Pre-Chapter Note: Hi all! Welcome back to the next part of The Impossible Odds! Mostly called it that because that's what I felt was going on throughout the source movie, trying to prove the impossible was possible. So, in case anyone was confused, there you go.

Now, I said in Chapter 1 that Lola Ripple was my youngest sister, right? Well, I wanted to make JoAnne be that part, but had inadvertently never actually said it, so… I replaced it myself little ways in. Lola won't be seen until at the very least the part where Ember shows up at his place for the first time. Also, I just realized I made several typos within the first few parts. Ah well, if you find them, you'll know what it's supposed to say.

All that said… is the spoiler warning even necessary anymore? However, that's still obligatory, just don't want to ruin it, that's all.

Time for some beef with Mr. Lumen, and then some. Here's Part 5!

I was starting to get used to being up for my City Hall shifts without someone nagging me that I'd be late for such shifts, and in so doing, no longer needed my alarm clock to wake me up, despite me continuously thinking about Ember in my dreams, something I'm sure would've made me snooze all morning. I get to work, clock in, and then I realize that my boss wasn't in again, to an extent. She'd be running late today, so, this gave me time to peer around and see if there was anything to do before I was sent to those canals again.

First thing I witnessed, the same person that covered my clients in cement, the same person that caused the water contamination disease 3 years ago, the same person who made me nearly ruin someone's legacy, FINALLY was being terminated & arrested! What happened, you may be asking? Well, let's just put it at they finally found out he'd been lying just to make things break his way. I was overjoyed to see this! I also saw a few people talking about me from yesterday during my moments in the fountain. I just went on and on with some of them about how crazy awesome it was. Before someone who was filling in for Gayle finally told me to clean some more of what was left behind, because they ended up doing another inspection on the canals sometime overnight and, long story short, the amount that they left behind was even worse than they thought it was.

"Oh, and try not to get involved in a whirlpool this time." My colleague replied, making cruel jokes involving when I got sucked down a whirlpool a mere few days ago. "Yeah, uh huh." I unamusingly replied. And I get to work immediately. I had a major brainwave, "What if they cleaned the problem areas without my knowledge? Are they seriously making me their verifier again?"

Despite that brainwave, I still cleaned the problem areas within the span of about 3 hours. For us water people, it's actually not too difficult to get rid of motor oil from a single location. And of course, everything was going without a hitch, until I found myself at the same patch of oil that put my life in danger, not once, but twice now. I was about halfway done cleaning it when I heard something that didn't sound right. It took me one good look to see what was going on.

The sandbags weren't exactly working, as water was now leaking through these bags. "Oh hell no!" was my first thoughts seeing this. While cleaning the rest of the oil patch, I started thinking of how to handle this. Ember obviously needed to know, since it was her problem mostly, not mine. But… where the heck was I going to tell her? I kind of just wanted to wait for another whirlpool incident at this point but got a slightly better idea. One that I didn't know would suck.

I was going to deliver myself to her in an order of flowers.

So, after I finished every single patch of oil, which took about another 2 and a half hours, I found a boutique store nearby. Yup, the same one I worked at briefly. I didn't think that half the people that worked here would still recognize me, but they did. Some of them saw my badge, and jokingly became worried about me reporting their business. Truth was, since I got slightly contaminated from here, it's been in the back of my mind to do so, but I've since heard they've cracked down on people that had the sole purpose of contamination and banned everyone that did so.

A few moments later, after I pick my flowers…

As I go to pay for these, I give the cashier there my intentions.

"Yes, I'd like to have these delivered… but in purely one of the most unorthodox ways possible." I started. This boutique's specialty? Crazy deliveries.

"We've had crazy deliveries over the years, you're not the first, and you definitely won't be the last person to make this kind of request. Now, what would you like for us to do?" The cashier responded.

"Well, I'm going to be making this delivery to Ember Lumen at The Fireplace, assuming your team knows where that place is. However, I need to get in in such a way that the owner doesn't see me at all. I'm sure you heard about him?" I spoke. Well, I wasn't expecting the delivery person to know what I was talking about, when I saw her peer around the corner.

"I can get you there! I've delivered to Fire Town before, shouldn't be a problem!" the delivery person said. For it was true, I've seen her deliver to Fire Town on several occasions during my time with them. So, I told her how I wanted it to be delivered, which required me to briefly be deformed so the water from one of the glass vases could be emptied without the flower escaping the vase.

THIS! SUCKED!

