Hello everyone!
Hope you enjoy this chapter!
(Action is not my best point but I think it went well!)
As always thanks for reading!
Light from the Shadows
Chapter 18
Sakura
Their journey continued north, some days in the air on Appa and a few here and there on the ground. The air grew colder and snow could be seen on the ground around them. They were getting close to their destination. The group decided to stop in the nearest village they could find for heavier supplies and clothes. Sakura rubbed her shoulder and found the pain was gone, it was time for the bandages to come off. (While Katara had offered to heal her, Sakura felt embarrassed and refused her offer, claiming that she didn't want to waste perfectly good medical supplies.)
They had stopped for the afternoon, and Sakura slipped her arm out of her shirt.
"Kakashi?"
He looked up from across the campsite.
"Can you hand me the bandage scissors from my pack?"
"Sure."
He got up and pulled Sakura's bag off Appa, opened it, and took out the scissors she kept specifically for cutting bandages. He brought them to her, but hesitated a moment before handing them over,
"Do you need any help?" He asked.
Sakura looked up and his cheeks were a bit red. She glanced down and saw that pulling her arm out of her shirt had caused it to slip down on that side below her breast. She laughed.
"Kakashi... haven't you ever seen a female body before? It's the same thing as me in a swimsuit. Come on, just cut it off. Keep the flat blade on the bottom side..." He took the scissors and gently slipped them under the bottom edge of the bandage. The shock of the cool metal sent goosebumps down her arm. She shifted a bit.
"Sorry," Sakura smiled at him nervously, "Just a little cold."
"I'm sorry."
"You're the one helping me! You have nothing to apologize for."
He finished cutting the bandages.
"There! All done."
Kakashi pulled the bandages off Sakura's arm, and ran a hand over where her burn had been.
"How does your arm feel?"
Sakura smiled, "Wonderful, thank you."
She pulled back up the arm of her shirt, and it was her turn to feel the burning in her cheeks. There was something different about being out and about mostly naked and revealing your undergarments. Though he is just a friend, so why am I being weird about it? She shook her head and realized Kakashi had not returned her scissors.
Sakura pushed herself up off the log and walked over to her pack, the scissors were wrapped in a bit of cloth and tucked neatly into the pocket she had designated for them. She smiled, how kind of him to remember that.
When exploring the area, Aang had discovered a good sized group of people sitting around telling stories and decided they should join them.
Sakura never turned down an opportunity to learn something new so she agreed to go with Aang to the storyteller. The rest of the group shrugged and they all went along.
...
"...So travelers, the next time you think you hear a strange large bird talking, take a closer look, it might not be a giant parrot, but a flying man! A member of a secret group of air walkers who laugh at gravity and laugh at those bound to the earth by it!"
Sakura had been scribbling down the story madly in her notebook and looked up when she was finally done, a strand of hair dangled in her face. Aang was smiling blissfully and Kakashi was getting up to stretch, the man sure had been longwinded. Her writing of the story had gone on for three and a half pages! And she wrote small!
Aang sighed, "Aren't airbender stories the best?"
Sakura was dying to ask him questions, "Was it realistic? Was that how it was back then?"
Aang smiled, "I laugh at gravity all the time. Haha! Gravity."
A few minutes later, the storyteller came by jingling his hat. Sakura looked up questioningly.
"Jingle Jingle!"
The group checks their clothes, but it is a lost effort, after all, Kakashi is the one who carries the money of the group.
"Hey Kakashi-"
"Nope."
Sakura shrugged, "Sorry!"
"Aww. Cheapskates!"
She leaned into Kakashi's side and whispered in his ear, "We aren't actually out of money are we?"
"No, but we can't be spending it on frivolous things like this or we'll never have enough to get by for foodstuffs and supplies."
"Very true."
Sakura nodded before stowing her notebook in a side pocket of her tunic for ease of access. She watched Aang run up to the storyteller as he was waving his hat in front of another bunch of travelers, seeking donations.
"Hey thanks for the story!"
The man thrust his hat in Aang's direction and didn't even look at him, "Tell it to the cap, boy!"
