Sokka immediately burst out laughing when the young hero introduced himself. "Spider-Man?!", he asked, "What kind of name is that?!" Spider-Man glared under his mask and shot back, "It's my name and I like it the way it is! What's yours? Ponytail Head?" This drew laughter out of Katara and Aang. Sokka grumbled out, "It is a warrior's wolf tail, thank you very much!"
"Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night.", Spider-Man replied, "So what are you guys' names?" Aang and Katara were too shocked to answer, so Sokka sharply answered, "We're not telling you anything! You could be an advanced spy for the Fire Nation! Or some new experiment that they cooked up gone wrong!" Spider-Man's eyes narrowed under his mask and he shot back, "You don't have a brain at all do you?"
Katara couldn't help but giggle at the spider-powered hero's insult. "What are you laughing at?", Sokka exclaimed, "Just look at him! His skin's red and blue!" Spider-Man leaped down from the shadows, right in front of Sokka, and held up his exposed hand. "It's a costume, genius.", he said, "Believe me, I'm not a fan of the Fire Nation. And they're not a fan of me either. I've been making trouble for them ever since I got here."
Aang brightened up at this and asked, "Really? You're trying to defeat the Fire Nation too?" Spider-Man wasn't sure how much he should tell the three youths. He did have a secret identity to mantain after all. "Something like that.", he answered, "So far I've been trying to get the Fire Nation out of Dit-Koh Village. Might work my way up to Omashu someday."
Katara's eyes lit up at Spider-Man's words and she replied, "We were just in Omashu! It's pretty safe thanks to King Bumi. The Fire Nation hasn't invaded it yet." Spider-Man's face deflated under his mask and he let out a disappointed, "Aw man!" All of a sudden, he felt a familiar tingling in the back of his head. The three travelers could see Spider-Man visibly tense up, so Aang asked him, "What's wrong, Spider-Man?", to which he replied, "Danger."
Shooting a webline, Spider-Man swung onto a rooftop and begun running towards the source of the danger. He was followed by Aang, Katara, and Sokka, who asked, "What danger?" Stopping in Dit-Koh Village's square, everyone crouched down to get a better look at who was causing the trouble. He was garbed in a strange yellow and burgundy outfit that looked almost like a quilt. On his arms were bulky metal gauntlets that appeared to be firing concussive blasts of air at the village's citizens.
"Oh no.", Spider-Man groaned, "Not this idiot again." Sokka sarcastically asked, "Friend of yours?" Rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers, Spider-Man explained, "His name is Shul Tze. He's a small time criminal that calls himself "the Shocker". He started terrorizing Dit-Koh Village and extorting people's money shortly after I got here. I've tried running him out of town, but he just keeps coming back. You guys stay put while I take out the trash for the eighth time this month."
Swinging down towards the commotion, he could hear the Shocker threatening a local woman with, "Hand over your yuans or I'll blast you to smithereens!" Landing on a nearby post, Spider-Man mocked the enhanced criminal with, "Why Shocky! Is that any way to talk to a lady?" The Shocker angrily looked in the direction of the voice that caused him countless failures. "Oh no, it's you!", the Shocker whined, "What does it take to get rid of you?"
"Funny.", Spider-Man shot back, "I've been asking myself the same question since you showed your sorry face around here." This angered the Shocker and he began blasting at the wall-crawler. Aang, Katara and Sokka could only watch in amazement at the battle that was taking place before them. "Go, Shocker!", Sokka suddenly yelled, which caused Aang and Katara to glare at him.
"What?", he asked, to which Katara scolded, "Don't cheer for him! He's the bad guy!" While she was berating her brother, Aang had jumped off the roof and was now gliding down to the square. As he approached, he could see that the Shocker had overpowered Spider-Man and was about to blast his head wide open.
"I'm going to enjoy this, freak!", growled the Shocker, but before he could finish off Spider-Man, he was blown into a wall by a hard gust of wind. There stood Aang, who yelled out, "Leave him alone!" The Shocker angrily got to his feet and was preparing to blast Aang too, but was suddenly knocked off balance by a boomerang to the head. Next, the Shocker found himself encased in a thick layer of ice and saw that an Air Nomad and two Water Tribers were standing next to Spider-Man.
"Let me out of this, you little punks!", the Shocker yelled, which caused Spider-Man to snidely comment, "Don't you worry, Shul Tze. I'm sure that ice will thaw out in a couple of hours. Plenty of time for the local authorities to get here and haul your butt to jail." With that, Spider-Man, Aang, Katara and Sokka took their leave, but not before Spider-Man left behind a note that read, One shockingly cold crook, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
"Whew!", Aang breathed out, "That was something! Wasn't it, Spider-Man?" But when he turned around, Aang saw that Spider-Man was gone. "Hey, where'd he go?", Katara asked, "We didn't get to tell him our names." Sokka sarcastically replied, "He probably went to crawl back into a rain gutter. Spiders like to do that, you know." While they were standing in confusion on the street, the afformentioned hero was hiding behind a chimney, removing his mask to reveal Pavitr Prabhakar. Well, Pavitr thought to himself, Today certainly didn't go like I was expecting. Looks like I found the Avatar. Maybe I ought to stick around a little longer in Dit-Koh Village. See what kind of trouble they get themselves into. Maybe it's time for them to meet Pavitr Prabhakar.
Next Time: Fired!