paces back and forth. "Now men, it's important that you show no fear when you face a firebender. In the Water Tribe, we fight to the last man standing. For without courage, how can we call ourselves men?" The audience is a group of six children, most of whom are toddlers. A little boy raises his hand and announces, "I gotta pee!" Sokka is a bit disturbed and, leaning forward, tells the kids, "Listen! Until your fathers return from the war, they're counting on you to be the men of this tribe. And that means no potty breaks." the little boy looks up at Sokka, tears welling up in his eyes, "But i really gotta go." Sokka sighs, "Okay, fine. Who else has to go?" All six raise their hands. Sokka slaps his forehead in disgust as all six exit to the right. Katara enters from the left. "Have you seen Aang? Gran gran said he disappeared over an hour ago." Aang emerges from a small igloo type bathroom stall. He adjusts his pants and smiles at the trip of boys coming to use the toilet. Gesturing over his shoulder, "Wow! Everything freezes in there!" which is met with a round of thunderous laughter from the group of small boys. Sokka, getting more and more aggravated and flustered by the minute, "Ugh! Katara, get him out of here. This lesson is for warriors only." Just then, Sokka hears a kid in the distance, "Wheeeeeee!"

Sokka looks over at Appa, Aang on his back. They have propped up his tail using a makeshift sawhorse. A kid has used Appa's back and tail as a slide to land in a pile of snow. The children, and soon Katara, all start laughing. Sokka all but froths at the mouth in anger, "Stop! Stop it right now!" more to the group than to anyone in particular. Then to Aang, "What's wrong with you? We don't have time for fun and games with a war going on." Aang looks confused, "What war?" He hops off Appa and asks again, "What are you talking about?" Sokka scoffs, "You're kidding, right?" Aang's gaze shifts slightly off of Sokka for a second. And a second was all it took to see…

Aang shouts out, "PENGUIN!" The otter-penguin, aware that it has been spotted, makes an excited noise and turns to waddle away. Aang uses his airbending skill to run at unbelievable speed toward the horizon where the otter-penguin had just been. Sokka stares in disbelief, "He's kidding, RIGHT?"

Aang had chased the poor little otter-penguin far from the village to a beach. A beach loaded with otter-penguins who waddle around squawking. Katara enters, looking for Aang. Aang is chasing some otter-penguins, but is unable to catch them as they waddle away. "Haha! Hey, come on little guy. Wanna go sledding?" Aang lunges, but falls flat on his face. He gets back up as Katara approaches. "Oof! Heh heh, I have a way with animals." He puts his arms out and waddles in imitation of the four flippered otter-penguins. "Yarp! Yarp yarp! Yarp! Yarp yarp! Yarp!" Katara giggles at him, "Aang, I'll help you catch a penguin if you teach me waterbending." Aang sounded very delighted, "You got yourself a deal. Just one little problem. I'm an airbender, not a waterbender. Isn't there someone in your tribe who can teach you?" Katara looked away in sadness, her hair blowing in a soft breeze, "No. You're looking at the only waterbender on the entirety of the whole South Pole." For the first time since they met, Aang looked disturbed. "This isn't right. A waterbender needs to master water. What about the North Pole? There's another Water Tribe up there, right? Maybe they have waterbenders who could teach you." Katara didn't look like her spirits were lifted by this as she rubbed her arms, not for warmth, but for comfort, "Maybe. But we haven't had contact with our sister tribe in a long time. It's not exactly 'turn right at the second glacier.' It's on the other side of the world." At this, the look of disturbance that was on Aang's face vanished, and that same dorky smile he always wears broke across his face, "But you forget: I have a flying bison. Appa and I can personally fly you to the North Pole. Katara, we're gonna find you a master!" this seemed to lift her spirits, "Oh my gosh, That's…" then uncertainty took over, "I don't know. I've never left home before." Aang, unable to stay on a serious note for too long, "Well, you think about it. But in the meantime, can you teach me to catch one of these penguins?" "Okay, listen closely, my young pupil. Catching penguins is an ancient and sacred art. Observe." She produces a little fish from her coat and tosses it at Aang. He is instantly surrounded by a horde of hungry otter-penguins.

They went from the beach to an ice bank. It appears to be late afternoon. Suddenly, Katara and Aang rocket off the ice bank, each sitting atop an otter-penguin. They land on the bank below and continue down at high speed on the otter-penguin's belly. Aang and his otter-penguin take a jump off a small ramp, eventually landing in front of Katara. She takes the jump and lands near him. They laugh and whoop happily. Katara , "I haven't done this since I was a kid." Aang looked over at her curiously, but still happily, "You still ARE a kid!" They continue to rocket across the frozen landscape, eventually entering a system of ice tunnels. The tunnels have periodic gaps where sunlight pours through. They emerge from the tunnels and get off their mounts, which stand up and dizzily wander away making little chirping noises. They walk forward, looking at something in front of them. Aang is the first to speak. "Whoa… What IS that?" Very seriously, Katara answers, "A Fire Navy ship, and a very bad memory for my people." Aang walks up to the ship. In a shrill voice, Katara beacons for Aang to stop. "Aang, stop! We're not allowed to go near it. The ship could be booby trapped." he turns to face her, saying "If you want to be a bender, you have to let go of fear." She looks uncertain, then follows him to the ship. They climb up and enter the ship through a gaping hole in one of the forward compartments below the water line. They walk around the dark corridors inside past many darkened rooms. Katara's face is caught in one of the streaks of light coming from outside, and she says, "This ship has haunted my tribe since Gran Gran was a little girl. It was part of the Fire Nation's first attacks." Aang stops in his tracks, flailing his arms in front of his torso to fend off her words, "No! No no no. Back up. I have friends all over the world, even in the Fire Nation. I've never seen any war." Katara looked away from the armor she was checking out, and had to ask, "Aang, how long were you in that iceberg?" Aang just shrugged, "I don't know. A few days maybe?" Katara thought for a second, and snapped her fingers, "I think it was more like a hundred years!" she pauses for a second to see Aang's reaction, and seeing that he has none, she continues, "Think about it. The war is a century old. You don't know about it because, somehow, you were in there that whole time. It's the only explanation." with what she was saying finally hitting him, Aang asked, "What? That's impossible. Do I look like a hundred-and-twelve year old man to you?" as he hunched over and shook his knees. As Katara stared at him sternly, her words finally sank in. Aang puts his hand to his head and walks backward. Stunned by this realization, he sinks to the floor. "A hundred years! I can't believe it." Katara kneels next to him. "I'm sorry, Aang. Maybe, somehow there's a bright side to all this." Aang picks his head up from his hands, "I did get to meet you." which makes Katara smile and blush. "Come on." She says, "Let's get out of here." She helps him back to his feet and they start walking once again. Aang enters a darkened room on the ship, Katara behind in the hallway. Aang's foot dragging a tripwire on the floor. Behind them the door is blocked by a grate that drops from the ceiling. They grab it just after it falls shut. They are trapped. Aang asked Katara. Around them, machinery in the room starts to operate. Gauges show steam pressure and wheels begin to turn. Steam begins to pour out of some of the equipment. Suddenly, a bright flare explodes out of the Fire Navy ship and into the sky, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. When it reaches its zenith it explodes with a small shower of sparks.

"Uh oh what did you say about booby traps." In the aftermath, the both of them look around frantically. There is a hole in the ceiling that Aang is now looking at. "Hold on tight!" He grabs Katara, who cries out in surprise, and launches them both through the hole in the ceiling. He lands with her in his arms on top of the bridge.

We open to a scene. The telescope follows the flare down for a few moments, before shifting downwards to show Aang hopping down the ship and the ice which encases it to the ground below, Katara still in his arms.

Zuko exclaims, "The last airbender!" he continues to glare him down through his telescope. "Hmm. Quite agile for his old age." he straightens himself out and turns to his henchmen, "Wake my uncle! Tell him I found the Avatar…" he looks back into his telescope to see Aang and Katara running. He scans farther out into the distance to see where they're running, and zooms and focuses on Katara's village, "As well as his hiding place."

2

It took awhile on foot but Aang and Katara finally made it back to the village. The villagers and Gran gran are looking out by the gates at sunset. They look down the ice road out of their village to see Aang and Katara in the distance walking toward them. As they approach, the children run forward to greet them. The children are excited and parading around, "Yay! Aang's back!" as Sokka comes forward angrily. He pointed one of his angry fingers in Aang's direction, "I knew it! You signaled the Fire Navy with that flare! You're leading them straight to us, aren't you?" Katara ran to stand in between the two boys, "Aang didn't do anything. It was an accident." Aang, looking like he was still trying to figure out what happened, "Yeah, we were on the ship and there was a booby trap and well…" he started rubbing his head, trying to puzzle out the thought, "we 'boobied' right into it." Gran gran shook her head. "Katara, you should've never been on that ship. Now we could all be in danger!" Now it was Aang's turn to step in between, "Don't blame Katara! I brought her there." Looking downtrodden and looking down, he adds, "accident or not, it's my fault." Sokka starts jumping up and down in euphoria, "AHA! The traitor confesses! Warriors," he looks to the children, "Away from the enemy!" The children all walk towards Sokka and Gran. Katara is angered by this. She bellows out, "Sokka, you're making a mistake. A big ass mistake!" Sokka, equally as enraged now, bellows back, "No! I'm keeping my promise to Dad. I'm protecting you from threats LIKE HIM!" Katara motions to Aang. "Aang is not our enemy! Don't you see? Aang's brought us something we haven't had in a long time." She looks downward towards the children, then back up at Sokka, "Fun!" Sokka was almost feverish with how worked up Katara was making him now. "FUN? We can't fight firebenders with FUN!" Aang, for the first time since the yelling began, smiled earnestly and piped up, "You should try it sometime." Sokka, seething at this point, growls "Get out of our village. NOW!" Katara, pleading now, "Grandmother, please don't let Sokka do this." But Gran was hearing none of it. "Katara, you knew that going on that ship was forbidden. Sokka is right. I think it best if the airbender leaves." In a huff, Katara shouts out, "then I'm banished too!" as she takes Aang's shoulder and walks off.

It seemed like the short walk to Appa took forever, with everyone staring at their backs, mouths agape, as they walked. Appa is on the left, ready for flight, Sokka and the villagers on the right. In between are Katara and Aang walking to Appa, the sun starting to set behind them.

Sokka comes stomping up to Katara, pointing at her, while asking, "Where do you think you're going?" Katara, calmly and without missing a beat, answered "To find a waterbender! Aang is taking me to the North Pole!" Aang, for a second, was momentarily confused, "I am?" but confusion didn't seem to last long for this kid. He brightened, "GREAT!" Sokka was not in as bright a mood, "Katara" he yells in that way he knows will make her stop, she does. "Would you really choose him over your tribe? Your own family?" She pauses, doubt and indecision spreading across her face. Aang comes down from loading up Appa, "Katara, I don't want to come between you and your family." He pets Appa's muzzle. Katara's eyes are welling up, "So, you're leaving the South Pole? This is goodbye?" sadness didn't seem to last long for this kid either, because Aang just said, "Thanks for penguin sledding with me." a little choked up, but not trying to show it, Katara asked, "Where will you go?" Aang paused petting Appa for a second, "hmm…" he continued petting the fuzzy creature. "Guess I'll go back home and look for the airbenders." he thought for a second. "Wow. I haven't cleaned my room in a hundred years. Not looking forward to that." he airbends himself onto Appa's head where he takes the reins. He turns to address the village. "It was nice meeting everyone!" Sokka, finally happy to see the boy leave, "HA! Let's see your bison fly now, Air boy." Aang shakes the reins, "Come on, Appa. Yip yip!" Appa rumbles and gets to his feet. Sokka, feeling a little proud to be proven so right in such a short time, "Yeah. Thought so." Just then, a little girl with pigtails rushes forward with a cry to stand by Katara. "Aang! Don't go! We'll miss you!" the little girl says, tears shining in her eyes. Aang says, "I'll miss you too." with a sad smile. He turns to look at Katara, braids blowing in the breeze. He turns around, shaking the reins once more. "Come on, boy." Appa walks off somberly. The little girl runs off crying back to the village. Gran gran comes up behind Katara. "Katara, you'll feel better after you-" Katara was so angry that manners meant nothing, she cut off Gran gran, "Are you happy now? There goes my one chance of becoming a waterbender. MY! ONE! CHANCE!" She stalks off angrily, leaving Gran gran alone.

Sokka is directing a small troop of little boys through the village gates. The older children sing 'Be A Man' while they file in line. Sokka stops the tiny troops, "All right! Ready our defences! The Fire Nation could be on our shores any minute now!" A little boy stops, raising his hand and dancing about suggestively, "But I gotta-" Sokka cuts him off forcefully, pointing to the fortifications, "And NO potty breaks!"

Many miles away from the village, Appa and Aang are resting in the curves of some ice formations. The formation has two doughnut shaped holes. Appa lies on his back in the lower one, Aang in the smaller higher one. Appa rumbles. Aang agrees, "Yeah, I liked her too." Aang looks out to sea and gets up with a start. He sees a Fire Navy ship sailing… "to the village!" Aang realizes. "Appa, wait here." Appa rumbles in reply, obviously saying OK because he didn't move from his spot, only rolled over to get more comfortable.

Sokka is putting on his war garb. Fingerless gloves, arm wraps, boots and face paint are all applied silently. Zuko is being helped into his armor by some attendants. He girds himself with a breastplate, shoulder guard and helmet.

Sokka leaves his tent with his weapons. Alone, Sokka stands atop the ice wall of the village, scanning the mist for any sign of the enemy. Suddenly, a deep rumbling noise is heard and the ground begins to shake. Parts of the wall on which Sokka stands begin to crumble. The villagers look around in alarm. The guard tower crumbles. Pandemonium breaks out in the village as people begin to run every which way. Katara is in their midst, but stops, seeing something in the mist. It's the bow of Prince Zuko's ship.

