This is a somewhat long chapter. Don't get used to it.

Enjoy!

Book 1
Water

Chapter 2
Rescued

I scream as I tumble through the air, towards the dark, cold water below. Just before I hit what would have been a rock-hard surface, I slow myself with airbending. But, as I've stated before, I'm no master, and I slowly slip into the water anyway.

That idiot. What did he think would happen? I'd suddenly know how to waterbend? What a jerk. And now I'm freezing my butt off in glacial waters. I'm probably going to die now. Thanks, Prince Scar-face. I'm tempted to shout it out loud, but he still might have them throw something down for me to catch. I can always hope.

"Why don't you waterbend?" he calls down mockingly, and I glare up at him.

Oh, if I wasn't so against violence, I'd sock him in the face next time I saw him. Break his nose to go along with that lovely scar.

I try to warm myself by rubbing my arms and legs together, but it's difficult while trying to keep myself afloat at the same time. I look at my surroundings to see if there's anything I can climb onto and out of the freezing water. A small chunk of ice about the size of a roomy, one-person tent floats merrily along about 15 feet away. I send one more glare at the ship, then swim towards the ice float.

I climb aboard, using airbending to help me climb onto the slippery ice, then to dry me off. I'm still ridiculously cold, but now that I'm dry, the wind doesn't bite as much. I bring my knees closer to me and wrap my arms around them for warmth.

"Come on, come back to the ship," a soldier shouts, "We'll throw you something!"

I shake my head vigorously, and hear laughing. I'd love to go back to the warm ship, filled with warmth and fire…

And that gives me an idea. It might not work, but it's worth a try. Fire flares at one hand, and the other I use to control the air. I use a combination of my airbending and firebending to create a ball of warmth around me. It feels so good, and I instantly relax. Then I use airbending to propel my little iceberg towards what I think is land, or at least an area where what's left of the Southern Water Tribe may be close to.

I hear shouting from the ship, and when I look back I see one of the Fire Nation soldiers barking out orders at the rest of the crew—who are scrambling all over the place—and Prince Scar-face glaring at me murderously. I wave at him with a grin, knowing that even at the relatively slow pace I'm going, there's no way the huge ship could catch up with me now.

And then I see the little lifeboats being lowered into the water. Great. I forget about keeping myself warm, and blast fire and air at once to make me go faster. The fire and air flick around each other gracefully, and if it weren't for the mini-fleet of lifeboats headed for me, being driven by three to four soldiers' fire, I would have very much enjoyed watching it.

I will again point out the obvious; I'm no master bender. And of course Fate has a grudge against me, so naturally they catch up with me. I push the elements as hard as I'm able, but still it isn't enough. The Fire Nation lifeboats pull up beside me, and as they take aim, I blow them all over with a huge gust of wind. I try to evade them, but at this point I know my attempts are futile.

My feet are freezing cold, and my teeth are chattering like squirrel monkeys. I can't just give up, but what if there's nothing out there? What if I don't find anybody? I look back at the ship, massive and foreboding. I can't just give up, I think, narrowing my eyes. And so I fight.

I fight mostly defensively, the way I was taught by my father. He said that while the enemy attacked you, they expended their own energy until they were too tired to do anything. Meanwhile, you've stored up your energy by only defending yourself, and you're able to finish the fight; either by escaping unscathed or dealing the final blow. I would just run, seeing as I don't approve of violence unless neccesary.

I miss my father, but he's away fighting the war. Not that I'd be able to see him even if he were home, seeing as I'm…abroad. My mom says I look a lot like him because I have his small, straight nose, leaf-green eyes, and wavy, light black or dark brown hair that's usually in a braid. Not his, mine. But now it's swirling around me in the tornado of wind I'm using to deflect their blows. It's a sloppy move, but it works.

All at once, I see one give the others the signal to attack, I create a fire-proof shield of wind in front of me, and a hand abruptly snakes around my waist and pulls back. I fall into the man behind me, who uses one arm to pin my arms to my body, and the other to cover my mouth and restrain my head. As I struggle we start to slide off the chunk of ice, but he calls for back up and they pull us onto a boat. I shake him free as we're heaved onto the boat, but several more grab my arms and legs.

