I'm back! Sorry about the ridiculous update time. It turns out I have a life and unfortunately it did a wonderful job of catching up with me.

(2018 Edit) This particular chapter contains extensive in particular will actually change the character dynamics for the rest of the story.

Once again it's nightfall and with it has come with some bitterly cold temperatures. However, we all are doing our best to ignore it. The main problem is that this area is nothing but flat farmlands only broken up by an occasional bush or two. So, it's not like we can hide behind anything or pretend we are trees to blend in. If we are lucky, no one is actually close enough to spot us. Unfortunately, recent life experiences haven't exactly been filled with luck.

At this particular moment I find myself once again on the back of an ostrich horse and once again huddling with a Kyoshi Warrior who is guiding said ostrich horse while just trying to stay warm. In a strange way, I don't mind because I am exhausted and haven't slept in well over twenty-four hours, and I feel like I am about to pass out at any moment.

Also, once again, Amaya and Izumi trail behind us on another ostrich horse trying to keep warm as well. Right now, we have absolutely no idea where we are or what direction we are going, just as long as it puts some distance between us and the other Kyoshi Warriors. Of course, we probably should be heading south to get out of the city but no one really seems to care right now.

Out of nowhere, Kumi lets out a huge exhausted yawn and tries to re-position herself on the bird which succeeds in waking me from the glazed over daydreaming state I had been in for the past couple of hours. My mind is torn between the state of being unconscious and the state where so many thoughts are crashing around in my head that I might as well be fully conscious.

But we are all tired, and complaining about it won't help the situation. I try to stretch myself out a little bit to wake myself up before looking over to the right where my eyes catch sight of a whole bunch of dark objects that seem to be scattered all over the landscape. I squint to try and make some sense of them, and with help from the waning moonlight, I discover what they are. Old Fire Nation tanks all twisted and mangled in a destroyed heap. A great deal of foliage is growing into just about every crevice on the war machines giving and them the appearance of being some sort of unusual rock formation. But it's impossible for me to not recognize their shape.

"Interesting," I think out loud. It's the first time anyone had spoken in ages.

"What is it?" Kumi asks me. She sounds eager to break the silence.

"Look over there," I say, pointing in the direction of the run down tanks. "These tanks look pretty old."

Kumi perks up and looks over to the nearest old vehicle. "What are tanks?"

I let out a small chuckle at that. I had forgotten how young she is. She might not have even been old enough to remember all the things that happened to this city after the Fire Nation coup. If she was even in this city at all.

"Well, they are big armored, self-powered vehicles," I reply. She turns her head to listen. "The Fire Nation used them to invade the city, but after they lost control, many of these tanks were stolen. A lot of crazy and desperate people used them to try and take control themselves. Many people lost their lives."

"So, why is the wreckage still here?" Kumi asks.

"I… don't know." I shrug in indifference. "Looks like this might have been an old battlefield. If I had to guess, this whole area has already been stripped clean of parts and equipment years ago. I don't think anyone has been through here in a long time."

Kumi didn't respond for a moment. Clearly, her mind has gone into a morbid direction and I wasn't in the mood to pry. She speaks after another moment of silence.

"I hope I never have to see anything like that."

"I hope so too, for your sake," I reply. I genuinely mean that. This girl seems way too soft and naive for the world that we are currently living in. If this universe has any sympathy left, then it should spare her. I have my doubts that this will be possible though.

Speaking of young people who don't deserve to live in this world, I casually take a quick look behind me at our other two companions. Amaya ,who looks a little worse for wear, much like how I probably do, and Izumi, is sleeping into her mother's backside.

We should probably stop and take a break.

"Kumi, I think we should pull over here and catch a breather for a few minutes. We've been running our asses into the dirt all day."

She stops the ostrich horse almost immediately. "I agree."

Amaya came to a stop beside us and jumps off her mount. After waking up, Izumi does the same, but at a much slower pace. As for me, I slide off the bird and make my way to the nearest tank to try and block out the chilly wind.

Come on, this is nothing compared to a South Pole winter.

I just shake my head and sit down, placing my back against a large piece of wreckage that is doing a decently good job of blocking the weather. The plant life growing on the side of it providing a surprisingly good cushion.

After another long moment of silence, my ears pick up the sound of voices in the midst of a semi heated argument. I turn my head to see Kumi and Amaya arguing while standing over what appears to be a map.

After we left the farm house, I mentioned that I knew of a place to go, but on account of not entirely trusting Kumi, I decided not to tell her the exact location I had in mind. Instead I elected to pointing us in a direction until I feel I can trust the girl. To be honest, I think she seems like an decent person in spite of who she was previously aligned with. I can tell that everyone is becoming annoyed with my ambiguous directions though.

