Author's Note: No excuse for the late update this time except for that I forgot. Sorry! Enjoy the seventh- and final- chapter of Operation: A.V.A.T.A.R.!
"What's going on?" The question had been on their minds since the alarm went off, but no one had asked because they felt they were supposed to know, and would get in trouble if they didn't. Until now, when Sokka finally gathered up the courage (gathered up the courage...forced into it by four people he knew could kick his butt...there's not really much of a difference.)
"Our sensors have detected a large amount of power coming from Father's house. Normally, we'd send in an elite team of spies to check it out; but that specific alarm signaled something worse, that's why I was so worried. Now I've been told that that's due to two factors: he has kids in there, most likely kidnappees who've almost got Delightfulization in their future; and Transfarium."
"Transfarium?" the five kids all asked at once.
"Yeah, that stuff we found in you, and in that stone. There's a rather strong signal of it coming from there, and we're gonna get to the bottom of it."
Apparently in the entire time that it took to have that conversation, they had reached their destination. The ship crashed straight through the roof, but they were too late. They beheld the sight of Father standing, in all his evil glory, smiling at the five children trapped in large, floating, blobulous globs of yellow goo, unable to escape. Next to him stood a face all-too-familiar to our heroes.
"Azula?" asked Zuko in malevolence and bewilderment. "What is she doing here?"
"Hurting innocent people, and we need to stop her," said Aang.
Soon a flood of KND came upon the mansion. Father looked up and smiled (or, at least, it looked like he smiled, as you couldn't actually see his mouth,) and laughed. "Oh, hello, Kids Next Door!"
A grand battle unleashed, bubbleguns and other homemade weapons against all-natural flames. Aang led his crew to amidst the warzone, leading them to free the trapped children. It was then that Katara stopped short. "Guys...guys!"
"What?" asked Sokka, "Katara, we're kind of in the middle of SAVING LIVES right now!"
"Look at them!"
They all (except Toph, who just listened to the other's reactions and could piece out what was happening) looked up at the figures inside the goop. They realized the bald one had a blue arrow tattoo, that the blonde one had a large red scar across his eye, that they were wearing clothing of the Southern Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads...
They had found themselves.
They plopped to the ground, gasping and wet.
"Where is she?!" called out Numbuh Four with a raspy yell. "Where is that little traitor?! As soon as I get my hands on that Azula, I'll...why I'll-"
"Azula?" asked Zuko to his apparent doppelganger.
"Yeah, you know, black hair, red lipstick, hm, what else? Oh, yeah, currently trying to KILL everybody with blue fire?!"
"Yeah, I know who you're talking about. That's my sister."
"What do you-hey! You're wearing my hoodie!"
Before anything else could be said, Toph yelled "Duck!" and they were all just a dodge away from being singed by a wave of fire. "Can you guys not feel the air get a bajillion degrees hotter right before a fireball comes your way?"
"...No," was everyone else's response.
"I'd hate to break up your little reunion," came the voice of Father from about 20 feet away. "But I do believe we have some business to take care of." He launched two more at them, and Numbuh One and Numbuh Four were quick to jump in the way and dissolve them before they could do any real harm.
At this obvious show of firebending, Aang looked right at Numbuh One in stunned silence, realizing what all this meant. Of course, looking at him in stunned silence completely took his attention away from the fact that he was Father's next target. He could see the boy's face turn towards his own in alarm and heard the British accent yell out, "Look out!" Aang quickly jumped up, just barely avoiding losing his legs. "Keep an eye on the fight, will you?!" the Brit yelled back before returning to his flinging of the elements. "And to think, you're supposed to be me..." he murmured to himself.
At this point, the Delightful Children had come out with their own fancy killing machines and random little robot mooks as well. Without a second thought, all ten children were fighting alongside the KND- whether it be with supernatural powers or ragtag machinery. Somehow, without even knowing each other, they formed the perfect team. They were able to work together, Numbuh Two taking a moment to show Sokka how to work a gun while the other demonstrated proper boomerang throwing technique, all while happily wearing down the evil forces. Numbuh Three lifted a rock from the ground which Toph was standing on, and launched it toward an enemy. The blind girl would jump off and kick them in the jaw with massive force, stunning them right before they took a boulder to the neck. All around the fighting went, the Delightfuls eventually fell, the rest of the KND forces were rendered inadequate, and then there were only twelve people on the battlefield left.
"Give it up, Father!" yelled Numbuh One. "You're outnumbered ten-to-two!"
"Yeah! And we have more assets!" added Sokka, quite enjoying the way this battle was going (he was also quite happy to be reunited with his boomerang, which he had traded Numbuh Two some complicated rifle for.)
"But you don't have the skill," retorted the menace. "Disgusting little kids. You may have the power, but you don't know how to use it. Whereas I- and my accomplice-"
"I thought YOU were the accomplice..." muttered the girl.
"have more experience than you could ever dream of gaining. Especially since you only have about, oh, I'd say...ten minutes left to learn anything. So watch closely," he finished.
