Ping: We're not going to bother you with the small legal details...
Chin: So just have a fun read, kay?
In a small dormitory on the east side of a secret cave, a young girl was sleeping in a mess of sheets. The thick curtains on the right side of the dormitory room glowed brightly, but managed to keep the sun's rays out and the dark room dark.This was of course, to the benefit of the exhausted girl, who tossed over to her left to bereave herself from consciousness. The darkness of the room had also benefited others - three in fact - who were tiptoeing through the clothing covered floor with stifled giggles.
"Shh! Akemi…stop that or she'll wake up!" The middle figure nodded in understanding and made a zipper motion over her lips.The shadowy figure sighed and continued tiptoeing towards the bed again with Akemi right behind. The third figure slouched after them, obviously not caring to tiptoe like the other two.
"Kikyo…" the third started to protest, "Why do I have to be the one in this getup?" The shadowy figure loudly whispered to the girls in front of her. Thanks to the darkness, the outfit that she wore was very hard to see. It was made up of several patches of blue to form a shirt, and the wearer's hair was tied tight atop her head. All the excess hair was tucked into the back collar, and in the dark, made the look of a crude Mohawk.
"Because Myn," Kikyo began to answer, "You're the one who lost at Pai Sho."
"What? I've never played Pai Sho until no—"
"Shhh…quiet!" Akemi jumped to cover Myn's mouth. All three girls heard their target moan and turn over in the bed from their ruckus. They held their breath and hoped to Kyoshi that she wouldn't wake up before they were ready. As soon as they heard the ruffling of sheets stop, Kikyo gestured her hand for Myn to move further towards the bed.
"Alright Myn…it's time." Kikyo placed her hands on the shorter girl's shoulders while wearing a somber face. Myn's soft face now held a slight tinge of anxiousness when her friend told her this, and tried to re-hydrate her parched throat with a gulp.
She slowly made her way to the bed, giving into her convictions. "Myn," The ridiculously dressed Kyoshi warrior, turned in hopes that she could avoid the bet. "Remember…we didn't put you up to this." The disguised girl nearly sweat-dropped but nodded instead.
She finally made it to the bed and slowly descended to sit on it. She looked down onto her fearless leader with a smile. Truth to be told, Akemi thought that the sleeping girl was so pretty. Suki was always loved by the rest of the village, and she was naturally talented at being a warrior. And when the Avatar and friends had visited their island, she managed to grab the Water Tribe boy's affections with ease. Myn wasn't jealous of course, but she just wished that she at least had similar traits to Suki's. Maybe at least her hair… she thought, as Myn reached out to brush the short bangs away from her fearless leader's face.
"Suki…hey there…" Suki moaned when she heard the voice call her name. She turned over to face the window shades again.
"Sokka…" Her left arm felt numb from putting all of her weight on it. In fact, her dead weight of an arm made her feel awkward and was close enough to wake her up. Using all of her sleepy strength, Suki forcefully flung her arm towards her right, but hit something above her. Her eyes snapped open and with practiced precision grabbed a concealed knife from under her pillow to drive towards the stranger.
Myn shrieked in terror and barely managed to grab the hostile bed maiden's arm.
"Suki! It's me!" she squeaked out awkwardly. The brunette's jabbing motions halted and her arm relaxed when she heard the squeaky plea. Suki made her tired and heavy eyes squint at the dark figure in front of her. With a thought process that only a half-conscious person would have, the fearless leader gave a goofy smile and wrapped her arms around Myn.
"Sokka!" Suki squealed in joy as she tightly hugged the blue garbed figure. "What are you doing here?" She gave a slight yawn as questioned 'Sokka', squeezing her tear ducts and blurring her vision even more. "No matter…I…owe you something…" Suki rubbed her eyes, but kept them closed as she brought her face closer to Myn's. The distance between them shrank with every passing second, and a terrified Myn was frozen in panic. She still held Suki's wrist that was armed with a knife with her left, and her right was busy trying to wrestle Suki from pulling her head closer for the kill.
