Disclaimer: I don't own avatar, but one day i will. FIGHT THE POWER!


NOTE TO VEGETARANS: in this chapter i poke a little fun at vegetarians from Sokka's POV. He is really into meat and meaty things so it felt appropriate... i mean no offense.

Curtain Up!


Sokka; Master of the Black Sword

By: The Jade Knight

Beta and creative consultant: Richard Caine


-Tournament Saga-

Chapter 2

-

The Story of Sokka

Chapter 2: Cat's Eyes

-

I was kneeling on the ground running a sharpening stone over the edge of my blade while Aang was doing his Waterbending with Katara. I had finished my combat training a short time ago and it was just approaching midday. I was getting hungry, we all were.

I ran the stone over the black steel again, sending a small shower of sparks onto the grass. I was deep in thought, only paying just enough attention to my sword so that I could do a proper job in sharpening it. We were getting very low on supplies, I mused. we might have enough food for a further two days. Normally I would just do some hunting, but for some reason the forest had been very empty lately. I hadn't found anything meaty for a while, and even if I did Aang was a vegetarian. I know, weird. How could you not eat meat? It was so tasty.

Well either way the bottom line was that we were nearly out of food, and thinking back I had used the last bit of shampoo this morning. We would need to stop in town today and get some things. Plucking a random blade of grass I gently slid it along the edge of my blade and smiled as it was cleaved in half. The sword was wicked sharp. I re-sheathed the sword and strapped it on, then I made my way over the the saddle still sitting on the ground and began to look for the map we had of this area.

After tossing aside a few things I finally found it under our almost empty bread tin. Picking up the map I noticed that the flint box was also nearly empty, opening it right up I only found one more piece. We would need more flint too, if we wanted to make a fire again. I kind of knew how to make a flame with that two sticks bit, but I never really got the hang of it. I only managed to get a fire going once like that.

Ha, Sokka make fire. Ooga ooga.

With a soft laugh to myself I sat down on the edge of the saddle and started to look over the map. There were quite a few towns within a days travel of our camp, some of them seemed to be fairly large too. But which one? We were deep in the Fire-Nation, I had to plan every step carefully so that we wouldn't get caught and dragged of to some dark prison.

"Whats got you so down?" I nearly jumped from the sound of a voice. Looking to my left I saw Toph sitting in the saddle with me. I was really surprised, and a little ashamed that I had let her sneak up on me. I was supposed to be the warrior, unshakable and unsurprised. And lets face it; Toph isn't the softest walker and for her to be able to sneak up on me it was pretty bad. It brought home to me the same thoughts I'd been having since Katara really learned to Waterbend. I was the weakest and most ambush-able of the group. The weakest link.

"Nothing," I said glancing back to the little pond at the bottom of the falls where Katara and Aang were still doing some weird Waterbending thing. "I was just trying to figure out where to go next, we need supplies, and a meal in a restaurant would be nice."

"Yeah that'd be good, those Hamster-Bunnies you burned the other day were pretty bad."

I laughed at that. I remembered yesterday when I had caught a couple Hamster-Rabbits. Katara and Aang were saying I was a horrible person for eating a little fluffy tailed animal. I was really getting torn apart until Toph walked over -pointedly right between us-, tore off a leg and started to eat. They were quiet for a while after that, but when Aang and Toph were washing the dishes we had another argument about not eating cute things. I was losing until Toph said that if they were stupid enough to be caught they deserved to be eaten. A woman after my own heart.

"They were a little burnt huh? I guess no one likes it when its my turn to do supper." I said with a little grin, looking back at the map. A moment later my thoughts were broken again.

"Have you ever though about how strange letters and writing are?"

"What?" I asked not seeing what she was getting at. Wow, random much? I looked over to her and she was facing straight ahead. It guess it would seem a little odd to some people for her not to look them in the eye when she talked. But I had long since gotten used to it and had learned that just because she wasn't looking at you didn't mean she wasn't watching.