"It means a lot to hear airbender stories. It must have been a hundred years ago your great grandpa met them."
"What are you prattling about child? Great grandpappy saw the air walkers last week!"
Sakura's ears pricked up. Could there still be? I thought they were all killed...
The group camped nearby for the night, not willing to go much farther before setting up their fire and tent. Yes they only had one. Why, Sakura could only figure it had been Kakashi wanting to save money. But the way it was now, they had a medium sized tent that all five of them squeezed into. It wasn't so bad for the kids, they were shorter and smaller. Kakashi on the other hand was a 6 foot tall man and Sakura wasn't too far behind.
That night, Sakura had magically ended up at one end, with Kakashi next to her, then Aang, followed by Sokka, then Katara on the opposite end. Sakura didn't mind this arrangement, Kakashi was like a furnace on the cold night.
...
The next morning, Sakura woke up warm, except it was more than normal. She turned and saw Kakashi had actually snuggled up to her in his sleep. She had the urge to smash him with a boulder, but decided against it. After all she would wake up the rest of the tent doing that. So Sakura decided to just let it happen for a little while longer. After all, he was a very good heater. Mmm... She snuggled down in her sleeping bag and sighed at the comfort his body heat lent her.
...
The next time she woke, her heater was gone.
"Kakashiiii..."
She flailed out an arm, searching for him. She struck something hard, and whatever she hit recoiled. Sakura found him. Still next to her but he had backed up a bit. In her flailing she had accidentally punched him, in a rather sensitive area. Sakura looked up to his face and saw he had sunk about as far into his sleeping bag as possible, covering up to his nose. His cheeks burned with embarrassment and his eyes reflected pain. What? That's a weird mixture.
"I-I'm sorry, Sakura! I didn't mean to! I swear! Please don't hurt me…"
"What are you talking about?"
He refused to meet her gaze, "Um.. never mind!"
Kakashi scrambled out of his bag faster than Sakura ever thought he could move, and left the tent. Maybe he had to go to the bathroom? She thought about it for a second. OHhhhh... that's what he was apologizing for. There was nothing for him to be embarrassed about, it's a natural bodily process.
Sakura rolled up her sleeping bag and Kakashi's, then tied them along with the rest of their bags on Appa's saddle. Then she woke up the kids by collapsing the tent on top of them. She had just pulled the string when Kakashi walked back up to the camp.
"Kakashi, about this morning... you don't have to be embarrassed, it's not a big deal."
He gave her a strange look, "You're not mad? I thought you were going to kill me for sure."
She smiled and nervously scratched the back of her head, "Haha, I was at first, but it's totally natural! Nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to all men."
"Mm."
He walked away from her, his face even redder. Sakura thought his ears were so red they were steaming! Wait they aren't, actually steaming are they? She looked around for him to see, but he must have been on the other side of Appa, so she went back to securing their supplies on the bison's saddle.
Sakura gave the kids an hour to get around before they all left, they were so close to the North Pole, they might even be able to get there by next week, if they stuck to the schedule that is.
...
After traveling on Appa for several hours, Aang pointed out a mountainous location in the distance.
"Hey, we're almost at the Northern Air Temple! This is where they had the championships for sky bison polo."
Sakura poked Kakashi's cheek, "Do you think we'll really find airbenders?"
"You want me to be honest," he leaned into her ear, "Or say what you wanna hear, like miss Optimism over there?"
Sakura laughed, "Are you saying being an optimist is a bad thing?"
He shrugged, "It can be."
"So tell me!"
"What?"
Sakura slapped her face, "Ugh, never mind."
Once they got closer, Sakura saw several people gliding around, and smoke drifting out of the temple spires. I don't know about the smoke part, but maybe those are really airbenders!
Katara must have had the same thought, "Huh! They really are airbenders!"
Aang's excitement seemed to wilt, he folded his arms unhappily, "No, they're not."
Sokka was leaning over the side of the saddle, trying to get a better look, "What do you mean they're not? Those guys are flying!"
"Gliding maybe, but not flying. You can tell by the way they move. They're not airbending. Those people have no spirit."
