Chap. 10

Change of Boroughs

As the portal began to suck everything into it, the group struggled to hold on. But despite their own efforts, plus Toph and Tierra's earthbending, they could feel the pull of the portal increase.

"Does anybody have an idea here?" Bosque yelled, as a house next to him was sucked up, board by board, into the portal.

"The orb thing! Maybe we can use it!" Katara cried. "Where is it?"

"Over here!" another voice yelled. Everyone turned to see Mai holding a piece of the orb, while Jin held up another.

"There's some kind of writing on it! I can't read it!" Mai called out, realizing that this was going to destroy all of them if they didn't act.

"Send it to me!" Fuego yelled. "I can translate!"

Mai nodded, and tossed her piece into the air. As it began to swirl around in the winds, Aang and Aire used what little control they had to guide the piece over to Fuego. The red man caught it, then looked to Jin to toss him hers.

Jin nodded and started to toss it, only to suddenly have to dodge a blast of blue flame. Looking over in shock, she saw Azula standing behind her, locked into an attack stance.

"Azula, what are you doing?!" Mai yelled. "Let them shut this thing off!"

But the Fire Princess took no notice, and shot again. Jin ducked down to dodge it, but in that split second, Azula fired a second burst, at the earth surrounding the girl's feet. It broke apart instantly, and Jin was drawn up by the winds of the portal. Screaming in horror, she felt herself being pulled towards it, only to have a hand wrap around her leg just before she reached it. Sokka grimaced and held on, as the winds dragged at Jin. But what was worse was knowing that he now had no way to protect himself from Azula.

And she knew it too. Smiling evilly, Azula began to draw the lightning to her, ready to shoot her brother's little girlfriend into the portal. But as she prepared to aim, she realized that there was no clear shot at her without hitting Sokka. Normally, this wouldn't have mattered, but Azula remembered all too well Sokka's endurance of her torture aboard the ship. It was something that had left a very deep impact on the sheltered Fire Princess, and as she looked on, she found herself lowering her hand, extinguishing the lighting inside her.

But none of that really mattered a second later, as a huge rumbling sound filled the air. Everyone turned to see one of the huge Fire Nation tanks flying through the air towards them. Under the stress of the winds, the tank was being pulled apart, and pieces flew everywhere. Before Toph or Tierra could move to defend themselves, they were struck by the debris, not hard enough to knock them out, but hard enough to break their concentration on the earth. The earth around everyone's feet suddenly broke apart, and the winds of the portal began to drag them in. Kinjo managed to save himself and his family by grabbing onto the awning of one of the remaining houses and grabbing Aia and Hita as they flew past. But the others were not that lucky. One by one, the Knights, Avatar gang, Firebenders, and Jin were sucked inside the portal, and sent on a journey to somewhere in the endless universe.

As they flew through the portal, they felt themselves being pulled around as if they were inside a tornado. Lights flashed around them, as images of worlds and things they couldn't understand darted around them. With the madness of motion, image, and sound all around them, they wondered if they would leave this place with their sanity intact. That notion grew a moment later when a huge pair of eyes opened in front of them. These eyes stared at them with a look of predatory evil. But then there was another flash of light, and a feeling of falling……

Finally, the madness of the portal vanished, and the group found themselves falling towards the ground. Well, almost all of them. Tierra, Sokka, and Hierro found themselves heading towards a large metal container, filled with the worst smelling trash that they had ever smelt. They fell into it with a bang, as the others landed on the hard ground around it. There was much groaning and utterance of pain, but after a few minutes, they managed to pull themselves back up.

"Why do I always land in garbage when that happens?" Tierra muttered, as he dragged himself up from the container. Behind him, Sokka pulled wet paper and a strange yellow fruit peel from his head.

"Where are we?" Katara asked, as she looked around their surroundings. The group seemed to be in a large alleyway, that appeared to open up into a street. As Katara continued to observe, she noticed strange drawings on the walls, paintings of twisted figures and words in garish colors. "And are these people sane?" she whispered to herself.