Then she turned to me and those misty eyes were once again on me "Well, think about it. You look at a piece of paper with some scribbles and lines on it and the words and meanings the writer had in his head appear in yours. Even if its like a hundred years later you still think exactly the same things. Seems a little like witchcraft to me."

Witchcraft? Cool.

"I had never thought of it like that." I admitted.

"Really, its down right creepy from my perspective," Toph continued. "From what I've heard you don't even see words after a while. You call them words, but when you are shown them you don't think 'this group of signs mean water' or something. You just think 'water', right?"

I looked down at the map, specifically to the labels listing the names of the towns and rivers. When I looked at them did I see words, or did I see sounds? After a few minutes of thought I started to see what she meant. "It is kind of weird, huh?"

I looked at Toph closely and thought I could just barely see the faintest of blushes on her cheeks; weird. What was she getting at? After a moment I just chalked it up to making conversation while we waited for Katara and Aang to finish up their training session. Then I decided on a likely looking town and told Toph about it. We talked about what size of a place it was and what kind of restaurants it might have. We were getting a little tired of fish since they were the fall back plan when I couldn't hunt anything down. I wanted something beefy and Toph said her favorite food was chicken.

I made a mental note of that for later.

We passed some more time like that, just talking about odd little things. I found out a few things she liked but she seemed to be asking most of the questions. So I answered perfectly honest and tried to be polite by asking her about herself. I was actually doing pretty good. I hadn't made an ass of myself yet. Hazaa! Looking down at her arm I saw that she still had that little bit of meteor rock I had given her bent into the shape of a bracelet she wore on her upper arm. I was happy she seemed to like it. Finally it was time to get moving again and Aang came over to put Appa's saddle back on. It took us a while to get the fuzzy guy out of the water, apparently he like it. I helped as best as I could by loading the last of the gear into the saddle.

Looking over to the riverbank I saw that Katara and Toph were taking quietly together again. Toph looked a little put out. That got me a little concerned. She was Toph, she inspired fear and the feeling of being little in others, she didn't succumb to it. But as I watched Katara talked to her, my sister even did the whole arm over the shoulder thing as they walked back toward us. I was a little worried at first but whatever Katara had said seemed to have worked, because by the time Toph was halfway back over to us she looked back to her 'take no crap' self. Strangely just before they fell silent I could have sworn I had heard Katara say something like ' ...all guys are idiots, it just takes a while to get through their skulls'. very odd.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

But meh, like I said; girls are bloody confusing. Just accept that and life gets easier.

-

We had found a nice large cave for Appa and Momo to hide in while we went into the town. We were going to be staying there for a few days. Aang could use the training time and we were a little ahead of schedule and the cave we had found looked pretty inviting... damn that's sad.

'Mister Sokka, how do you know when you have been on the road for too long?'

'That's easy Mister Sokka, you look at a dry cave like its the Royal Hotel.'

'That is just plain sad Mister Sokka.'

'I agree Mister Sokka, we should write an angry letter.'

I laughed a bit, sign one of insanity is to argue with yourself.

'I though sign one was talking to yourself. Aren't you a little past that?'

Butt out Mister Sokka, who asked you?

As we walked in relative silence, the sounds of the town slowly began to built. I could hear the stomping of thousands of feet as the citizens went about their daily business. Below that I could hear the calls and announcements of stand owners and bouncers as they tried to get people to buy from them, I guessed we would enter on the bazaar side of the town. It was supposed to be a good sized town, ten thousand or so people.

Ten thousand chances to be caught.

I beat down the prickling fear into a steady cautiousness. I would only become more of a Firebender magnet if I was paranoid. Cautious but not freaking out, that was the goal. We turned the final bend in the road and the town came into full view.

It was a bustling little town, it had the potential to become a city in the next few decades if it continued to prosper. Aang seemed happy at getting to see some new things, and Katara was hard pressed not to look to excited herself. Probably wanted to go and but some expensive and too revealing bit of clothes that we have no room for. At least Toph didn't seem to have the hyper-addicted-shopper syndrome that some girls seemed to have. I frowned, was that because she thought shopping was a waste of time or because she couldn't see the cloth and thought it was a useless endeavor? With a mental shrug I pushed those thoughts aside as we walked beneath the archway.