Prince Zuko's vessel has cut through the ice all the way to the city wall itself. As the ships continue to break ice towards the wall, Katara puts Gran Gran into one of the tents in the rear and then gets a little child out of harm's way as the ice floor of the village begins to crack all over the place under the stress. As she puts the child in a tent, she turns to look back at Sokka. She screams at him to, "Get out of the way!" As the ship reaches the wall, it collapses into a heap of ice and snow which tumbles back into the village, carrying Sokka with it. The ship finally comes to a halt. Steam wafts up from where the bow has split the ice. The villagers, Katara in front, have emerged from their shelters and stare in trepidation and amazement at the ship. Katara draws a deep breath in anticipation.

With a noise of metal on metal the bowsprit of the ship opens and folds out and down onto the village's floor. The bowsprit has become a huge gangplank, similar to the Roman corvus, for disembarking Fire Nation troops. Sokka falls backwards to avoid being crushed by the bowsprit. As the steam clears from the top of the bowsprit, Zuko and a host of Fire Nation soldiers are revealed. Zuko starts walking down the gangplank stairs followed by four guards. Sokka gets up and charges Zuko with an adolescent war cry. As he runs up the steps to the Prince, Zuko casually and expertly kicks his weapon out of his hand and then kicks him in the face, sending him sprawling on the ice to the planks right. His head gets stuck in the snow and he struggles comically to free himself. The villagers draw back in fright and the ease with which their only warrior has been dispatched by the invaders.

Zuko walks forward to address the village. He looks over the crowd, then walks over to Katara and Gran Gran. "Where are you hiding him?" He looks around the crowd as there is no immediate response. He grabs Gran Gran and shows her to the villagers. "He'd be about this age? Master of all elements?" Again no one responds. After a brief pause, he throws Gran Gran roughly back to Katara. With a cry of frustration he launches a gout of flame over the villager's heads. They cower in fear. "I KNOW YOU'RE HIDING HIM!" He screamed louder, angrier.

Behind Zuko, Sokka gets up, his face paint largely gone. He retrieves his weapon and charges Zuko with another cry. He dodges Sokka's charges and flips him over his head. Zuko fires a blast of flame at Sokka, but Sokka rolls out of the way, throwing his boomerang at Zuko as he does. Caught by surprise, Zuko barely avoids the boomerang. He turns to look back in anger at Sokka over the near miss. A little boy in the crowd throws him a spear. "Show no fear!" the tiny troop member yelled out. Sokka catches the spear and charges Zuko, who, as Sokka reaches him, breaks off pieces of the spear shaft with his wrist guards. After the head of the spear has been shorn off, Zuko grabs the spear, boinks Sokka on the forehead with it several times, then breaks it in half and drops the pieces on the ground. Sokka, after getting bonked on the head, has also sunk to the ground, rubbing his head. In the sky in the background the boomerang reappears. It slams Zuko in the back of the head, knocking his helmet off kilter. Furious, Zuko begins to spit fire out of his hands as he hovers menacingly over Sokka.

Aang skyrocketed towards the village on an otter-penguin, staff in hand. He flies right under Zuko, sweeping his legs out from under him. Zuko lands butt up. The helmet lands on his behind in a most suggestive manner. The children cheer as Aang reaches the villagers. As he and the otter-penguin bank, they dump a lot of snow on the cheering kids. They stop cheering for a moment, but then take up the cheer again anyway. The otter-penguin slides to a halt and it pushes Aang off. The otter-penguin gets up, looks at Aang, and then turns and waddles away. Aang beams. "Hey Katara. Hey Sokka." Sokka says very dryly, "Hi, Aang. Thanks for comin'."

Aang looks over at the Firebenders. To Zuko getting to his feet and assuming a firebending stance. Aang at the ready with his staff, surrounded by Zuko and his men. They begin to close in, but Aang blows the men on either side of him backwards with blasts of air. He blasts Zuko as well, but he holds his ground, shielding his face from the wind.

As he blasts Zuko, he shouts, "Looking for me?" Zuko incredulously asks, "YOU'RE the Airbender? You're the Avatar?" Bewildered, Katara looks at the boys, "Aang?" For once, Sokka is in full agreement with his sister. "No fu… freakin way."

Zuko and Aang are maneuvering for position against each other in the middle of a village that has become an arena. Zuko cries out in frustration, "I've spent years preparing for this encounter. Training. Meditating. You're just a child!" Aang, figuring this was less about fighting and more about pointing out the obvious, says "Well, you're one to talk. You're just a teenager!" Zuko fires blast after blast. Aang cries out. He is hard pressed, fear showing on his face. Aang dissipates each blast as it strikes by twirling his staff in front of him like a helicopter blade. The dissipation doesn't block the fire from reaching the villagers, though, and they cry out. Aang looks behind him, to them and realizes he can't protect them all. "If I go with you, will you promise to leave everyone alone?" Aang asks Zuko, who is still in a firebending stance. After a brief pause, he straightens up and nods stiffly. Aang hands one of Zuko's soldiers his staff and is led aboard the ship. Katara rushes forward from the crowd of villagers, "No, Aang. Don't do this!" Aang throws a bright smile over his shoulder, "Don't worry, Katara. It'll be ok." they push him forward roughly and he screams over his shoulder, "Take care of Appa for me until I get back." Zuko smiles, for he knows there is no 'coming back.' He turns to one of his soldiers and says, "head a course for the Fire Nation. I'm going home." They board the ship and the bowsprit rises back up. Aang looks back hopefully at his new friend as the ship closes. Katara's eyes water as the prison closes around Aang. His smile drops as he sees her pain. The shadow of the closing bowsprit closes over him.

Not long after Zuko left with Aang the village life returned to "normal." The jagged path through the ice that Zuko's ship opened is plainly visible as is the shattered village wall. Life goes on, however, the fire at the center of the village smokes and villagers are visible about their work. They all look sad. Katara is at the water's edge looking out at the sun rising over the sea. Sokka walks behind her carrying some things. She follows. "We have to go after that ship, Sokka. Aang saved our tribe, now we have to save him." Sokka tried to get a word in, but was cut off by Katara, "Why can't you realize that he's on our side? If we don't help him, no one will. I know you don't like Aang, but we owe him, and I-" Finally Sokka cuts his sister off, "Katara! Are you gonna talk all day or are you coming with me?" Sokka motions to the canoe, all ready to go. Katara realizes what he's been doing. "Oh, Sokka!" she says with a happy gasp and a bear hug. Sokka receives the best bear hug he's gotten in a while and says, "Get in. We're going to save your boyfriend." Katara looks flustered, "He's NOT my-" "Yeah, yeah, whatever." Gran gran comes out from the gates and comes clearly into view to ask, "What do you two think you're doing?" they try to look innocently at a Gran gran that's trying to look stern. After a moment of staring at one another, Gran gran smiles, and offers the kids a blue bundle. "You'll need these. You have a long journey ahead of you. It's been so long since I've had hope. But you brought it back to life, my little waterbender." She hugs Katara. "And you, my brave warrior, be nice to your sister." and she hugs Sokka. In a much softer tone than he used with his sister, and a half smile, Sokka responded with the same words as earlier, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." but this time it was more sentimental. "Aang is the Avatar. He's the world's only chance. You both found him for a reason. Now your destinies are intertwined with his."

Katara turns to the canoe. "There's no way we're going to catch up to a warship with this." Appa emits a low rumble as he follows the path Gran gran took down to the canoe from the village gates. Katara runs towards Appa happily, and hugs the side of his soft face. "You just love taking me out of my comfort zone" Sokka asked. "Dontcha?"

Zuko's prow is breaking through ice packed water. On the foredeck, Aang has his hands bound behind him and faces Zuko, Iroh, and a bunch of guards. Zuko has Aang's staff. " This staff will make an excellent gift for my father. I suppose you wouldn't know of fathers being raised by monks. Take the Avatar to the prison. And'' shoving the staff in Iroh's direction, "take this to my quarters." Iroh takes the staff as Zuko walks away. Iroh immediately turns to the guard on his left. "Hey, you mind taking this to his quarters for me?" The guard takes the staff as Aang is escorted down some stairs into the ship. And is being escorted down one of the ship's hallways. "So… I guess you never fought an airbender before. I bet I can take you both with my hands tied behind my back." They stop in front of a door. As one of the guards moves to open the door with a key, Aang draws a great breath and blows the guard with the key into the door, knocking him out. The breath also propels him backwards and into the guard behind him. They are blown all the way back down the hallway. They crash into the stairs they came down on. The guard is knocked out since Aang used him to cushion his own impact. Aang then airbends himself back up onto the deck and airbends the door at the end of the deck open. He enters the ship and runs down the hall. One of the guards Aang just escaped from emerges and shouts up to a guard on the bridge deck in the foreground. The bridge guards turn and run. "THE AVATAR HAS ESCAPED!"

Appa is swimming through the water, with Katara at the reins and Sokka on his back in the saddle. Sokka drearily spoke from the back of the fluffy beast, "Go. Fly. Soar." while Katara tried to coax the animal, "Please, Appa, we need your help. Aang needs your help." Sokka continued to try commands. "Up. Elevate. Ascend. Get high." And Katara continued coaxing. "Sokka doesn't believe you can fly, but I do, Appa. Come on. Don't you wanna save Aang?" Appa rumbles in response, but doesn't speed up or fly. Sokka just keeps rambling on to himself, "What the hell did that kid say? Yee-haw? Hup hup? Wahoo? Uuuhhh… Yip yip?" This last gets a response. Appa rumbles again and begins to flop his massive beaver tail. He begins to hop along the surface of the water as he picks up speed. Finally, with a mighty heave, he takes off into the sky. Both of them start ecstatically dancing in their seats, cheering, "He can fly! He can fly! He can fly!" Then Katara gives him a smug look and he changes his tone to an air of nonchalance, "I mean, big deal, he's flying."

Aang ran down one of the ship's hallways, looking behind him for pursuers. His hands are still bound behind him. He turns and starts to run forward – right into three Fire Nation soldiers blocking his way, weapons drawn. "You haven't seen my staff around, have you?" Aang runs forward and up and around the guards by running along the walls and ceiling in corkscrew circles. He gets by them with ease and looks at his retreating form with surprise. "Thanks anyway!" Aang shouts as he runs into another hallway, this time blocked by a single guard. He blasts a fireball at him, but he avoids it by launching himself over the guards head. Aang passes, and is able to cut his wrist bonds by catching them on the horn of the guard's helmet. The bonds break and the guard is thrown off balance and onto the ground. Aang, his hands now free, starts running down hallways opening random doors. One such door belonged to a sleeping Iroh. Aang respectfully whispered a quick "Sorry" and left, closing the door behind him. He then runs by another open door, stops and turns back to it. "MY STAFF!"

He enters and the door shuts behind him. Now seeing Zuko, who was hiding in wait for the Avatar. "Looks like I underestimated you." After a brief pause, Zuko begins blasting fire at Aang, who barely dodges. He is terrified and he gasps and pants to catch his breath. After dodging a few more shots, Aang rolls underneath Zuko to get behind him. By staying behind him, Zuko is unable to blast him with fire. The long window of the room where Aang and Zuko are fighting lights up every other second each time Zuko releases a blast. Aang now faces Zuko. He dissipates each fireball with a small air ball he forms with his hands. Aang creates an air scooter and rides around the walls and ceiling of the room, all the time getting licked by the gouts of flame Zuko unleashes at him. Aang terminates the airball and grabs a tapestry off the wall. He wraps Zuko up in it as he passes. While Zuko struggles against the tapestry, Aang is able to grab his staff. Zuko breaks his bonds and they once again square off against each other. After a few seconds of maneuvering, Aang airbends a mattress up off the floor and slams it into Zuko. The mattress propels Zuko into the opposite wall. He is smashed into it and he falls to the ground, onto the mattress. Aang then airbends the mattress up to the Zuko, smashing Zuko into that. Both fall back down to the ground. Zuko looks up in anger to find Aang gone.

Up on the bridge, where the wheel mechanism that opens a deck hatch on the floor begins to spin. The hatch opens and Aang airbends himself on to the bridge from below. Aang rushes forward out onto the bridge's observation deck. He opens his glider, throws it into the air and jumps after it. He catches it, a happy expression on his face. Unfortunately, behind him, Zuko has jumped after him in pursuit. With a fierce cry of desperation, he grabs Aang's foot. Both get up and square off yet again. Aang's look of trepidation is tempered as he turns over his left shoulder to see Appa up in the sky gaining on Zuko's ship. Zuko's eyes get huge as he asks, "What IS that?" Aang answers just as enthusiastically as when he jumped for his glider, "APPA!"

Aang turns just in time to use his staff to block a fire blast from Zuko. He uses his staff as a helicopter to escape the blasts and comes back down on the edge of the deck, almost falling overboard. He regains his balance and blows three more fireballs before his staff is knocked away from him. He dodges a few more blasts before he is finally knocked overboard. Aang falls into the water below. Katara starts hysterically calling out for Aang, "Aang! AANG!" At Katara's final scream, Aang's eyes and tattoo's glow white, an expression of determination forming on his face. He turns around in the water and begins to rise towards the surface. Around him, a mighty whirlpool of water begins to form. Aang, at the center of a now monstrous, inverted tornado of water is propelled toward the surface at amazing speed. He breaks the surface in front of the ship, towering high over the bridge atop his swirling maelstrom of water. Zuko, who looks up at the swirling column of water and the Avatar at its pinnacle with dismay and fear. Aang lands on the deck, his eyes still aglow, and bends the water from the column around him in a circle. He releases it and it expands outward in a shockwave that blasts Zuko and his men overboard. Katar and Sokka witnessed all this on the back of Appa from above the ship. Katara, losing her shit, "Did you SEE what he just DID!?" Sokka tried to remain calm but was equally losing his shit inside, "Now THAT was some waterbending!"