"I'm not sure where we are," Zuko said. "But we seem to be short by a few Firebenders. Azula and her friends aren't here."

"Are you sure?" Sokka asked. "Where else would they go?"

"It could be anywhere." Hierro answered, as he leapt out of the trash. "Dimensional portals like that are always unstable. They could've been sent to another location here, or they might've been bounced to another dimension entirely."

"It's more likely they're here." Agua said. "It's too coincidental that we all got sent here but they didn't."

"Even so, it doesn't really matter now." Aang said. "If they are here, Azula will make herself known soon enough."

"Aang's right." Iroh said, as he helped Luz to her feet. "Right now, we have to figure out where we are, and how we can get back home."

"What about the Ra-ketah?" Jin suggested, as she got up near two round metal containers. "It might have some clues."

"Good idea." Fuego said. Reaching into the hidden pocket of his cape, the red man withdrew his fragment of the orb, as Jin handed him hers. Looking over them carefully, the red man squinted, and finally said, "I can make out some writing on them. It's an old Earth Kingdom language."

"What does it say?" Toph asked.

"He who opens the orb beware, for inside is a door to neither here nor there. Through that door you shall fly, until the sun has flown across the sky. It returns you then, from whence you came, but then fear your greatest bane."

"Nice verse." Bosque said, as the red man finished. "But what does it mean?" Just as he finished that question, the two pieces began to glow once again. Gasping in surprise, Fuego dropped the pieces and backed away, fearful of another portal opening. But instead, the two halves melted on the ground, and then merged back together. As everyone watched in amazement, the glowing pieces began to change and alter into a new shape, one that was long and slender. Finally, the new shape stopped glowing and solidified into a strange black band, with an object stuck in the middle.

"What is that?" Sokka asked, as he moved to get a closer look.

"It's called a watch." Fuego said, as he picked it up. Indeed, the Ra-ketah had reformed itself into a slender, black, digital watch. As Fuego brought it closer, he noticed that the clock was set at 24:00. Just as he noticed that, there was a beep, and the clock began to run down.

"What's it doing?" Katara asked.

"It's counting down from twenty-four hours." Oscuridad replied. "Or as you guys know time, twenty-four candle-bursts, the length of a full day. That must be what the inscription meant. 'When the sun flies across the sky' is the passage of a whole day. So this time tomorrow, the watch will reopen the portal and we'll go back."

"But what's this 'greatest bane?' And how do we know the watch will do anything?" Desierto asked, as Fuego strapped the watch onto his wrist.

"The inscription seems to hint that it will. As for the bane we'll worry about that later." The bat replied. "What we need to do now, is figure out where the hell we are now, and how to survive until we get sent back."

"Well, we're not gonna do it here." Sokka said, rising to his feet. "I'll look out the end of the alley, see what kind of world we're in."

"Sokka, that's too dangerous." Katara cautioned. "At least take someone with you."

"I'll go." Jin said. "I want to see this 'new world' myself." Zuko started to say something, but Jin just looked at him, and he grew silent. "Come on Sokka." Jin said, as she grabbed the Water-Tribesman and dragged him to the end of the alleyway. Iroh watched this and then put his hand on his nephew's shoulder. "Give her time." The old general said. "She just needs to take it all in."

"That everything I told her was a lie?" Zuko answered sadly.

"But a one you had to tell to stay alive. And the fact you regret having to do it says volumes Zuko. Jin will see that eventually."

Zuko nodded, but as he looked back down at the ground, he wondered how true his uncle's words really were.

"All right, I'm coming. Let go already!" Sokka snapped, as he finally broke free of Jin's grasp. "What's your hurry, anyway?"

"Sorry, but I-I want to see this place." Jin said quickly, as she kept walking forward. But Sokka was smart enough to get what was wrong. "Look, running away from Zuko isn't going to make him go away."