The archway was a huge swooping arch that the path passed beneath before entering the small town of Homarnu. The town didn't have a wall around it; it didn't really need a wall as a defense thanks to the dense forests that hugged the outer ring of buildings. I took a deep breath and my mouth watered at as I was assaulted by the smells of delicious food. I could smell veal cutlets coming from the closest vendor, a little further along the smells of soups and beef roasts wafted out of a warmly decorated eatery. My eyes went wide as I tried to take in every sign that advertised meaty goodness, and it felt like every window let me glimpse steaming dishes piled high with the best food I had ever seen.

Looking to my sides I saw that my companions were equally as entranced by the food, so I thought a rhetorical question was in order. "So, are we going to shop for the afternoon and then come here for food or-?"

"Food now,"yelled Toph before I could finish talking, then she grabbed my arm and pretty much dragged me into the eatery I had spotted moments before. She must have been using some kind of Earthbending to help her along because my arm felt like it was being pulled from the socket. But you never know, she was pretty strong. In the end I found that I really didn't care as she pulled me into the low lighting and over to a table, Katara and Aang in tow.

Toph guided me over to a corner booth and dropped onto one of the padded benches, scooting over so that someone else could sit beside her, seeing as the booth only had room for four. Then I hesitated; I wanted to sit next to her. But should I, wouldn't it be better for the girls to sit together? My momentary confusion was brought to a quick close as Katara grabbed Aang by the back of his shirt just as it looked like he was going to sit beside Toph and pulled him over to the other bench and next to her. With a feeling of accomplishment, even though it was Katara's actions that made the decision, I took my small victory and sat next to Toph.

I took a quick look around the eatery and found it to have a very comfortable atmosphere. There were maybe fifteen tables in the place plus the oak bar along one wall. It was just after the lunch rush so aside from us there were only three people, a young couple eating pasta in the opposite corner of the room and a middle aged man at the bar with a line of shot glasses in front of him. On the table right in front of me a menu in a navy blue cover caught my attention. I eagerly grabbed it and opened it up and started to scan over the pages. Mmm they had beef. I like beef, and pork, chicken wasn't too bad either. Ooh and they had pasta ... with meat sauce. Did I mention I liked meat?

"So what do they got?" Said Toph. I looked over to her and saw her sitting straight backed and staring forward, her hands folded over the menu. Oh yeah, duh she couldn't read ... so what was I going to do? When we ate somewhere like this it was normally Katara that helped Toph out. Looking over at my sister for help I found her hunched over the menu and pointing something out to Aang. Brilliant. What now? Turning my gaze back down to the menu I thought quickly. I guess I could read the list of things to her, but it was an awful long list, it would take forever to read the whole thing. Then I noticed the headings above each type of dish and relaxed a bit.

"Alright Toph, they have soups, salads, burgers, pasta, roasts, buffalo wings, ribs and a bunch of fruit side-dishes."

"What are the buffalo wings made from?"

"Uhhh," I said reading the small description below the picture. "Moose-Turkeys." I answered pulling a face, Moose-Turkeys were dry and were really tough. And judging from the 'echh' sound Toph made she didn't like them either.

"What do they have under roasts?"

"They got, um, Pineapple Pork, the Hungry-Man Beef, Vegitarian-"

"How the hell do you get a vegetarian roast?" Toph inserted with a grimace.

"Eww, its pure tofu." I mumbled, then I noticed Aang glaring at me a bit and I didn't voice my opinions on tofu and how it can't be natural.

"Definitely gross, molded vomit." Cracked Toph causing me to chuckle behind my quickly raised menu. After a moment I peeked over the top and was a little relived that Aang had gone back to his own menu.

"What's the Hungry-Man Beef?" Toph said getting my attention again.