The next moment, Sakura had to duck down, one of the glider pilots passed dangerously close. The pilot turned his craft around and aimed from another pass at Appa.
"I don't know, Aang. That kid seems pretty spirited!"
"That's not what he means, Katara. There's more to it than that."
Aang hopped up and opened his glider. He jumped in the air and took off. The other gliders flew in a formation around Appa. Katara fell backward from where she was talking to Aang, crashing into Sokka.
"Oof! We better find some solid ground before it finds us!"
The gliders led them to a platform off the side of the temple. There wasn't really a reason for Sokka to be so excited, Appa landed them just as gracefully as he always did. Sakura hopped off Appa and watched Aang glide with the other boy. The imposter seemed to be having fun, but Sakura knew Aang was feeling betrayed, these people were just mimics, copying what his people had mastered and passed down for generations. He sort of had a right to be angry.
A boy from behind Sakura shouted out, "Go Teo! Show that bald kid how it's done!"
In the sky the two flew circles and rings around each other. If it had been any other situation, Sakura might have thought Aang was playing tag with the child. On the surface of a tower, Aang let go of his glider and pulled up an air scooter, circling the tower a few times before getting back on his glider.
As Sakura watched, the competitor created a smoke picture in the sky of Aang's face wtih a sour expression. The kids around her thought it was pretty funny, but all it probably did was piss Aang off.
Aang landed next to Sakura, and folded his glider. The other child landed right behind, skidding just a bit before coming to a stop. The other kids come up and detach the glider from his wheel chair. Sakura instantly felt bad for thinking ill of the boy. It was probably one his few outlets of fun.
Teo wheeled up to their group, "Hey! You're a REAL airbender! You must be the Avatar! That's amazing! I, I, I've heard stories about you."
Aang seemed a bit conflicted, like he wanted to be happy, but he was also sort of embarrassed of his actions against a boy in a wheelchair.
"Thanks."
Sakura quickly decided to drop her dislike of this boy, after all, how could she dislike someone who could teach her something? Sokka was on the same boat.
"Wow! This glider chair is incredible!"
A couple of the kids brought the glider setup back for him to check out. Sakura walked over and took notes along with a quick sketch of the mechanical workings of the contraption. It really was an impressive invention.
Teo turned to them, "If you think this is good, wait until you see the other stuff my Dad designed."
The whole group decided to follow him. Once inside the temple, however, Sakura wasn't sure there was anything she could do to keep Aang from killing someone. The main room, completely beautiful at the Southern Air Temple, had been defiled here. It was dominated by a conglomeration of pipes and steam powered machinery. There were many wheels, gears, and levers everyone. It was not beautiful. The artwork and statues in the room had once been beautiful, but now they lay in ruins. A pool in front of a statue was filling with bright green sludge instead of the once beautiful water that flowed through it. Everything that wasn't broken and piped through was covered in black soot and mold and moss, the ancient works could barely be seen. A few shafts of sunlight filtered in, but the stream and dust made the room appear shadowy. It was wholly disappointing and Sakura knew Aang felt it too. It's as if the people here have destroyed a piece of what Aang was. Of his people, his history. How horrible.
Sokka, on the other hand, was still enraptured in the industrious spell of shiny metal and fancy gearwork.
"Wow!"
Teo wheeled a bit ahead of them, and his voice was proud, "Yeh, my Dad is the mastermind behind this whole place! Everything's powered by hot air. It even pumps hot air currents outside to give us a lift when we're gliding."
While he was talking a woman walked to a cage on the wall nearby. She got inside and pulled a rope, which caused steam power to lift the cage to a higher level where she got out. Sakura took a quick sketch, scribbling out small details before they moved on.
Aang replied glumgly, "This place is unbelievable."
"Yeah, it's great isn't it?"
He shook his head, "No, just unbelievable."
Aang walked away from the rest of the group, clearly saddened by what has happened to the temple. Katara moved to follow him.
"Aang used to come here a long time ago. i think he's a little shocked it's so... different."
Sokka just wasn't taking the hint, "So better!"