Aang is on the foredeck, on his knees, wobbling after the huge energy expenditure. He falls forward, the white energy fading from his eyes and tattoos. Appa lands and Katara and Sokka jump off to retrieve him. Katara comes to kneel by him and hold Aang, Sokka comes to her side, ever the protectors. Aang, drained, thanked Katara and Sokka. "Thank you guys for coming." Sokka, kept his stance by his sister and new 'friend', "Well, i couldn't let you have all the FUN." and he winked at Aang. who then proceeded to tell Sokka that he lost his staff. Sokka, ever the effervescent warrior was on it. Sokka runs over to pick up the staff. As he picks it up, Sokka is shocked to see that Zuko holds the other end of it. Zuko was washed overboard, but held onto the part of Aang's staff that was hanging out over the deck. Sokka butts Zuko in the head with the staff three times. Zuko lets go and begins to fall to the water below, but grabs the anchor chain in time. He hangs by one hand. Sokka screams in triumph, "HA! That's from the Water Tribe!"

The guards who had been washed way down the deck by Aang's waterbending get up, preparing for combat. Katara picks up a stream of water from the deck and the guards pull back slightly in fear. She tries to whip the guards with the water, but instead freezes the water on the deck, including the water around Sokka's feet in the background. Sokka starts to chip away at the ice holding his feet with his boomerang while the soldiers move forward once again. Katara picks up another stream of water and throws it at the soldiers without looking. They are now frozen in a thin sheet of ice. With no hesitation, she turns and climbs back on Appa, screaming to her brother, "Hurry up, Sokka!" while Sokka mutters to himself, "I'm just a guy with a boomerang. I didn't ask for all this flying and magic." He finally frees himself and runs up Appa's tail. Sokka frantically yelled out "Yip yip! Yip yip!" Once he's on board, Appa rumbles and takes off.

Iroh emerges from the lower deck, awake from his nap, looking up at the sky and rubbing his eyes, he thinks he's in some sort of daze. "Huh?" He understands enough of what happened to know that Zuko needs help getting back onto the ship. He goes to help. As Zuko swings a leg over the side of the ship, he orders, "Shoot them down!" As Appa gains altitude, Zuko and Iroh in unison launch a massive bolt of fire at Appa. Katara and Sokka look behind them in horror at the approaching fireball. Aang jumps to the back of the saddle and, using his staff like a baseball bat, airbends a gale that sends the fireball at a right angle away from Appa and into the ice cliff nearby. The fireball explodes, releasing a huge amount of ice from the cliff wall which falls into the narrow channel that Zuko's ship is navigating. Zuko gasps in horror as the bow of the ship and indeed the entire channel is blocked up under an avalanche of ice. Aang, Katara and Sokka laugh as they fly away.

Iroh says to his nephew as he clambours onto the ship, "Good news for the Fire Lord. the nation's greatest threat is just a little kid." Zuko sighs, "That kid, Uncle, just did all this." He spreads his arms wide and Iroh takes in the prow buried in ice, the frozen soldiers, the water all over, and the dings all over the ship. "I won't underestimate him again. Dig this ship out and follow them!" he says, turning to his soldiers. He sees that they are using controlled firebending to thaw out their compatriots, "As soon as you're done with that."

As the newly formed group leaves Zuko's ship behind, the sun is setting in a wide array of reds and oranges as Appa flies through the clouds. Katara excitedly flails about in Appa's saddle, "How did you do that?" she flails her hands around her face, "With the water?" She puts her hands on her face, almost in a mimicry of Home Alone, "It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!" Aang sitting, cross-legged, kinda sadly on the bridge of the saddle, just responds, "I dunno. I just… sorta… did it" as he looks at his hands, slowly turning them over, looking for some kind of answer. His thoughts are disrupted when Katara asks, "Why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar?" Aang, putting his hands down and bringing his knees up to his chin, very dolefully stated, "Because… I never wanted to be."

Overhead, a cloud passes over them, momentarily blocking the fading sunlight. After it passes, they enter a shaft of sunlight. "But Aang," Katara started, "the world's been waiting for the Avatar to return and finally put an end to this war." looking sadder than any normal human, and sadder than Katara has seen him since she found him, Aang asks, "And how am i to do that?" Katara, not missing a beat, and not letting his dapper mood get to her, piped up with what she knew, which wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. "According to legend, you need to first master water, then earth, then fire. Right?" Aang kind of half shrugged, "That's what the monks told me." Katara, lost in thought for a second as to what the world was like, snapped back and said, "Well, if we go to the North Pole, you can master waterbending." This thought seemed to cheer up Aang a considerable amount. Smiling, he said, "We can learn it together!" Katara, including her brother so he'd agree to go, "And Sokka, I'm sure you'll get to knock some Fire Nation heads on the way." And in a somewhat dreamy daze, Sokka agrees, "I'd like that. I'd really like that." Katara happily squeals, "Then we're in this together!" Sokka wakes up from his daze, shakes himself for a second, then turns to his sister, "Hey, hey, hey! What are you thinking? We barely know this kid, and you want to travel half the world with him? Are you crazy?" he takes a second to mumble to himself, "Well, you ARE my sister. I guess I've known you're crazy for a while now." he looks at Katara, bewildered, "BUT ARE YOU THIS CRAZY?" Katara sat up straight, the smile from earlier almost lost, but still remnants remained on her face. She looked between the two boys and petted Appa's side, and looked out at the setting sun, before answering. "Maybe. I might just be, I am related to you."

Aang, seeing that the matter was settled, produced a scroll. "All right, but before we learn waterbending, we have some serious business to attend to," he airbends himself over to them and opens the scroll to reveal a map, "here, here, and here." he points to two spots in the Earth Kingdom, and one spot on the Southern Air Nomad islands in quick succession. "Katara bends forward to look at the map better, "What's there?" "Here," Aang said, pointing to the Earth Kingdom, "We'll ride the hopping lammas. Then waaaaayyyyy over here," pointing to a spot on the Southern Air Nomad islands, "We'll surf on the backs of giant koi fish. Then back over here we'll ride the hog-monkeys. They don't like people riding them, but that's what makes it fun!" Sokka leans back to make eye contact with Katara without Aang noticing, "mhmm… crazy." he mouths to her.

3

The sun is rising over a sparkling blue lake. The group had made camp on the lake shore the night before. One of the members is apparently asleep in a Water Tribe sleeping bag on the ground. Appa is standing, grazing slowly, while a small fire casts a plume of smoke. Aang is sitting in Appa's "driver's seat." Katara is up in the passenger section doing some kind of work. While adjusting Appa's reins, Aang rambles on, "Wait till you see it, Katara. The Air Temple is one of the most beautiful places in the world." Cautiously, Katara responds, "Aang, I know you're excited, but it's been a hundred years since you've been home." "That's why I'm so excited!" Aang beams. Katara's finding it harder to stay as composed as she is. "It's just… it's just that… a lot can change in all that time." Aang lowers his head, "I know," he picks his head up and stares out towards the rising sun, "But I need to see it for myself." He picks his arm up and starts rubbing the back of his bald head, "besides, I still have a room to clean." he said as he beamed. Katara, after hearing the comment about cleaning his room, just smacks the middle of her forehead with her hand. Thus, inventing the facepalm.

Aang floats down from Appa's back and walks over to Sokka, who is snoring peacefully in his sleeping bag on the ground. Aang gets closer, and squats down, practically yelling, "Wake up, Sokka! Air Temple here we come!" Sokka groggily responds "sleep now… temple later…" while rolling around in his sleeping bag. He rolls over and begins to snore again.

Aang is clearly not pleased. A mischievous grin spreads over his face as he gets an idea. Aang picks up a stick as Katara watches from atop Appa's back. "Sokka! Wake up!" He begins to run the stick up and down Sokka's sleeping bag, "There's a prickle-snake in your sleeping bag!" Sokka wakes up startled. "AAAAHHHHHH! Get it off! Get it off!" Sokka hops around in his sleeping bag until he loses his balance and falls flat on his face. Katara laughs at him. Sokka looks very irritated. Aang pokes his head out from behind Sokka, "Great! You're awake. Let's go."

After a few days of slow travel due to the ship being damaged they finally arrived at the Fire Nation naval yard. Tents and buildings line the right side of the screen, ships line the left and what looks like a railroad line runs down the middle. To the left of that, is Zuko's damaged ship. It is much smaller than the other Fire Nation ships. The prow of Zuko's ship has been opened, its spout lying on the floor of the navy yard. Two figures have walked down the spout and are entering the naval yard itself. "Uncle," Zuko said, "I want the repairs made as quickly as possible. I don't want to stay too long and risk losing his trail." Uncle very calmly asks, "You mean the Avatar?" Zuko, turned angrily on his heels, "Don't mention his name on these docks! Once word gets out that he's alive, every Fire Nation Soldier will be out looking for him and I don't want anyone getting in the way." a stranger approaches and asks, "Getting in the way of what, Prince Zuko?" his hands are clasped behind his back authoritatively. "Captain Zhao." Zuko said with distaste. "It's Commander now." Zhao said. "And General Iroh," He bows respectfully to Iroh, "Great hero of our nation." "Retired General." Iroh corrected, in the same condescending tone Zhao used to talk to his nephew. Zhao, making a grand sweeping motion with his left arm, said, "The Fire Lord's brother and son are welcome guests any time. What brings you to my harbor?" Iroh gestures at the heavily damaged bow of Zuko's ship. Zhao takes a quick glance over, "That's quite a bit of damage." Zuko, stammers but answers. "Yes… you wouldn't believe what happened." he gives his uncle a sideways glance and immediately passes the buck. "Uncle! Tell Commander Zhao what happened." Iroh's eyes go wide and he blinks in response to the burden Zuko has just placed upon him. "Yes. I will do that. It was incredible." he leans over and whispers to Zuko, "What… Did we crash or something?" Zuko, straightening up, because whispering hunched over wreaks of made up story, "Uh, yes! Right into an Earth Kingdom ship." "Really?" Zhao squints his eyes. "You MUST regale me with all the thrilling details." He smiles and puts his face right up to Zuko's in an obvious challenge. "Join me for a drink?" Zuko turns to leave, saying "Sorry, but we have to go." But Iroh places a hand on his shoulder and stops him. "Prince Zuko, show Commander Zhao your respect." turning to Zhao, he adds, "We would be honored to join you. Do you have any ginseng tea? It's my favorite." Zuko growls in frustration and releases fire from his fists angrily as he turns to follow Zhao and Iroh down the dock.

After they took a bit to pack up camp they all gathered on to Appa's back, Aang and Katara up front, Sokka in the passenger saddle. Sokka's stomach growls. Annoyed, he demands, "Hey, stomach! Be quiet, all right? I'm trying to find us some food." He searches the food bag and dumps it out onto his glove. Only a few crumbs come out. "Hey, who ate all my blubbered seal jerky?" Aang innocently answered, "Oh, that was food?" which makes Sokka's jaw drop. "I used it to start the campfire last night." Aang continues. "Sorry." Sokka's close to tears now, and incredulously asked, "You WHAT? Awweh… No wonder the flames smelled so good."

Appa is swooping towards the now much closer mountains. Aang is the first to see them, as he announces where they are. "The Batola Mountain Range! We're almost there!" Katara looks over at the mountain range uneasily, "Aang? Before we get to the temple, I want to talk to you about the Airbenders. I… I just. I just want you to be prepared for what you might see. The Fire Nation is ruthless. They killed my mother, and they could have done the same to your people." Aang, ever the optimist, pipes in, "Just because no one has seen an Airbender doesn't mean the Fire Nation killed them all. They probably escaped." Katara, speaking softly, as to not shatter the kids soul, "I know it's hard to accept." Aang refused to accept it. "You don't understand, Katara. The only way to get to an Airbender Temple is on a Flying bison, and I doubt the Fire Nation has any Flying bison. Right, Appa?" Aang rubs the big animal's head, who grunts an affirmative. "Yip yip!" Appa flies them up higher, turning tightly around a mountain face. Katara and Sokka are straining against the wind shear the faster they move. Appa flies up and over a rocky outcropping and treetops to reveal the tall spires of the Southern Air Temple behind it. As everyone oogles and gasps, Aang turns to Appa and says, "We're home, buddy. We're home."

The Fire Nation navy yard, away from the ships, reveals a wooden stockade and many Fire Nation tents behind it. One is particularly large, with a prominent Fire Nation symbol on it. Two guards, flanked by large standing fire pots, stand at the ready in front of this tent. Commander Zhao stands with his back to the entrance, inspecting a large map of the world upon the wall. "And by year's end, the Earth Kingdom capital will be under our rule."

Iroh is inspecting a stand of weapons on the left and Zuko sits in one of two chairs in front of Zhao. Zhao turns to Zuko. "The Fire Lord will finally claim victory in this war." Zuko, slightly shaking, whether it's in laughter or anger is undetermined, "If my father thinks the rest of the world will follow him blindly, willingly, then he's a fool." Zhao sits in the chair next to Zuko. "Two years at sea have done little to temper your tongue." he leans forward in his chair with a sneer, "So, how IS your search for the Avatar going?" Iroh tips over the stand of weapons he has been examining in the background. The commotion brings the conversation to a halt. Iroh cringes at the mess he has just made. Embarrassed, he apologizes, "My fault entirely," and backs as far away from anything he can tip over, which is easy for a plump man such as him. Zuko looks Zhao directly in the face, and lies. "We haven't found him yet." Zhao leans back in his chair now. "Did you really expect to? The Avatar died a hundred years ago. Along with the rest of the Airbenders." Zuko averts his eyes guiltily, and Zhao looks at Zuko eagerly. "Unless you found some EVIDENCE that the Avatar is still alive." Zuko, refusing to meet his gaze, says, "No. nothing." Zhao rises from his chair. "Prince Zuko, the Avatar is the only one who can stop the Fire Nation from winning this war!" He walks over to Zuko's chair. "If you have one ounce," he leans his face into Zuko's, "of loyalty left, you'll tell me what you've found." Zuko defiantly told him, "I haven't found anything. It's like you said. The Avatar probably died a long time ago. Come on, Uncle. We're going." Zuko gets up and tries to exit, but he is blocked by the guards as they cross their spears in front of him. Another guard approaches Zhao to deliver his report. "Commander Zhao, we interrogated the crew as you instructed. They confirmed Prince Zuko had the Avatar in custody, but let him escape." "Now remind me," Zhao started as he walked up behind Zuko, "How exactly was your ship damaged?" Zuko looks down in defeat.