By the time we get back to the huge ship, they've tied my hands. We're lifted back onto the deck, and then they lift me over to where Prince Scar-face waits for us. He scowls at me, and I scowl back, no longer afraid of him. I don't know what's changed, but I'm just not as intimidated as before. My fear for him has turned into defiance.

Then his face turns placid, but I can still see the distaste in his eyes.

"You're right," he starts, confusing me. "You're not the Avatar. I should have known. You're too young. It was too easy to beat you."

"Hey—"

"That beam of light yesterday, Uncle. I had my doubts when I saw it but now I'm sure. That was the Avatar. Not this…"

I glare at him, waiting for him to continue.

"…child."

"I am going to bed," Iroh says quickly, looking thoroughly disgusted. He turns from his nephew and goes below deck.

Prince Mood-swings motions for the guards to carry me away. Just as I'm lifted off the ground, a huge crack! resonates across the open water, and from the way I was trying to escape to, the smoke from a flare hangs in the air. He dashes over to his telescope, aims in the direction of the flare, and watches something from it.

"The last airbender…" he begins, then looks over at me. "The last noteworthy airbender, anyway. Quite agile for his old age. Wake my uncle! Tell him I found the Avatar..."

My guards take this as a cue to start pulling me back to my prison. I struggle a bit, but again it is futile, so I relax.

"As well as his hiding place."

After they brought me back to my cell, I quickly fell asleep, exhausted from the exertion. And plus, it's not like there was anything else to do.

Now I wake up to weird noises what sounds like a couple hallways over. I get up to move, but my hands—rather than being tied together like before—are now restrained to the wall, with a thick piece of metal like a manacle at each wrist, screwed into the wall behind it.

I start to hear strange noises…like yelling, then someone being slammed into a wall repeatedly, then doors quickly opening and closing.

Creak…WHAM. Creak…WHAM. Creak…WHAM. Creak…

"Sorry…" I hear someone say a few doors down, before the noises of opening and closing doors continue after a soft, click.

Creak…WHAM. Creak…WHAM. Creak…

"Hey!"

I look up, realizing it was my door that has been opened this time. A short boy with a shaved head is standing in the doorway, dressed in baggy, red and yellow clothes. Blue arrows adorn his bare head, hands, and feet.

"Uh, hi." I reply quietly, attempting to get to my feet again.

The boy looks around outside before entering the room. He stops in front of my cell, staring at the lock as if that will burn it away.

He 'hmms' in thought before snapping his fingers, a bright smile lighting his face. "I'll be right back."

"And I'll be right here…" I grumble quietly.

After a few more distant Creak…WHAMs, I hear, "My staff!"

I hear another voice, a familiar voice, but it's too low for me to understand. Suddenly, I hear crackles of fire, the roar of wind, and after several minutes two loud slams.

And the arrow-headed-boy is back, this time holding a long, thin staff with funny slits near the top and bottom.

"Um, step back," he insists.

"I'm chained to the wall."

"Oh, yeah."

He breathes on the door of my cell, causing it to ice up, then takes his staff and slams the end of it against the lock to my cell. I duck my head as pieces of icy shrapnel fly past. He steps back and blows the door open…using airbending. I just sit there, shocked. After I haven't moved, he comes to me, breaking my shackles off the same way he opened the door.

"You're…you're an…an…" I start, but he pulls me out of the cell hurriedly, and out of the room. He looks both ways and decides to go left, dragging me behind him. He pauses as we reach an intersection, and I turn to face him. "I—I thought there were no more…"

He ignores me, and I finally snap out of it. I mutter an apology, my face burning.

"It's OK," he replies instantly, finally deciding on straight and up the stairs. I'm now running beside him rather than being dragged behind him. "If I'd just seen what I'm told is the last airbender, I would be freaking out, too."

"No, I mean that I'm—"

And then the kid throws open a door to a room with a bunch of levers and gears and stuff. He starts to mess with some of it. The ceiling above us cracks in two and begins to open. He speeds the process by airbending it open as I watch in awe. He has such beautiful form…

He grabs my hand, and uses his superb airbending to jump us onto the deck. I didn't even know you could do stuff like that…

He throws the staff into air, and little wing-like things snap out from the sides of the front and back. He jumps after it, grabs a hold of it, and uses airbending to—fly? Now that's impressive.