Katara walked up to Aang, always the first to try and comfort young Avatar. Sokka was distracted by Teo and Kakashi thought they should also follow Aang. Sakura agreed, but that they would hang back a tiny bit. The two had stopped in front of a massive mural, depicting airbenders of many generations. Several places in the wall were missing due to pipes exiting or entering the room.
"This is supposed to be the history of my people." Aang said sadly.
He walked up to the statue with a pool in front of it, the basin full of green industrial runoff. The statue emitted a cloud of black smoke, and it scared Aang. Katara came up behind him.
"Ugh!"
"I'm sure some parts of the temple are still the same."
They traveled through the temple and finally found a courtyard that seemed untouched, there were still complete statues there.
"It's nice to see even one part of the temple that isn't ruined."
The group stopped in front of a giant recessed depiction of an airbender, and some sense of peace came over Sakura. But only for a second.
"Look out!"
The statue erupted in front of them, disintegrating right in front of their eyes. Aang and Katara fell backward, Sakura and Kakashi just moved off to the sides. Everyone coughed with the dust in the air being so thick. As it settled, several figures could be made out in the hole. The middle one was a middle aged man with a bald head and weird patches of pointy hair growing from either side of his head. Over one eye he wore a red monocle. His tunic was green but was mostly covered in dust and behind an artisan's apron. He seemed surprised to see them.
"What the doodle! Don't you know enough to stay away from construction sites? We have to make room for the bathhouse!"
Aang wasn't having any of the man's excuses, he took a stance ready to fight, "Do you know what you did? You just destroyed something sacred! For a stupid bathhouse!"
"Well, people around here are starting to stink." He waved a hand in front of his nose pointedly.
"This whole place stinks!" Aang shouted back.
He struck the ground with his staff, sending a gale through the hole in the wall. Sakura watched as the wrecking ball and the entire rigging were blown off the buildings foundation and into the crevices below. Aang walked up to the man, irate.
"This is a sacred temple! You can't treat it this way. I've seen it when the monks were here. I know what it's supposed to be like."
The man laughed, "The monks? But you're 12!"
Teo rolled up, "Dad, he's the Avatar. He used to come here a hundred years ago."
"What are you doing?" Aang pointed his staff at the man, "Who said you could be here?"
Teo's dad turned away, "Hmm... doing here... A long time ago, but not a hundred years, my people became refugees after a terrible flood," he gestured with his hands to show how huge it was before standing behind his son's wheelchair, "My infant son, Teo, was badly hurt and lost his mother." The man sniffed back tears, "I needed somewhere to rebuild and I stumbled across this place. Couldn't believe it! Everywhere pictures of flying people. But empty! Nobody home! Then I came across these fan-like contraptions!"
He flapped his arms and ran around the courtyard like an idiot. He stopped in front of Aang, who still looked angry.
"Our gliders."
The man rubbed his chin, "Yes, little light flying machines. They gave me an idea. Build a new life for my son, in the air! Then everyone would be on equal ground, so to speak! We're just in the process of improving upon what's already here and after all, isn't that what nature does?"
Sakura was still angry at the man, but could tell that Sokka and Katara had been moved by the man's story. She scoffed at them.
"Nature knows when to stop." Aang growled.
Teo's father looked back through the hole he had just created, "I suppose that's true. Unfortunately, progress has a way of getting away from us."
He looked down with some sadness, then lifted his head back up to look at something.
"Look at the time!"
He pointed to a stone pillar behind them and Sakura turned to see three candles, each separated neatly into sections. She narrowed her eyes at them, they didn't seem to be numbered in any way.
"Come the pulley system must be oiled before dark."
Sakura approached the candles, curious at their workings, "Wait, how can you tell the time from that thing? The notches all look the same."
"The candle will tell us. Watch."
The flame snapped four times in a row.
Sokka gasped next to her, also interesting in the candles, "You put spark powder in the candle!"
"Four flashes, so it's exactly four hours past midday, or, as I call it, four o'candle!"
Sakura quirked an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. Sokka on the other hand burst out laughing. When she looked up, the man seemed pleased that Sokka was interested in his inventions. Sakura pulled her notebook out of her pocket and wrote down the invention along with a quick scribble on how it worked and a small picture diagram.