Coming across a beautiful temple that was once full of life from all kinds of birds and other animals and even people. These temples are over a hundred years old and are not even falling apart. There's hundreds of feet of winding path curving back and forth across the rock face of the temple's mountain. Three little figures can be seen walking up toward the temple. One of these is racing ahead of the others. Aang is the one ahead and he races off as Katara and Sokka round the bend. As Sokka rounds the bend, he grumbles "So where do I get something to eat?" Sokka has a very cross look on his face and he's clutching his stomach to illustrate his hunger. Katara scoffs, "You're lucky enough to be one of the first outsiders to ever visit an airbender temple and all you can think about is food?" Sokka shrugs. "I'm just a simple guy with simple needs."

Aang is at the edge of the path where he has stopped to let the others catch up. They do, and he points below them. "That's where my friends and I would play airball!" Aang gestures at a small parapet cut into the rock face below the path. It is populated with a thicket of densely packed sticks of varying heights that have been stuck in the ground. A goal with a backboard occupies either end of the field. "And… over there would be where the bison would sleep… and" his voice trails off and he sighs. Katara asks what's wrong. "This place used to be full of monks, lemurs, and bison." "OH MY!" Sokka interjected. Aang continued, "Now, there's just a bunch of weeds. I can't believe how much things have changed." Sokka and Katara looked at each other, then changed the subject, hurrying up to him. "So, uh, this airball game? How do you play?" Sokka asked. Aang smiles.

Sokka, a goalie, is at one end of the field, backboard behind him. Aang with the opposite backboard behind him. He is bending air around a rapidly spinning ball to keep it floating above his outstretched right hand. Suddenly, Aang starts manipulating the ball like a Harlem Globetrotter. Then, he throws it up in the air over his head. Sokka follows it with his eyes. Aang puts his hands behind his back, closes his eyes and smiles, waiting for the ball to come back down. He cracks one eye open and bends the air at the precise moment to send the ball bouncing through the field of sticks like a pinball in an arcade game. Sokka watches the ball ricochet toward him at amazing speed. The ball hits him in the stomach and he is propelled backward through a rotating door in the backboard behind him. He hits the ground nearby. As he gets up, Sokka mentions, "Making him feel better is putting me in a world of hurt." Sokka sees something that makes him stop and move forward. It is a Fire Nation helmet lying on the ground. Sokka crawls over to it. "Katara, check this out. Fire Nation. We should tell him." Katara sighs and turns to call Aang. "Aang, there's something you need to see." Katara looks back and forth between the helmet and the happy boy rapidly approaching, unsure whether to show him the horrible discovery. Making her choice, she waterbends the snow on the nearby bank down onto both the helmet and Sokka. Aang asks what it is. Katara answers, uncertainly, "Uh, just a new waterbending move I learned." Aang laughs. "Haha. Nice one. But enough practice. We have a whole temple to see!"

Aang leads his friends down a smaller path, close by where he pointed out that the bison slept, here was a building that was narrower than the others, but taller. Aang said these are where the monks' bedrooms were. He leads them to his room, third entrance to the left. There are no doors anywhere, but the doors that lead to various sanctuaries in the temple. There are windows in every room, except for enter Aang's room and it's caked with dust. Aang takes a deep breath and blows, blowing the dust and cobwebs out of the window. Before the two spiders he knocked out the window hit the ground, Aang ran to the window and caught them. "Sorry, little guys. Forgot my own strength." and he put them on the windowsill. Sokka starred in confoundment, while Katara looked on with astonishment. "Well, all clean." Aang said, standing in the middle of his room, arms spread open as if to say Tadaa! "How do you guys like it?"

"Well," Said Katara, "We weren't expecting a palace, but I guess we were expec-" "WHERE ARE YOUR WEAPONS?" Sokka screamed in bewilderment. "You can't tell me you had NO WEAPONS AT ALL!" Katara gave him a disdainful glance, and jammed her elbow into her brother's rib. "Sokka SHUT UP! Monks don't fight! Don't judge his way of living."

Aang perks up. "We don't have any weapons. We have staffs, fans, and something Sokka might like… Follow me." He leads them to a small room off the main staircase leading to the temple. "This is the Armory." As the gang walked into the room, they saw piles and piles of metal and leather saddles as far as the eye could see. Sokka at that moment just from seeing the metal and leather felt like he was in heaven. Katara had covered her nose at the scent of musty leather and rusty molded metal. She wanted to get out of the room as quickly as possible. Some of the piles of leather seemed to be padded gear that first time Airbenders would put on not to hurt themselves when they fell on the concrete grounds from their failed attempt of flying because they became scared. "Hey Aang, what do you think about taking some of the padded Leather? Maybe, if we need to, we can sell it or turn it into some battle armor?" Sokka asked "We could do that, it could help so we have money for food." Aang replied as he thought only about the selling part. They take a piece or two they think will fit Appa and take it outside, leaving it on the grass to sunbathe, and get rid of the stench of a hundred year storage. As they find pieces with no rust and tears to take out, Sokka can only think of food, because the smell of musty game usually means dinner. "Hey Aang. If you guys don't eat meat and are all pacy-fists," Sokka starts to drool at the thought of meat, "Then how come there's so much hide and leather and armor?" Aang explained "Well first it is pronounced pacifist. The armor is for the flying bison. We don't want them to get hurt if we accidentally fly into anything dangerous. The leather and hide are because when they die we don't want to waste anything. So we would sell the meat in local villages but then use their hide to make the leather armor and some of our clothes." "What about the bones then?" Katara asked curiously since he hadn't mentioned those yet. "Oh yeah! Well from some of them we make jewelry that we would sell. Others would be used for some traditional rituals that everyone would attend. Some of the bones were turned into gardening tools too." Aang explained excitedly. "Gardening tools?" Sokka said skeptically. "Yeah to help plant the seeds we would get with the money we earned from selling things." Aang said as if it was just a known fact. Aang then made one more stop that was more of a storage room for things they were planning to sell and where the gardening tools were kept. Katara followed along just to get away from the scent of mold and must. Sokka was hoping to find food on their searches through rooms. In the storage room there were three crates that had jewelry in it that had yet to be sold. The gardening tools were under the shelves that the crates were on lined up along the walls. And the unused bones and crude materials that were used for such tools were on shelves under those. "Wow this stuff should have been sold years ago. I wonder why they weren't." Aang said, confused. Sokka gave Katara a pointed look that said we really need to tell him before he finds out on his own. "Well maybe they just forgot them here when they left." Katara said making up a quick lie. "Who in their right mind would leave things they can SELL?" Sokka asked pointedly mainly at Katara who just ignored him. "Well maybe we can take them and sell them now then?" Aang suggested. As Katara and Aang grabbed crates of jewelry and started sorting by length and color, Sokka saw an opportunity. Sokka takes a pile of raw bone and his boomerang and sets to work. It takes a couple hours for the group to be done with their projects. Katara has all the necklaces separated by color. Aang has all the earrings separated by how much they dangle. And Sokka has TWO boomerangs! "Umm. Sokka. I know I told you that we didn't have any weapons. Sooooo… where did you get that?" Sokka held up his two almost identical boomerangs, proud of his craftsmanship, "I MADE IT!" he beams at the two. Katara just facepalms at her brother's comment. She couldn't believe him of all people would take a bone and make a new boomerang that he would most likely just lose in the end. "Okay then." Aang said as he looked at the necklaces and saw one that looked familiar to him. It was small with orange dyed wrap that he made a hundred years ago. It had a bone pendant in the center with the Air Nomad symbol. "Oh, wow! I thought that was sold already!" Aang said, picking it up. "Why, what is it?" Katara asked. "It was a necklace I made for a friend whose name was Ty Shi (Ty Lee's Air Nomad ancestor). I never got to give it to her. It was in my room the day I left. I guess Monk Gyatso found it and brought it back here." Aang replied, looking at the necklace. "Don't sell it then Aang, keep that, maybe you will meet her descendant and you would know by how they look if they are related anyway." Katara suggested. "Yeah well that is a huge maybe." Sokka said strapping the two boomerangs on his back, then went to start gathering the other things they were going to sell and get them out so they wouldn't forget them there. But he was going to keep some of the crude bones to make more weapons later.

At the entrance gate of the Air Temple itself, Aang runs in alone, leaving Sokka and Katara a moment to speak alone. "Katara, Firebenders were here and you can't pretend they weren't. They might have left the monk's quarters alone, but who knows how much of this place they ransacked, touched, hurt." Katara starts walking a little faster, to run away from the negativity her brother is spewing. "I can and I will. For Aang's sake." Sokka walks up to catch up with her, and they walk together now. "If he finds out that the Fire Nation invaded his home, he'll be devastated."

Aang calls out for the duo, and motions toward a statue of an Airbender monk. "I want you to meet somebody. This is Monk Gyatso, the greatest Airbender in the world. He taught me everything I know." Aang bows to the statue.

flashback sequence. A live version of the man whose statue Aang bowed to begins to speak. "But the true secret…" Gyatso is holding a long spatula with a cake at the end of it. He appears to have just pulled out the cake from the mouth of the large oven in the background. He Airbends the colorful filling into an attractive pile in the middle of it. "Is in the gooey center!" Aang is in the foreground, sitting on the wall of the parapet, not paying attention. "Hmm…" Aang absently noised. "My ancient cake making technique isn't the only thing on your mind," Monk Gyatso asked, "Is it, Aang?" Aang wishes he had hair to pull right now, and settles for rubbing his temples. "This whole Avatar thing… maybe the monks made a mistake."

"The only mistake they made was telling you before you turned sixteen." Monk Gyatso said with a hint of fatherly love, "But we can't concern ourselves with what was. We must act on what is." Gyatso gestures ceremoniously to the world around them. The air around the temple is full of flying bison and other inhabitants. The beautiful, dreamlike surroundings are full of life. "But Gyatso," Aang started, "How do I know if I'm ready for this?" Gyatso didn't hesitate for a moment, like he's been preparing himself for Aang to have these questions for a while. "Your questions will be answered when you are old enough to enter the Air Temple Sanctuary. Inside, you will meet someone who will guide you on your journey." Upon hearing the news that he may finally have a guide, someone to help him figure out the 'Avatar thing' Aang excitedly jumps up and around to face Gyatso fully. "Who is it? Do you know them? Have I met them?" Gyatso just giggled, and said "When you are ready, he will reveal himself to you." Aang sighs heavily in frustration. "Now" Gyatso says, "Are you going to help me with these cakes, or not?" Aang and Gyatso assume airbending stances, with the four cakes sitting on the wall. They both cock back, creating balls of wind with their airbending skill as Gyatso counts. "One… Two… Three!"

Both release their airballs on the count of three, propelling the cakes high into the air. They make a distinctive whizzing noise as they come down. Four meditating monks find themselves each wearing one of the four cakes, and the monks are soon surrounded by winged lemurs who begin feasting on the cakes. Both Aang and Gyatso lose it in a fit of laughter. Aang and Gyatso bow to each other respectfully. Gyatso pats his young student's head affectionately. "Your aim has improved greatly, my young pupil." The flashback ends, with Aang bowing to the statue of Gyatso, just as he had bowed to the real Gyatso at the end of the flashback.

Katara comes forward and places a hand on Aang's shoulder. "You must miss him." nodding his head yes, Aang silently moves forward to go into the temple. "Where are you going?" Katara asks him. As Aang climbs the steps, he cocks his head back far enough to answer. "The Air Temple Sanctuary. There's someone I'm ready to meet."

Katara looks at Sokka, who shrugs. View shifts to an overhead shot of the three as they approach the entrance to the Air Temple Sanctuary. It is a huge wooden door that is dominated by an enormous woodcut composed of three air symbols protruding from its surface. They are arranged in a triangular pattern. The symbols are attached to tubes that end in two horns near the bottom of the woodcut. "But Aang," Katara said as she gained speed to catch up to Aang, "No one could have survived in there for a hundred years." Aang shrugged, as this thought never really crossed his mind, because "It's not impossible. I survived in the iceberg that long. Besides, whoever's in there might be able to help me figure out this Avatar thing!" Sokka pops out from behind Aang eagerly to add, "And whoever's in there might have a medley of delicious, cured meats!" Sokka rubs his hands together in fevered anticipation of the food that might await him. He rushes forward and runs straight into the door with a 'thunk.' He strains against the big door to no avail and slides down to the floor in defeat. "I don't suppose you have a key?"

"The key, Sokka, is airbending." Aang composes himself and draws in his breath. He raises both his arms perpendicular to his body, then suddenly pushes forward with his arms and steps forward with his right leg. He airbends two jets of air, one from each arm, into the horns at the bottom of the woodcut. The air runs through the tubes and one by one flips the air symbols from the blue sides which had been showing to the maroon sides, which had been facing the interior of the temple. As each turns, it flips another mechanism on the outside of the door to unlock it. The two leaves of the door open to reveal the dark, cavernous interior of the Air Temple Sanctuary. "Hello? Anyone home?" He called inside.

Aang walks into the dark room, and Katara and Sokka follow.