However, he had just made a vital mistake that villains often make. Taking time away from the fight to blabber on about how you're superior to the hero instead of just killing them right then and there. And so, in the time taken to make that short monologue, the children had gotten him and Azula surrounded in a tight circle. The teenage girl had begun fighting them off as soon as they approached, but he was caught off-guard. He took a dozen eggs, a sharp and tightly-packed bundle of garbage, and a blast of deathly frozen water to his abdomen, right leg, and neck respectively.
The impact had made him actually swallow his pipe, and he fell to his knees as he choked. A normal person would have most likely died from this, but as he was no normal person, Benedict lived on through burning it while in his throat. He looked up, and the next thing he knew he was being helplessly pummeled by a bunch of kids who could dodge his clumsy and misguided attacks easier than a fly dodges a frog's tongue (especially since flies are often terrible at dodging frog's tongues, and they were far from terrible.) "A-Azula!" he choked. "HELP ME!"
The girl was now battling Zuko one-on-one. She used her hands as jets of blue flame and propelled herself up into the air, and clung onto a broken piece of pipe in what used to be a mansion wall. "Sorry, but I think you don't really have enough experience to know how to use your power and beat a bunch of ten-year-olds."
"But, but we had an agreement!"
"Consider that agreement over as of right now. Nice doing business with you." Right after saying this she was pushed by the orange-wearing boy behind her. She fell down, but landed gracefully on her feet. She prepared to begin fighting again, but was interrupted by the attention of her opponent being suddenly guided elsewhere. Zuko, along with all the other children who were not currently pummeling Father, (that is to say, Numbuh Three, Numbuh Two, Numbuh Five, and Sokka,) were all together in a group huddle. Numbuh Two, upon being temporarily blasted away earlier in the fight, had caught sight of a certain someone scurry past the commotion holding the rock that Sector V had found. His initial impulse was to follow her, but he knew he would need backup.
"Cree?" asked Sokka.
"Yeah, she's one of the-" began Numbuh Two before Sokka cut him off.
"No, no, I know who she is. She has the rock?!" the boy asked in shock.
"Oh, I see you've had an encounter with her in your time here..." said the younger boy.
"Yeah, we have," said Zuko. "Do you know what she intends to do with it?"
"No idea, but we still don't know what it really is and bad things could happen should she mess with it too much. Really bad things," pointed out Numbuh Two.
"Then let's go find her and kick her in the patooshie!" exclaimed Numbuh Three.
Their huddle was cut short by Azula spinning into the middle of the circle and blasting flames from every direction. "Didn't think I was just going to disappear, did you?"
"We don't have time for this!" yelled Numbuh Five, replacing her now-charred hat to her head.
"Look, Azula, as much as I'd love to put you in your place right now, you're just going to have to get over your over-inflated view of yourself and deal with the fact that I need to be dealing with something more important than you right now, okay?" commented Zuko, distracting her for a moment while Numbuh Five doused her thoroughly from behind.
"Quick! She went this way!" yelled Numbuh Two, leaping into one of Father's twisting and winding hallways.
The four children assigned to accompany him in this mission followed, as did Azula. As all but Numbuh Three ran in, the little girl turned around and commanded the very ground itself to rise up out of its place and form a solid wall, blocking the princess' entry. The teenager grumbled, and was about to blast a massive hole in the wall until she was met with the fact that her former employer was by now very unconscious, and five angry kids remained to battle her.
The walls were on fire. Pictures and paintings fell from their places in crumpling piles of ash as soon as the small band of five ran through, and the ceiling seemed as if it was tired of existing and just wanted to fall down and die. For all they knew, they could have been running into a flaming abyss with a sign reading "Abandon all hope." It was getting progressively harder to breathe through the thick cloud of dark grey smoke that closed in around them, but they continued on, until finally they reached a room that was unidentifiable in its original nature because of how horribly disfigured it had become in the rampant fires. At the other end of the large area, they saw a girl all dressed in black; or at least they thought they did, as it was hard to see through the air that was beginning to look all squiggly through effect of the intense heat. She turned around, and confirmed the fact that she was indeed Numbuh Five's older sister, and that she was indeed carrying the rock that had started it all.
No words were said, not from children to teen or vice-versa. It seemed a stalemate of angry staring that eventually evolved into vicious glaring while the very structure violently fell to pieces around them. The first move went to Numbuh Three, who stepped forward in a way as if she was about to encase Cree in the rocks that made up what used to be a stone floor, but before she could lift a finger to make even a piece of dust move, she was completely pinned to the wall behind her by a number of shuriken sticking her clothes. Her movement was quicker than lightning. She definitely lived up to her title as a ninja. She was better prepared for a fight than before, and even then it took a lot to wear her down. Sokka launched his trusty boomerang, which did take her by surprise for a moment, but soon she was engaging him in close melee combat, and her reflexes proved superior. Numbuh Five had a plan, which she whispered to Numbuh Three as she freed the latter from the wall. It was the first thing said during the whole fight, and at this point still the only. Numbuh Five and Zuko charged Cree, attacking her with a blast of water from a handy pouch Numbuh Five had learned to carry around since becoming a waterbender on one side, and an expert swipe from a sword that- while not one he was used to, and was far too modified for his taste-Zuko delivered with a credible amount of style for how very effective it was.