For one thing, there was VERY LITTLE ROOM in here! I felt like I was going to die, again. Officially I could call this worse than that of when I deformed my body for that shortcut from a few days ago. This whole process took a good 15 minutes, as this delivery person ended up knowing the entirety of Element City inside & out, so knew a back door type route to The Fireplace. Keep in mind that this normally takes about 25-30 minutes, unless you request it to be delivered via the train.

But, we finally made it to The Fireplace. The front door was bust open by her, then I'm beginning to think, "Oh FINALLY!"

I was relieved to be here. And I could see just why this place was made without any trust from us water guys. In the smack middle of the banned people list, sat Max's photo. Which made me internally angry. The way she announced this delivery made me want to pop right out and just tell her that it wasn't how I planned it, but I couldn't bring myself to do so, given Ember's parents were around. I still was in hiding.

Soon as this happened, Ember swiftly took every single vase and ran down the steps with them; all the while I kept on wanting to tell her to be careful with these, I didn't want another flood to happen here.

"SAM WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" Ember was less than impressed that I stopped by on such a busy day at the shop as today, meaning I didn't think she had any time for me at all. "Uh, Ember… don't freak out, but… the sandbags didn't work at all." I said, rather calmly, whilst returning to my normal form.

"Uh, OBVIOUSLY!" Ember responded. Wait, so she knew about this? I wished I knew this earlier. And speak of, something else hit me. Remember this morning when I saw that liar get terminated? His lies about me covering them with cement made it so I couldn't call them for ANY reason!

"Yeah, and… I just remembered something else… turns out that person that made me nearly ruin a legacy… covered half of my clients in cement, and chose to blame me instead, and I might've been told not to call them for any reason anymore." I clearly was panicking at this point.

"But that deadline is tomorrow!" Ember freaked out in this response. "OKAY BUT SHE SAID BY ANY MEANS!" I snapped, realizing I probably shouldn't have done that. I took a moment to calm myself, then responded "We'll just find another way to seal off those doors by tomorrow. Shouldn't be that big of a problem."

"Yeah, but I'm still worried about the entire ordeal! You're lucky I haven't told my parents AT ALL yet!" I could tell Ember was still freaking out. The purple flames said it all. And it was true, she hid the entire thing from her parents.

"Okay! Okay! No need for the purple flame!" I exclaimed, maybe a little dramatically. They'd soon subside. "Sam, look, I'm sorry, just I can't deal with it right now." Ember said after calming herself. We started coming up with how to handle this when suddenly I could hear an ominous voice coming from the upstairs area, otherwise being the main shopping area.

Bernie Lumen!

This name was hated by more than half of the water community! I mean, I already explained why, because water people were basically discriminated against by him any people of our kind enter the shop, that is the gist of it all though.

And I was trapped in that moment. No way I was getting out of this.

"Everything okay down here?" Bernie said, making his way down the stairs.

"Please don't harm me… please don't harm me… please don't harm me…" I kept worrying about what he was going to do if he found me here. Be it boil me alive or put me out. But he did nothing, instead looking all intimidated.

"Wait… WHO IS THIS GUY?" was all he could say after noticing me. "Is this the same guy I see you chase?" he'd ask to Ember. To which she had to lie about it just to not make it look suspicious by any means.

"Uh… no! Different guy, actually. Not all water looks alike!" Ember said in such a panic to her own father. Not all water looks alike? Uh huh, sure! I wasn't buying a single word she said but had to.

"Uh… I can explain!" was all I could say back. Just before he saw my inspector tag. I was screwed the second he did. "So you're an inspector!?" Bernie asked. I felt like this was some sort of passive-aggressive question, but I then got the excellent idea to try & make the best of the situation.

"Uh… no?" I said, trying to cover my tag up. I knew damn well I couldn't. The second it became enlarged thanks to my appearance, I just kept making a fool of myself. "I can assure you that I'm not an inspector!" I tried again. When it became clear to him & Ember as well that I couldn't hide my tag, I got steaming mad, but only internally again. Externally, I got even more worried.

"So you ARE an inspector!?" He then said more aggressively. As far as I know, if anyone was to talk to me aggressively, I wasn't listening. However, I just decided to act like a different inspector on the job. Not all inspectors look alike!

"Alright! Alright! You got me, I'm an inspector, but not a city inspector." I said, just trying to think of any other inspector job, before I settled on one that I've seen often.