Akemi and Kikyo couldn't stifle their laughs any more, and both let loose cackles that would put a curly-tailed blue-nosed monkey to shame. The girls held onto their painful sides while Kikyo drew back the curtains and let in the bright Sun into the room. Confused by the noise, and sudden amount of light, Suki opened her eyes to not see Sokka, but Myn. Embarrassed beyond repair, Suki pushed the girl away from her and snapped her head to the raucous girls. She grinded her teeth and gripped the dagger even tighter as she jumped towards the mocking Kyoshi warriors.
"Can't take a joke…lousy Suki..." Kikyo grumbled softly. Her legs were tired from standing and her mind even more so for standing in the same spot for so long. As punishment for the morning's events, all three girls were sent to do the 'lower' guarding duties for the day.
Myn was sent to do uniform inventory, Akemi was hauling papers around for the bureaucrats, and Kikyo was on…Platypus-bear duty. For the most part, she would just stand around with a leash in hand until some unwitting refugee infringed the rules enough for the bear to be called in.
Closing her eyes for just a second, Kikyo was nearly pulled off the floor when the crabby head bureaucrat called for security. Now shocked awake, the girl grabbed onto the leash with both hands and moved back slightly to keep her grip and balance. The Platypus-bear stood on both feet and crashed down onto the cart in front of it, chomping on the illegal produce.
"MY…CABBAGES!!!"
Poor guy…and we just got him those too…Two other security guards walked up to the kneeling vendor who was still reeling from anguish, and took him away from the line. Kikyo sighed as she readjusted her crazy security hat and patted the large furry beast. It's stupid how they make even the animals wear this dingy costume. She laughed as the brown animal chomped on a head of lettuce and glanced towards the angry lady. As she was about to leave for another part of the port, a very shiny thing shone in her eye. Kikyo gave a second look to see a small girl and…
"Where's Suki!" Kikyo panted out when she finally found one of the other Kyoshi girls. She had looked everywhere, but at last she found Sumei at one of the guard towers now. "I have to find her! It's urgent!"
"Kikyo, what are you doing away from your post?!" Suki demanded of the probated warrior girl. "And who's handling the security bear?"
"Oh, don't worry about that. Sai owed me a favor…anyways; you have to come with me!" Kikyo speedily said and grabbed onto Suki's sleeve. The excited girl lost her balance on the rung and fell, pulling Suki down with her. "Look…over…there…" she wheezed out and pointed to the Ga-Aang, who were now leaving the bureaucrat's booth with tickets in hand. Now that Suki had jumped off of her, Kikyo was able to take a full breath of air and rubbed the back of her sore head with a smile.
"You know that this doesn't get you out of Platypus-bear duty, right?" Sumei casually asked the grounded Kikyo.
"Oh, I know…but Suki's going to owe me a LOT for this one…" Kikyo giggled from her spot. The two glanced over to Suki and saw her kiss Sokka on the cheek. "I told you." She said with a grin.
With Suki gone to escort the Avatar and friends to Ba Sing Se, Sumei found herself in the awkward position of leading the Kyoshi girls. It would have been so much easier if she only had to be the leader during a battle, but it was murder to be a security captain. Not only did she have to lead in the morning drills, but she had to deal with the bureaucracy directly, schedule the Kyoshi girl's posts, and deal with the nervous wrecks that were refugees. How did Suki make it look so easy?
"Sumei, you have to come quick. We have a problem with some refugees!"
Another problem? It was far too often that the refugees would be troublesome. Of course, considering that they were in fact, refugees, tensions were very high and fights broke out so much that one fight would be considered a 'slow day'. Sumei personally realized this, and knew that fights were inevitable, but she was irritated with the frequency of their occurrence. Following the guard, the Kyoshi leader-elect saw a large crowd gather around in a circle. It wasn't long though, that she felt the ground rumble ferociously, and several men were hurled into the air like dolls.