Zhao crosses in front of a seated and clearly unhappy Prince Zuko. A pair of guards stand behind the young prince. "So a twelve-year-old boy bested you and your soldiers? You're more pathetic than I thought." Zuko feels a surge of rage at this, "I underestimated him once, but it will not happen again!" Zhao stands directly in front of only Zuko's chair, "No. It won't. Because you won't have a second chance." This alarms Zuko, who objects, flabbergasted, and alarmed, "Commander Zhao. I've been hunting the Avatar for two years and I…" Zhao turns on him angrily, flames erupting from his hand as he sweeps it in an arc from left to right. "And you failed!" he bellowed back. "Capturing the Avatar is too important to leave in a teenager's hands. He's mine now." Zuko launches himself at Zhao in frustration and anger, but he is restrained by the two guards standing behind his chair. Zhao tells the guards as he leaves to "Keep them here." Zuko in a further act of frustration kicks over a small table that had been sitting near Iroh. It breaks into pieces. Iroh watches the scene calmly and asks, "More tea, please?"

Aang, Sokka, and Katara walk into the sanctuary and see many statues arrayed in a pattern. The pattern is tied to a swirl pattern on the floor, a bluish version of the Yellow Brick Road, with the statues arrayed along it. The three walk among the statues, heading to the center of the room. Sokka has no problem showing his disdain, "Statues? That's it? Where's the meat?" Aang looks over at Sokka and giggles a little, "WE are the meat." Katara giggles at the joke too. "Hey, Aang. Who are all these people?"" Uncertainly, Aang says, "I'm not sure, but it feels like I know them somehow. Look!" He points to a statue. "This one's an airbender!" Katara, standing next to the statue closest to him, points "And this one's a waterbender. Look! They're lined up in a pattern. Air, water, earth, and fire." Aang points out that "That's the Avatar cycle." Katara snaps her fingers, "of course! They're Avatars. All these people are your past lives, Aang. And there's so many." They all take a moment to take it all in. There's statues lined up on the walls as high as the ceiling, showing the many tiers of lives Aang has had before him.

Sokka scoffs and asks Katara skeptically, "Past lives? You really believe the re-incar-crap?" Katara replied very patiently, as if explaining to a small child the history and lore of the Water Tribe. "It's true. When the Avatar dies, he's reincarnated into the next nation in the cycle. Aang has stopped in front of a statue of a Firebender Avatar. A light passes over its eyes, marking its importance. Katara appears behind Aang and shakes him by the shoulders. "Aang, snap out of it. Who is that?" without missing a beat, batting an eye, or looking anywhere for any clues, Aang replied, "That's Avatar Roku. the Avatar before me." Sokka twirls on his heels to face Aang, "YOU WERE A FIREBENDER? No wonder I didn't trust you when we first met." Katara straightened up from searching for tags, "There's no writing. How do you know his name?" Aang just shrugs. "I'm not sure… I just know it somehow." Sokka growls, whether it's from anger or frustration would be anyone's guess. "You just couldn't GET any weirder!"

The three sense the presence of another being and turn to look at the entrance. A long-eared shadow advances toward them. They huddled behind two of the statues, Aang and Katara behind one on the left, Sokka behind one on the right. Sokka whispers to the group, "Firebender. Nobody make a sound." and Katara facepalms at the sheer stupidity. "You're making a sound!" She exasperatedly whispers back. Both Aang and Sokka, in unison, Shush her. Sokka readies both his weapons, "That Firebender won't know what hit him." The long eared shadow is now right on top of them. Sokka jumps out from behind the statue of a Waterbender, weapon at the ready, while Katara and Aang peek from behind their statue of an Earthbender, ready to bend whoever this was into a pretzel. Each gaze upon the one making the shadow, and each registers the diminutive stature of the adorable intruder. A winged lemur looks at them with wide eyes, long ears flopping down on his back as he sees the people staring at him. Aang twirls out from behind the statue, a face of pure joy, and screams out "LEMUR!" Sokka sees the same thing Aang sees and drools a little, "DINNER!" Aang starts flailing his arms as if to shield the lemur from the words physically hanging in the air. "Don't listen to him! You're gonna be my new pet!" Sokka leaves his fighting stance and takes off at a sprint, both weapons still in hand, shouting, "Not if I get him first!" over his shoulder. Aang airbends himself from where he is. Both lunge at the small animal. Their arms are visibly outstretched towards the lemur as they rapidly close in on him. He bristles like a cat and dashes away from them, screaming. They are now both running after the lemur who is now bolting out of the temple, calling for him to, "Come back!" Sokka in between bouts of come back, also states, "I wanna eat you!" Aang and Sokka run back down the hallway from the Temple Sanctuary, chasing after the lemur-bat. Both take turns leading the other. Sokka takes a swipe at Aang's legs with his weapon, but Aang uses his airbending skills in a Matrix-style move to run along the wall beside Sokka and pass him, laughing as he does. Once far enough ahead, Aang stops, turns, and launches an airball spinning back toward Sokka. It hits him in the stomach and knocks him off his feet, like a bowling ball hitting one lone pin. He falls flat on his face, his hood falling over his head.

The hallway ends at a balcony. The lemur-bat jumps up onto the guardrail of the balcony, looks back as Aang approaches, and then jumps off. Aang jumps off after him, laughing as he falls, bouncing off the rocks beneath him as he continues to chase the lemur. Sokka, finally reaching the balcony, looks down at Aang, and all of his parkour tricks, "Hey! No fair!" He screams, shaking his fist. Aang's eyes water from the tremendous speed his body is falling and he smiles widely. Upon hearing Sokka's words, he laughs widely.

Zhao approaches the exterior of the large tent, opens the flaps and enters. Two guards standing ready inside the entrance draw their spears back. "My search party is ready." Iroh and Zuko are sitting in chairs, facing each other, listening to Zhao. "Once I'm out to sea, my guards will escort you back to your ship and you'll be free to go." Zuko scoffs. "Why? Are you worried I'm going to try and stop you?" Zhao starts laughing at this comment, he brings his hand to his face to cover his laughter. It does minimal to stop the explosion of laughter that escaped Zhao's throat. "You? Stop me? Impossible. Don't make me laugh… Oh. you just did. And it wasn't your face this time." he sneered, getting closer and closer to Zuko with each insult. Zuko stands in defiance, closing the gap between him and Zhao, and they are now chest to chest. "Don't underestimate me, Zhao. I WILL capture the Avatar before you." Iroh stands up upon seeing this confrontation, he's about half the room's distance from it, but can still feel the heat radiating from their sheer hatred. "Prince Zuko. That's ENOUGH!" Zhao takes this as Iroh taking his side, and continues, "You can't compete with me. I have hundreds of warships under my command, and you... you're just a banished prince. No home. No allies. Your own father doesn't even want you." At that, Zuko looks stung, hurt almost. "You're wrong," he says, "Once I deliver the Avatar to my father he will welcome me home with honor and restore my rightful place on the throne."Zhao shoves Zuko back into his chair, and yells where he stands, "If your father really wanted you home, he'd have let you return by now, Avatar or no Avatar, but in his eyes you are a failure and a disgrace to the Fire Nation." Zuko sat and stared for a second, balling his fists so tightly that the flesh on his hands were changing color, telling him, "That's not true!" Zhao noticed that he finally hit the nerve he wanted. "You have the scar to prove it." He said smugly.

Zuko, with a cry of indignation, launches himself to his feet, fire at his heels, his face within inches of Zhao's. "Maybe you'd like one to match!" Zhao looks distempered, but otherwise unbothered, "I challenge you to an Agni Kai at sunset. It's a real shame your father won't be here to watch me humiliate you. I suppose your uncle will suffice." Zhao turns and walks back out of the tent, leaving Iroh and Zuko alone. "Prince Zuko," Iroh starts worried, "have you forgotten what happened last time you dueled a master?" Zuko reaches up to his face to acknowledge his scar, "Never."

The lemur-bat that Aang has been chasing lands on the ground. Aang pounces on him and misses. The lemur-bat runs through a curtain made of decaying tent material or drapery. Aang follows the lemur-bat to the other side of the curtain. "Come on out, little lemur. That hungry guy won't bother you anymore." Aang approaches another drape, parts it, and walks through. He draws a sharp breath, startled at what he sees. "Firebenders? They were here?" At the back of the grotto lies the skeletal remains of an airbender monk, bathed in sunlight coming from above, who had apparently fallen in combat fighting against great odds. "GYATSO!" Aang falls to his knees, devastated. Sokka catches up, and pulls back the curtain, simultaneously and enthusiastically saying, "Hey Aang, found my dinner yet?" Sokka sees Aang, crying with his head in his hands, and his heart drops at the scene. In a much calmer, more sincere tone, Sokka added, "Aang. I wasn't really going to eat the lemur, okay? You can have him as a pet. I'll even help you look." Sokka glances around the room and his eyes finally fall on the skeleton and he does a double take. "Oh, man… Come on, Aang. Everything'll be alright. Let's get out of here." Sokka puts his hand on Aang's shoulder as the arrow on Aang's head begins to glow incandescent blue and his eyes are glowing brightly in an angry expression as he lifts his head. Sokka gasps as he looks on in alarm.

Katara walking among the statues in the Temple Sanctuary. She stops in front of Roku, whose eyes light up with the same incandescent blue light as Aang's. The eyes of all the other statues light up in order around the room. She might not know what's going on, but she knows one thing, Aang is in trouble. Katara races from the room.

Earth, water, and fire temples scattered across the globe start lighting a large flash in response to the awakening of Aang's avatar spirit. In the Fire Temple, an old fire sage leans out to say something to another sage outside of the room where the signal is emanating from. "Send word to the Fire Lord immediately. The Avatar has returned!" he frantically runs off to deliver the news.

At Aang's feet, a whirlwind begins to form, air swirling fast around the bones lying on the ground. Aang, crouched, his hands balled into fists and his eyes and arrow glowing, has the wind picking up terrible speed around him. Sokka is the closest to him, so he screams out, "AANG! Come on! Snap out of it!" A light blue sphere of energy surrounds Aang and begins to expand, knocking Sokka back out of the building. The energy sphere expands to the point where it blows most of the building apart, sending smoke and debris high into the air. Sokka lands outside the building, close to the pile of armor they set outside to sunbathe.

Katara makes it to where Aang is, and hides behind some rubble, shielding her face from the energy sphere and the maelstrom. Sokka comes up to Katara with padding and a metal saddle for a breastplate for protection. Katara asks him, "What happened?" Sokka fills her in on what she missed. "He found out that the Fire Nation killed Gyatso." "Oh no!" Katara gasped, "It's his Avatar spirit! He must've triggered it. I'll try to calm him down." Sokka looks at his sister like she just said she wanted to wrestle a tiger-seal all on her own. "I TRIED! And look what happened to me." Katara giggles, and says "well, it looks like what happened is that you've been flying with Appa." Katara slowly approaches Aang, struggling against the wind, as Aang and his energy sphere slowly rise into the air.

Commander Zhao had ordered his soldiers to prepare the arena, a simple four-walled structure with watch fires on the four towers at each corner. There is one large open gate. The sunset is a glorious mixture of Fire Nation hues: red, orange, and yellow. Zhao and Zuko kneel, preparing for battle, Zhao with four of his men in attendance, Zuko with his uncle. Iroh stands very calmly and serienly and out of place with the rest of the angry, vicious looking firebenders. "Remember your firebending basics, Prince Zuko. They are your greatest weapons." Zuko stands up, turning to his uncle, "I refuse to let him win." His shoulder wrap falls to the ground ceremoniously. Zhao stands and turns, his shoulder wrap falling to the ground, as well. "This will be over quickly." he said with a sneer.

Atop the gate a gong sounds. Both men face each other and assume firebending stances. Prince Zuko fires the first shot which passes harmlessly to Zhao's left. He fires again; this time it passes without effect to Zhao's right. Zuko fires several more, the last of which Zhao blocks, satisfaction evident on his face. Frustrated and losing control of his breath, Zuko moves towards his opponent, unleashing more fire from both his hands and feet. Zhao dodges or blocks them all. Zhao then crouches forward and shoots flame at a point on the ground close in front of him. Iroh is watching anxiously. "Basics, Zuko! Break his root!" Zhao fires many volleys of flame, alternating between his fists. Zuko blocks each, but is slowly forced back. On the last volley Zhao uses both hands, knocking Zuko over and sending him skidding backwards in the dirt. Zhao takes a flying jump at him. Zhao lands as Zuko tries to get up, but he isn't fast enough. Zhao fires right at him. Zuko rolls out of the way just in time, and as he is getting up sweeps Zhao's feet out from under him. Zuko lands on his feet, a slight smile appearing across his face. Zuko is advancing towards Zhao, using his feet to produce small waves of flame that rush toward his opponent. Zhao is caught off balance and wobbles slowly backward. Iroh has his fists clenched in an expression of hope, a smile beginning to spread over his face. Zuko finally lays Zhao out flat on the ground with a blast of fire. Zuko rushes up to him, prepared to deal the final blow. Zhao looks Zuko in the eyes, "Do it!" Zuko releases a blast, stands erect, dropping his fighting stance and puts his robes back on, still facing Zhao. Zhao then spoke. "That's it? Your father raised a coward!" Zuko shrugged his robes on, tying them, "Next time you get in my way, I promise I won't hold back." Zuko turns his back and begins to walk away. Zhao gets up and, with a howl of anger, unleashes a whip of flame at Zuko. Zhao and his outstretched foot, wreathed in the fire it has just released. The flame is extinguished, however, as a hand closes over the foot. Iroh has moved between them to stop the dishonorable attack. They remain frozen for a moment before Iroh hurls Zhao back into the dirt with little effort. Zuko rushes to avenge the insult, but is stopped by his uncle. "No, Prince Zuko. Do not taint your victory." Iroh turns to face Zhao, a look of condescension on his face. "So this is how the great Commander Zhao acts in defeat. Disgraceful. Even in exile, my nephew is more honorable than you. Thanks again for the tea. It was delicious." Iroh moves to leave and Zuko follows close behind. With subdued anger, Zhao watches them exit the gate of the arena. Outside, Zuko quietly asks his uncle, "Did you really mean that, Uncle?" Iroh slyly answers, as to not increase Zuko's ego, "Of course. I told you ginseng tea is my favorite." They walk back to the ships in the harbor.

