Chapter Four: Discovery

Aang thought about everything that Wong Shi Tong had said, about there being a right way and a wrong way to do everything. He wanted to help Ed get back home, but he had no idea what Ed was capable of and how far he would go to do so. Actually, he knew nothing about him except that he knows how to use a science called Alchemy, he appears to be very smart, and he is trying to get home through the Spirit World. He might threaten the balance of the Spirit World, which would affect the Physical world in return. It might even get him home, but it could leave this world in an uproar if done wrong.

But, he remembered that he said there was a right and a wrong way, which means that if Ed finds the wrong way, all they have to do is steer him towards the right way, but will it be obvious which is right and which is wrong? Will they know right away?

"Hey, Aang," said Katara, coming over to him, "are you okay?"

"Hu? Oh, I'm fine," he said, not ready to voice his worries about Ed.

"You sure? We're over here trying to find information on the Fire Nation, but you just seem zoned out over here."

Katara could always see right through him, which made his heart leap. For her, he was an open book that never needed a whole lot of explaining. She was always so good at understanding him.

"Well, you heard what the Spirit and Ed said about the Spirit World," said Aang. "He intends to find a way to the Realm of Truth, which is considered off limits for a lot of Spirits. I can't help but wonder if maybe it's just too dangerous. I mean, I want Ed to get home, but I don't want him to do it at the cost of this world. He also said there was a right and a wrong way to do it. What if he ends up doing it wrong? What if we don't know right away that it's wrong? That's my job to prevent it, and I can't let him endanger our world."

"Aang, I understand why you're worried, but worrying about something you don't even know is going to happen is going to drain you and keep you from what we're doing. Ed is doing his research on the Spirit World while Sokka is rummaging through what documents he can find about the Fire Nation. We can talk to Ed about it later, but we can't stay in this library for forever."

Aang lowered his head a bit. "Yeah, you're right. I just can't stop thinking about it...I just can't shake this feeling that it could get really bad for us."

"And if things start to get bad, we will take care of it then," she said, trying to say and do everything she could to reassure him. She smiled as she looked at him, trying to change the mood a bit. Though Aang only felt slightly reassured, he felt a whole lot better after talking to Katara.

Meanwhile, Edward was going through documents on the Spirit World, finding a lot of legends and stories about different Spirits mostly, but some documents were also hard fact. He was getting a lot of information about the Spirit World in general. He even found some interesting stories about some giant Lion Turtles and the first Avatar, but what he really needed was something about the Realm of Truth and how he could get there.

Maybe if I go back far enough in the dates I can find something… Ed thought to himself. This right here was about the first civilizations. Does it go back any further than that? Was there a Spirit World here before there were ever any people?

"Hey, Al, have you-," he started to say, only to remember that his brother wasn't there with him. His heart sank, remembering that he was in this by himself while his brother was maybe alive maybe not. He'd hoped that the transmutation worked, but that's part of the reason he wanted to get home so badly. He wanted to know for sure and without a doubt that his little brother was safe and in one piece.

He had to get Al out of his head for now, though, or he would never be able to focus and find what he was looking for, so he went back to looking through books and scrolls.

Several shelves down, though, Sokka was having just as little luck. He'd found lots of information on the Fire Nation, but nothing that would give them an edge in the war.

"Previous Fire Lords, Fire Nation Family Tree, The Founding of the Fire Nation," said Sokka as he listed off several of the volumes he came across while he looked for a title that would seem useful in his hunt.

Then, he came across a scroll titled The Darkest Day in Fire Nation History.

"This seems promising," he said, pulling the scroll off of its place in the shelf, but he opened it to find that part of it was ripped out.

"Oh, come on!" he said aloud, growing aggrevated.

"Hey, Ed, I thought you said that by doing...whatever it is that you did, you would have everything back in its place exactly the way it was," said Sokka, looking over at him.

"I did. Everything is exactly the way it was before it was burned," Ed replied. "Why?"

"There's a piece of this that was ripped out, and if it was put back to the way it was with what you did, then someone must have ripped it and taken it with them before everything was burned down."

"Your powers of deduction truly are astonishing," said Katara, walking over to her brother.

"No, this is big. Look, this says that it's suppose to be about the darkest day in Fire Nation History, but we can't read hardly anything about it because there's a chunk that was ripped out. All we have are some fragments of sentences that don't really tell us anything without the whole page, but look up here. There's a date written. There has to be a way we can find out what happened on that day."

Everyone, except for Ed, started looking through to find that date. Ed was looking at a book that seemed promising for his own cause. Katara looked over and noticed Ed fulfilling his own agenda and thought about saying something, but she knew he wasn't apart of their group. Ed has nothing to do with the war. He just wanted to get home.

"AHHH, There's nothing here!" Sokka yelled, getting less frustrated and more mad. "The Fire Nation is always one step ahead of us, and once, just once, it would be great if we could have the upper hand!"

Sokka had let out his anger, so he took a deep breath and said, "I need to know what happened to the Fire Nation on their darkest day."

Out of nowhere, a fox comes out and grabs the scroll from his hands.

"Hey! What the," he started, but he looked at the fox and a thought occurred to him…

"Professor," said Sokka, "What did the knowledge seekers look like? I think you may have said it before, but I can't remember."

The Professor looks at the fox and back at Sokka. "If you're implying that the creature before you is a knowledge seeker, you would be correct."

Sokka smiled and looked over at the little fox, er, knowledge seeker. "Can you help me?" he asked, looking at the creature.

The Fox dashed off with no sign, and with that everyone jumped up to follow it.

"Ed, aren't you coming?" asked Katara, looking back at him.

"Hm? Oh, I'll find you later. I think I've stumbled across some interesting information," he replied, looking back down at his book.

Katara nodded and started the run back towards the group as they followed the fox.

Ed looked down at the book before him with intrigued interest, but a loss of hope.

No...I could never do that...It's against everything I have come to believe in…

The book was most certainly everything he had been looking for, but some of the information held in the book he considered evil. Still, there has to be something in here that could be useful information...if anything, give me a lead as to what to do next...I better hold onto this.

*That's it for now! Thank you for reading, and for all of my fans from my aeartist18 account, thanks so much for your patience with me! I hope to update agains soon! Please review! :) I like to know what you guys think :)