Chapter 1: Wake-Up Call

Time: 5:00 AM
Date: August 22, 2011
Target Location: Upper hallway of Kuruk family home
Mission: Prank kids on the first day of school. Simple enough.

United States Navy Captain Hakoda Kuruk leaped out of his bed at the beeping of his alarm clock. Rubbing his eyes, he glanced at the time. It read 5:00. "Perfect," he whispered to himself, smiling. The sun had barely begun to rise, and Hakoda could just hear the sound of a few birds chirping quietly on the large tree that sat behind their two-story house. He looked out the window at it and remembered the times, years ago, when his son would climb out the window of his room and onto the branches of the tree. He loved to get outside that way when he was little. Now his two kids were growing up. Today was the first day of Katara and Sokka's senior year of high school, and Hakoda wasn't about to let them forget it.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to work, tiptoeing out of his room, down the hallway past his kids' rooms, and stopping in his mother-in-law's room to place a pair of high-quality firing range ear-mufflers on her head before continuing down into the den. He hadn't bothered to shower or change out of the blue t-shirt and woolen pants that he had slept in, and he could smell it when he raised his arms to open the cabinet doors of their large entertainment center. Ignoring the stench filling his nostrils, he bent down to examine the stereo system. After a couple seconds of figuring out where all the wires connected, Hakoda began to pull them out of the wall until the stereo box and the large sub-woofers that Sokka had bought over the summer were completely free of their corded prison. Then began the arduous task of lugging all the equipment upstairs and into the hallway right between his son's and daughter's rooms. He started with one sub-woofer, then the other, then the box, and finally the mass of tangled cords. When he had finally reassembled the set in the hallway and taken a shower, he checked his watch. 5:30. It had taken longer than he had thought. No matter, though: it was still far earlier than they needed to wake up. Good.

Hakoda retrieved a CD case from the den and had quickly found what he was looking for: a home-recorded disc marked "Reveille." (A/N: "Reveille" is an army wake-up call. With a very loud bugle.) With mock solemnity, he knelt before the stereo and held the disc in the air, like a priest making an offering at a sacrificial altar. Then he opened the disc tray on the stereo, snapped the CD inside, and turned the volume knob up to its maximum setting. He took a moment to breathe in his surroundings. He looked at Sokka's door, covered in humorous bumper stickers that Sokka was never able to remove and a sign hanging from a nail that read: "Brain out to lunch. Will be back...never." Then he looked at his daughter Katara's door, blank save for a single poster of a popular indie group called Chong's Nomads. She loved listening to their poetic songs about love and loss. Sokka couldn't stand them. Hakoda turned back to the stereo and sighed as memories of their childhood washed through his mind, along with one thought: I love being a dad.

He hit the "play" button and covered his ears as the trumpeting began.

"Aaaah!" came a scream from Katara's room, followed by a thud. Hakoda winced. She had probably fallen out of bed. Then he heard her shout, "Dad! Not funny!"

Hakoda was surprised that he hadn't heard anything from Sokka. He looked towards Sokka's room to see the end of Sokka's sharpened boomerang jutting out of the door. Then he started laughing.

"This isn't the army!" came Sokka's exasperated cry from behind the door.

Hakoda tried to stop laughing as he turned off the stereo. "Up and at 'em, troops!" he said. "First day of senior year! Oh, and Sokka, navy, not army."

Sokka's door flew open to reveal a disheveled seventeen-year-old boy in an undershirt and boxers looking extremely annoyed. His messy brown hair, usually worn in a ponytail, was sticking up in every direction, and his entire look was of someone who had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. He stared angrily at his father for a few seconds, then sauntered to the bathroom to take a shower. Hakoda decided to wait downstairs for them.

After about fifteen minutes, Sokka came rumbling down the stairs, in full "first day of school, gotta impress" mode, wearing a tight-fitting white and blue t-shirt and blue shorts that showed off the muscles he had been building over the summer. Hakoda rolled his eyes. A while later, his twin sister followed, dressed in a sleeveless blue blouse and jeans, and with her hair up in a way that made Hakoda beam. It was an Inuit hair style that Katara's late mother taught her about. She had most of her hair tied back in a long braid, with a small bun at the top of the braid. In front, two smaller braids hung down from her bangs, and were pinned at the ends to the bun in back. Sokka and Hakoda called the little braids "hair loopies." Katara looked just like her mother when she wore her hair like that.

Katara noticed her father staring at her. "What?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Hakoda replied, smiling broadly. "I'm just a bit surprised that you took the time to do your hair up for the first day of school. You only do that on special occasions. Am I missing something here?"

Katara smiled knowingly as she poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down to eat. She hadn't told either of them about the letter she had received. "You'll have to wait and see," she said.

Sokka stopped plowing through his own breakfast to raise an eyebrow at her. "This doesn't involve Zuko, does it?" he accused, with a mouth full of cereal.

"No!" she snapped back at him. "I told you both, I broke up with him! We're through! I'm never having anything to do with him again. God, Sokka, why would you even think that?"

Sokka just shrugged, and went back to eating, satisfied. Hakoda relaxed a bit. He was glad Katara had stopped seeing Zuko Sozin, and was even more glad to hear that the very idea made her sick. The boy was bad news, just like his sister. Their father was a bad influence on them, he was sure. Senator Ozai Sozin was a crafty one. In spite of, or perhaps because of, Hakoda's love for his country, the one group of people he would never trust was politicians, and the one time Hakoda had met Ozai had left him with a bad taste in his mouth. But politics aside, Zuko had hurt Katara. The scum didn't deserve to have her back. Not now, and not ever.

Katara was annoyed at her brother's comment, but she wouldn't let it get her down. Not today. Not when Aang was back home. "Sokka, finish up," she said, dumping her cereal into the garbage. "We have to go." She pulled her keys out of her pocket and grabbed her backpack.

"What? Why?" Sokka whined.

Katara replied, "Because I need to get to school as soon as possible and I'm not letting you slow me down."

Sokka sighed. "Fine. But I'm bringing the cereal with me."

She practically dragged him out the door.

Hakoda began to scratch his beard, lost in thought. She seemed excited. I wonder what's happening?

He decided that if it was important, he'd find out eventually, and went to make himself and his mother-in-law some eggs.