I decide to just block them out and stare at the mossy tank in front of me. I notice that the red Fire Nation Insignia had been painted over and replaced with a modified Earth Kingdom logo. The faction it had belonged to is probably long lost to history by now.

Then, I notice that someone who was rather small had sat down by my side while I was lost in thought.

"What's up Sokka?" Izumi asks me in a tired tone of voice. She settles her back against the tank as well.

"The sky," I reply. Immediately feel like punching myself in the face for letting such a stupid joke come out of my mouth, but I quickly decide that such a display would only make things more awkward.

For a moment, the girl just looks at me with her typical raised eyebrow look that seems to say "wow you are an idiot."

"Okay…" She replies after a moment of hesitation. "Sokka, I wanted to ask you something."

"Hit me," I answer, trying my best to sound uninterested. Something inside of me keeps saying that if I brush her off, then she will get up and leave, allowing me to wallow around in morbid thoughts again. But of course, that doesn't happen.

"Okay," she shifts into a new sitting position. "What happened back there at the house?"

She is curious and I don't blame her. We basically left in quite a rush back there but she trusted my words, or she trusted my words because Suki told her to do so anyway. In any case, if anyone deserves to know what's happening, then it's the new Avatar. I look back over to the two women who are now standing around the ostrich horses and ignoring each other.

"Well, it turns out Noriko wanted to keep you in the city so bad that she was willing to kill Suki and attempt to kill me, and apparently all the other Kyoshi Warriors have her back as well."

Izumi thought on that for a minute. "What about her?" she asked pointing to Kumi.

"Honestly, I think she's okay." I shrug. "Back at the farmhouse, she told me of Noriko's plans, or some of it anyway. And the others seemed like they were furious when they found out about her betrayal."

"If the Kyoshi Warriors turned on you and Suki, then that means she was a part of it." Izumi said. "What made her want to help us?"

"I guess she feels guilty about what she had become a part of."

Izumi looks away from me and nods, but she doesn't seem convinced.

"Well, I guess sometimes you can't judge an entire group of people," I reply. "You have to judge the individuals based on their actions alone."

Izumi's sighs before leaning back onto the tank. "How can I not judge her after what we know?"

"Well, feel free to keep an eye on her," I answer. "Someone will have to when I'm not looking."

She nods, the briefest of smiles appearing on her face. Another minute passes and the two of us just sit there staring at our own respective spots on the rusted machine in front of us. I've really got to hand it the Fire Nation, or former Fire Nation I guess, they really knew how to make their hardware last in the elements. So much for all that technological ingenuity.

I then turn and look at Izumi, who has brought her knees up to her chest and is resting her head on top. I can't help but wonder if this girl really knows the truth about her heritage, or if she has been sheltered from the mistakes of her people. My mind has been curious about this for a good while now, but since she is here, a couple of question can't do any harm.

"Hey," I say with an uncharacteristic scratchiness in my voice. She just replies with a mumbled "Huh" sound.

I clear my throat and continue on. "How did you end up in this city anyway?"

She slowly sits up and glances at me with tired eyes. Another long and awkward silence passes between the two of us and I begin to wonder if I had asked a very sensitive question, or something. But eventually she leans her back against the tank wreckage and lets out huge sigh.

"Well my home… it was a bad place. I lot of people were sick there. Most of them were boarded up inside of their houses… and if they got out then the guards killed them."

I was not in any way expecting to her to actually answer me. Now that she had spoken though, I looked at her with anticipation for where this story was going.

"I… watched them kill my aunt and uncle."

Oh…

"My uncle was sick and they locked him inside of his house without food or water… or sunlight. He was a fire bender like me and he couldn't stand it."

"So he escaped and they killed him." I finish the story for her knowing full well how it's going to end. She nods slowly, her gaze seems to travel straight through the wreckage in front of us. I had no idea… I mean I had read a few vague reports about what was going on out there back in the mail center, but everyone was too afraid to get a closer look for fear of contracting whatever disease they had. I guess that explains why so many Fire Nation refugees are coming to the Ba Sing Se. Come to think of it, it might also explain the whole anti-illegal immigrant movement that has consumed the city.

"My mom got me out of there. But we had to leave the rest of my family behind."

"You serious?" I ask her. She nods her head in the yes direction again. "Why?"

Izumi hesitates for a brief moment before continuing on. "She already knew what I was then I think. And my family was too big for all of us to sneak out without getting seen."

Now It is my turn to sigh. It seems that no matter what, everyone in this world has lost someone important and close to them. My mind briefly drifts over to Suki, but I shake it from my head. I can't bear to think of her any longer. Silence once again settles over us, and this time, I'm thankful for it.

I'm tired of being depressed. It's incredibly unproductive.

"Hey what's an uprising?" Izumi asks me completely out of the blue.

I did a serious double take at the mention of those words.

"What do you mean?"

