"Whoa! What's with the arrow?...a- and the monkey?"

The tall boy pointed a shaking finger at Momo still propped on Aang's shoulder, terrified that this little creature might attach him.

He was the scrawniest-looking young man Aang had ever seen, and yet when this kid clumsily managed to run into the airbender (spilling all of his papers like confetti) it was like he had never seen a winged lemur in his lifetime. That kid's eyes were bulging.

"Excuse me...um... Sir," Aang had been practically out of breath as the horde of students entering the school had finally managed to disperse to their respective lockers, and he wasn't ready to explain the arrow thing just yet. "I need to talk to Vice Principal Zoo."

"You mean Zhao?" He didn't seem to give his stupefied look a rest, oddly enough.

"Yeah, that's the one!" Aang replied excitedly. "Can you tell where the office is?"

"Uh... yeah..." The kid had crouched down to pick up his papers, wondering who or what this new kid was... and why he was excited to meet the deadliest of Vice Principals. Aang's cheeky grin didn't leave his face. "...just let me pick these up for a sec."

"Oh, don't worry, let me help!" the young boy felt privileged to try his newest airbending routine on the first day of school... summoning a gust of the entrance to hit all the papers on the ground.

Even before the tall kid could react, or before the kids around them could turn to see... all the papers were picked up in a small spiraling vortex of air. Aang smiled to himself as the papers stacked themselves neatly onto his free hand to give to the kid, but the scrawny guy's eyes went back into bulging mode.

"Are you CRAZY?" came the high-pitched remark, and Aang's smile disappeared completely.

"What?" the young boy's cheeks flushed with confusion. "I was just trying to--"

"You can't BEND inside the school!" The tall kid's face looked like it was going melt right off of him, with the all the heat Aang could sense from it. He was almost sure he saw smoke coming from his ears.

As the young man's face flushed a deeper and deeper red, he shakingly pointed over to a sign at a nearby wall, his threatening eyes still fixed on Aang. The sign couldn't have been more clear: NO BENDING ALLOWED INSIDE SCHOOL PROPERTY.

"I'm... I'm sorry?" Aang said meekly to the boy, mentally telling himself he would tattoo that rule on his arm, if it meant that this kid would stop looking at him menacingly. Other kids were beginning to stare at the pair, and Aang closed his eyes with one last attempt. "I'm sorry!"

Perhaps if he concentrated really hard, his Avatar abilities would make him teleport back to the Southern Air Temple? It was all that Aang could think about at that moment, with his eyes closed and Momo whimpering with concern for him at his shoulder. As he heard the murmuring of kids' voices begin to take shape in his ears, one voice did seem to stand out from the others.

"Jeez, Sokka. Look, you're scaring the poor kid."

It was a girl, and she sounded really irritated as the voice got closer to the airbender's ears.

"Out of my way..." and Aang felt a slight tug on his sleeve by an soft hand, opening his eyes again. What greeted his vision then was nothing more than the largest, most beautiful pair of eyes the young boy had ever seen. He felt his limbs go numb, and almost forgot how to breathe. It took him long to remember that he wasn't soaring through the clear blue sky that those eyes reminded him of. They were brilliantly warm in its greeting, in that small second that passed.

"Is everything alright?" the girl's mouth moved, also becoming a frame of loveliness to Aang.

The boy was trembling, too taken aback for words to come out of his own mouth, and the best thing he could do was nod incessantly.

"Awesome," the girl patted Aang on the back and took the papers from his hand, shoving them rudely onto Sokka's torso, ignorant to see if he caught them all or not. "Don't pay attention to my brother; he acts like he's Principal Roku's commissioner or something... but he's just jealous because he IS. NOT. A. BENDER"

As the girl spoke those last few words with loud emphasis, the boy named Sokka scoffed off with his papers into a far off classroom. Aang did not even catch every word she said, because his ears were too busy noting that musical giggle she had made as an afterthought.

"So where do you have to go?"

"Go?" Aang blinked, saddened that a separation between him and this girl had to occur so suddenly. "Uh... I have to get to the main office... but I'm not so sure I--"

"Not a problem, it's right this way. Here, I'll take you..." The girl seemed kind enough to make the most unnecessary task, since she pulled his hand to get going, and Aang smiled dreamily. She could've been leading him to the edge of a cliff and he wouldn't have had a care in the world. Her voice was just so soothing to listen to.

