This one's a bit shorter, but this was more the kind of length I was expecting for chapters in this story, so they'll probably be closer to this from now on.

Leaving her signature trail of fluttering red rose petals, Ruby bolted over to Aang and clung to his arm.

"Aaaaaaaaaang! Hi."

Yang trotted over and put her arm around his shoulders. "Hey, Arrowhead, how are ya? You're like, so much older-looking! So I guess you beat that whatsisguy, right?"

"Who, the Fire Lord?" Aang asked from his sandwiched position. "Yeah, that was uh . . . that was something."

Weiss and Blake approached with less enthusiasm, but small smiles. Aang grinned around at Team RWBY, and then his panning gaze fell on Katara - arms folded, eyes narrowed at the two sisters embracing him. With the grace of a master airbender, Aang slipped out from between them and wrapped his arms around Katara, whose stance did not change in the slightest.

"Um, so, let me introduce you!" he said. "This is my girlfriend, Katara . . ."

"Charmed," she spat.

"That's her brother Sokka . . ."

Sokka bowed with one hand on his chest and the other held up regally. "Warrior, strategist, inventor, artist, meat lover - but to make it easy to remember, just think of me as the guy with the boomerang."

Aang continued, "That's Toph . . ." When Toph nudged him with a tremor through the ground, he added melodramatically, "The greatest earthbender of all time!"

Toph shot Team RWBY a finger pistol and said simply, "Yo." Then she burped.

"And," Aang pointed over Katara's head, "that's Zuko, the new Fire Lord. A good one."

Zuko nodded at the otherworldly girls. Ruby gave him a wave and a nervous grin back.

"Guys," said Aang, pulling away from the still-unchanged Katara in order to gesture as he spoke, "this is Ruby, Yang, Weiss, and Blake. They're from another world."

"Right," said Katara, looking Yang up and down. "Evidently one with a different sense of . . . privacy."

Blake pointed her thumb at Yang and said, "Yang always dresses like this."

"I think that was my point," sizzled the waterbender.

"Aw, come on, Katara!" Yang said cheerily. "It wasn't like that. Honestly, Aang was only there for, what, two days?" She looked to her teammates for confirmation, only to find herself suddenly face-to-face with Sokka.

"So you're single then?" he said, grinning broadly.

Toph raised a finger, and a thin wall of rock sprouted from the ground, rising to divide Sokka and Yang. Toph then slowly dragged the finger, thereby the wall, thereby Sokka, away from Yang. After a long, awkward pause, she lowered her hand and said, presumably to Yang, "You're welcome." Then the awkwardness decided it had left too early.

As Yang ran a hand pensively through her hair, Weiss was sizing up Aang's companions silently, and Ruby was peering distractedly behind them.

Potentially in response to her stares, Momo took off from his perch on one of Appa's horns and landed on Aang's shoulder, returning Ruby's gaze. Once again using her Semblance despite the minuscule distance, she was instantly before Aang, reaching toward the lemur tentatively. Momo leaned forward, sniffed her hand, and eventually pressed his head into her fingers, causing her to squeal with delight and scratch him enthusiastically.

"That's Momo," Aang said brightly. He pointed behind him and added, "And that's Appa. Say hi, buddy!"

Appa let out a long bellow, but did not climb to his feet, apparently content where he was. Weiss seemed a little startled by him.

Ruby plucked Momo from Aang's shoulder and cradled him, and the lemur produced his distinctive chittering noises.

"Sooooo . . ." said Sokka, having stepped out from behind Toph's wall. "What are you girls doing here? You know, in this world? And how does that whole thing work, anyway? What about the Spirit World?"

"There's a Spirit World?" Yang asked.

"Wait," said Ruby, still petting Momo, "you mean, like, ghosts?"

"No, no," said Sokka, shaking his head and hands. "Spirits aren't ghosts, they're . . . uh, what are spirits, Aang?"

