Book 1:
Water

Chapter 4:
The Warriors of Kyoshi

There's a new addition to our small family.

Aang decided to adopt the lemur he found at the Air Temple. His name is Momo, and he's such a cute little guy.

Sokka's examining a map, Katara's sewing up a hole in Sokka's pants, Aang's sitting on Appa's head with Momo, and I'm…well, I'm still thinking about what happened at the Air Temple Sanctuary.

Aang and Sokka are discussing where we're headed next. I get the feeling that we're lost, from what they're saying. A few minutes later, Aang tries to show Katara some marble trick, but Katara says, "That's great, Aang," without bothering to look up from Sokka's pants.

"You didn't even look," Aang states glumly.

"That's great!" Katara says after she looks up from sewing.

"But I'm not doing it now."

"Stop bugging her, airhead," Sokka says while he relaxes back on a pack. "You need to give girls space when they do their sewing."

"What does me being a girl have to do with sewing?" Katara says, now agitated. I personally didn't find his statement offensive at all. He was just trying to get Aang to leave her alone so she could get her stuff done. I wouldn't have even connected what he said to being sexist.

And then he opened his mouth.

"Simple: girls are better at fixing pants than guys, and guys are better at hunting and fighting and stuff like that. It's just the natural order of things."

I raise my eyebrows and meet Katara's eyes, and we both look at Sokka.

"All done with your pants! And look what a great job I did!" Katara says with mock cheerfulness. She throws the pants at Sokka, and they fly right into his face.

"I don't think I've ever seen finer work, Katara," I play along, while Sokka takes them off his head and sees that there's still a huge hole in the back.

"Why thank you, Anala!"

"Wait! I was just kidding," Sokka pleads, putting an arm through the tear, "I can't wear these! Katara, please!"

"Relax, Sokka. Where we're going, you won't need any pants!" Aang says cheerfully. What a strange statement.

He pulls the reigns to the side, and Appa swoops down towards a island in the middle of the ocean. We land on the beach of a small lagoon, and Aang jumps from Appa and lands gracefully on the ground. I watch him carefully, and try to mimic his action. I maneuver the air around me as I fall, making it slow me so I could drop gently to the ground, almost as flawlessly as Aang did it.

"How was that?" I ask him tentatively. It's kind of weird being trained by someone younger than you. I mean, I guess I'm only two years older than he is, and technically he's one-hundred and ten years older than me, but still—it's different.

"Good!" he exclaims, smiling warmly at me. "You're catching on really fast."

I grin happily back at him. Aang and I have seemed to form a quick friendship. I think we're both glad to meet another airbender, and are kind of sticking together because of it.

"We just made a pit stop yesterday. Shouldn't we get a little more flying done before we camp out?" Sokka asks carefully.

"He's right," Katara agrees, their earlier quarrel forgotten. "At this rate we won't get to the North Pole until spring."

"I don't see the problem with having a little fun on our way to the North Pole," I disagree. Those two are so uptight.

"Yeah, and Appa's tired already, aren't you boy?" Aang asks the giant bison. When he gets no reply, Aang nudges him and says, "I said, aren't you boy?"

Appa lets out a huge yawn.

"Yeah, that was real convincing," Sokka says. "Still, hard to argue with a ten ton magical monster."

"Look!" Aang yells, pointing out into the lagoon.

A gigantic fish leaps from the water, creating huge waves in all directions. Aang starts to strip down to his underwear, for some reason extremely excited.

"That's why we're here," he continues. "Elephant koi! And I'm going to ride it. Katara, Anala, you've gotta watch me!"

"You're going to ride a giant fish?" I ask in bewilderment. Katara and Sokka look just as mystified as me.

Aang dives into the water, jumping out a few seconds later to shout, "Cold!" Katara and I look blankly at each other, and Sokka twirls his finger next to his head in the he's totally crazy kind of way.

I look back at Aang, who's just gone under. One of the elephant koi leaps out of the water, and I can see Aang standing on its back, holding onto its fin. He looks so tiny compared to the monstrous fish.

Beside me, Katara starts waving and cheering him on. He waves back, yelling and laughing. I can tell he's really enjoying himself. Momo is jumping up and down, watching Aang excitedly.

"He looks pretty good out there," Katara exclaims.

"Are you kidding?" Sokka counters. "The fish is doing all the work."

I laugh at his comment, and he seems very pleased with himself.

"No, Appa! Don't eat that!" Katara cries suddenly as she runs to stop the giant bison from eating some weird purple and orange plant with massive thorns.

"What is that?" I ask when I turn to watch Aang again, pointing at a huge shadow in the water behind Aang's fish. Sokka looks where I point. "Do you see that?"

"There's something in the water!" he shouts.

The koi right behind Aang's koi is suddenly pulled underwater. I gasp, and Momo starts screeching at Aang, now jumping in distress rather than excitement.

"What's wrong?" Katara yells as she joins us.

"Aang's in trouble!" Sokka replies.

"Aang!" I shout. "Get out of the water!"