With some effort, Sumei and two husky security men moved their way through the crowd of people to arrive in the center. "Alright, break this up. Let the guy go…you're holding up the line." One of the husky guards commanded. The man he was talking to was indeed holding someone up with his right hand around his ankles. The suspect in question was a large man, about as large as the guards, but not as bulky. He was more toned, and had a naturally aggressive aura flow around him. His long black hair swayed around when he faced the trio with a serious face.
"Now Xin Fu, I believe that you did overreact a little bit."
Sumei hadn't noticed it before, but there was a smaller and older man standing just behind the aggressor. The tall one seemed to know the other, and released the ankle without a change to his serious face. He only growled out something inaudible, and then, "…Yu…" The refugee yelped when he fell, and scrambled into the crowd to escape his former captor.
"Allow me to extend my sincerest apologies. My friend here was merely…'defending' himself." The older man brushed his thin mustache and beard with his left hand and bowed slightly. He even gave off a surprisingly disarming grin to everyone, and he and the larger man returned to the line as if nothing happened.
"Uh, ok…fewer problems for us then..." Sumei shrugged off the incident and turned around to bump into "Suki! What are you doing back here already?"
"We managed to make it through the Serpent's pass 'safely', so I wished the Avatar and his friends well and made it back in half the time." Suki explained, "And what are these 'problems' that I'm hearing about?" Sumei could only smile awkwardly as her response to her leader. I hope I'm not in trouble…
"Hey Suki! How was Sokka?" Kikyo giggled wearing a wide grin. With Suki's return from her escorting mission, the other Kyoshi girls made sure to welcome their fearless leader back.
When asked by the devilish Kikyo, Suki could only blush and began to stutter an answer. "Ha! I knew it…" They were all sitting around their leader's room, some on the bed and the rest on the floor nearby.
If only I was still wearing my makeup… Suki condemned herself for letting the girls see her this way. The others couldn't have been happier for their leader, and everyone sans Suki began 'oooing' and 'aaah-ing'. Tired of the teasing, Suki quickly grabbed a pillow and struck the closest girl to her. A girlish fight broke out, and the screaming and laughing could be heard by the refugees a mile away.
It was morning now, and the room was populated by the Kyoshi girls. Spread out over the floor and the bed, the girls slept soundly, knowing that their contract with the crabby bureaucrat lady was close to expiring. In the darkness, a lone figure tiptoed into the room and weaved around the sleeping forms on the floor. Careful not to wake up any of them, the figure jumped over two overlapped forms towards the shaded window, and opened them in a swift motion. The bright sun intruded into the room and the girls erupted in argumentative and angry groans of disapproval.
"Morning ladies…" Suki happily greeted the tired warriors, "It's time we made our way back to Kyoshi Island!" The five girls weakly opened their eyes to see their leader holding up a parchment with Oyaji's large signature at the bottom.
"Later!" Kikyo moaned and threw a pillow at Suki.
Once they had gone through their morning exercises and security duties, the Kyoshi warriors were officially dismissed from Full Moon Bay and paid for their time served. After saying their goodbyes to the other security—and Kikyo said goodbye to Ling-Ling the Platypus-bear—the warriors made their leave to visit their home island. Around mid-day, they decided to detour into a forest for supplies such as wood and food.
While searching around the bushes for berries and such, Kikyo found something white hanging off the bush nearest her. "Must have been some fight". She noticed several other clumps of the white fur to her left; huge drag marks and broken branches and trees cleared away much of the forest.
When she heard Kikyo, Suki couldn't believe her eyes. "Wait. Let me see that." Taking the clump of fur from her friend's hand, she realized that the white mass couldn't be anything else. The marks of struggle in front of her only reinforced that fact. "No…it couldn't be…"
"What is it, Suki?" Kikyo asked her friend.
"Wait here." Suki dropped what was in her hand onto the ground and followed the trail of fur and broken trees. It would be unbelievable if what she expected was true. Searching around the unnaturally made trail, Suki found herself at a dead end.
Needing to find higher ground, she had to climb up a small cliff to try to find the trail again. At first, all she saw was an old stone archway built under a tree where it was said that the first guerrillas of the war hid. Something blocked the entranceway, but it didn't look like rocks or wood at all. It was dirty and muddy and…breathing.