Just because she hated the man didn't mean she thought the invention was useless.
"If you two like that, wait till you see my finger safe knife sharpener!"
He held up his left hand, three fingers were made of wood. He detached them and tossed them to Sokka.
"Only took me three tries to get it right! Follow me!"
Sokka ran after the man.
"Hey Sokka take some notes while you're there!" Sakura yelled after him.
She wanted to stay with Kakashi and the rest of the group, the inventions were interesting, but if she had a chance to learn more about the history of the place, she would take it. Maybe I should write down everything Aang remembers at some point...
"Hey, Aang, I want to show you something." ...
Teo led them deep into the temple, and right as Sakura thought they had reached an area untouched by the inventor, another pipe shot out of the wall. It soon began to depress her.
"I just can't get over it. There's not a single ting that's the same." Aang whispered.
Teo stopped and scooped up a small black and white striped hermit crab.
"I don't know about that. The temple might be different, but the creatures that live here are probably direct descendents of the ones that lived here a long time ago."
Katara liked that, "You're right. They're kind of keepers of the temples origins."
Teo gave Sakura the crab, and she passed it to Aang. For the first time that day, he finally smiled.
She scribbled a picture of the crab and they continued walking.
"Besides, there's one part of the temple that hasn't changed at all."
As they walked down one corridor, Sakura saw that huge Air Nomad swirls were built into the mosaics in the floor. They came to a door not unlike the one at the Southern Air Temple. The vastness of if amazed Sakura. "Only an airbender can open it-so inside it's completely untouched, just the way the monks left it. I've always wondered what it was like in there."
"Aang?" Katara asked.
He hung his head, "I'm sorry, this is the last part of the temple that is the same as it was. I want it to stay that way."
"I completely understand. i just wanted you to know it was here."
"Thanks."
They left the door and walked back to the temple platform where Appa was enjoying attention from the local children. Teo asked if they wanted to try gliding and everyone agreed they would.
Sakura lined up for takeoff, holding a glider with both hands, Teo was to her left, and Kakashi behind her to the right.
"The wind will carry you. It supports something inside you-something even lighter than air, and that something takes over when you fly."
Sakura thought about plummeting to her death should she fail and decided against it. She leaned the glider on its side.
"I've changed my mind. I think I was born without that something."
"Impossible! Everybody has it."
Aang whispered from behind them, "Spirit."
Teo looked up, "What?"
"That's the something you're talking about."
"Yeah, I suppose it is."
Sakura was now ready for takeoff, with Kakashi right behind her.
"Are you ready?" He asked her.
"No!" Sakura shouted, but jumped off anyway, screaming the whole way down.
Eventually she gained control of the craft and leveled out, gliding around the temple. She glanced to her side and Kakashi was right there with her.
"I can't believe I'm flying!"
Kakashi laughed beside her. From above they could hear, "Just make sure to keep your mouth closed so you don't swallow a bug!" It was Aang laughing at them.
"Teo was right about the air! All I had to do was trust it. Let it carry me." Sakura mused.
"Even though Teo's not an airbender, he really does have the spirit of one."
...
Once they all landed back on the terrace, Aang approached Teo.
"I've been thinking. If you wanna see what's in that room, I'd be happy to open the door for you."
"Great!"
...
They arrived back at the temple door.
"I can't believe I'm finally going to see what's inside."
Aang blew two gusts into the door, turning the three locking mechanisms and opening the huge door. Sakura was not prepared for what was waiting for them.
It wasn't a clean and pristine temple sanctuary.
"This is a nightmare." Aang said.
Sakura agreed, instead of the untouched airbender history they had been expecting, the sanctuary was filled with evil war machines and torture devices. And behind it all was a Fire Nation banner.
A voice came from behind them, "You don't understand."
"You're making weapons for the Fire Nation!" Aang accused.
Sokka appeared behind him, his eyes bugging out, "You make weapons for the Fire Nation!?"
Teo seemed just as surprised as they, "Explain all this! Now!"
