XVI

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR FOOS! Italics-her letter bold italics- thought

The deeper they went into the canyon, the more Zuko got on Monica's nerves. Everything he did bugged the hell out of her. The way he set up the tent when it started getting dark, the way he walked even bothered her. No one knew why she was so bothered by him, but the more she started yelling at him, the more he started yelling at her, and soon they would be having a fight and would have to be separated. While they walked, Monica glared at Zuko. She just hated him so much.

While Zuko and Monica were fighting almost constantly, Katara and Aang were having a little thing going on between them that wasn't so obvious. Sokka was oblivious to his sister's growing crush, and Aang was oblivious to it as well. The more Zuko and Monica fought, the more Aang and Katara seemed to be able to give secret glances to each other, while it looked as if the fighting was on their nerves.

Zuko never did strike Monica. He threatened to, and he fought her, but he never actually hit her.But once while they were fighting, he tried to but she dodged, put her foot in the wrong place and almost fell off the side of the canyon and into the lake below. Zuko quickly extinguished his flame and grabbed her sleeve. Aang bended the air under Monica and set her safely on the ground.

"You pompous bastard!" Monica screamed. "You nearly killed me!"

"Maybe if you weren't so clumsy we wouldn't have had that problem!" Zuko boomed right back at her.

"So It's my fault?" Monica asked unbelievably. "Your blaming me for you knocking me over?"

"I didn't knock you over! You fell over!" Zuko boomed. Aang and Katara just shook their heads, Aang and Sokka pulled Zuko back from fighting her,and Katara drug Monica back from kicking his ass.

"Let me go!" Monica struggled. "I want to kick his ass!" But they were separated again through out that section of the canyon. As they entered the next section (Via. condor grabbing a hold of a giant piece of meat that they had a hold of.) they heard the pounding sound.

"What the hell was that?" Zuko asked as he and the others went to find the noise.

What they found was an earth bender. A black-haired earth bender, practicing. They approached her, cautiously but soon figuring that they would be able to defend themselves if they need to. She looked as if she knew what she was doing while practicing her earth bending. She had the moves correct, she had the stance correct, and she packed a real punch to the monsters that were attacking her.

"What do you want?" She asked before they could get there.

"Well, to know your name would be nice." Sokka told her.

"My name is Toph." Toph replied. "What business do you have in starlight canyon?"

"We could ask you the very same thing." Katara spoke up, watching as sokka got detracted by an elf monster (The real name of the elf is TUESDAY) and knowing that soon, he'd end up fighting it, because it was a monster. Soon enough, she was right and he started smacking it with his boomerang.

"I don't think that's any of your business." Toph answered harshly. "My business is my business."

"Well then why did you ask us what our business is?" Katara asked.

"I wanted to know." She answered matter-of-factly.

"Well so did we." Katara told her.

"Alright, I'm out here training." Toph finally caved. "Just because I'm blind doesn't mean I can't earth bend. Now you tell me why your here."

"We're trying to find a cure for a friend of ours, Lin."

"And trying to stop the Dark Genie." Monica added. Katara thanked her for pointing out that fact.Toph rose an eyebrow and crossed her arms

"Dark Genie?"

"The Dark Genie is a dark power that was sealed away 400 years ago,Fire Lord Ozai has unsealed it and is using it for his dark designs. Crest knows all about it, but Crest is dead. So we're trying to find something that could heal Lin-His apprentice." Katara explained. Toph nodded, following every word she was saying.

Toph ended up staying behind, while the others went ahead. Monica and Zuko were back to arguing unconditionally. Shouting swear words at each other, and fighting constantly, it was difficult for them to stand, Monica and Zuko were so annoying when they fought. Aang would attempt to settle the feud, it being his job as the avatar and all, but they just glared at him so menacingly that he shrunk back to Katara and Sokka.

"Your so infuriating!" Monica yelled while stomping her foot.

"Like your any different!" Zuko boomed right back at her.

"Really you two, calm down." Aang tried once again to settle the feud, but was unable to. They just gave him the look that said 'Back off or get killed' which of course he backed off from them. As they started yelling again, Aang, Katara, and Sokka pressed on, hoping that they would either kill each other, or resolve the fight.

"Hey!" They heard Monica yelling after them. "Your just going to leave me here with him?"

"He had hoped you wouldn't notice." Aang admitted sheepishly. Monica and Zuko ran after them, still shouting curse words at each other.

By the time they'd gotten to the next level, they'd stopped speaking to each other completely.

"Katara, tell Zuko he's an annoying bastard." They started fighting through Katara. She sighed.

"How did I get mixed up in this?" She asked them, Sokka and Aang shrugged as Monica and Zuko continued to fight through her. She was later replaced by Aang after their constant fighting made her want to kill something herself.

"This is it!" Katara shouted, after a few more monsters and their constant fighting continuing. "I don't know what has gotten into you two, you never used to fight like this!Is it because now we're in a Canyon? is it that we were sent to look for something to cure Lin? Whatever it is, You two better find a way to resolve your stupid fight or I'll kill the both of you just to get some piece and quiet!" Everyone was silent. Katara was never the one to yell, that was the job of either Zuko or Monica. Everyone's eyes were wide, unsure if that was really Katara or someone else. She never scolded them for fighting, but then again, they had been fighting through three levels of the canyon.

After some silence, Katara turned from them and stormed on. When no one followed, she turned and yelled. "Are you coming or not?" After that they all started running after Katara, and that was what stopped Monica and Zuko from yelling at each other.

Katara might have been a bit OOC, but she was the only other person I saw that would yell at them for their constant fights. Yes! Toph is in this too! Why she is will be explained later. Enjoy!