"No, I'm actually a food inspector sir. Actually, I was supposed to have come last week, but I got caught up in other things I needed to do, so never did. So, this is actually overdue, and I apologize." I said. I even knew how to be a good liar.

"I think he's lying straight from his head." Bernie whispered to Ember before he somehow bought what I said, his mood changed immediately. "Very well, food is upstairs. Come!" He replied.

So, up the stairs I went. Clearly Ember wasn't having any of this. "FOOD INSPECTOR!?" she asked me angrily. "I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY!" I responded. This was followed by one of the most angriest groans I've ever heard.

5 minutes later…

Yup, an awkward situation was going on now. A little ways from where I was sat at, Bernie made the store's most well-known item, Kol-Nuts. I think just seeing how much he made was just trying to tell me something. "Yeah… I think he's up to something…" I thought. A short while later, I finally got the Kol-Nuts placed in-front of me. Joke's on them to an extent, this actually looked really good. "So, I assume this is the Kol-Nuts you so speak of?" I asked, but with no response other than him telling me to try these. "Alright! Alright! Don't rush me!" I said, slightly raising my voice.

With a little hesitation later, I finally get around to taking a bite of the Kol-Nuts. Bernie having some look of anticipation and/or was under the impression of being overjoyed. Ember on the other hand showed major concern. She knew she didn't want this to happen.

This would be EXTREMELY painful to bear! Come to find out, Kol-Nuts was edible to everyone, but didn't exactly have the greatest tolerance level to people like me. A whole reaction started that would've been nearly equivalent to that of an allergic reaction. I tried to keep my cool the whole time. The reality was, I enjoyed these, but this being a fire only piece of food, I couldn't keep it together as well as I thought I would. I dreaded this part happening, but a water bubble escaped me. And the worst part of that all? I was trying to keep it in. That's one thing I meant by trying to keep my cool. I internally freaked out, and externally was showing embarrassment. My day just got a whole lot weirder.

I regained my composure from that, then gave a sly thumbs up. They ended up cooling down in my body. "Wow… actually I liked those." I said in such a way that wouldn't make him think I was just doing this for attention. "They're slightly better cooled down though." I rambled. "What did you just say!?" Bernie responded. He must've heard me.

"NOTHING! Nothing!" I was quick to respond. I followed this up with "I just said I liked the Kol-Nuts I had, that was all."

His expression changed again. "Sorry, I thought I heard something else." He responded. I had to reassure myself every few seconds that things were going to be alright. I started getting second thoughts about having myself delivered here, I wondered if maybe I could've just given her a call from my phone, or just leave her a voicemail? Bernie went to prepare something else for me during this time. "You can't tell ANYONE what I actually said about the Kol-Nuts just now! Understood?" I quietly said to Ember, so as to not disturb would-be shoppers. Ember gave a slight nod, signaling the fact that she wouldn't say a word. "Good!" I followed up.

10 minutes later

And so, he returned! With something that would be even more intolerable. More Kol-Nuts, but imagine this version to a Flamin' Hot chip, only 10 times hotter. ACTUAL LAVA EXTRACT WAS ON THESE VERSIONS OF THE NUTS. My jaws were about to drop. "Try these! Straight from Fire Land!" Fire Land was the Lumen's old village, this was all pre-Ember, by the way. Speaking of her, she tried to get me to bail from these Lava Nuts. "Dad, those are too hot! Maybe DON'T give him these, and give him something like the Lava Java?" Ember responded. Of course, she was ignored straight on, and I said back to them, "No, no! I can handle this! I love hot food, so… no idea what you're talking about!"

Welp, here we go! I started with one Lava Nut just to get myself prepared for what was ahead of me. However, getting this in my body was easier said than done. My body straight up tried to reject it, which made me fall over backwards. Not even I'd thought this is how my body reacted to hot food. Don't get me wrong, I love me some hot food, but NOT THIS HOT! "Okay, yeah… for the record, I was going to pass you guys anyway." I said, trying to get over the excruciating pain from this creation straight from hell. Upon me recovering, I was simply thanked for even having the guts for having these fire creations. "If you don't mind… I'm taking some of these to go…" I said to myself, clearly directed at Bernie. I took several Kol-Nuts and put them into a mug. I then made the mistake of cooling them down… right in-front of him. I didn't think ANYONE was watching. When he gave me the death stare… I quietly said "Oh hell no…"

A short argument ensued after that. To make a long story short… I got banned from The Fireplace ever again! My banned photo being smack down in the center of that list, directly under Max's photo to make matters worse.

