A/N: Hey guys! We're not dead!

Uh, sorry for the wait on this chapter, but it took me ages to write ^^'. THAT'S RIGHT. Yup. I got around to writing a chapter for this epic series. :P

Hope ya'll enjoy!

Meanwhile, back in Ba Sing Se, in the Avatar Universe...

Sokka raised a hand in greeting to an Earth General as he leisurely strolled through the hallways. Though it was early – for Sokka, that is – in the morning, people were already rushing around like headless cow-chooks, rushing to meetings, going through documents at the last minute, trying to catch up on paperwork…

Sokka happily strolled through the middle of all the chaos. It was true – he had no meetings to attend to today, no paperwork to struggle through, nowhere to be… and he was enjoying every damned minute of it. Especially being around other people who did have to do that crap.
It made him relish being free even more.

Seeing an open doorway and ducking through it, bumping into a harassed-looking attendant while he was at it, running a hand through his straggly wolf tail. He actually had time to properly tie it up today, believe it nor not. Usually half his hair hung out, due to having utterly no time to fix it.

It was all the damned meetings. For some stupid reason, they had increased drastically the last few months, some of them going for over 6 hours at a time. Hell on earth, it was.

But not to today. Sokka grinned stupidly at the empty room he had walked into, chest puffed out. No meetings for him today!

And that, he thought, was the art of arriving early. He was due at a siege of meetings in a few days' time, but, until then, he had those few days to himself. To relax, eat some meat, practise his poetry.

"And that is why I'm called the idea guy," he thumped his chest, addressing the empty room.

The empty room provided no answer.

Shrugging, he wondered out, back into the busy hallways. After a few minutes of being bumped around and his toes getting stood on, he made it to the doors leading outside, into the streets of Ba Sing Se. They were big doors, almost as big as the ones the Earth King had. Had.

Grinning at the memory, grabbed the handles and tried to yank the doors open, straining. Like the Earth King's 'Fancy Doors', these were hard to open. Abandoning his attempt, he stepped back, frowning.

Well. Last time, the solution was simple; get Aang to blast the doors down.

Where [was] that sneaky airbender, anyway? Unlike Sokka, Aang had already been in Ba Sing Se for around a week, having been caught up in the endless meetings, due to his Avatar status. Toph, too, actually. Little Toph had known, being the 'World's Greatest Earthbender' meant that she, too had to go to all the diplomatic meetings.

Sokka winced. The poor buggers. A week's worth of meetings felt like a month's worth of slavery, he knew.

Anyway, he should be here… well, this would be like killing two birds with one stone, then. Find Aang and Toph, get Aang to blast down the doors, and they'd all escape. Well, They'd escape. Sokka had nothing to escape from yet. (Yes, he was pretty happy about not having to do work)
Then, as if on cue - "Sokka!"

Sokka whirled around upon hearing his name, and spotted Aang almost straight away. He was weaving his way through the crowd, his yellow and orange robes standing out against the red and green, looking disgruntled. A bag, looking full and heavy, was slung haphazardly over his shoulder.

"Aang, buddy! I was just about to start looking for you!"

Muttering under his breath, Aang slid to a stop in front of Sokka, being much more successful in cutting through crowds than Sokka's clumsy attempts. "Why? And what are you doing here so early? I thought you weren't due for meetings until a few days' time."

"Because I need your help, because I can, and that is true."

Aang frowned. "Wait, what?"

Sokka laughed. "Your poor brain is fried. I have a solution for that… First things first. Blast down these doors for me."

"What?!"

Sokka rolled his eyes. "Don't be all dramatic. They won't open. So blast them down. No one will notice."

"And you think my brain is fried," Aang lent forward, and opened a latch on the doors that Sokka hadn't noticed before. He gave the doors a light push, and they swung open easily. Aang raised an eyebrow at Sokka.

"Or… you could just open them. That works." Sokka started down the steps, motioning for Aang to follow. Aang hesitated for a few moments, feeling the weight of all the documents and paperwork in his bag, the stress of all the meetings to come, then muttered to hell with it and followed.

"This plan is working perfectly so far," Sokka said, with a nod. "Get through those doors, smuggle you out-"

"So that was smuggling me out, was it?"

"-and escape the horror that is the meetings. Now, we just have to get Toph out, then-"

"Wait, what?!" Aang grabbed Sokka's arm, jerking him to a stop. "Toph isn't with you?"

Sokka stared at him. "No. No, she had to attend all these meetings, too. It was only me and Katara that got off them. Haven't you seen her at all?"

Aang stared back at him. "And to think, that I thought she got off having to attend. She's ditching!"

"Wait, isn't she here?"

"No! No, I haven't seen her at all." He growled, and started walking again. "She's- she's evil! She left me to fend for myself! Sokka, do you know how terrible it is to be the only 16 year-old, surrounded by old, cranky stuffy people? In a meeting?"

Sokka chuckled, jogging to keep up with Aang's long strides. "Yeah, actually. Maybe that's why she's ditching. Toph will be Toph."

"She shouldn't be ditching. Hell, I'm going to find her and drag her back."

"Aw, c'mon. You're just touchy 'cos you got left behind to all those meetings."

"Damn straight I did." Aang stopped suddenly, and Sokka, surprised, bounced off his back, sprawling onto the street. "That's it!" He turned, and saw Sokka sitting on the ground, glaring up at him. "Oh. Sorry." Aang pulled him up again.

"What now?" grumbled Sokka, rubbing his sore backside.

"We'll have to find her! And this is Toph we're talking about… it may take weeks to track down her hiding place and bring her back…"

"What? Seriously, it'd take half that time… oh." Sokka blinked, then smiled as he caught on. "Yeah. Yeah. And, we'll need help to find her… we'll need Katara and Zuko to come with us."

Aang nodded solemnly. "Yes. I'd hate to leave while all these meetings are going on, but it must be done."

Sokka grinned evilly, punching Aang in the arm. "This," he stated, "is the best escape plan. I'll talk to the Earth Generals, explain that we need to go. You go get Appa, we'll pick up Zuko and Katara. And then, we'll search for the missing Toph. Which may take months."

Aang saluted. "Yes, sir."

A/N: Okay, this time it's Morllyber here ^-^ So, this is one of the only A/N's I'm gonna write. As Chelber said above, sorry for the uber-long wait. But it's here now!

So, in this story I'll probably write most of the chapters. But, due to Chelber knowing more about A:TLA than I do, she'll be writing the chapters that have the Gaang in them. And now that we've come this far, she's gonna have a WHOLE lot more to write. Congratulations, Chelber, now you have a lot more to do than make sure that Toph is not OOC.

Well, thanks for reading this far! MorllyberNo.1 and ChelberNo.1 signing out - peace out, dudes!