"A platter apparently, the description says it comes with three slices of tender beef shoulder roast, our choice of potatoes, a veggie side dish and gravy." My stomach growled loudly voicing its choice. "and apparently I'm getting one of these." I said patting my stomach. This brought a little laugh from Toph.

"Yeah it does sound good, what's the potato choices?"

"Mashed, scalped, boiled and deep fried."

"Veggies?"

"Corn, green peas, or yellow beans."

"Deep fried potatoes as in French fries?"

"Thats whats in the picture."

"Sokka?" Katara said getting my attention off of the tasty looking pictures. "Whats our money situation?" Oh yeah, money. I quickly did some calculations in my head, allowing for over priced vendors and haggling.

"We should try to keep the bill here under nine silver."

"How much is the Hungry-Man thing?" Toph said

"A silver twenty five, with that and a drink ... maybe a desert its fine." suddenly a rumbling roar emanated from the stomach of the small girl and I laughed.

"Apparently I'm getting one of the Hungry-Man roasts too." Toph said without a second thought, oblivious to or ignoring the fact that Aang had jumped at the sound of her stomach growling. Ha, the mighty avatar toppled by a hungry girl.

A short time later a graying waiter came over dressed in black and white dress clothes to take our orders. In the end Toph had the Hungry-Man with fries and peas, I got the same thing but with mashed potatoes and corn. Katara got a pasta dish with light tomato sauce and Aang ordered a mandarin salad with a tossed fruit side-dish.

As we waited for the food to arrive we talked about what we needed to get, in the end I had to get out a pencil and wrote down a shopping list on a napkin. I was just jotting down a note to check on flint what Katara brought up a question I had been struggling with for a while now.

"How much money do we have left?"

"Enough." I said as I continued to write.

"How much is enough?" Aang asked, a little weary.

I sighed. I wasn't going to be able to skirt around this for much longer. "We will have enough for get the stuff we need right now, but were going to be scraping the bottom of the money bag by sundown."

"Oh." was all the answer I got. I had hopped to save the others the worry of figuring out where the next bit of money was going to come from; but now they knew anyway.

"That's why I thought we should settle down here for a few days. Its a fairly big city, I'm sure that we can get some money somehow." This seemed to satisfy the others, but I knew that getting money from a town you just entered was a difficult undertaking. But I had confidence that an opportunity would present itself. The Fates always leave a loop hole in the walls of life and all that jazz. I figure it was to make up for all the small yellow birds who tried to commit ritual suicide using my face. I consider myself lucky that way.

"Your meals," The elderly waiter said stiffly as he appeared by our table holding five plates balanced across his forearms and a drink tray in his left hand. For a second I was a little amazed that he seemed to be able to balance all of those plates and still look like his mind was elsewhere.

"Mandarin salad?" he asked in a bored tone, and after hearing Aang's reply placed the plate in his right hand in from of the hungry avatar who just managed to contain himself as he politely waited until the rest of the plates were on the table before attacking his salad. Looking over I noticed that the mandarin salad seemed to have several mandarin oranges strewn throughout the greenery.

Oranges on a salad; vegetarians are weird.

"Hungry-Man with corn?"

"Mine." I said taking my hands off of the table and placing them in my lap so that he could have room on the table to put the plate down.

"Hungry-Man with peas?" And so it went like this over the space of about a minute until we all had our sweet smelling plates in front of us. Well, salads don't really smell, but that didn't stop Aang from drooling over it. Now with only the drink try in front of him the waiter started to pass out the drinks, cranberry-apple juice for me (its my favorite juice, bite me), orange for Toph, some green gunk for Aang and water for Katara. Then the waiter placed the cutlery, tightly wrapped in another red napkin, beside each plate. His job done for now the waiter nodded his head slightly and returned to the kitchens.

I glanced over at Toph and saw her go through her usual before meal ritual. I could always see so I have no idea what its like to eat a meal you couldn't see what was in front of you. Sure she had felt exactly where the waiter had placed the glass and plate, but she had no idea the dimensions of the items and where the food on it was. I remembered the first time she had done this I had asked her what she was doing, and she had been kind enough to explain it.