"I'm Katara, by the way, and have no relation to that idiot back there," she said with a giggle, then paused as a cue for the boy to introduce himself.

He took a deep breath, "I'm... I'm Aang." It seemed to come out easily enough, and he smiled over to Momo on his shoulder, patting his pet on the claw. "And this is Momo, my ling-ed we-mur."

Suddenly the whole world seemed to stop spinning, and Aang's eyes blinked. Did he really just say that? The boy's cheeks practically flushed themselves into a pink balloon then, and hearing the girl giggle for the third time, he mentally smacked himself on the forehead with stupidity.

"Aw, well that's the cutest ling-ed we-mur I've ever seen," Katara replied with much sincerity and kindness, petting Momo on the head. As much as it felt childish and humiliating, Aang was just glad that the girl didn't just walk away.

It seemed that all of a sudden the hallways were becoming less noisy and less overwhelming to the boy, watching this lovely girl with hair loops walk beside him.

"What's with the blue arrow?" The girl then asked, and Aang could vaguely catch the similarity to her and Sokka's voice. However, the boy was determined to answer that questions once and for all... and with absolutely no foolishness.

"It is the one of the greatest achievements a young airbender can ever receive," Aang heard himself say, letting his walking turn into a proud strut, "and I was actually the youngest in my Temple to get it!"

"Really?" Katara's voice sounded slightly intrigued to the young boy.

"MmHmm," the boy said with determination, letting his chest rise out a bit with his blue arrow pride. "My last test was to create a new airbending maneuver of my own... and I created the super-spinning Air Scooter of... of Terror!"

Aang looked over at the girl, wondering if she was still fascinated by that last-minute name he gave to his trademark scooter, but her eyes weren't bulging or anything. They seemed to be on the edge of indifference... and Aang had to think fast...

"HEY! Want me to show you how it looks?" and the boy was beginning to move his arms around in that spiral manner, but the girl's eyes rose and she grabbed his arms firmly... keeping them down before any wind would pick up."

"No! Aang, you can't... It's a rule, remember?" Katara's voice meant well, but deep down Aang felt that he had lost the chance to impress the girl of his dreams.

"Anyway, the main office is right over there at the corner of the hallway," the girl gestured with a hand in front of her, "I'm sorry but I have to get to class... Mr. Jeong Jeong gets real nasty with the latecomers... it was nice meeting you, Aang! And Momo."

She gave a little affectionate ear-scratch to the winged lemur before heading off the opposite direction, along with a few other kids her own age. That was the only time that Aang could recall he had wished he were a winged lemur... and with one jealous glance at Momo, the boy scurried down the hallway to get to the principal's office before the second gong.

"I'm here! I'm SAFE!" the boy slid happily inside the doorway of the main office just as the second gong from the school bellowed over his head.

As he regained himself, he noticed that the main office was composed of two elderly twin secretaries seated across from each other, who were both writing illegibly onto scrolls with sloppy ink pens. The only thing he could tell apart from them was that one woman had a splotch of ink on her pink blouse, whereas the other did not.

The two old women looked as quiet, yet as cheerful as ever when the boy came in.

"And who might you be?" The one on the right asked Aang.

"Um... I'm Aang," the boy nervously took another step into the office, trying hard to look at the woman in the eye. He had to get Katara out of his mind, even if it was for a second! "I'm the Avatar-in-Training, from the Southern Air Temple? Um... I have to talk to Vice Principal Zoo– Zhao!"

Another mental slap from the airbender. All of a sudden, he could foretell a few more were in store for him for that day.

The two women looked at each other for a few seconds, while Aang studied their desk name plates with interest. Apparently, one of the secretaries' names was Lo, and the other was Li. Lo was the one with the ink splotch on her blouse, and she spoke up this time.

"Oh, I'm afraid that Vice Principal Zhao is with another student at the moment... but I'm sure that if you wait, he would gladly be of service to you!" Lo smiled, with an edge of eeriness.

"And while you're waiting, you can fill out these student registration forms!" Li's voice added just as happily, moving closer to Aang's presence and letting a huge stack of papers thud loudly in front of him.

"Welcome to Praying Mantis!" the two women said together in unison, before returning back to their unspecified writing.

With a slight groan coming from his stomach, the boy looked at the thick file of papers and in turn, took out an ink pen from his bag to begin the tedious registration process.

