The Rookie felt himself coming back as sparking wires and low klaxon emergency bells were one of the first things that he heard. John opened his eyes and first looked through his view port to see it was no longer the afternoon, now it was night time. The Rookie looked up towards his mission clock to see 15 minutes and 45 seconds.

He was at a loss for words. When the cruiser went into slip space his mission clock was 8 minutes and 25 seconds. Following protocol, John checked his comms next, "This is Private John Oltz of the 68th ODST Division. Does anyone read me"? Static was his answer. "Commander Hershel, do you copy?" he tried again.

After a minute of no reply the Rookie gave up. No matter what was happening, he had to continue on and find his teammates, with or without comms. He grabbed his shotgun and checked it to see the barrel was cut in half and now completely useless. "Fuck" he muttered as he tossed the gun on the floor of the pod. He checked his second weapon slot to see his silenced SMG. John picked it up and noticed this gun too was missing both the barrel and on closer inspection the firing pin was missing.

Now the trained ODST was without a major weapon, the only thing on him was his silenced pistol. He picked it out of his boot and checked the clip to see it was full and fully usable. He checked his ammo pouch and saw he had only 1 spare clip for his pistol. He felt the pouch needed more room for his shotgun and SMG, now he was regretting his choices.

John punched the release latch and the cover of the pod flew off with a loud bang. Rubbing his helmet, the Rookie walked out of the pod and was amazed at what he saw. In front of him was a large city, lights covering the night sky, with what looked to be large air balloons patrolling the skies. The ODST stepped forward expecting to feel cement under his feet, but no the ground seemed to collapse under his foot. He looked down to see sand under his feet as he just now noticed he was on a beach. He looked behind his pod to see a stone wall and looking up to see it was a cliff.

'Where the hell am I?'

John heard rustling and pointed his pistol in the direction. He didn't see anything but a set of wooden stairs seeming to lead him up to the top of the cliff. Walking slowly and keeping his gun raised, the ODST walked up the stairs slowly listening for any sign of the Covenant or the UNSC.

John reached the top and surveyed the area. It looked to be extremely peaceful with loads of vegetation and a few weird looking animals sulking around. Looking off to the distance he saw a rather large mansion with lanterns lit around the outside. To be honest with himself, John had only seen lanterns being used in pictures dated back over hundreds of years ago.

Another rustling caught the Rookies attention as he aimed his pistol towards the sound. In his sights was a medium sized shack that usually farmers would only have. He walked towards it slowly and when he got to the entrance of the shack he felt his heart drop. What looked like a large water buffalo with an arrow on his head was sleeping.

It exhaled almost making John fall backwards. He checked around to see the coast was clear, he wanted to check out more of this incredibly large beast. Moving forward slowly with his weapon still ready and was about to touch the beasts nose when a snapping sound made the ODST stop. He looked down at his right foot to see a twig under it.

Cursing at himself mentally he looked back up to see two large yellow eyes staring at him. Growling came from the buffalo in front of him as John walked backwards slowly, his weapon trained on the animal. "Hey buddy" John said as he looked at his silenced pistol and wanted to slap himself as he turned the safety on the gun off. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm just going to leave now".

The animal seemed to calm down enough for John to leave. "Hey you!"

John turned quickly and aimed his weapon at the origin of the voice. But he quickly lowered the weapon as he saw three children standing there. In the back were two boys, the one on the left looked the youngest and had a bald head with a blue arrow, just like the large buffalo. The boy on the right looked the oldest and had brown scruffy hair with dark green clothes. Then standing up front was a girl, she had her hair up in a weird braid with her clothes colored blue and white. "What are you doing on our island?" the girl asked.

"Hey I'm sorry for intruding on your island. I crashed here a little while ago in my pod". Upon mentioning pod the children seemed to look at each other confused. "I was wondering if your parents have any contact with the UNSC I-"

"I knew it" the girl interrupted, causing confusion to John. "I knew you were part of the fire nation loyalists, here to assassinate my family. Well I won't let you".

The Rookie felt his finger slide a little back on the trigger, just in case something extremely bad was going to happen. John watched the girl get in a weird stance and start to wave her arms around when all of a sudden water came flying out of her pouch that she had on her belt. She was controlling the water with her hands!

John felt his body go limp as the girl fire her hands forward and the water came flying at him like a whip. He couldn't move at all and just felt the full impact of the water as he felt his finger accidentally slip. He heard the silencer go off as he landed on the ground hard.