Aang scratched his head. "Um . . . they're . . . spiritual beings?"

"Thank you for the clarification," said Weiss with the usual bite in her voice. Then she softened and said more playfully to Aang, "Still not too bright, I see."

Aang grinned and shrugged.

Toph nudged Aang with her elbow and said, "So, are these ones related to the ones from the mirror?"

"Well," Aang said, "they mentioned Semblances, so they must've been from Remnant, but I didn't realize it at the time -"

"Remnant?" Toph asked.

"That's the name of our world," said Weiss informatively.

"Huh," said Sokka, "I guess we need a name for ours." He turned to his companions and said, "Whaddaya think, guys? We need something bold, something striking, but at the same time something relatable, that rolls off the tongue . . ."

"Why don't we just call it Earth?" said Toph.

Sokka folded his arms and adopted a mocking tone. "Why don't we just call it Water?"

"No, really, think about it," Toph continued. "We say things like 'What on earth,' and, I mean, as far as we know the world's basically a giant rock."

"With a bunch of water on it!" Sokka protested.

"And air," Aang added lightly. "But Toph has a point."

Sokka grumbled. "Fine, but I get to name the next world. I'm thinking -" he spread his hands as though revealing the secrets of the universe - "Soktopia!"

Yang touched her chin thoughtfully. "Sounds like a place where everybody's lost socks end up."

"Ooh," said Sokka, "I hope so; I've lost so many socks over the years . . ."

"Anyway," said Katara, finally falling out of her petulant stance to push Sokka aside by the face, "I think what my brother was trying to ask earlier is - did you four come to our world on some sort of important mission?"

"No," said Ruby, without looking away from Momo, "we just fell through a magical rainbow thingy."

"I was pushed!" said Weiss, turning back toward the portal. "And I'd very much like t -"

She choked on her words as she saw that the portal was no longer behind them. Everyone began looking around (except for Ruby, still distracted by Momo), but the bizarre light formation was nowhere to be seen. Weiss began muttering, "No, no, no . . . !"

Sokka scratched his ear and said, "Uh, I'd say you could go back through the mirror, but it closed up too . . ."

"What is this about a mirror?" Zuko asked.

"Back at Toph's school," Sokka said, pointing a thumb at Toph, "there were these other two weirdos who just walked right out of a mirror. We were gonna tell you, but, y'know, then all this happened." He indicated the "all this" by tracing an hourglass shape with his hands in Team RWBY's direction, causing Blake to glance away and Yang to emit a small snort. With Ruby nuzzling Momo's nose and Weiss's head still darting around fretfully, Sokka then tapped the side of his chin and asked himself, "What were their names again? Joan and Pyro? Jean and Peru? Jan and Peter?"

"Jaune and Pyrrha?" Blake offered.

"No, that wasn't it," said Sokka.

"Wait," said Yang, "are Jaune and Pyrrha here with you guys?"

"They went back through the mirror," said Katara. "They might still be here if Sokka didn't practically attack one of them -"

Sokka rounded on her tearfully and shouted, "She's crazy about him and he's totally blind! Sorry Toph. They need to be together!"

"Definitely Jaune and Pyrrha," said Yang with a nod.

Weiss cut in with passion to match Sokka's. "Is nobody going to talk about how we can't get back to Remnant?!"

"Well," said Blake, "if Jaune and Pyrrha were here, then it sounds like multiple portals are opening and closing. All we have to do is find another one."

Weiss opened her mouth to complain again, but, her eyes falling on Zuko's blimp (around which the royal guards were milling awkwardly), she closed it, looking pensive.

"Besides," said Yang, "we just got here! There's gotta be something cool we can do with these guys before we leave." She turned to Aang, who broke into another wide grin.

"I have an idea," he said, and he turned back toward Appa and took off.