"Um… last night I heard Noriko talking to some of the other warriors about the uprising, or something. It sounded like it was really important."

My heart literally skips a beat for a moment there as those words enter my ears and settle into my brain. My memory went back to when someone at the safe house had mentioned using Izumi as a flag to unite the people. And suddenly everything made perfect sense. Those girls are planning to start an uprising against the government with Izumi at its center. That's why they got rid of Suki, because knowing her, she didn't support the idea of an uprising with an untrained avatar. But why is Noriko so deadest on using the girl now?

"Um… Sokka?" Izumi snaps her fingers in front of my face getting my full attention. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I said glancing over at Kumi. I recall her words from earlier about how she hoped to never see battle. All of her reasons for wanting to leave the Kyoshi Warriors now make complete sense. That girl wanted no part in the uprising.

"Well," I sigh before standing up. "We had better get going."

Izumi jumps up and follows me as I make my way to the ostrich horses. Both Amaya and Kumi look towards us at the sound of our approaching footsteps. The look in both of their eyes tells me that they are waiting for directions on where to go next. I suppose there is no point in stringing them along any more.

"Let's head south," I say before jumping onto the ostrich horse. I know a guy who can help us."

Without words, Kumi jumps onto the bird behind me while Amaya and Izumi mount their own bird. After a brief check to make sure everything is accounted for, I pull on the reigns. The bird grunts in defiance for a moment before finally setting off. Amaya and Izumi following closely behind. After several minutes, the wreckage of the long-forgotten battlefield disappears into the darkness. I do my best to not look back.

Later…

At this point I have honestly no idea what time it could possibly be. All I know is that I am practically dead from exhaustion. Unfortunately, it's taking a bit longer than I expected to reach our destination. Who knew that travel by ostrich horse is much slower than travel by steam powered trams?

Thankfully, the discussion I had with Izumi earlier about the state of her homeland and about the possibility of an uprising is keeping me awake. A nagging part of my mind is beginning to wonder if the Kyoshis will start the uprising without Izumi and then try looking for her later.

We really need to get out of this city as quickly as possible.

Eventually a familiar dirt road comes into view that would be easy to miss if someone wasn't actively looking for it. Amaya and Izumi are trailing closely behind me on the other bird. I have to admit, the Fire Nation woman has some incredible stamina to be able to steer this bird for as long as she has. I haven't even heard a single complaint from her. I'm definitely putting her on my list of ridiculously tough people.

About another hour passes until I see a distant light on the horizon in the direction we're headed. To me, it feels as though I'm staring into the light at the end of the tunnel. A peaceful end, or at least a temporary break, from the relentless onslaught of events from the past couple of days.

Eventually the light source reveals itself to be a very familiar modest house partially hidden in the nearby forest.

"Hey," I crane my neck over in Amaya's direction. "We're almost there."

"So I see," she replies rather bluntly. I shrug my shoulders and continue on until we make it into the front yard of the house. Kumi effortlessly jumps off the bird. I, on the other hand, stumble of the giant bird and nearly face plant into the ground.

Awkwardly, i pick myself up and motion Amaya to follow me. She did… after about ten minutes of getting off her own bird and trying to wake up Izumi, which proved to be a difficult task. I slowly make my way to the door and knock. There is no response at first so I knock again, and again a third time. I am about to knock a fourth time when the door slides open revealing the face of an old man I had seen only a few days prior.

"How's it going Shen?" I ask without an attempt to hide how tired I am.

"Sokka?"" he looks completely taken back by sudden appearance at his doorstep. "What are you doing here at this hour?"

"We need a place to stay for a couple of days," I reply motioning to the three females behind me. He rubs his old eyes to get a better look at them.

"Greetings," he says. "My name is Shen." They all greet him back respectively. Once all the somewhat formal introductions are done with, I look over to Izumi.

"Show him," I say.

"What?" she asks surprised.

"It's okay. We can trust this guy."

Shen looks totally confused by everything, as does the girl. After a couple of seconds, she raises up both of her hands and concentrates.

"Man, you're really gonna get a kick out of this," I say to Shen. He looks on completely unsure of what to expect. In the next instant, Izumi produces a mini flame in one hand and a small tornado in the other, exactly like she had done the day before in the farmhouse.

It's still an amazing sight to behold, my mind still unable to fully grasp the concept of how it happened. Shen has a look of complete shock on his face and, after a moment, his eyes grow wide in realization. I let out an exhausted sigh and speak.

"She's the Avatar. We have to get her out of the city."

For what feels like an eternity, we stand on his porch as the dark, cold air of the night chills me to the bone. I fold my arms over my chest to keep warm.

"Please come inside," Shen finally says. "Before you catch a cold."

(2018 EDIT) Yeah so I fixed this so that a particular character is no longer kicked out of the group for some arbitrary reason. What was I thinking back in the day?

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