Firstly she reached her right hand out and ran a finger all the way around the edge of the oval plate memorizing the shape of it so that she didn't accidentally push the food off of the plate. Then she lifted her hand up and moved it slowly over the plate making sure to keep it a few inches above the surface. She had said it let her know where the different things were. For example, when she felt a damp heat rising from a certain part of the plate she knew it was the peas because of fact that they would have been cooked in a lot of water, thus the damp heat. When she moved her hand over the roast the heat was more intense and dryer, because of being cooked in an oven.

After mapping out her plate she would grab her glass and quickly memories its weight and dimensions and then place it back down in the exact same spot it had been before. Now that she knew where her meal was she popped the little black band of paper that bound the napkin around the cutlery and dug into her roast with much relish. With a small smile I started to eat, looking up I saw that Aang had started to eat his orange salad as soon as Katara had gotten her pasta. Apparently I was the only one that waited for Toph.

Damn it, Katara may have had her head down as she spun her fork in the streaming pasta but I could still see that she had that blasted 'I know something' smile on. That was really starting to get annoying.

-

Mmm pie, the next best thing to meat. The meat had been really good, and then we had ordered some deserts. Apple pie for me, blueberry for Aang, a toasted cinnamon bun for Toph and something called velvet cake for Katara, which turned out to be this little piece of red cake that really looked like it was made of velvet. We finished our deserts as well and were talking about nothing in particular, when the bill came; seven silver and eighty copper. Not bad.

When I was up at the cash register paying I heard Katara laugh from behind me, turning around I saw my sister laughing as Aang picked a crumb of the velvet cake off of her lip and popped it in his mouth as he wiggled his eyebrows at her. I narrowed my eyes dangerously at him so that when he looked at me a second later his face immediately got a guilty expression. Katara, following Aang's gaze frowned at me but I just put on an innocent face and shrugged before I turned back to face the same graying waiter as he rang up the bill.

I paid and we all went out back into the sunlight, I guess we had been in the dimly lit eatery for too long because I all but hissed at the sun. But once the blindness from the sun had faded I saw the little favor from the fates. It was posted on the back of a public announcement so we hadn't even noticed it on the way in.

"Wow, look at that!" I nearly shouted pointing at the board excitedly. It was something that only I could do that could solve our money problems for many months.

"Bikini waxes?" Katara as she exploded in laughter, soon followed by the other two.

"No, above it." I said as I felt my face burning.

Aang looked at the poster and looked skeptical. "What are we looking at here?"

"The ninth Homarnu Soudatsu starts tomorrow!"

"Whats a Soudatsu?" Toph said with a vaguely curious expression on her face.

"A So-Dat-Su," I said stressing the pronunciation, "Is a combat tournament where the primary fighting style is weapon orientated, its a fight of blades."

"Okay." Said Katara evenly "And this is relevant because..."

"First prize is five hundred gold pieces!"

"Oh no!" shouted Katara raising an accusing finger at me. "Your thinking about entering aren't you!"

"Uh... yeah. We need the money and this is probably the fastest way." I thought it was a brilliant idea, but apparently my sister didn't agree.

"Are you insane? You could be hurt, or killed! There are going to be battle hardened veterans there, you will get torn apart. You won't stand a chance!"

"Yes I will, I am a great swordsmen."

"Piando said you could be a great swordsmen someday, or did you forget that he threw that little graduating match you had with him. You are not ready for something like this, it's to far above you!"

"I don't know Katara," Said Toph thoughtfully. "He might stand a pretty good chance, after all I was both the youngest and smallest Earthbender to ever win the Earth-Rumble. Size is no clear indication of power."

"Of course you would side with him." Katara snapped, I had only begun to toy with what she said when she continued. "But he's not an Earthbender, he would get slaughtered. He can't use that sword yet, and when he finally realizes that in the heat of a fight what is he going to do then huh? Throw his boomerang at them? We'll be stitching him together after five minutes."