One by one, the rest of the group began to follow, until only Zuko and Weiss were left standing awkwardly behind. At the same time, each of them raised a hand toward the departing group and began to speak - Weiss of portals and the tournament and Zuko of the reported spirit attacks - but, glancing sideways at one another, they both stopped.

There followed repeated mutually-thwarted attempts to steal more glances at one another, neither sure what to say.

Zuko coughed.

Then, finally, he looked at her and said, "Nice scar."

Azula was silent and immobile for far longer than she needed to be, just to make sure the peasant understood his place. She did not need to see the man to tell that he was perspiring; that his heartbeats were heavy and frequent. Finally, like a conductor bringing a long-held fermata to its end, she broke the tension.

"It is adequate," she said.

The man's sigh of relief was audible. He performed the traditional Fire Nation bow - actually getting it right this time - and she waved him away.

Azula closed her eyes, and reopened them to once again reveal the blue flaming effect that still caused her no pain. A light breeze danced around her as she rose off the ground, floating slowly forward toward her newly-constructed throne.

It was a first draft, to be sure, but as she had said - adequate. It was certainly large enough to allow her to sit well over the head of the village's tallest member, and the palanquin-like tent overhead did an adequate job of recreating the atmosphere of the throne room back home. As did the surrounding fire pit, which, once she was seated, Azula brought to life with a mere snap of her fingers. The firewall flared briefly red before heating up to her signature shade of blue.

Though outwardly showing it no more than she had expressed any of her thoughts to the throne-builder before speaking, Azula still had to marvel at how easily she could firebend with the "gift." It was both similar to and very different from the effects of Sozin's Comet: where that had massively amplified each burst of fire but left unchanged the bending forms required for a given type of maneuver, this was more of a lessening of the effort required for control coupled with a smaller but significant boost to firepower.

And of course . . . Azula thought, and she pointed two fingers at the ground next to her throne. The paved road cracked at their scrutiny, and from the center of the web rose a solitary green vine, which continued growing until it reached just above the Fire Princess's outstretched hand. Just as swiftly, a bloodred fruit bulged into existence on the end of the vine, sinking neatly into the conjuring hand, which lightly broke it off at the stem. Immediately afterward, the remaining vine withered and shrank until it collapsed into a tiny pile of brown dust.

Azula examined the fruit. I can't even identify it, and yet I created it. How bizarre. She took a bite.

Hmm.

It is adequate.

Her continued consumption of the fruit was interrupted when, to her just-visible irritation, someone approached her throne. Though acting wary of the firewall, the peasant lowered herself to her knees and bowed her hands to the ground, again showing proper form for the first time in a while. How long did it take one dirty little village to learn a few simple bows?

"My humblest apologies for the interruption, Phoenix Queen," said the girl.

Girl? Azula gave herself pause for thought. She's well older than me.

"Old enough to be your mo -"

Azula crushed the remains of the fruit in her hand.

"What do you want?"

The girl - woman - flinched at the harsh tone.

"It's - it's my sister, O Queen," she said. "She - she hasn't come back yet. That is - the gates have already closed, and she's still, um -"

"The gates close at sundown," Azula snapped. "Do you want a village full of Grimm? Because I can certainly arrange it."

"N - no . . . of course not - My Queen. But, um . . ." Through the frolicking blue flames, Azula saw the tears form in the peasant's eyes.

That's quite enough of that.

"A sign of weakness to be sure."

Go. Away.

"Compose yourself," Azula said aloud. "I'm not heartless. Take whoever you like and form a search party. Tell the gatekeeper I said to let you out."

The peasant wiped her eyes and stammered, "Oh, th-thank you, Great Phoenix Queen . . ."

Azula used a puff of blue fire to dissolve the squished fruit in her hand. "Hurry along now. The Grimm won't wait for you."

The woman bowed her head, turned, and ran off.

Azula waited several moments before turning to the guard who had been standing silently to the left of her throne the whole time.

"Remind the gatekeeper," she instructed him with a cold expression, "that I never said to let them back in."