"Appa? Oh no…" The large beast awoke with a scare, and growled loudly as he hid deeper into the archway. The look of fear in Appa's eyes told so much more than the sixteen or so needles sticking out of his mangy white hide.
Suki tried to approach the Avatar's animal guide with care to see more of his hidden form, and received only more scared growls. The chains on his feet clanged around as it moved back into the darkness and fidgeted around. Knowing full well that she would need some help, Suki laid down an apple and some berries to show Appa that she was friendly.
"It's going to be ok, Appa" she said as calmly as possible. "I have to leave, but I'm going to back soon with help." Suki backed away slowly and made her way back to the others as soon as possible. After descending the cliff, she ran quickly to the other Kyoshi girls who were now huddled around waiting for her.
"What happened, Suki?" Myn was first to ask her leader. Suki explained the situation, and sure enough all of them volunteered to help as much as they could. They made their way back to the small cliff where Suki paused just before climbing over.
"No sudden movements. He's been lost for a while and it looks like he's hurt." Suki began to tell the other girls. "He's shy around people and scared. Stay low, and stay quiet."
"I can't believe you found the Avatar's bison." Sai said in disbelief. "Didn't you just see the Avatar a few days ago?"
"Yes." Suki answered, "So he can't be too far from here. It's our responsibility that we get Appa back to him safely." She started to re-ascend the cliff with Kikyo and Sai right next to her. "This could be our most important mission yet."
Hearing several footsteps approaching, Appa woke up to see more strangers heading towards him. He stood up and growled defensively, causing Suki tell the others to give him some space. Following Suki's command, the girls slowly backed away a few feet from where Suki stood. "Appa, it's me, Suki. I'm a friend." The large bison seemed to understand what she said, or it was possibly the calm tone of voice that she used for it to grunt softer now.
Their leader continued soothing Appa with her peaceful tone and she eventually made it close enough to touch it.
"She really is fearless…" Akemi told the others. She was simply amazed at how calmly Suki could approach such a scary beast, no matter how cautious she was being. Seeing that the bison was now calm, the others slowly approached him as well. Each one of them managed to give the Avatar's animal a soft pat, and they received a grunt of affection in return.
Akemi managed to pick the locks of the leg shackles, and Appa hurriedly rushed out to try running again. After what seemed to be hours of cleaning and brushing, the animal guide was as happy and clean as ever. Sai happened to be closest to the large beast to receive an affectionate lick from Appa's large tongue.
The ruffling of leaves alerted the happy bison to move as well as the girls. Just barely avoiding a large blue blast, the warrior girls moved into a defensive position around Appa in case they were attacked again. Appa gave off a monstrous roar in the direction of three girls riding mongoose dragons. They reigned to a halt just in front of them, proudly displaying their red clothing.
"My, my, you're easy to find." The middle girl snobbishly proclaimed. She was obviously the leader of the three, being the only one in Fire Nation armor and wearing a flame hair-piece. She was inspecting a small clump of white fur before tossing it aside as snobbishly as she spoke. "It's really astounding my brother hasn't captured you yet." The girls had since moved in front of their furry friend, defending him from the three Fire Nation girls. They all unsheathed their War fans and unlocked their shields before Suki asked what they wanted.
"Who are you, the Avatar's 'fangirls'?" the leader mockingly asked them. The least-clothed girl on her left gave a moment of thought before astoundingly saying,
"Oh…I get it. Good one Azula."
Azula…Suki thought to herself. She's the one that's been chasing after Aang… "If you're looking for the Avatar, you're out of luck."
"I knew this was a waste of time…" The dark clothed girl complained and sighed loudly.
"No Avatar, huh?" Azula started with a shrug, "Well that's ok, any friend of the Avatar…" The red armored girl jumped off her saddle and attacked with a large stream of blue fire. "…Is an enemy of mine!"