"It was about a year after we moved here. Fire Nation soldiers found our settlement. You were too young to remember this tale. they were going to destroy everything, burn it to the ground. I pleaded with them, I begged them to spare us. They asked what I had to offer. I offered... my services. You must understand, I did this for you!"
Teo turned his head away, disappointed, and left. His father walked back down the hall, the group following him. Sakura and Kakashi took up the rear.
"When do you think they're coming for their next 'shipment'?" Sakura asked.
"Probably soon. From the looks of it, that room was pretty full."
"I am so mad about this. Yes, if he hadn't created weapons for them, there wouldn't be any temple left, would there?"
"You're probably right about that. And if there was, it would be even less and in worse shape than this is."
...
They reached the inventor's study, and discussed a game plan. Sakura wanted to take some time and check out all the weird things in the room, but knew they needed to stay focused on the task at hand.
Aand stepped forward, "When are they coming?"
"Soon." The candle next to him sparked one time, "Very soon."
"You can't give them more weapons." Aang stated.
Teo's father pleaded with him, "If I don't give them what they want, they will destroy this place."
A balloon he had been working on floated over to them. It caught fire at the end of his sentence. He smothered the flames out with a towel.
Teo glared at his father, disappointed, "How can I be proud of you when your inventions are being used for murder?"
"I need some time to think," a tinkling of a small bell could be heard, "You need to leave! Go!"
"We're not leaving." Teo replied.
"Then hide, quickly!" Sakura and Kakashi ducked behind a bookcase. He pulled a lever and a wheel built into the floor turned rapidly. A trap door next to it opened and steam arose through the opening. A man in Fire Nation's uniform rose through the floor. He stood on a square of wood that became flush with the floor when the elevator stopped.
"You know better than to keep me waiting." He approached the inventor, "Give me what you owe us so I can be on my way."
There was a pause.
"Is there a problem?"
"No, right this way."
They began moving to the door, but Aang popped out of his hiding place and slammed the door with a gust of wind.
"The deal's off!"
"The Avatar!"
"Aang, don't get involved!"
The emisssary pointed at Teo's father, "If i don't get what I came for the Fire Nation will burn this place to rubble!"
Aang struck the man with an air whip, " Get out of here! You're leaving empty handed!"
"Then the destruction of this temple will be on your head."
He left and Aang shut the trap door with a gust of wind.
Sokka started pacing, "This is bad! Very bad!"
"Aang, what are we gonna do? How can we possibly keep them all away?" Katara added.
"I'll tell ya how," he pointed at the sky, "We have something they don't. Air power! We control the sky. That's something the Fire nation can't do. We can win!"
The idiot father spoke from behind his desk, "I want to help."
Aang turned to him with a smile, "Good, we'll need it."
A few hours later, they regrouped in the office.
Teo's father seemed particularly happy, "We finally got the war balloon working, thanks to Sokka. This boy's a genius!"
He beamed, "Thank you. You're a genius!"
"Thank you!"
Sakura slapped her face and let her hand wipe down, "Get on with it!"
"See, the problem with the old war balloon was you could get it airborne, but once you did, it just kept going. You could put a hole in the top, but then all the hot air would escape. So the question became, how do you keep a lid on hot air?"
If only we knew.
"A lid is actually the answer. if you control the hot air, you control the war balloon."
Sakura concluded that the idea was sound and sketched a small diagram of it along with instructions and uses in her notebook before stashing it again.
"That's actually pretty smart." Sakura admitted.
Sokka continued, "Okay, so we've got four kinds of bombs. Smoke, slime, fire, and..."
Teo's father finished the list, "Stink! Never underestimate the power of stink!"
Kakashi laughed, then told Sakura what he was thinking, "He's obviously never smelled Sokka's boots. there's a reason he doesn't take them off."
She laughed.
...
A group of defenders lined up at an outer lip of the temple, peeking over the edge and waiting for the onslaught they knew was to come.
A little girl ran up to them, "They're coming!"
Teo asked, "Are we ready?"
"Yes, but where's Sokka with the war balloon?" Katara asked.
Behind her, Aang jumped off Appa and opened his glider as he landed.
"We'll have to start without him."