"Aang," said Katara, "are you sure we should be doing this?"

"No, this is awesome!" said Ruby. "Weiss, hold Crescent Rose!"

"What? Oof!" Weiss caught Ruby's folded weapon and was knocked to the ground by the impact.

"Alright!" said Sokka, one arm holding Momo up like a flag as he stood just to the side of Ruby and Aang. "Super airbending running speed versus whatever the flower petal thing is. First one to reach Appa wins!"

Aang had persuaded Appa to move further away, where he now stood looking back at the group absently. Aang and Ruby both half-crouched into preparatory stances.

"On the count of three," Sokka said. "One . . ."

Blake, who had ended up next to Toph, pointed at Aang and whispered to her, "So he's the protector of your world?"

"When you put it like that," Toph answered, "our world is pretty cool."

"Two . . ."

"Gooooo Ruby!" Yang shouted.

"Go Aang," said Katara unenthusiastically. But then she smiled.

"Three!"

Weiss had just gotten to her feet when she was knocked down again by the burst of air and rose petals.

They were even for a few seconds, eying one another to monitor the difference. Ruby started to pull ahead, and in response Aang, without missing a beat, formed and mounted an air scooter, which shot him into the lead. The immobile Appa rushing toward them, Ruby made a last-ditch effort and heaved her body forward with a spinning motion; her red cape wrapped around her and obscured her figure, giving her the appearance of a cigar-shaped flying drill, which tore through the air and surpassed the young Avatar once again.

Despite her speed and drill-shape, Appa barely reacted when Ruby smacked into his side, her face burying itself in his thick white fur. And despite having lost the race, Aang was laughing loudly when he rocketed past them, and continued until he had returned (via air-jumping over Appa's back) to help Ruby up. Their friends also made varying kinds of cheering noises from back at the starting line, and started moving toward them at differing rates of speed.

"Wow, you can really get going there," Aang said to Ruby.

"Yeah," she replied with a sort of embarrassed swagger. "It's hard to keep up for long though."

Sokka arrived first, followed shortly after by Yang; Weiss and Zuko walked the most slowly, apparently having a private conversation.

"Alright," said Sokka, "one point to, uh - what was your fancy group name thing?"

"Team RWBY!" said Ruby.

"Ah," Sokka chirped, "like Team Avatar!" He rounded on Katara and Toph and said, "I told you it was a good name!"

"Wait," said Yang, "so 'A' for Aang, 'V' for . . ." She slowly pointed her finger around the group, but found nobody whose name began with the letter. "No . . ."

"Eh - vee?" Sokka asked with a raised eyebrow.

"See," Yang explained, "it's not just like 'Team Ruby' because Ruby's the leader; it's spelled with a 'W' because it's the first letters of all our names. 'R-W-B-Y;' Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang."

Team Avatar appeared completely perplexed by this rundown.

"Are-double-you-bee-why?" Aang recited.

"I don't get it," said Toph.

"Here." Ruby pulled out her scroll, tapped at it, and held it in front of Aang's face. "RWBY" was displayed on the screen, with the face of each girl above the corresponding letter. "See?"

Sokka snaked over next to Aang, staring at the scroll intently. "What is that thing?"

"They have all these crazy machines in their world," Aang explained. "But anyway, I - I guess they use a different writing system?" As Ruby stowed the scroll (to Sokka's dismay), Aang flipped out his staff and started drawing lines in the dirt before him:

安
昂

"That's how we write my name," he said.

"Looks complicated," said Yang.

"It kinda looks like a chicken and a monkey," said Ruby, squinting.

"Or Neptune dancing," Blake mumbled.

A white high-heeled boot stomped down on top of the carved characters. "You'll be happy to know," said Weiss to her surrounding teammates, "that while our valiant leaders were goofing off, the Fire Lord and I have come up with a solution to our problem."

"Problem?" Ruby asked.