His body ached from the water, it felt like he was hit by a rock. After a few seconds John stood from the grass and looked towards the kids. They were all standing awkwardly and staring at the girl in the middle, with worry in their eyes. On closer inspection the Rookie saw blood coming out of the girl's right foot. Realization hit him, he shot her.

The girl started to cry and suddenly collapsed to the floor in what John knew was shock and blood loss. The two boys quickly gathered around the girl on their knees. "Kaya?" the boy with the messy brown hair asked. Of course she didn't answer and both boys started to cry at what John guessed was their sister.

He walked towards the kids, intent on saving the girl, it was easy for him being the squad medic. The bald headed boy stood from the ground and got in the way of John. "Kid you need to move or I won't be able to save your sister in time".

"No stay away!" he yelled as the kid got in a stance just like his sister. This time the Rookie made sure to holster his pistol as he expected more water to head his way. No of course that didn't happen, this time an extremely large gust of air sent John flying backwards. He screamed in fear and he felt his back hit hard against the bark of the tree and his leg snapped as more screams were emitted.

John had never been in so much pain before, he looked down to his leg to see it looked perfectly fine thanks to the armor. But on closer inspection he saw his leg was bleeding onto the grass, he tried to touch his leg but immediately regretted that.

He looked towards where the kids were and saw they were gone, the blood from the girl sitting on the grass. The Rookie seemed to learn 2 things from his encounter with the kids. One, they obviously had no contact with the UNSC and two, never be a 'loyalist' around these people.

He tried to focus on a plan to get back to his squad and where the hell he ended up. He felt around his belt and when he found the thing he was looking for he ripped it off. It was his medical bag, not the full one just a smaller version seeing as though he didn't need the large pack for the moment.

He zipped open the medical bag and looked at the contents with relief. There were two rolls of medical gauze, three shots of adrenaline and a can of Bio foam. He didn't need the bio foam right now or the medical gauze, the thing he had his eyes on was the adrenaline shot. John placed the bag on the floor and picked up a needle. He bit the stopper off of the needle and spit it away from him, followed by stabbing the needle right above his kneecap, filling his system with the pain extinguishing drug.

He finished up with the needle and discarded it. "I need to get out of here before more of those- uh- whatever they were come back" he said to himself.

John stood slowly and grabbed his handgun out of the holster, limping away.

(*8*)

The entire gang sat around the table enjoying a nice vegetarian/Carnivore feast set before them. Aang and Katara sat next to each other at the head of the table. Aang dressed in his nicest Air bender robes that he found lying in the darkest halls of the western Air temple. Katara was also dressed in a robe like Aang's except her colors were not orange and white, her robes were a mixture of orange and light blue.

Across from them was Toph, her child Lin sitting next to her silently. Toph was always dressed in her police attire. Sitting to the left of the Befong's were the newlyweds Sokka and Suki. Sokka was dressed in water tribe warrior clothes, digging into the meat on his plate while his wife Suki watched in humor. She was wearing an auburn dress that matched with her hair. Finally to fill up the table across from Sokka and Katara was the Fire lord Zuko and his wife Mai, with another baby in the oven. They were both dressed in royal fire nation robes.

"So Toph any luck with catching those loyalists?" Mai asked in her usual bland tone.

Toph belched after drinking her mango juice, "So far the guy we caught last week hasn't said a word about their whereabouts". She was referring to the loyalist they caught robbing a few stores. To Toph's disappointment there was about 12 of them and in the end they only managed to nab one. "I got him to squeal enough to tell me that they are planning something big and I don't like the sound of that".

"After 12 years I still can't believe that there are people who still worship my father. He's a brute and will stay in jail for the rest of his days." Zuko said feeling his appetite deplete at the mention of his father.

"You guys know that the festival is in 2 weeks." Suki reminded all of her friends about the annual celebration about the end of the 100 year war. "Do you think the Loyalists will try anything during it?"

That got everyone at the table thinking. If the Loyalists were going to try something during the festival there would be massive amounts of injured civilians and maybe even dead ones. Katara looked at Aang, worry stricken on her face. Aang comfortably placed his hand on Katara's back and started to rub up and down, a smile plastered on his face. "Let's not think about this now. I'm sure if the Loyalists try anything during the festival our chief of police and her officers will handle it".

"You bet Twinkle toes".

"Mom! Dad!" screaming came from the courtyard as everyone jumped from the table, heading outside towards the screaming of Bumi. The gang got outside and saw Bumi and Tenzin running towards them with Kaya in their hands.

"Kaya!" Katara yelled as she ran forward, the rest following suite.