"Come on Katara, that isn't fair." Toph said looking a little annoyed.

"It's okay Toph, she's probably right." I mumbled flatly, feeling pretty low. She was right, I had only first picked up a sword a few months ago. There was no way I could beat guys that had been training for years.

"I'm sorry Sokka, it was a great idea but I just don't want you to get in over your head." Katara said dropping her confrontational tone for a motherly one. "You're already the backbone of our group, you do enough. Let us worry about the money for once okay?"

"Alright." I said, defeated. After that we made our way into the bazaar looking for the things we needed. Katara lead with Aang right by her side with me dragging my feet next to Toph.

-

"Sokka, give me some money and you and Aang can get the rest of the stuff."

"What?" I said. I hadn't really been listening, I had been deep in though thinking about what Katara had said. Was I to inexperienced to fight in the Soudatsu? Would I only be endangering myself? I needed a second opinion on this. But so far the vote was a two-two split. Toph seemed to be on my side of the argument, she believed in my power. But both Aang and Katara thought I was getting to far ahead of myself. Bloody hell I needed an independent party for the tie breaker.

"Sokka!" Katara called again.

"What?" I drawled, annoyed now.

"I said to give me a bit of money so Toph and I can go get a few things while you and Aang get the rest."

"Why do we have to split up?" I really didn't get the point of splitting up. We still had a few hours before sunset, there was plenty of time to get everything as a group.

"Sokka, we're low on items." She said as if it cleared everything up.

"Huh." I said dumbly. "We still need a few things, but I still don't get why you want to split up to get them." Katara huffed frustrated and Toph pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Sokka, if I have to repeat myself after this time I am going to be descriptive and accurate, got it? We need items."

What the hell was that supposed to mean items. That could mean anything from hair-ties to tank. She needed to narrow down the search a little if she wanted me to see what the hell she was talking about.

Wait.

Items? I almost felt some masculine defense line in my head snap.

ITEMS!

Katara opened her mouth to give the very 'descriptive and accurate explanation' she promised and I almost screamed "I get it!" she closed her mouth with a 'finally' expression on her face. I look to my left and saw that Aang was still lost. Well, all the better for him I guess. So deciding to leave Aang in his blissful ignorance I dug a handful of coppers out of the money pouch on my hip and handed them over to Katara so she and Toph could go buy their -I shivered- items without us male-folk.

With a quick goodbye the girls walked off in the other direction and i just stood there for a second trying to recollect myself. "Sokka are you okay?"

I looked over at Aang and tried to recollect my shattered mind. I needed to do something manly, where was a criminal to punch or an arm wresting competition when you needed one? There should be a 'how do deal when your sister and the girl you like start talking about items' help group or something.

"Yeah I'm good. We still need some bath things, come on." Then I silently led him away looking for a shop that would sell those kinds of things. A bit later (don't ask me when, I had just managed to block out the last few minutes of my memory) we came across a little shop that seemed to have skin creams and shampoos and what-not. Snapping back to reality I pointed it out to Aang and we started to make our way over to it when a old creaking voice spoke up.

"Hello young warrior. My, it has been many winters since I felt an aura like yours." Looking around I noticed a bent over old lady sitting on a folding chair in front of a small black tent. She had long silver hair that was so thin it blew wildly in the fair breeze. Her face was one that had seen many suns and many years, deep wrinkles crossed her pale face, but her smile was one that I had seen many times on Gran-Grans face.

"What did you mean by saying that I had a strange aura?" I replied frowning.

Her smile widened and closed here eyes. "Very few men in the world find their destined path, the path to greatness and legend. The more powerful the aura the more likely they will see their true path, and the last time I felt an aura as strong as yours was the time I met Roku."

"Avatar Roku?" I said, my voice dripping in doubt. "He died a hundred and twelve years ago, in order to have met him you would have to be ancient."