"Ach! I'll kill you kids!" was the second thing said on the battlefield, and the first to be heard by everyone. She held her side sliced by Zuko for a moment, but the cut was not deep at all, and so she continued on, not even bothering to check the shoulder damage done by Numbuh Five. She whipped out two throwing knives, and tossed them in the direction of either child.
They both dodged with ease. "Heh, just like when I get in an argument with my girlfriend," chuckled Zuko, coming straight at his attacker with full force.
"Oof-!" Cree dodged the blade, but was still caught by his shoulder in the gut. "Surprised a little twerp like you even has one. She must have really low standards- or else she's even more of a dork than you. Hard to imagine, though..."
"I'm going to choose to not let that get to me," said Zuko, focusing on his fighting rather than banter at the moment.
It was now that Cree realized Numbuh Three was sneaking over to where she had dropped the rock. "Hey! You get back here!" she yelled, tumbling through Numbuh Two and Sokka, the former who had just helped the latter up, knocking them both down effectively. "Give me that," she said, towering over the girl.
Numbuh Three held the rock behind her. "Say, 'please!'" she cooed in a singsong voice.
"Wha-NO! Just give it here!" She lurched to grapple the child and squeeze it out of her.
Three casually slid to the side, and looked up as if contemplating something. "Uhm...no." She threw the rock in the air, and with the help of her earthbending, guided it towards her comrades. "Numbuh Two, catch!"
He did so, thus angering the teen to no end. She let out an exasperated growl between clenched teeth.
"You should have just said, 'please!'" chimed Numbuh Three, tumbling much in the same fashion Cree had before to avoid an angry attack.
"Hot Potato!" joked Numbuh Two, tossing it casually to Sokka, as Cree sprung for him.
"Haha, Hot Potato, Zuko!" joined in Sokka as he ran, slid, and did the same when Cree came for him next.
Zuko caught it easily, and calmly stood there as Cree charged towards him.
"Zuko! Pass it to Numbuh Five!" yelled Numbuh Two, though he did no such thing. "ZUKO!"
Right as the teenage girl was about to be upon him, he lifted the rock above his head, and brought it smashing down upon hers as soon as she was in range. "Hot Potato Hot!" he yelled, not being as familiar with the game they were referencing as the rest but still knowing how it was played. The girl fell crumpled at his legs. "You're out," he said, looking down at her.
She seemed defeated, remaining still on the floor. She was not. She suddenly sprung up, seized the rock from the surprised boy's hands, and quickly ran as fast as she could to the opposite end of the room that was now all but a complete inferno. "You guys have fun burning alive. Me? I'm getting out of here." She enabled some device on her suit that sprouted two mechanical wings from her back; a new addition, they thought.
Of course, there were still a bunch of burning rocks lying around, and Numbuh Three could still make them do whatever she wanted. She remembered this suddenly, and brought one that was fairly close to Cree up and smacked her in the face with it, earning a painful cry, a rock dropped on the ground, and some curse word that Kuki hadn't learned yet. She ran forward and grabbed it at the same time Cree regained her grip on it. The teen's face was now steaming- literally and metaphorically. It would seem that her face would soon be getting many painful blisters among the first-degree burns, and this angered her more than ever.
"No, no, NO. I'm not letting you little brats get away with this. I don't know what in the world this thing is, but I'm tired of going through so much trouble to get it. I don't care if I get expelled from the Teen Ninjas for this, I'm gonna make sure you little bags of filthy dirt get what you deserve." She pulled out a small device that expanded into a hammer. She pressed a button on it, and a laser came out. She aimed it at the rock, and repeatedly bashed it until it split right in two. She barely had time to hear her own evil laugh before everything in the room began violently shaking. It wasn't just shaking, the world was ending. Imagine the worst earthquake you can, and amplify that times ten. This was that. The celing all but completely caved in on the children, flames and uncontrollable rocks flew everywhere; it was the picture of mass chaos. A piercing noise began sounding, something between a police siren and the wail of a newborn banshee. Everything, the roof, the walls, the floor, even the children themselves, began to glow with a pale and sickly white. The pale and sickly white soon brightened, grew and grew into the more terrible holy light, something worthy of the apocalypse, if that wasn't even what this was. It engulfed everything in sight, and everyone was sure this was the end. This was the end. This was the end...
This was the end.
After the lights fade and have dissolved,
Everyone is back home again.
One little crunch, and all is resolved.
But no one remembers the time when
They switched worlds, and insanity proceeded.
One little break, a crack in space,
One little bit of advice that was not heeded.
And a mass of confusion filled the place.
But now it's broken.
The spell is disappeared.
The curse awoken,
Now no more is feared.
Go back to bed,
And have sweet dreams.
Rest your head,
'Cause you spent all night reading this, it seems.
Author Again: Hope you all enjoyed! ;)