Katara and Sokka are shouting at him too, but Aang can't hear what we're saying.

His fish comes to a dead halt, and Aang goes flying forward as the koi is tugged underwater. He yells as he flies through the air, then falls into the water with a splash. An enormous shadow engulfs him, coming from a fin that's even bigger than an entire elephant koi.

Aang quickly notices, and lets out a scream. He turns to flee, literally running on top of the water, and the fin turns towards him and starts to follow him. It slowly gains on him, but Aang reaches the shore just in time. He doesn't stop in time, though, and slams right into Sokka, while the giant fin silently slips back into the water.

Aang quickly gets up, while Sokka, who was pinned against a tree, sits there—stunned. When Sokka finally gets to his feet, Aang starts putting his clothes back on.

"What was that thing?" I ask as Katara and I join them.

"I don't know," Aang says, clearly bewildered.

"Well, let's not stick around to find out," Sokka exclaims. "Time to hit the road."

I see movement from above, and we're suddenly attacked by a group of…people in green. The four of us—and Momo—are quickly subdued, tied, and blindfolded. I'm thrown to the ground, and from the sound of it, the others quickly follow.

"Or…we could stay a while," Sokka continues timidly.

We get dragged back to a village. They tied us to a wooden pole and began to interrogate us, but the whole thing turns out to be a mistake. They thought we could be Fire Nation spies trying to pull the island—named Kyoshi, after it's founder, Avatar Kyoshi—into the war. I think it was partly because I was still in the red and black clothes the Fire Nation had dressed me in on the ship. After Aang proved that he was the new Avatar, they happily released us, and treated us with the highest respect.

The next morning after breakfast, which was ridiculously tasty, I helped Katara gather food and supplies—a sleeping bag and non Fire Nation colored clothes for me—for the trip, while Aang was goofing around with his many admirers, and Sokka was…somewhere. After that, Katara started practicing her bending, and I told her I was going outside to do the same.

I walk into the forest just outside the town, and keep going until I find a clearing to practice my firebending in. I feel bad that I haven't told them, but I tried to when we first met, only no one would listen. I had never exactly hidden my abilities back in my village, but only my parents, brother, and the town's healer know about my double bending. My parents had never told me to hide it; I guess I've just always instinctively avoided showing people.

Once I'm there, I get in a stance somewhat like I'd seen the firebenders do when they'd attacked me. I tried to remember some of the motions they had done, and do my best to replicate them. I think I'm doing pretty well, considering I've never had a teacher.

After a while, I try to use my airbending and firebending at the same time. I make a little fire-storm thing, careful to keep it small enough to extinguish with my hands. I practice this for a while, then try a few other things. Next I use the air around my fire to create delicate twists and turns in the streams of fire, even becoming good enough to draw a simple picture and let it hang in the air.

I hear something noisy, and I stop my bending so I can hear what's going on. A loud commotion is coming from the village, and I start running out of the forest to see what's happening. When I come around a building, I see the Kyoshi warriors battling firebenders on strange animals. When I look further down the road, I can see Prince Scar-face battling Aang. I rush to his aid, but am ambushed by Fire Nation soldiers. I decide to use my fire-storm on a larger scale, and use it against the men attacking me.

Fire shoots from my hands and a huge gust of wind rips the flames from my fingers, into a swirling whirlwind. The men are picked up off their feet and blown in all directions. I stop the air, and the fire fizzles into nothing. That was extremely effective. I look around to see the Fire Nation soldiers pretty much defeated, and run off to join Aang, Katara, and Sokka on Appa's back. As we lift off, Aang looks back at the burnt and partially destroyed town with guilt.

"I know it's hard, but you did the right thing," Katara comforts. "Zuko would have destroyed the whole place if we had stayed. They're going to be okay, Aang."

I'm just about to ask who Zuko is, when Aang jumps off Appa and into the water below.

"What are you doing?" Katara screams over the side.

A few moments later, Aang resurfaces, but he's on the head of the Unagi—what we came to find out was what had taken down the elephant koi when we first arrived. He pulls on the giant sea-serpent's whiskers, and uses it's water spout to put out the fires in the village. It finally rears it's head, and Aang flies off, only to be caught by Appa.

"I know, I know, that was stupid and dangerous," Aang says as he climbs onto Appa.

"Yes, it was," Katara answers, but then hugs him.

I take the opportunity to ask Sokka who Zuko is.

"He's the prince of the Fire Nation," he explains, "You know, the one who keeps attacking us. But for some reason he's been banished."

So Prince Scar-face has a name.

"Speaking of Zuko, did you see me and Suki take him out?" Sokka continues excitedly. I shake my head, and he tells me all about it.

I try to tell him about my awesome fire-storm, but I am, of course, interrupted by Aang.

"Next stop; Omashu!" he exclaims, putting away the map.

"What's in Omashu?" I ask curiously.

Aang looks at me deviously and says, "You'll see."

King Bumi...More than meets the eye... (sing to the tune of the Transformers theme song :)

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Your Pal,

SuperOreoMan