She laughed a cheerful cackle that reminded me of making cookies with my mother. "Hasn't anyone ever told you that you should never ask a lady her age? Well since I don't think you meant to be rude I will admit that I met Avatar Roku when I was seven years old. Yes, that will make me a hundred and nineteen in the spring."

"Oh." Was all that I could manage to respond with. "So what were you saying about auras"

"If you would like to step into my tent, I will tell you what you want to know."

I knew it. "Ma'am, I don't mean to be mean or anything, but I don't have the money to pay for a fortune telling." I turned back to Aang and the shop and started to walk away from her.

"Right now your are plagued by many questions, some are questions of the heart, and some are of the mind. There are many answers before you, but you must recognize them for what they are before it is too late."

I wasn't sure if I believed her, but that last bit worried me. "What do you mean by 'too late'?"

"If you would join me in the tent I would be happy to give you a reading." I opened my mouth to tell her I didn't have the money to pay her "I said that I would read you aura, I never said anything about selling the knowledge did I?"

She smiled kindly at me once more before disappearing into her tent. I fought with myself for a moment. What if she was telling the truth? The last time I had met a fortune teller she had turned out to be a fake, but I felt something different form this woman. Could she be the real deal?

Ah, what the hell.

"Aang go into the shop and look around for a bit, I'll be right back." I hurried forward and opened the flap of heavy black fabric. Inside I found the old woman sitting at a small round table covered in a black table cloth. In the center of the table a half dozen white candles burned brightly filling the entire space with flickering golden light. Across from the old woman a ebony wooden chair sat facing the table. Without a word I pulled out the chair and sat down across from her.

"I see your curiosity has overcome your fears."

"Yeah." I said still a little wary of her. "You said that you could read my aura. What did you mean by that?"

For several long moments the old woman looked into the flames between us. I could see the flames reflecting in her wise eyes, and I though I could see something else there for a second. Something kind; but not quite human.

"In times of great crisis and peril, a hero rises to bring balance to the world. Sometimes a lone and anonymous hero is needed, a single man to over through a corrupt organization. Other times more powerful heroes are needed, and sometimes there is a call for the most powerful of us to rise. For the past hundred thousand years it has been the Avatar that has answered the highest of calls, it has been him alone that has fought back the creeping darkness and restored the balance. But he was gone for too long, the darkness has gone too far. It has dug its heals into the earth and if the Avatar tries to confront the darkness alone he will break upon it, and the Avatar will vanish from the face of the earth forever."

"But there is hope. A new hero is about to be presented an ancient weapon that has vanished from the mind of history. Before the Avatar, before the elements bent to the wills and hands of mortals the was a symbiosis, the time is once again upon us for the ancient ways to return. Soon you will be standing at a cross roads. One path, the brightest and easiest path will lead to the absolute destruction of the Avatar, and the fall of mankind. If this path is followed the race of men will vanish from the realm of the living within a single century. All hope will be lost and the world will become a lifeless void floating though the endless heavens."

"The second path is much harder. The hero must walk upon a path thick with the blood of allies and lovers. The enemies come screaming in from every side in a never ending flood, trying to push the hero back into the cold embrace of death. Many times will the hero bleed and many times will the blood of enemies and allies alike stain his hands. There will be harsh decisions ahead of him, decisions that may strip him of his humanity and leave him lying naked in a dark pit of despair and hatred. But at the end of it all, if he listens to his heart the peace of family and love await him."

"The two paths are connected at a hundred points. If the hero takes even a single step down the path to nothingness there is no hope, and everything he touches and loves will turn to ash. But there is a faint light in the distance."

The old woman looked up at me so fast that I jumped. Something was wrong with her eyes, it was like I could see the memories and souls of a thousand people in there. They weren't trapped or in pain. It was like they were trying to reach out to me, to help me. And if I wasn't mistaken the old woman was allowing these ... spirits into her mind, to use her mouth to speak and her eyes to see. "The path to nothingness is through the head, cold logic and blackness lead to the Void. The path to the future is through the heart. Many people the hero trusts and respects will unknowingly try to guide him down the path to the Void, but he must do what is in his heart."