Aang, still suspended in mid-air inside his ball of raw energy. The contained storm continues to rage as Katara and Sokka cling desperately to some debris and rocks.

"Aang, I know you're upset…" Katara started calmly, "And I know how hard it is to lose the people you love. I went through the same thing when I lost my mom. Monk Gyatso and the other airbenders may be gone, but you still have a family. Sokka and I, we're your family now."

Aang begins to descend when she is finished. His feet gently alight on the ground, the wind dies away, his eyes and arrows are still glowing. Katara and Sokka come up on either side of him. Sokka tells Aang, "Katara and I won't let anything happen to you. Promise." And both siblings take one of each of Aang's hands into their own. The glow instantly fades from his eyes and arrow markings. Grief-stricken and exhausted, he collapses into Katara's arms and she holds him around his shoulders as they kneel on the ground. Aang tiredly apologizes, "I'm sorry. You were right. And if the Fire Nation found this temple, that means they found the other ones, too. I really AM the last Airbender. Katara holds him tighter and Sokka puts a hand on Aang's shoulder as he passes out from sheer exhaustion. Sokka wastes absolutely no time to tell his sister, "Told you so! WE should've told him. Look at how much devastation befell this place because you wanted to 'protect him.' He's the Avatar! You can't 'protect him' forever! You can't lie to him forever. Is that even healthy?" he asks her. "It IS if it's for the right reasons." She replies.

Back at the Temple Sanctuary, where Aang stands once again in front of the statue of Avatar Roku, Katara comes up behind him. "Everything packed, supplies, jewelry, some raw materials for Sokka, food, everything. You ready to go?" Aang was still staring at the statue, "How is Roku supposed to help me if I can't even talk to him?" Katara just smiled and said, "You'll find a way."

They both turn around to see a familiar furry creature in the doorway of the temple. The lemur has returned. He runs to Sokka and deposits a bunch of fruits and nuts at his feet. Sokka begins to eat hungrily as the lemur-bat dashes away. Aang and Katara, watch with smiles on their faces. "Looks like you made a new friend!" Aang said. As soon as he did, the lemur-bat scurried up his chest to perch on his head. "Hey little guy!"

Aang introduces the lemur-bat to Appa. You, me, and Appa. We're all that's left of this place. We have to stick together. Katara, Sokka…" the former's mouth was still stuffed with fruit, with more fruits in his hands, "Say hello to the newest member of our family." Katara smiles as Aang walks up to them with the lemur on his arm. "What are you going to name him?" The lemur-bat jumps off and steals the peach that Sokka was about to take a bite of so fast that Sokka almost bit his finger. "I'll name him Momo!" Aang said happily.

They watch the temple recede in the distance as Appa flies them away. Aang looks back with sadness as the clouds finally obscure his childhood home from view.

4

In the beauty of a star filled evening sky, Prince Zuko's ship glides through the ocean. Zuko is seen sitting in the lotus position in front of an altar. Four white candles are burning in front of him. The light from the candles increases and decreases with Zuko's rhythmic breathing. His eyes are closed in meditation, face calm and concentrated. The door to his quarters swings open, and General Iroh walks in. Zuko responds to the interruption in a dangerously silky voice, "The only reason you should be interrupting me is if you have news about the Avatar." Iroh steps farther into the room, cautiously, carrying a map. "Well, there IS news, Prince Zuko, but you might not like it. Don't get too upset." Zuko responds calmly, while still sitting in a meditation position, "Uncle, you taught me that keeping a level head is a sign of a great leader. Now, whatever you have to say, I'm sure I can take it." Iroh was a bit taken aback by his nephew's demeanor, but responded anyway, prepared for anything. "Okay, then… We have no idea where he is."

Zuko gets enraged. The four candles flare to the ceiling with Zuko's wrath. He stands quickly and turns around to face his uncle, his anger evident on his face. Iroh turns away from the flames and raises his right arm to protect his face. As the flames subside, he pulls a fan out of his robes, and fanning himself, says, "You really should open a window in here."

Zuko, not paying his uncle any attention, both demanded and snatched the map. Zuko opens the rolled scroll and begins to study it. Iroh continues to fan himself. "There have been multiple sightings of the Avatar, but he is impossible to track down." Zuko sighs. "How am I going to find him, Uncle?" He looks down at the map marked with circled Xs and dotted lines connecting the reported Avatar sightings. The lines zigzag all over the landmass drawings. "He's clearly a master of evasive maneuvering."

Sokka is reading the map, sitting atop Appa with an exasperated expression on his face. "You have no idea where you're going. Do you?" Aang turns his head back from steering Appa for a moment to answer. "Well. I know it's near water…" He says as they soar over what looks like an endless stretch of water. Sokka says flatly, "Whelp. I guess we've GOT to be getting close, then."

Katara's mending a garment. Aang has his head turned back, watching her. Momo, who is also watching Katara, is sitting on Aang's left shoulder. "Momo, marbles please. Momo scrambles into Aang's shirt making noises. He returns with a marble and hands it to Aang, who smiles eagerly and cups the marbles between his two hands. "Hey, Katara! Check out this airbending trick!" Katara, without stopping or looking up, absentmindedly said, "That's great, Aang." Aang stopped and was crushed that she didn't notice. "You didn't even look." He huffed. Katara stops her sewing and looks at him, "That's great!" Aang just slumps his shoulders in disappointment. "But I'm not doing it now."

Sokka is lolling at the back of Appa's saddle with his arms crossed casually behind his head. He removes one from behind his head to wave it dismissively. "Stop bugging her, Airhead. You need to give girls space when they do their sewing." Katara stops her needle in midair and turns her head towards Sokka. Her face is a mixture of annoyance and anger. "What does me being a girl have to do with sewing?" Sokka put the hand he was waving dismissively back behind his head. "Simple. Girls are better at fixing pants than guys. Even better at cooking. But guys are better at hunting and fighting and stuff like that. It's the natural order of things." "No it's n…" Aang started but was soon interrupted. Katara growled in Sokka's direction as it took a second for his words to sink in. Then, with exaggerated happiness, she threw Sokka's pants back to him. "All done! And look what a GREAT JOB I did!" Sokka barely misses catching his pants, and they smack him in the face. "Wait! I was just kidding! I can't wear these, there's a big hold in the butt. Katara PLEASE!" She just sits stiffly, wanting to give her brother the cold shoulder and silent treatment, but there's something she needs to say before going silent. "Maybe, if you weren't such an asshole, you wouldn't have such a hole in your ass." Aang sees that there isn't much he can do to stop the argument since he got cut off, so insteads tries to lighten the mood. "Don't worry, Sokka. Where we're going, you don't need any pants!"

Appa, Aang, Katara, and Sokka and Momo are on a beach. Snow-capped mountains are visible in the background. Sokka takes in the surroundings, "It's nice and all. But we just made a pit stop yesterday. Shouldn't we get a little more flying done before we camp out? At this rate, we won't get to the North Pole until Spring." Aang shaded his face, and looked out onto the water, "But Appa's tired already? Aren't ya boy" Nothing. "I said, 'Aren't ya boy'?" he said a little louder, with a small jab of his elbow. Appa yawns on cue, but is obviously not actually tired. Aang sticks his thumb in the big bison's direction. "See?" Sokka sighs. "Oh, yeah! That was reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaalllll convincing. Still… hard to argue with a ten ton magical monster."

Aang gasps excitedly and points out towards the water, "Look! That's why we're here!" he says as he starts stripping down to his underwear, "Elephant koi. And I'm gonna ride it! Katara, you've gotta watch me!" Aang dives in the water and immediately leaps out screaming, "COLD!" and falls right back into the 'freezing' water. Katara and Sokka are looking at each other wryly. Sokka makes the universal "he's crazy" signal by twirling his finger next to his head. Aang dives under the water and catches hold of an elephant koi. The giant fish leaps out of the water with Aang riding on its back, his hands grasping the dorsal fin. The koi dives back into the water, carrying Aang with it. Katara watched Aang with an excited and interested look on her face, clearly enjoying his current antics. Sokka, Katara, and Momo stand on shore and watch Aang. Laughing, he waves to Katara. A couple of smaller elephant koi fish leap in and out of the water, trailing after the elephant koi Aang is on, looking majestic and beautiful.

All the koi fish dive underwater. Katara and Sokka are on the shore. Momo is jumping up and down, watching Aang intently. "He looks pretty good out there." Sokka fervidly explained to Katara, "The fish is doing all the work." Katara watches a moment longer, thinking about what her brother said. She hears a small crunch, snap, and it snaps her out of her own thoughts. She turns and sees Appa. "No, Appa! Don't eat that!" and she scurries off to stop Appa, while Sokka continues to watch Aang. He grins broadly at Katara, who runs towards the trees, disappointed that she's no longer watching him.

Three elephant koi are visible swimming on the surface of the water. Two of the koi, including the one Aang is riding, veer off to the right. A shadow under the water is visible approaching the remaining elephant koi. Sokka yells out, "There's something in the water!" The last koi fish tries to leap out of the water, but is pulled under. Something is approaching him from behind. On the shore, Momo is distressed, jumping up and down. Katara, hearing the commotion, runs up beside Sokka back on the beach. Almost out of breath, Katara asks Sokka, "What's wrong?" Sokka wasted no time and no breath telling his sister, "Aang's in trouble." he yells louder towards Aang's direction, "AANG!" Katara starts screaming too, now that she's aware of the dangers. "Get out of there!"

Aang is still in the water and on the fish. He is watching Katara, Sokka and Momo on the shore, waving their arms and yelling to him. Aang waves back at Sokka and Katara, misinterpreting their frantic gestures. The koi fish he is riding bucks and sends Aang headlong into the bay. He comes up a second after going under and spurts water out of his mouth,breathing heavily and gasping for air, as an enormous serrated fin rises ominously from the water behind him. Aang turns around slowly to see what's following close behind him. His eyes widen and he screams in panic. Aang leaps to the surface of the water and begins to run towards shore. The enormous fin turns and begins to chase him. He reaches the shore, running head first and full force into Sokka. Aang knocks Sokka off his feet and they both crash back towards the tree line. The fin turns and slowly heads back out to sea. Katara runs back to where Aang and Sokka are. Aang is putting his clothes back on while Sokka sits lumped up against the tree they skidded into. "What was that thing?" Sokka gets up, wiping his hands together, "Well, let's not stick around and find out. Time to hit the road."

Four green clad warriors fall on Aang, Sokka, Katara, and Momo from the trees. The first warrior grabs Sokka under his arms from behind. The second warrior pulls Katara's hood over her head. The third warrior grabs Aang by his shirt. The fourth warrior traps Momo in a small sack. Momo, Aang, Katara, and Sokka, are all bound and blindfolded, being thrown to the ground at the feet of their captors. Four sets of green-robed legs are visible in a circle around them. Everyone says "Oof" as they hit the ground. "Or we could stay a while." Sokka added.

The village leader, Oyagi. He has long gray hair, with a high poofy ponytail on top of his head. Aang, Sokka, and Katara, are still blindfolded and bound to a large pole in a fenced clearing. Momo, still in a sack, is at Aang's feet. Oyagi clears his throat. "You three have some explaining to do." from under their blindfolds, all they could do is hear a girl's voice telling them, "And if you don't answer all our questions, we're throwing you back in the water with the Unagi." Sokka, unable to see, but able to feel, feels rage, screaming "Show yourselves COWARDS!"

Sokka, Aang and Katara's blindfolds are removed to reveal five young girls dressed in green. Their faces are painted white with red around their eyes, and they carry fans in their waistbands. Sokka stared at the girls for a second, then the bonds restraining him, then the girls again, as he tried to piece together what happened. "Who are you? Where are the men who ambushed us?" Suki, slightly offended, steps toward Sokka, shaking her fist at him. "There were no men. We ambushed you. Now tell us, who are you and what are you doing here?" Sokka starts laughing in disbelief, "HAHAHA, You've gotta be joking! There's no way in a frozen over spirit-world that a bunch of girls took us down." Suki grabs Sokka by the collar and shakes him vigorously, and threateningly. "A bunch of girls, HUH?" she growled so low she practically purred it out, "The unagi's gonna eat well tonight." she said, in a more normal tone, her eyes squinting so hard that if it wasn't for the red outlining her eyes, you would lose her eyes in all the white face paint. Katara quickly tries to quell the girl's anger. "No! Don't hurt him! My brother's just an idiot sometimes… half the time… ok. Most of the time." This at least gets a half assed giggle from the girl. Aang takes the change of attitude as his time to perk up and chip in. "I'm sorry we came here. It's my fault. I wanted to ride the elephant koi.