The crew is now flooding the deck. They see me and the arrow-headed boy, and start throwing fire at us. Just as I'm about to be engulfed in flame, I'm pulled off the deck and into the air. I look up, and the boy is using one arm to hold me, and the other to hold his…flyer thing.

A hand reaches up and grabs my leg, and the weight is too much. I look down to see Prince Moody Scar-face clinging to my leg and try to shake him off, but it's too late, and we fall back towards the deck. I land on my butt with a thud, the boy uses airbending to land gently, and Prince Scar-face does some fancy flips in the air to land in a crouching position.

"What is that?" he asks as he stands up.

Everyone looks to see what he's staring at, and the boy shouts "Appa!" warmly at the great, fuzzy, white animal flying through the air, toward us.

Seconds later, Prince Scar-face is punching and kicking bursts of fire at the boy. He spins his flyer thing to create a shield of air that deflects the firebender's attacks, then turns it upwards and the force of the spinning pulls him off the deck. I gaze at him in awe, not noticing the firebenders coming up behind me until they've grabbed my arms. I kick backwards, but one captures my foot and holds it, leaving me virtually helpless. I attempt a few airbending moves, but they're too close for them to work.

I look back to the arrow-headed boy just to see him land on the edge of the deck precariously. He quickly regains his balance, but after Prince Scar-face throws several more balls of fire at him, his flyer is knocked from out of his hands. He avoids a couple more attacks, but is ultimately knocked overboard.

"No!" I shout, as another cry comes from the flying animal, "Aang, no!"

The firebenders holding me grunt in satisfaction, and start yanking me backwards, into the ship. I kick my feet and try to elbow them in the face, but soon a very large one swings me over his shoulder, and my attacks are futile.

The cries of "Aang! Aang!" continue from the white creature, and I wonder how it can talk. And wish I could airbend like he could. I try to use it once again to get away from my captor, but it has little effect on the man.

I can suddenly hear a loud roar accompanied by splashing, and I look up to see the boy—who's name I will assume is Aang. He's high up in the air, held by a twisted pillar of water. The blue arrows on his body and his eyes are now glowing with a white light. The man carrying me turns around to see what's going on, and I twist around to try and see what will happen.

Aang lands on the deck, the water following him to form a circle around him. He spreads his hands, and the water flies in all directions, knocking almost everyone off the boat. Since the attack was directed at the man carrying me, as he is swept from beneath me, I fly into the air. Landing with another thud, my breath is momentarily knocked from me.

"Did you see what he just did?" I hear as the huge animal grows closer, followed by, "Now that was some waterbending."

Gasping for air, I see Aang's glowing eyes and arrows begin to fade, and he falls to the ground. The giant fuzzy thing lands on the boat, and I see two people jump off a saddle strapped to it's back. Oh. Well, that explains that.

"Aang! Are you okay?" the girl exclaims, kneeling next to Aang; cradling him. The boy follows her and stands next to him.

Neither seem to notice me get to my feet and approach them.

"Hey, Katara. Hey, Sokka. Thanks for coming," Aangs says weakly.

"Well, I couldn't let you have all the glory," the boy says, looking around the nearly empty ship.

"I dropped my staff," Aang continues.

"I got it!" the boy says, darting away to retrieve Aang's staff from the edge of the deck. When he gets there, he grabs one end, but the other appears to be stuck on something. He gets an angry look on his face and yanks it up, before using it to poke something over the side. I hear the clinking of chains, and he yells, "Ha! That's from the water tribe!"

Suddenly, some of the knocked over guards remaining on the ship get to their feet, and get into a fighting stance. The girl must be a water-bender, because she uses the remaining water on the deck to try and attack them, but ends up freezing it all behind her, including the water around the boy's feet.

"Katara!" the he yells, and the soldiers start forward again.

He starts to break the ice off himself, and the girl picks up more water. She turns around, and without looking she throws it at them, leaving them frozen, then proceeds to climb aboard the giant, white fuzzball.

"Hurry up, Sokka!" she yells, and I head towards the muttering boy, intending to help him out of his predicament.

"I'm just a guy with a boomerang; I didn't ask for all this flying and—Hey, who're you?" he asks with suspicion as soon as he notices me.