Unlike the Rough Rhinos, these three girls were sure to be experts at what they did. The Kyoshi warriors joined their shields to disrupt the blue stream and were quickly engaged by the other two when they disjoined.
With war fans displayed, Sai and Akemi found themselves fighting against the dark clothed whiny girl. Sai was caught off guard when she was pinned to a tree by the girl's concealed throwing knives and looked on in shock. "You're so colorful, it's making me nauseous!" The whiny girl shot more concealed projectiles in Akemi's direction. Unsheathing her katana, she easily deflected the shot and made her counterattack towards the pink-clothed girl. Slicing only air, Akemi was rained down upon by a string of punches to her backside.
"You're not prettier than we are…"
Suki found herself defending Appa against Azula herself, as her friends fought the other two girls. Using her shield, she tried to block attack after devastating attack of the Fire Nation girl's ferocious blue flames. She managed to block a third heavy shot, deflecting it onto a fallen tree setting it on fire. Appa gave off growls of fear from seeing the orange flames and stood in place, terrified.
"Afraid of fire are we? That's good. You should be."
Suki drew out her katana and tried to shoo Appa away. Understanding, the bison took off and Suki was finally able to make her attack. Driving her sword towards the enemy, Suki stayed calm when Azula jumped over the stab and knocked away the sword with a spinning backfist. Another blue flame was shot out and Suki was knocked to the ground from a trip.
Sumei saw her friend fall and to buy her time, shot her war fans at the armored girl and ran away to draw her out. She was being chased by Azula until the dark clothed girl appeared in front and pinned her to the tree next to Sai. "Hey Sumei. We winning?"
"I don't think so…"
Appa returned from the sky to help the downed Kyoshi warrior, but Suki could not let it happen. Regretfully, she grabbed a branch and lit it to make a torch to scare off the bison. "Get out of here! You have to find Aang!" She swung the torch to and fro to make her point. "We'll be ok!"
Giving in to his fears, the white bison flew off in rejection, to Suki's short lived relief. Another shot of blue fire connected with her shield and Suki was nearly toppled over from the force of the blast.
She drew out her War fan only to be mocked by the Fire Nation girl again. Tired of Azula's snobbish personality, Suki barely dodged another shot of flame and charged her enemy. Strike after strike was merely pushed away by the amber eyed girl, and shot after shot of blue flame were beginning to take their toll on Suki.
The whistling of arrows drew her attention to her right and she blocked them all with her yellow shield while keeping an eye on Azula.
I was sure that there were three of the…
But it was too late. Several punches connected from behind her and Suki lost all feeling in her arms, legs and body. The Kyoshi warrior wobbled along and strained to keep on her feet. Her arms were numb, but she could still use them.
Remembering when her arm was numb before, Suki attempted to forcefully fling her right that had held her War fan…to find that she had dropped it a while ago. Azula walked up to the panting Suki and grinned. She grabbed the back of her collar and dragged her along the ground to be tossed next to her friends.
"Say, Ty Lee?" Azula addressed the pink clothed girl.
"Yeah Azula?"
"What's the security like in Ba Sing Se?"
"What do you ever mean, Azula?"
"Don't try that Ty Lee." The dark clothed girl told her, "We know that you managed to sneak in before. Just answer her so we can leave." The pink clothed girl was shocked that they knew and didn't know what to say.
"Oh, we're not mad Ty Lee." Azula casually ignored the prisoners to calmly coerce the answer, "You see, Mai and I have been talking, and we've decided that we should try new things, and be open minded to other points of view."
Azula smiled an evil smile while bending down towards Suki and took off her head band. She investigated the shiny gold and green bauble for a few seconds before donning it herself. "We want to try to keep a low profile too."
Typewriterman: After days of grammar checking and head banging, I'm happy to report that my new Beta reader miraculously survived the Beta...reading...process...
Chin: Yeah...that sucked...
Typewriterman: Anywho, I really want to thank Jesus for helping me with this! I'm telling you guys, 'Jesus.Lives'!
Ping: That sucked even more!
Typewriterman: Wow...even my own subconcious can't stand my jokes...