Oyagi, flanked by four of the female warriors, pointed at Aang accusingly. "How do we know you're not Fire Nation spies? Kyoshi stayed out of the war so far. And we intend to keep it that way!" Aang's face is a mixture of surprise and interest. "This Island is named for Kyoshi? I know Kyoshi!" With that, Oyagi released a laugh that made his belly shake like jello. "HA! How could you possibly know her? Avatar Kyoshi was born here four hundred years ago. She's been dead for centuries." The pole Aang, Sokka, and Katara are tied to turns out to be the base for Avatar Kyoshi's statue. She is dressed in the same green garments as the female warriors who captured Aang, Sokka, and Katara. Her face is painted white and there are two open fans in her hands. He looks down toward the ground and then back at Oyagi. "I know her because I'm the Avatar." Everyone untied is in shock and disbelief. Suki is the first to snap out of her shock, and continues to shake her fist, this time in Aang's direction. "That's impossible! The last Avatar was an Airbender who disappeared a hundred years ago." Aang grins widely. "That's me!" Oyagi looks at his face sternly for a second, rubs his chin, and then demands, "Throw the imposter to the unagi!" The female warriors assume a fighting stance. Each warrior has two open fans in her hands. The four warriors move menacingly toward the helpless trio. Katara is the first to regain her voice after the declaration. "Aang. Do some airbending. Anything. Fly. Sneeze for crying out loud!" Aang breaks his bonds and shoots himself into the air. He backflips over the top of Kyoshi's statue and floats gracefully to the ground amidst the 'oohs' and 'aahs' of the gathered crowd, which now included other members of the village. Suki and her warriors gaze in shock and amazement at Aang. Oyagi drops to his knees, almost in tears, "It's true. You ARE the Avatar!"

Aang has a serious look on his face, while behind him and to his left Sokka and Katara are still tied to the statue base. Aang, realizing that he now has an audience, pulls the marble out from under his shirt. "Now… Check THIS out!" Grinning like a fool, he does the same trick he had tried to impress Katara with earlier. the villagers cheering and jumping for joy. The villager toward the front right screams like a girl and gets so excited that he begins to foam at the mouth and passes out from excitement.

A small girl is running eagerly across a pier to a fisherman who is lifting his catch out of the water in a conical basket. "Did you hear the news? The Avatar's on Kyoshi!" the fisherman drops his basket of fish in surprise, and quickly picks it back up again. The fisherman then goes to the shops and talks to his usual fish merchant, and tells him the news. The merchant then sells fish to a customer that appears to be Fire Nation. The customer who purchased the fish from the merchant turns out to be Zuko's cook. He is serving the cooked fish to Zuko and Iroh. He kneels down to place the juicy dish on the table and shares the even juicer news. Zuko slams his fists on the table and pushes himself up, now standing with rage. "The Avatar's on Kyoshi Island?" He starts to walk out of the room, addressing Iroh as he does. "Uncle, ready the rhinos. He's not getting away from me this time." Iroh, sitting at the dinner table with the steaming hot plate of fish in front of him, turns towards him and, pointing at the fish, begins to speak, "Are you going to finish that?" Zuko walks angrily back to the dinner table and grabs the fish off of the table. "I was going to save it for later!" He storms out of the room with the fish. Iroh crosses his arms in annoyance and pouts at not getting to eat the fish. The chef soon came back with some roast duck for Iroh, when he saw Zuko had left with the fish. The two shared a joyous glance and Iroh asked the chef to sit and eat with him. They had a wonderful talk over the meal. One in which the chef regaled Iroh with tales of his past, and Iroh, in his wisdom, stated, "Follow your passion, and life will reward you. Is this where your passions led you, kind chef?" The chef, for the first time since he sat down, remained silent. GULP* How much can he tell the Retired General? "Well" He started, thumbing his chopsticks nervously, "umm… No." he takes a deep breath and looks at the greying, plump man, who looks at him with a kindness in his eyes that he's only seen from his own mother. "Well." He starts a little stronger, confidence welling up inside of him. "I've always wanted to be a performer. An actor. I practice in the kitchens sometimes when preparing soups." Iroh looks at him straight face for a second, most fire nation would not want a career so 'soft' or something so befitting of a waterbender with their gentle movements and soft steps. To each his own. "No wonder the stews have been so divine lately. We've had a SEASONED actor preparing them." Iroh said with a soft chuckle. "I think if you are unhappy then yo-" "OH NO!" the chef interrupted. "Prince Zuko would kill me if I said I was unhappy on this ship. I'd never say I was unhappy. It's my destiny to serve the prince." He finished in a hurry, scared that if he didn't get it all out there would be repercussions. "You let me take care of my nephew. Destiny is a funny thing. You never know how things are going to work out. But if you keep an open mind and an open heart, I promise you will find your own destiny someday." the chef looked up at Iroh, tears welling in his eyes. "You mean, I can…" "Yes." Iroh tells him. And the chef leaves Zuko's dining quarters, happier than he's left the room in his entire time on the ship, and for the last time.

Two villagers attend Avatar Kyoshi's statue. One is painting a fresh coat of color on her face and the other is scrubbing the dirt from the back. It is morning and there are only a few villagers on the main street. Everything is peaceful and quiet in the sunlight. Appa is lying on his side munching on fresh hay. Two villagers are caring for him. One villager scrubs his fur and another is buffing Appa's horns. Appa grunts happily and is clearly enjoying all the attention. Momo, Aang, and Katara are seated in front of a long wooden table. The table is covered with eighteen different plates of food. A villager enters and places another plate on the table and exits. Aang throws his arms up in the air happily, "All right! Dessert for breakfast!" He said, taking a beautiful pastry and stuffing his mouth, talking with his mouth full, "These people sure know how to treat an Avatar!" They are seated in front of a large window, which is propped open to show the mountain in the background. Also in view are the two villagers actively refurbishing the statue of Avatar Kyoshi. Aang can't see the same beauty out the window that Katara does, because he can't take his eyes off the sweet treats. "Mmmm… Katara, you've gotta try these." "Well," Katara starts, "Maybe just a bite…" She takes the candy from Aang as Momo seizes the opportunity and snatches another from his other hand. Aang looks disgruntled and addresses Sokka. "Sokka, what's your problem? EAT!" Sokka looks even MORE disgruntled, hunched and glowering in the corner of the room. "Not hungry." He muttered. Aang peaks around Katara's head, shocked, and rightfully so, "But you're ALWAYS hungry!" At the breakfast table, just mere feet in front of him, Katara talks about Sokka right in front of his face. "He's just upset because a bunch of girls kicked his butt yesterday." Sokka practically shrieked his defense, "They snuck up on me!" Katara snickers and adds, "And kicked your butt." Sokka got up from his post of brooding, angrily, shouting, "Sneak attacks don't count!" he starts pacing around the room, gesticulating wildly to the air. "Tie me up with ropes? I'll show THEM a thing or two! I'm not scared of any girls." He has paced around to the breakfast table and is ferociously grabbing sweets off it. He begins to lower his voice and talk to himself. "Who do they think they are, anyways?" Sokka grunts and shoves a sweet into his mouth as he walks out of the room. "Mmm… This is tasty."

Aang and Katara both stare out the door that Sokka just exited, silently, for a minute. Aang is just generally clueless on how he could be SO mad. "What's he so angry about? It's great here. They're giving us the royal treatment." Katara, offhandedly said, while still eating her sweet, "Hey, don't get too comfortable. It's risky for us to stay in one place for too long." "I'm sure we'll be fine. Besides, did you see how happy I'm making this town?" Aang turns around to look out the window at the two villagers working on Avatar Kyoshi's statue. "They're even cleaning up that statue in my honor!" Katara turns to look out the window too, "Well, It's nice to see you excited about being the Avatar for a change. Just don't let it go to your head. You're bald, there'd be no way to hide it." And she brings her hand to her face to stifle a laugh as Aang innocently shrugged, rubbing the same bald head she commented on a second ago, "Come on. I'm just a simple monk." Aang stands up and goes to the window. He looks down in surprise and confusion. The courtyard is full of little girls from the village, screaming and cheering at him. Aang's face breaks out in a large smile and he blushes. Katara, standing slightly behind him, crosses her arms, sticks her tongue out and makes a long, exasperated raspberry.

A bright red bridge over a small stream. The quiet of the scene is interrupted as Aang runs back and forth over the bridge while being hotly pursued by the pack of young village girls. The group ends up splitting and coming at him from both sides of the bridge as he stands in the middle of it. Aang jumps high in the air and, as the groups merge together beneath him, waiting for him to come back down, he has his arms wrapped around a spinning ball of air. It dissipates and he falls into the arms of the crowd below.

Next, Aang is standing next to Koko, one of the young girls from the village. An artist puts up his paintbrush next to them as a reference for painting the scene. He lifts his paper to begin his ink painting, covering the spot where Aang and Koko are standing. He drops his parchment for another look and now there are two girls standing with Aang. When he drops his painting now, there are four girls standing around Aang. He has a look of utter disbelief and irritation. The group all crowd in close to Aang and laugh while he has something of a horrified expression on his face. After surveying the scene for a few seconds, the artist gets up from his stool and walks away. The girls collapse on top of Aang into a laughing pile.

Then, Aang did push ups in front of six of the girls. Momo is sitting on his back. The girls are staring down at him in rapt admiration. Aang begins to do one handed push ups. Then, he puts both hands behind his back and uses his breath to push himself up off the ground. Katara walks past them carrying a basket, rolling her eyes.

There's a small house nestled in evergreen trees. Sokka approaches the house muttering to himself about "girls." He walks up to the door and looks inside. The fan warriors are drilling. He grins, puts up his hands, and enters the dojo. In a bit of an arrogant manner, Sokka starts talking, "Sorry ladies! Didn't mean to interrupt your dance lesson." He stretches his arms and waist. "I was just looking for somewhere to get a little workout?" He bends over and grabs his knees with his hands. Suki grandly puts her hands on her hips, one fan in each hand, glistening in the sunlight trickling in from the doorway and windows, looking every bit a glorious warrior as Kyoshi herself. "Well, you're in the right place." Sokka continues to stretch in front of the female warriors. Suki lowers her shoulders, and sincerely says, "Sorry about yesterday. I didn't know you were friends with the Avatar." "It's all right," Sokka flippantly states, "I mean, normally I'd hold a grudge, but seeing as you guys are a bunch of girls, I'll make an exception." Suki, barely able to contain herself, very sarcastically says, "I should hope so. A big strong man like you? We wouldn't stand a chance." Suki tweaked the nerve she wanted to. Because Sokka stopped stretching and started flexing his muscles, "True. But don't feel bad. After all, I AM the best warrior in my village." Suki leaned in and smiled like a praying mantis about to devour his head, but Sokka's head was too big to notice the danger it was in. "Wow! Best warrior, huh? In your whole village? Maybe you'd be kind enough to give us a little demonstration." Turning to her warriors, she adds "Come on, girls! Wouldn't you like him to show us some moves?" The group of warriors giggle and nod affirmatively at Suki's suggestion. Sokka turns and walks towards Suki, "Well, if that's what you want, I'd be happy to. All right, you stand over there. He grasps her shoulders to push her back a little, but Suki doesn't move. He doesn't seem to notice or care. "This may be a little tough, but try to block me." Sokka throws a punch. Suki blocks it with a deft thrust of her fan to his shoulder. Her stance is disinterested and confident against Sokka's arrogance. "Of course, I was going easy on you. Let's see if you can handle THIS!" Sokka lunges at Suki. She catches him under his leg and tosses backward toward the door. He lands on his butt. "THAT DOES IT!" Sokka gets up and lunges again at Suki. She grabs him by the arm, spins him around in circles, ties his arm to his foot with his own belt, and throws him to the floor, laughing, she asks "Anything else you wanna teach us?" Sokka's face flushes in humiliation as all the warriors laugh at him.

The statue of Avatar Kyoshi is in the foreground. Aang and the cluster of girls are at its base as they stare up at it. "There she is, girls. Me in a past life." Aang said, beaming his shit eating grin up at the gaggle of girls. "You were pretty." Koko says, and all the girls erupt into swoons and giggles. Aang takes the lull in conversation to ask them, "Excuse me for a second, ladies." Katara is in the marketplace filling a basket with vegetables. Aang approaches her and taps her on the shoulder. Turning around, she exclaims, "Oh, good! Can you help me carry this back to the room? It's a little heavy." Aang backed up from Katara, "Actually, I can't right now." Katara gets irritated, "What do you mean you can't?" Aang starts rubbing the back of his bald head and beams as is becoming his signature trademark, "I promised the girls that I'd give them a ride on Appa. Why don't you come with us? It'll be fun!" Katara just sighed, ignored him, and continued to pick up vegetables. "Watching you show off for a bunch of girls doesn't sound like fun." She said wrinkling her nose, slightly dismayed. "Well. Neither does carrying your basket." Aang said, only working Katara up more. "It's not my basket. These supplies are for our trip. I told you, we have to leave Kyoshi soon." Aang stomped his foot in annoyance, more whining than telling Katara, "I don't wanna leave Kyoshi yet!" Katara sees the gaggle of girls start to get impatient. "I can't put my finger on it," Aang says, "But there's something i really like about this place." Katara facepalms, growls at Aang, and walks away, carrying her basket back to the room, and leaving every feeling she may have felt other than annoyance at the market, muttering to herself, "Simple monk?"... "you promised it wouldn't go to your head."... That ridiculous airhead!"

Katara gets back to their room and sees Sokka putting on his battle gear with his weapons. "Now what in the world are you planning?" she asked, putting down her basket. "I am going to challenge that stupid girl to a fight! No one humiliates me and gets away with it!" He said, muttering more to himself, since he was muttering that even as Katara came in. After he was ready, he left the room and saw Suki and the other Warriors walking into the town. Sokka went right up to Suki. "What do you want now?" Suki asked, annoyed as hell. Now, at Suki's comment, other villagers including Aang, came as they were nearby, watching what was going on. "I challenge you to a fight right here and now!" Sokka said angrily. Katara had come out to find out what her idiot brother was doing and just sighed as he challenged Suki. "Really right here right now in front of the WHOLE village." Suki asked just to make sure before she agreed since she has no problem humiliating a sexist idiot. "Unless you are too much of a Coward to fight me now!" Sokka snapped. "You don't have to do this Sokka, it won't do you any good." Aang said thinking he could try to stop this before it escalated. "Get out of this Aang you cannot stop this." Sokka snapped at him. "Alright, I accept your challenge." Suki said sickly sweetly. She already knew she would win.