Teo smiled at the young Avatar and put on his googles. Sakura glanced back at the platform they had landed on when they arrived, it had now become a landing strip. Two rows of gliders stood ready to launch. Aang and Teo stood at the front. Teo gave Aang a thumbs up signal, then Aang began the launch sequence. He flew off, with Teo behind him and then the rest followed. Sakura was to fly on a glider as well, but to use earthbending she couldn't be the one hanging on, thus she and Kakashi were to share a glider, him flying and her earthbending. At the edge of the temple grounds, she had created as high a wall as she could to try and give them more of an advantage.
As they flew forward Sakura glanced down the steep terrace of the Air Nomad temple. Fire Nation soldiers were already at the bottom and starting to climb their way up.
The formation dropped down on the unsuspecting soldiers and unleashed havoc, dropping bombs of all sorts while Sakura rose up pillars and boulders among the troops, causing them to fall off the paths into the crevices below.
Sakura saw Aang taking on a bunch of Fire Nation in a line. She earthbended up a wall on one side of them while he used his air to trigger the snow to fall on the other side. The resulting chaos was satisfying, fire nation soldiers slipping on muddy snow and falling on loose rocks.
Sakura looked down and Aang's avalanche had actually extended past her earth wall and was taking down row after row of soldiers. Once they saw the previous rows fall, several in the back started running away.
"We've got'em on the run! We need more slime!" Aang and pulled himself back into the ranks.
"Kakashi, we should go up and give them some cover while they resupply."
"On it!" Sakura held on while the glider tilted up to Appa, Katara was waiting there with more bombs.
Around them, chains with spikes on the end erupted through the clouds. Kakashi had to weave to avoid them and ended up separated from the rest of the gliders. Sakura pointed to the ground the spikes had landed in.
"Let's go beat em up! I think if I can earth bend the spikes out of the ground and toss the boulders back on them, that might work!"
Kakashi nodded, "I'll point out the next spike while you do that!"
"Let's go!"
Sakura saw the first spike point, she kicked a boulder out of the wall and threw it back down the hill, hopefully hitting the vehicle it came from.
"There!" Kakashi pointed at the next spike.
More spikes seemed to be coming every second, so she tried to take out two spikes at once with a massive boulder. The screams she received after told her it had been successful.
She saw Kakashi throw a bomb at one of the tanks, but it was to no avail, the bomb had no effect on the tank's outer shell. "Shit! We have to come up with another way to take them down! Removing the spikes isn't fast enough!"
"What looks like it might be their weakest point?" Sakura shouted as they glided over a row of tanks, weaving to avoid their fire.
"Perhaps where the wheels meet the body? That looks to be the thinnest part of the vehicle!"
"Righto! Aim for that if you can, and I'll bring up spikes instead of boulders!"
The next tank they came to, Sakura dropped down and slammed her feet down, bringing up four spikes in the points where the axles met the vehicle. Miraculously, the whole tank collapsed.
"YES! Kakashi did you see that!?" She asked as she jumped back onto their glider.
"Excellent! On to the next one!"
The two flew from tank to tank, separating their tires from the bodies. When Kakashi ran out of bombs they flew to find Katara.
"Katara! Out of bombs!" Sakura yelled, nodding toward Kakashi.
"We're all out of bombs!"
"Shit!"
"Sakura found an alternate way to break up the tanks! Target their weak spots where the axles meet the body!"
"I'll come down and try and use ice! Thanks!"
The two flew back to the battlefield, it finally seemed like everything might be turning in their favor. There weren't a huge number of tanks to begin with and Sakura and Kakashi's team efforts had brought down about half of them.
"Let's take down the other half, Kakashi!"
"Yeah!"
Sakura found herself smiling in spite of the situation they were in. Fighting with Kakashi was fun. She found that making a stomping motion with her feet would bring up the spikes just as efficiently as hopping off her glider each and every time. Faster too.
Katara joined them and they took down the onslaught in no time. Or so they thought.
Just as they took down that row of tanks, another dozen came crawling up the hill.
The two hauled up and flew over, taking a few seconds to breathe.
"There are so many!"