Katara snatched Kaya out of the boy's arms and immediately saw the blood pouring from her right foot. The water bender laid her unconscious daughter on the ground and started to try and heal the wound. All the while Bumi and Tenzin were screaming.

"Boys, Boys!" Aang got down on their eye level. "What happened?" Sokka, Zuko and Toph gather around the kids as Mai and Suki helped out with Katara.

"W-we heard something around Appa's house, s-so me Kaya and Tenzin went to check it out" Bumi said while sniveling in fear. "When we got there, there was this man" upon hearing that the 3 benders and Sokka perked up. "He was really scary and in really black armor with a helmet on. Kaya went to confront him and he said he was a fire nation Loyalist."

"That's not good" Sokka commented.

"Kaya attacked him with a water whip, but, but uh" Bumi started to cry.

"Alright Bumi" Aang said bringing his son into a hug. He could practically feel the fear washing all over him. Whatever this man did to Kaya it must have been traumatizing for Bumi to see. Aang brought his head out and looked at his son, "Bumi I'm going to go ask mommy how Kaya is and then me, Uncle Sokka, Aunt Toph and Uncle Zuko are going to find the man."

Bumi nodded, allowing the Avatar to walk over to his wife. "How is she?"

Katara looked up to Aang with tears filled in her eyes. Aang felt his heart go cold at the face one of the best healers in the world was giving her. "Is Kaya dead?" Aang asked with fear growing in the depths of his soul.

Katara shook her head no and Aang let out a quick thank you to the spirits. "She's not dead but I have no idea how to heal her. Whatever happened to her I can't heal, I've never seen this before". Aang looked at his daughter, no parent ever wanted to bury their child and that wasn't going to happen to him.

"Zuko, Sokka, Toph. We're going to look for this armored man."

"I can't wait to pummel this guy's face in" Toph said while cracking her knuckles in participation.

"No" the three warriors looked more closely at Aang upon hearing the harshness in his voice. "We're taking this guy alive, he might know how to heal Kaya". Aang looked out over the island, the last time Aang was this mad the Earth General tricked him into going into the Avatar state by using Katara as bait for him.

"Alright. Toph and Sokka I want you two to go check out Appa's stall and see if he is still around there, while me and Zuko check out the beach. There is only one way onto this island and that is by boat." The gang nodded and off they ran into the night.

(*8*)

John limped down the stairs, occasionally looking back for any more people. He felt the sand sink underneath his feet and the pain of his leg was staring to come back to him. Soon his drop pod came into view as an idea came to his head.

He looked through the hole of the pod and immediately found what he was looking for. A locator beacon which could lead his squad mates to find him and get back in the battle. John activated the beacon, the device showing off a blinking red light. He stowed it in his belt and did a quick look over of his pod for anything else, because he couldn't stay here and wait for help, more of those freakish water and air benders would come for him. He noticed the satchel of C4 in the corner of the pod and a small smile spread onto the Rookies face, he always was a sucker for explosions.

"All…. Call signs- thi—Da. any- copy."

John heard the transmission even though there was static and couldn't understand it. At least he knew that someone else was here with him and hopefully they would find each other. He took the backpack in the pod and placed the satchel of C4 inside along with the detonator.

Putting the backpack on a large 'whoosh' sound could be heard coming from the stairs. John turned left just in time to see a large ball of fire coming right at him. On influence John jumped out of the way, the fire ball hitting the sand. He somersaulted and landed on his feet aiming his pistol towards the two new people running down the steps.

'Great' John thought, 'Air control or water control wasn't enough but someone could actually shoot fire'. The two men stopped in front of him in stances, John knew there was going to be some serious trouble coming up.

"Who are you?" The man on the right asked. He was dressed in very red robes and what looked to be some sort of crown stood upon his black messy hair.

"I could be asking you the same question?" John replied.

The two males seem to look at each other in confusion. "You don't know who we are?" this time the man on the left asked. He looked exactly like the small boy who had the arrows on his head, which made John guess that he was the father of those three children. His orange and blue robe seemed to be flying in the wind.

"Why should I know you two? You don't look like part of the UNSC."

"What in spirits name is the UNSC?" the bald headed man asked.

"You don't k-"John didn't finish his sentence as something incredibly hard hit the back of his head knocking him to the ground. He moaned in pain as he fell to his stomach, already feeling the blood coming out of his head. With minimal energy he was able to flip slowly onto his back and look up to see the two men he was talking to, along with two more new people. One was a girl that was dressed in a uniform and the other was another guy dressed in plain black t-shirt.

They seemed to be talking but John could only hear mumbles and finally he passed out for the second time in the past day.

(*8*)