As he was picking up the stack of papers to move comfortably over to a chair, there was another office that stood across from the Vice Principal's office that had laughter and chatter coming from behind it's slightly open door. The sign at the door read: Mr. IROH, School Counselor.

Suddenly, that door swung open completely, and the laughter took form of an old, bulky man with a gray beard. A young girl with round brown eyes, clutching a notebook to her frame appeared from behind him.

"Thanks for the tea and the interview, Mr. Iroh; it's going to be great for the school paper!"

Mr. Iroh laughed, holding the door open as the girl left his office. "Anytime, On Ji. But are you sure you don't want to interview our janitor instead? He goes crazy every time the kids steal his cabbages..."

Aang felt a little out of place, not really knowing who these two people were talking about, and as he looked over at Lo and Li (both blushing at the sight of Mr.Iroh) the boy thought it best to just concentrate on his registration forms without looking up.

He heard Mr.Iroh and the girl named On Ji share another small laugh, and the girl replied with "Maybe for the next issue, Mr. Iroh. Thanks again!"

"Alright, On Ji, take care!" Mr. Iroh waved as the young girl left the room, and Aang was too preoccupied to realize that right before she left... On Ji noticed the boy with the blue arrow sitting with a stack of registration papers, and a small blush had involuntarily appeared to her cheeks.

The airbender knew that this was going to be dreadfully long when the first question on the form asked was... What was your great grandmother's name?

How was he supposed to fit "I never met my great grandmother because male airbenders and female airbenders are trained in separate temples, it's an airbender's tradition to be raised from birth by monks and nuns, and they don't get to see their real parents until they turn eighteen years old or become full airbending masters"... into one tiny little line!?

There were moments when the loud, angry voices coming in from the room next too him were impossible to block out, and Aang deliberately leaned his head closer to the door to see if he could make out what the argument was about.

"But I wasn't causing a threat to anyone, Zhao, and you KNOW it!"

"For the seven-hundreth time, it's Vice Principal Zhao, your highness. And you know well enough by now that three Fire-Bending violations in one week lead to a full Saturday detention."

"That can't be a Fire-Bending violation... I was just lighting some... I was just trying to surprise my girlfriend for our anniversary with some--"

"Oh, how sentimental you are, Zuko. But that still involved the summoning of fire from your chi inside school property, and having it be the third violation for you this week..."

Aang could not make out the end of that sentence, but as the door burst open with the intense fury and rage from a growling student... Momo leaping off of Aang's shoulder onto another chair... the boy no longer felt that was as important.

The young man who stormed out of that office was no different than a wild moose lion on hind legs... at least to the airbender's mind. The student growled at particularly nothing as he stood there in the center of the office, giving the twin secretaries a terrorized look (probably waiting for Mr.Iroh to comfort them). Mr. Iroh did not move a muscle, strangely, at this reaction towards the young man.

He remained stern, searching for those pair of raging yellow eyes that were hidden in the wisps of the young man's brown hair.

"Zuko, what have I told you about controlling that temper of yours? How do you expect the people of the Fire Nation to respect a member of the royal family, if he does not respect others?"

Aang curiously looked up to the student's brooding face for one moment, and as the kid reluctantly turned his head away from the school counselor... the airbender saw the most remarkable yet disturbing-looking scar he had ever seen. Was it a scar? It had to be... it couldn't have been a tattoo...

"Excuse me, but... who are you?" A voice then drilled into the boy's ears. "And... what's with the arrow on your head?"

That rough, commanding voice was the Vice Principal Zhao, who had finally managed to come out of the office after a brooding student had reluctantly left. He was looked over at the young airbender almost surprised and disgusted at the same time. The boy could tell that by the way Zhao scrunched his eyebrows at the blue arrow, and at Momo sitting right next to him... this was not going to be the most pleasant of Vice Principal meetings.

"You can take him in, Zhao," Mr.Iroh exclaimed almost as if he were studying the Vice Principal's thoughts from across the room, "I can talk to my nephew here, don't worry."

Mr. Iroh gave a speculative, but supportive glance over at the boy who was still drenched with registration forms, and the vice principal rolled his eyes and glared at the new student, opening his door entirely to let him in. Aang couldn't decide if the student named Zuko or the vice principal was the most reluctant of the two, and as the boy stacked his papers onto his chair and got up to be escorted into the Vice Principal's room... Katara's laughter kept echoing in his ears.

Maybe that was all he needed to get through this dreadful meeting with the Vice Principal Zhao.