With a roar the tiny flames on the candles exploded and I screamed and nearly fell back out of the chair as a wall of flame came up between us. Inside the fire I could see images: some were people, some were places I had been, but all of them were so out of focus I could barely make them out. The wall of flame gave a shiver and I saw a man standing next to a silvery animal of some sort.

"In the shadow of the black fortress, in the valley of death a warrior hero stands strong, a sword of the blackest onyx on his back and a white wolf at his side. He is alone, his family is either dead, or being held in the black fortress. Agony and pain await his family and the one whole holds his heart, and unless he attacks by sundown they will all be slaughtered in the night. Rage seethes barely controlled beneath the surface as two choices appear before him."

"He can enter through stealth, moving in the shadows and hiding from the prying eyes of the enemy. But the trek to the dungeons is long, and he arrives too late, the Iron Maiden has succumbed to her injuries. In the fury that follows the hero's soul turns black and he attacks everything in a berserker rage. In a matter of moments the hero is killed and along with him dies the future."

"The second choice for the hero is to throw himself down the throat of the beast, fight his way past the fangs of the monster and free the one's he cares for. After the Iron Maiden is free the hero must plunge into the belly of the beast and face the dragon. Broken will be his body but whole will be his heart. Defeat the dragon he may, but he never sees the sun rise on the next day. The hero fights with the courage of a hundred men, and he can see the doors to freedom. But there is an army before him, with thoughts of the Iron Maiden in his head he charges into them with a thunderous battle cry. For several moments it almost seems like he might win, his enemies fall and freedom is only steps away. Then countless enormous columns of flame and smoke slam into him from every side. His cloths and amour begin to melt under the intense heat as he falls to the ground dying."

I had been so entranced by what the old woman had been saying that when the wall of flames hovering over the small table exploded outward in every direction with the sound of a bolt of lightning I all but threw myself backwards, trying to escape the orange and red hands reaching for me. A fraction of a second later I felt the air forced out of my lungs as I fell onto the unforgiving ground. Even before I managed to get a breath I was frantically backpedaling as I tried to run from the fire I knew was just in front of me.

"Sokka!" Called Aang as he jumped into my field of vision. "Calm down, what's wrong?" He looked terrified as he reached down and pulled me to my feet. I was going to scream at him to run, or to just grab him and drag him along. He was like the only family I had aside from Gran-Gran and Katara, so of course my next thought was to throw him down onto the ground and cover his body with my own. Just as I grabbed the front of his shirt to save him I realized that we hadn't been consumed by the flames yet, and they had only been bare inches from my face when I had first reacted.

"Are you alright? Sokka please answer me! Should I go get Katara?"

"Katara? But ... the fire, and the old woman!"

"What fire? There's nothing here."

"What?" I gasped looking toward the place the old woman's had sat only seconds before. But now instead of a small tent engulfed in a raging inferno, I saw ... a dirty alley empty save for a few over flowing garbage cans. "Where did the tent go, and the old woman."

Aang looked at me with a very worried expression on his face. "There was no tent or woman, we were walking and then you looked toward that alley and just kind of spaced out. I tried talking to you but you didn't seem to hear me, and then you just started freaking out."

I stared open mouthed at Aang. What the hell was going on? I could remember every word the old woman had said, I remembered the smell of the tent and the feel of the hard wood chair, I could even remember the heat of the flames. But had it all just been in my head? This didn't make any sense? Where the hell did all of that come from?

Looking back at the little alley that the tent had sat only moments ago I was trying to figure out what had just happened when a rattle of metal made me tense, my hand on the hilt of my sword. With a drawn out 'meow' an old gray cat lazily wandered out of the alley and of course Aang ran forward to pet the little guy. But what stuck me cold was the cat's eyes. The cat's very wise and human looking eyes, the same eyes the old woman had had.




The Jaden Knight

Richard Caine

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