Sokka reached his arm back towards his weapons harness to grab his boomerang, and before he could reach the hilt of one, Suki took one of her fans and smacked his side. Sokka grunted as he got his weapons out of the holster. "Cheap shot." He spat out. "Now, there's no escape from me and my boomy booms!" Sokka started flailing wildly with his Boomerangs to try a scare tactic. Suki remained unphased. Sokka threw one boomerang and approached Suki with the other, he swung at her at every opening he got, and she dodged with the skill and grace of a dancer. Suki saw her opportunity. When Sokka was taking a step towards her, she slid her foot into his, blocking him on the instep, and stopping his momentum. She took one hand and held his, and if one wasn't paying attention, they'd think it WAS a dance, and twirled him in a circle, putting his hand behind his back. Suki started to address the crowd, but right then, Sokka's boomerang came whizzing back. So she took a step back and the boomerang hit Sokka square in the back of the head, knocking him out. She addressed the crowd, "While it is best to believe in one's self, such as Sokka here, a little help from others can be a great blessing. No matter what, I have the strength and well wishes of my fellow warriors, and with that, we shall never fall." The crowd cheers. The entire village is ecstatic and has not just faith but a renewed faith in the Kyoshi warriors.

Sokka wakes up in the middle of the town square, the crowd gone. All that remains as Sokka awakens is Aang and his sister. Katara is waterbending water on his forehead, and Aang is airbending a cool breeze to blow. They both look at Sokka with a mixture of pity and love. It disgusts Sokka. He gets up and starts walking around, in his feelings, not knowing where to go or what to do. As he wanders around aimlessly, he comes across the little house he knows the Kyoshi warriors to be practicing in. He walks around and is kicking a stone outside of the fan warrior's dojo. He walks cautiously to the door. Suki and her warriors are training again, but stop when they see Sokka walk in. "Hmph. Hoping for another 'dance lesson'?" Suki mocks. "If not, then what do you want?" Sokka kneels in humility, bowing slightly as he does "Let me explain. I was wrong earlier. I would be honored, greatly honored, if you would teach this humbled butthead. I'm sorry." Suki squinted her eyes, looking him up and down, "We don't normally teach outsiders, let alone boys." Sokka bowed further on the ground, his nose on the carpet, "Please make an exception for me. I won't let you down." Suki looks at the girls for a second, "Alright!" She says, "But you have to follow all of our traditions." Sokka quickly and eagerly shot up, almost shouting, "OF COURSE!" and Suki added, "And I do mean ALL of them!"

Sokka is garbed in the full green dress and white face paint of the fan warriors. "Do I really have to wear this? It feels a little… girly." Suki, standing in her matching attire, looks over at Sokka, a little ruffled at first, but her face and tone soften as she explains, "It's a warrior's uniform. You should be proud. The silk threads symbolizes the brave blood that flows through our veins. The gold insignia represents the honor of the warrior's heart." Sokka stands up proudly, "Bravery and honor." He mutters happily to himself. Aang walks by the door to the dojo. He turns and ducks his head in smiling mischievously. "Hey Sokka! Nice dress!" Sokka and Suki standing in front of the doorway. Sokka's momentary pride is visibly crushed by Aang's barb. Suki is smiling at him and enjoying his discomfort.

Katara is practicing her waterbending in their room. A plume of water rises and falls from a small bowl in front of her. Aang enters the room and stands cockily in the doorway. "Katara, remember how the unagi almost got me yesterday? Well. I'm gonna go ride it now. It's gonna be REAL dangerous." Katara, without looking up from her bowl, simply says, "Good for you." Aang is surprised at this sudden turn, for she'd normally care for his wellbeing. "So you're not going to try to stop me?" Katara, still not looking up, replies with, "Not at all. You're going to do what you want anyways. Why would I waste my breath? Have fun." Aang crosses his arms peevishly. "Fine then. I WILL!" Aang storms angrily out of the room. He pauses at the door and turns his head back to look at Katara. She is still intent on her waterbending and does not look up at him. His face falls and he walks out the door. Just as he walks out, Katara lets the water fall back into the bowl, crosses her arms, and looks at the door through which Aang has just exited.

Back at the dojo. Suki and Sokka are circling each other with fans unfurled. Suki giggles softly, "You're not going to master it in one day. Even I'm not that good." Sokka loses his footing and balance for a second. "I think I'm starting to get it." Sokka continues to practice the moves, and at the end of the set he accidentally throws his fan out the door and into a tree. Suki looks out the door at the lost fan as snow falls from the branches above to bury it. Suki turns towards Sokka, "It's not about strength. Our technique is about using your opponents' force against them. Loosen up. Think of the fan as an extension of your arm." Suki assumes the battle stance. "Wait for an opening and then…" Suki lunges at Sokka and he parries the thrust, knocking her off her feet. She shows her surprise and embarrassment as she looks up from her spot on the floor. Flustered, she gets to her feet. "I fell on purpose to make you feel better!" Sokka, letting his small victory get the best of him, laughing and pointing his finger at her, "I got you! Admit I got you!" Suki, laughing as she grabs Sokka's outstretched hand and bends it back painfully, "Okay, it was a lucky shot. Let's see if you can do it again." Suki lets Sokka's hand go and they assume battle positions. They begin to circle each other.

Aang is in the middle of the bay looking towards shore at his fan club. On closer inspection, all of the girls sitting on shore appear to be very bored. He yells out, "I'm sure it'll be here any second!" He looks at the calm still waters. "How about this?" Aang suspends and spins the marble between his two hands. "Not that again. We were promised the unagi. Where's the unagi? It's getting late." The girls begin to get up and leave, leaving Aang alone in the water, as he shouts and waves to the girls, "Where are you going? Don't leave!" Koko turns back to say, "Sorry, Aang! Maybe next time." As the last of the girls leaves, Katara walks onto the beach. Aang sees Katara and gets excited, at least he's not alone anymore. Katara shouts out to him, "You had me worried. I wanted to make sure you were safe. I made a promise at the South Pole and I intend to keep it." "But back at the market, you acted like you didn't care." Aang pointed out. Katara sighed, "I'm sorry." "No." Aang said, hanging his head low, but not low enough that it was in the water like his body, "I am. I let all that attention go to my head. I was being a jerk." Katara smiles at his admission. "Well, get out of the water before you catch a cold, you big jerk!" Aang grins widely as he begins to swim towards shore. As Aang swims towards land, the unagi comes up behind him and catches him in its wake. As the unagi rises from the water, Aang is kneeling on a portion of its tail.

The unagi raises its head and spews a powerful jet of water directly at Aang. He leaps up and grabs hold of one of the unagi's whiskers. The unagi shakes its head back and forth in an attempt to dislodge Aang. Aang swings back and forth in front of the sharp fangs. Saliva drips from the unagi's teeth and it wets its lips with its tongue. The unagi continues to shake its head and Aang is thrown into the water. He is unconscious as he comes to the surface. Both the unagi and Katara rush towards him. Katara reaches Aang first and takes him into her arms just as the unagi raises itself from the water. She pushes the water forcefully in front of her and propels both herself and Aang away from the unagi. The unagi dives into the water and the force of its dive sends Aang and Katara flying into a small cavern. Angrily, the unagi shoots water from its mouth and eventually sinks back into the bay. Katara peers over the side of the opening and sees Prince Zuko's ship approaching the Island. Zuko's ship lands. The prow is let down and Zuko rides out of the hull on the back of a war rhinoceros. He is accompanied by many men also on rhino mounts. Katara overhears Zuko tell his men, "I want the Avatar alive." as she hides Aang in the cave as Zuko and his army march towards Kyoshi. Aang is still unconscious. Katara moves her hands up Aang's chest and draws the water out of his lungs. Aang coughs and sputters. Smiling weakly up at Katara, he says, "Don't ride the unagi… Not fun."

Suki and Sokka are sparring. He parries a thrust and they both smile. Oyagi runs to the door of the dojo, breathless. "Firebenders have landed on our shores! Girls, come quickly!" Sokka tries to interject, "Hey, I'm not a…" but Oyagi is already gone, "Oh, whatever!" and he runs off with the girls, trailing after Oyagi.

Zuko enters the town. The streets are deserted. "Come out, Avatar! You can't hide from me forever!" Turning to his men, he mutters, "Find him." Zuko's army begins to search the town for Aang. A green form rushes silently past. The fan warriors attack Zuko's army. Suki heads directly for Zuko. As she is about to land on him, he turns his rhinoceros and she is swatted out of the air by its tail. As she hits the ground, Zuko aims a fire blast at her. Sokka steps in between Suki and the fire ball, deflecting it, saying, "I guess training's over." Zuko, taken by surprise, falls off his rhinoceros. Suki, Sokka, and another warrior cautiously approach the prone Zuko. Zuko spins around on his hands shooting fire bolts out of his feet at the approaching warriors. He knocks them all to the ground and pulls himself to his feet. Zuko leaps to the middle of the street, screaming, "NICE TRY AVATAR! But these little girls can't save you!" Aang leaps to the middle of the street, "they don't need to. They're protecting their town, which you're destroying, their people, which you're scaring, and their honor, which you disrespect." These words angered Zuko deeply. Zuko lets loose three consecutive fireballs from his hands. Aang dodges them and, using his staff as a helicopter, flies toward Zuko. Zuko shoots another blast of fire, which knocks Aang's staff out of his hands. Aang leaps away and picks up two discarded fans. Zuko runs full force at Aang. Aang uses the fans to throw an enormous gust of air at Zuko. The air knocks Zuko through the wall of a building. Aang drops the fans and picks up his staff. He throws it into the air and flies over the now burning town. He looks behind him to see the statue of Avatar Kyoshi engulfed in flames. He lands next to Katara, who is helping a small child inside. Aang looked down in shame, upset. "Look what I brought to this place." Katara noticed the look and Aang's face and tried to reassure him, "It's not your fault." Aang is close to tears, "YES IT IS! These people got their town destroyed. Why? Trying to protect me. So it IS!" Katara saw that there was no reasoning with him, he was an emotional wreck. "Then let's get out of here. Zuko will leave Kyoshi to follow us. I know it feels wrong to run, but I think it's the only way." she said, logic taking over. Aang calmed down enough to understand the logic of her proposal, and hanging his head low, said, "I'll call Appa."

A fan warrior is battling a firebender. She throws her fan directly at his face mask and knocks him unconscious. Sokka and Suki are crouching behind a house. Suki turns to Sokka, "There's no time to say goodbye." Sokka looks up at Suki, "What about "I'm sorry? I treated you like a girl when I should have treated you like a warrior." Suki simply states, "I am a warrior," she leans over to give Sokka a kiss on the cheek, "But I'm a girl too. Now get out of here! We'll hold them off." Sokka runs up Appa's tail. Katara, Aang, and Momo are waiting for him. Aang shouts out, "Yip yip!" and Appa grunts and flies out of the town. Zuko sees them leaving, and turning to his men, signals to, "Get back to the ship! Don't lose sight of them!"

Appa starts flying away from the burning town. Katara and Sokka are sitting in the saddle on Appa's back. Aang is sitting behind Appa's head with the reins in his hands. His head is hanging down, clearly upset. Katara leans forward to speak to him, "I know it's hard, but you did the right thing. Zuko would have destroyed the whole place if we had stayed. They're going to be okay, Aang."

Without a word, Aang suddenly dives off of Appa's head into the bay, a determined expression on his face. Katara and Sokka watch in horror as Aang disappears under the water. Several seconds go by before the unagi bursts out of the water, Aang riding on it. He has hold of both whiskers and forces the unagi's head towards the burning town of Kyoshi. Aang pulls back on the whiskers and the unagi spews water over the town. The stream continues long enough to put out the fires Zuko and his army had begun.

Aang, on the back of the unagi, sees that Kyoshi is out of danger and lets go of the unagi's whiskers. The unagi rears its head and Aang jumps into the air just as Appa swoops down. Appa catches Aang in his front paws and flies off. As Aang is climbing into Appa's saddle, Katara, Sokka, and Momo are sitting, waiting for him.

The unagi before going back into the water sprayed Zuko and his soldiers right before they were back at the ship. When they were finally back on the ship, Zuko was about to head to the kitchen to order food to be made. He was then stopped by Iroh who was coming to talk to him. "Nephew, are you heading to the galley?" Iroh asked cautiously. "Yes Uncle, I want to get food made to be ready for when I come back from getting dry and changed." Zuko said, annoyed. "Well, I would not go down there if I were you. The crew member cooking has burned the last two batches of meat that he has tried to cook." Iroh responded. "What do you mean?" Zuko said, getting even more annoyed. "Well, the chef, he left to pursue a career in acting." Iroh said as he moved a few paces back from his now angry nephew. "WHAT!" Zuko said as he went to punch the air with a blaze of fire that Iroh was right to step far back from. "AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! Uncle, you're fat! You like food. You should know how to cook. I order you to the kitchen. Until we get a new cook, you will be the only one preparing the entire ship's meals. Since this also has one of your stupid proverbs attached to it, I bet." Zuko starts pacing and muttering to himself. " Of all the things to do to me… Making my staff leave with your stupid proverbs… this has to be the lowest of your schemes!" He throws Iroh a 'Kiss the Chef' apron and tells him that he would like to dine upon roast duck after drying and changing. "Get to it."

Iroh sniffled, looking displeased with his new post, until Zuko was gone. The look of being on the brink of tears was replaced with a giant grin, taking up over half of the old man's face.

What took Iroh's smile from him was having to see to everyone on the ship being served first. He not only had to watch them get their servings first, he had to serve them up. As his tummy growled, Iroh muttered to himself more than anyone in particular, "You must never give into despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts." GROWL* "I'm better than that." He was serving the last half dozen soldiers or so. GROWL* This time, the crew heard, and were preparing to fight the unknown beast that made such a horrendous sound. "Understanding others, and the other elements, the other nations, will help you become whole. Some of this roast duck in my belly will help make ME WHOLE!"