"What are you talking about?" Jin snapped. "I'm not running away from him. He lied to me, and you helped him. That stupid lie about him being your brother."

"No, he is my brother." Sokka said. "And what did you expect him to do? Tell you he was the Prince of the Fire Nation? And I stress was. Aren't you even thinking of that?"

But Jin had, for the moment, lost all interest in her issue with Zuko. She stared ahead, her mouth open at the sights that lay before her. After a few moments of pointless yelling, Sokka saw it too, and gaped in shock. In front of them was a mass of people, dressed in the strangest clothes the two of them had ever seen. But what was even stranger then that was the huge, metal buildings that towered in front of them. The metal glistened with the reflections of the sun, as the noises of the street echoes all around them. Staring in gape-jawed amazement, the two of them moved forward, as the people around them began to take notice. A few of them stared at Sokka and Jin's clothing, and began to mutter, "Tourists." But both of them were too amazed by the city to notice, as they continued to walk forward.

However, they were so amazed by what they were seeing that they neglected to see what was right next to them. Suddenly, a piercing siren filled the air; Sokka and Jin turned just in time to see a huge metal thing come hurtling towards them. Crying out in terror, they tried to move to avoid it, but then another one appeared to their side. They quickly moved to dodge that one as well, only to realize that they were totally surrounded by these things. However, they did notice that there were spaces between them, which they immediately used to run back to the alleyway.

"Oh Lord, what happened?" Fuego said, as he saw Sokka and Jin come running back, utterly terrified. The others quickly stopped what they were doing and moved over to meet them. But as Aire followed, he suddenly realized something about the container of trash he'd fallen into. Stopping in front of it, he began to look it over as the others met Sokka and Jin.

"Guys, calm down. What happened?" Oscuridad said, as Sokka and Jin caught their breath.

"MONSTERS!!" Sokka replied.

"What do you mean monsters?" Aang asked

"Uh guys?" Aire said, looking down at the large trash container.

"They were these big, metal…. Things!" Sokka cried out. "They were speeding past us and roaring like angry lion-bears!"

"Guys?"

"We were lucky to escape with our lives." Jin said. "What kind of horrible world is this?"

"GUYS!" Aire yelled, causing everyone to finally turn around.

"Bro, they're trying to tell us about this world. Can you please shut for five minutes?" Tierra snapped.

"We don't need to hear their story. I already know where we are." The falcon said simply.

"You mean you know what things out there are? How?" Sokka asked.

"This right here." Aire said, pointing to an inscription on the side of the metal container he'd fallen into. Everyone turned and looked at it intently. The strange writing they saw quickly puzzled the Avatar gang. But the Knights understood it instantly.

"Fuego, what language is this?" Aang finally asked. "I don't recognize any of these characters."

"Oh I can tell you what it says." Aire replied. "It says, 'Property of NYC Sanitation Department.'"

"What's a Sanitation Department?" Toph asked. "And what's NYC?" But instead of giving an answer, the Knights turned to each other in shock and amazement.

"I don't believe it." Oscuridad said in shock. "Of all the worlds, we came here? I mean what are the odds?"

"I can't believe it either." Agua said. "But I suppose we should be thankful it's a world we know well, instead of some new one."

"Will you forget about that, and tell us what to do about the monsters?" Sokka yelled.

"Did one of these monsters have a black-and-white checkerboard pattern over a yellow body?" the bat asked suddenly.

"How did you know that?" Jin asked in amazement.

"Those things aren't monsters, they're called cars. That one is what's known as a taxi. If you stay out of the street, they won't hurt you. Unless the guy driving them is crazy."

"You guys do know where we are. Tell us." Zuko said urgently.

"To answer that and part of Toph's question, we're in NYC, which stands for New York City." Tierra said. "Which means things have changed quite a bit. We're not in your world anymore; you guys are in ours."