Weiss leaned in close to Ruby's face. "Getting - back - home?"

"Oh, that."

Zuko pointed a finger skyward and said, "We'll scout from the air. Another one of those . . . rainbow . . . holes - should be easy enough to spot."

"If we can't find one," said Aang to Team RWBY, "you could try meditation. I cross over into the Spirit World by meditating all the time!"

"But your body stays here, Aang," Katara pointed out. "They probably want to bring theirs along."

"Yyyeah," said Blake, "besides, I can't see Yang and Ruby meditating."

"What?!" Ruby protested. "I can too, watch!"

In her standing position, Ruby closed her eyes, held her hands up on either side of her head, and formed the right and left into "rock on" and "A-okay" signs respectively. Then she quickly sucked in a breath and hummed, "Oum . . ."

Not five seconds later, a moth beetle buzzed past her ear, and one eye snapped open in response. As the bug passed in front of her face, she blew at it, but this only appeared to entice the insect, as it then landed on the end of her nose. She quickly devolved into increasingly hectic attempts to swat at it, which it weaved through lazily; when she finally stopped to catch her breath, it returned to her nose immediately.

This rather adorable scene was suddenly interrupted by a distant, panicked shout; everybody turned toward the source of the sound, even Momo, who had returned to Appa's back, and lastly Appa himself.

Some ways away, something was rapidly approaching. Two somethings - the larger in pursuit of the smaller. The smaller was a man, and not a particularly small one, dressed in standard Earth Kingdom garb. His pursuer was, quite simply, a giant scorpion - a match for Appa in size, sporting a black and white color scheme but for the glowing yellow end of its stinger. The man ran at full tilt and shouted incoherently again as he ducked under a swipe from one of the arachnid's front claws.

"Death Stalker!" Yang cried, pumping her arms to activate her gauntlets.

Ruby held Crescent Rose in front of her and it unfolded before Sokka, whose expression performed a synchronized transformation to open-mouthed amazement in the background. After Ruby used a blast from the scythe to propel herself toward the scorpion, Sokka pulled out his comparatively tiny boomerang and stared at it sadly.

Team RWBY went to work. As usual, it was visual poetry, and would have been accompanied by equally incredible music were it not for certain pitfalls of reality. Sokka fell to his knees in awe as he watched the battle unfold, and amazed stares were in no short supply among his comrades, though Aang's look was more of pained realization; he failed to acknowledge the fleeing Earth Kingdom man as he ran up and hid behind the considerably shorter Avatar.

When, in under a minute, the last severed piece of the monster fell to the ground and Team RWBY returned to the larger group, Sokka, still kneeling, clasped his hands together and whimpered, "Can I marry all of you?"

Ruby blushed heavily in flattery, and her team reacted with less extreme versions of the same response.

"Uh, don't know if I'd go that far," said the Earth Kingdom man, emerging from behind Aang with a large smile, "but thank you, thank you for saving me, uh, magical monster-slaying ladies!" Then he jumped as though startled, startling everyone else. "Oh! But, uh, there were more, uh, more monsters heading for my village! Uh, do you think you could help, uh, more? Please!"

"It's what we do," said Yang with a nod.

"Aang?" Katara had noticed that Aang had remained immobile, staring at the remains of the Death Stalker, which were dissolving into black smoke. "What's wrong?"

Slowly, Aang's gaze shifted to her, before moving on to Zuko. When the Fire Lord realized this and returned the eye contact, Aang said dourly, "They're not dark spirits."

For those who didn't get the joke, when you meditate, you're supposed to say "ohm." Ruby instead says "Oum." Yeah.

If you want Team Avatar's names in Chinese, it's actually easier to go to the TV Tropes character page than the Avatar Wiki. Anyway, Katara's been a bit sidelined so far, but we'll get some scenes from her point of view eventually. Fair warning: things are about to get a little "Volume 3" up in here.