"A very nice person who's helping you out of the ice?" is my reply.

I pull his arms, and cracks form in the ice around his feet. I pull harder, and it falls apart. He stumbles forward, causing him to slip, fall, crash into me, and send us both flying across the ice towards Fluffy. I run into it, and he runs into me.

"Ouch."

"Get offa me," I grunt as I push him away.

He scrambles to his feet, helps me out of Fluffy, and then runs up it's wide tail. I stand there, unsure if I should follow him, when Aang says, "Well, are you coming?"

I nod, grateful for his timing. I clamber up the tail as fast as I can, then jump into the spacious saddle.

"Yip yip! Yip yip!" the boy—who I presume is Sokka—yells as he grabs Fluffy's reins and, with a grumble, we take off. He turns back and throws the staff to Aang.

"Huh?" I just barely hear as we fly away.

Iroh is standing just outside the door leading into the hull, rubbing his eyes. He sees Prince Scar-face hanging from the edge and helps him onboard.

"Shoot them down!" Prince Scar-face yells.

Then he and his uncle shoot a huge blast of fire at us as one. And here I'd thought he was a nice old man.

Aang hops forward and uses his flyer-staff accompanied by airbending to hit it off course. It shoots back towards them, and explodes as it hits an iceberg right above the ship, thoroughly coating it in ice and snow.

As we leisurely drift from the wreckage, Aang comes to sit next to me, with the others sitting across from us.

"You're an airbender! Which means I'm not the last one!" he says with shock, although a smile creeps onto his face. He sees my questioning look, and says, "I saw you airbending at those guards when they grabbed you."

"Well, actually, I can also—"

"So guys," he interrupts, "I met her in the Fire Nation ship. That's Sokka, and that's Katara. Sokka and Katara, this is…um…"

"Anala," I put in.

An absolutely enormous smile brightens his face. "Anala. I like it."

Sokka pushes Aang away to seat himself between us. Aang mutters "Hey!" but Sokka ignores him. He holds out his hand to me.

"It's nice to meet you, Anala," he says as he shakes my hand. He looks me up and down, scrutinizing me. Suddenly his eyes go wide. "You're…you're kinda cu…ool. You're pretty cool."

I raise my eyebrows at him, but he's suddenly acting like he hasn't a care in the world.

I get a closer look at Sokka and Katara. They must be brother and sister. They both have mocha skin, and dark brown hair—his in a cropped ponytail, hers in a long braid. They're wearing light blue parkas that match their eyes perfectly. And those parkas remind me of how cold I am in just my thin, black and red clothes.

"So," I begin, trying to forget about the cold, "You can bend two elements? Like m—"

"No, he's the avatar," Katara interrupts, almost bouncing with excitement. "And how did you do that? With the water? It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!"

Aang hangs his head. "I don't know. I just sort of…did it."

"Why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar?"

"Because…I never wanted to be."

During the whole exchange I am silent. Avatar? What was an Avatar? I'd heard it uttered by some villagers, travelers, and refugees—and of course, Prince Scar-face—but no one had ever explained it to me beyond that.

"But Aang, the world's been waiting for the Avatar to return and finally put an end to this war," says Katara.

But how can one person—let alone, a child—stop a hundred-year war?

"And how am I going to do that?" Aang voices my thoughts.

"According to legend, you need to first master water, then earth, then fire, right?"

"That's what the monks told me."

"Well, if we go to the North Pole you can master waterbending."

"We can learn it together!"

"And Sokka, I'm sure you'll get to knock some firebender heads on the way."

"I'd like that. I'd really like that," Sokka says, almost dreamily.

"And Anala, I can teach you airbending," Aang says it like a bribe. "Not that you aren't good already, just that…well, there's always room for improvement!"

"Then we're in this together," Katara finishes.

I nod, but I'm still utterly confused. When she'd said 'master water, then earth, then fire', did she mean that he could bend all the different elements? I am tempted to ask about it, but from the way everyone's been talking about it, it sounds like a well-known and very important fact, and I'm afraid they'll think I'm stupid.

But I'm really curious.

"Hey guys, what's an Avatar?"

Please review, guys. You know you want to…

You're Pal,

SuperOreoMan