"All we can do is try! Don' give up now!" Kakashi shouted out encouragement to her. In this, once they ran out of bombs, Sakura was sure he felt useless. Hey he's still flying you, don't go thinking that yet.
She smiled back at him and they went back at it, taking down tank after tank along with Katara.
"Where's Sokka with that war balloon?"
Suddenly the battlefield was covered in shadow. Sakura flew up and they saw Sokka had finally gotten the balloon out. It was red and was decked out with a Fire Nation symbol, but it was perfect for this situation. The symbol threw off the soldiers and they weren't sure whether or not to fire at it.
Sokka and Teo's father rode in the basket. Attached to it were several bags used as bombs in this fight.
As the balloon flew over a huge group of tanks and dropped a massive bomb of slime on them. Three more drop afterwards and wipe out most of the land troops, but the tanks it did almost nothing to.
Just as they flew over a crevice, Sakura could have sworn she smelt a rotten egg stench. Wait didn't Sokka...
"Kakashi we have to get to Sokka!"
"Huh!?"
"I have to tell him something! Let's go!"
They flew up to the balloon.
"Sokka!"
"Sakura! What's up?"
"Do you have any bombs left?"
"Actually no. We dropped them all just now."
"Shit. Kakashi! Do you have any bombs left?"
"I was saving one back! Will one be enough?"
"It's perfect! I'll explain on the way! Follow me!"
"Wait!" Sokka cried out, "What are you two going to do?"
"BLOW THEM ALL UP!" Sakura cried as she glided away.
She flew back over the crevice, and right as she smelt the stench again, she yelled to Kakashi.
"Now! Throw it in the crevice!"
He pulled the string on the bomb and threw it in.
"Now we run! Or... fly fast! Get as far away as possible!"
The shockwave of the blast threw everyone. Sakura and Kakashi fell out of the sky. From where they landed, Sakura could see that Sokka and Teo's father were going down in the balloon, a hole had been torn in the side. Aang flew alongside them and rescued the two, but the balloon still went down.
We have to get that balloon. If the Fire Nation take the sky... we have no way out of this war.
"Kakashi, can you stand?"
"Ugh, yeah."
"We have to rescue that balloon, it cannot go down with the Fire Nation."
"Agreed."
They abandoned the glider and traipsed into the snow-covered trees after the balloon. A few of the remaining troops had made it there before them.
Sakura stomped the ground and a huge shoot of earth threw them away from the balloon. Hopefully they hit their heads on the way down and don't remember a thing.
"So how do you reckon we get this back to the temple?"
"Can we carry it?"
"We can try."
With both of their efforts, they managed to move it a bit, but they were nowhere near strong enough to carry it.
"Maybe this is the wrong way of going about it. We don't necessarily have to have the balloon, alright?" Kakashi said.
"Yeah?"
"Let's destroy it."
"Excellent!"
Sakura crumbled the earth from before and made it into a smaller boulder, which she proceeded to crush the basket with.
"Ka-ka-shi. Start de-stroy-ing- the balloon. Rip it up."
"Actually. is the fuel source still around? We could light it on fire."
"Ooh, good. I think it's that weird lookin' thing right there." She pointed off to the side and he nodded before retrieving the thing.
They piled the whole thing up and Kakashi threw the fuel source onto the messy pile. It went up in flames.
"Good. Now no one can use this for destruction."
Walking back up the hill, they found the gliders where they let them, and took them back up to the temple. There they found the rest of the group.
When they got back Aang was talking to Teo while Katara and Sokka were repacking the groups bags.
"You know what? I'm really glad you guys all live here now. It's like the hermit crab maybe you weren't born here, but you found this empty shell and made it your home. And now you protect each other."
"That means a lot coming from you." Teo replied.
Sokka clapped Aang on the back, "Aang, you were right about air power. As long as we've got the skies we'll have the Fire Nation on the run!"
"I sure hope we destroyed that balloon enough." Sakura whispered to Kakashi.
"It was disintegrated by the time we left it, how could it possibly be used?"
"You're right."
They climbed on Appa and left the Northern Air Temple to her new inhabitants.