30 minutes later…

There wasn't any way I would go back to work after that. However, I still took the Kol-Nuts with me. I went to Max's place, with a small hint of lava in the dead center of my head. One set of me knocking on the door later, he shows up, and his first response was, "The heck happened to you!?"

"Welp, Max. I did it, I pissed him off!" I sarcastically responded. The lava in my head gave it away, as I welcomed myself here and while he was getting the lava out of my head (which BTW, didn't hurt nearly as bad as the lighter fluid incident), he wanted a bit more information, and the ironic part was, he knew exactly who I was talking about. "What did you do!?" Max responded in some way in which you're to believe they're mad at you, but this wasn't so. He always was like this; it was kind of funny.

"Oh… I don't know… maybe I just lied to him about being a food inspector knowing perfectly well I wasn't." I said to him. Even Max knew I was a good liar. "So… how were you caught? You don't ever get caught for lying, so that intrigues me." Max responded. In which I still had the mug with my cooled down Kol-Nuts in it, I revealed it almost on cue.

"It couldn't have been the fact that I took and cooled down these babies!" I said. If it weren't obvious by this point, Kol-Nuts were beginning to be my favorite Firish food of all time. Even offered one to Max as well. "Are you sure those aren't 5000 degrees?" He jokingly asked.

"Why else am I banned? No one cared or bothered to see me take them anyway." I replied. And yes, Max thoroughly enjoyed these too. The fact that I was able to mostly get away with this was hilarious. I go on with him for a few minutes about this whole scenario. Until his home phone rang.

Remember when Max gave The Fireplace his phone number? Welp… little did he know that someone would be calling from said place. "Tsunami residence, how can I help you?" Max answered, this is always how he answered his cell & home phone. "Hi… is now a bad time?" Ember would respond back. Yeah, she found his phone number while trying to contact me by any means. Truth was, she too had a cell phone, but I never exchanged my phone number with her. Max didn't recognize this voice, however, and thought this was a spam call. "And who am I speaking with? Not a spammer, hopefully!"

"No. No. This is Ember Lumen." She responded. Then it hit Max. "Wait, so y'all changed your mind about me or what?" Max responded back. No, Ember just wanted to talk with me on the phone. So, I did.

5 hours later…

Ah… the beach. Normally a popular getaway area in Element City, however, this part of the beach Ember & I were at now, not so much, especially not in the middle of a sunset. Part of me didn't regret anything from earlier. Ember & I sort of just laughed it off at that point when she inadvertently was recalling that moment today. All was going well here until I noticed that something was off with Ember.

"Ember, I… I think you may be hiding something from me." I said, showing concern at her.

"Oh uh… what? No!?" Ember was trying once again not to show any signs of being upset. "Ember, believe me, I know a liar when I see one." I wasn't playing around at all at this point.

"Sam… I… sigh, I know you once said life wasn't easy for you. Truthfully, it's been much harder for me than it has been for you." Ember responded. I started to question if this was a genuine comment or not. "Are you just saying that to try and make me feel better or…?" I replied.

"NO! What are you…" Ember started, then pulled herself together. I was half the reason she was able to control her temper even better and was much calmer around people, even those that kept pushing her beyond her limits.

"I meant what I just said. Life has been much harder for me. Aside from me being denied my only chance to see a vivisteria tree, I've faced other challenges. Because I'm made of fire, there's been many more things I've been denied that you probably weren't. I wasn't allowed to get the same education as you, I couldn't get the same health care, in fact, half of the hospitals and doctors' offices don't allow my kind at all, and I really couldn't do anything at all other than supporting the shop. Even then, I even questioned if it was worth it at all, or if I should just tell him the truth." Ember said.

"Ember, I'm just worried your parents are trying to make you into someone you don't want to be." I replied. This was technically the truth. I even saw it in them today. "I know what that's like. I have another friend that was also a daredevil type of person, but basically had to admit that he was forced to be that type of person by his own parents, who loved to live their lives dangerously, even had him conceived in one of the most life-threatening ways possible. When he was threatened legal action for crashing an invite-only party, he confessed everything to the authorities, thus taking his parents away from him, at that point he just… began a new life." I replied. I would also go on about more than just this moment.

"As easy as I thought my life would've been, because, you know, the whole theory of Water, Air, & Earth getting absolutely everything in life, free of any worries. That isn't so. I had several traumatic experiences. From everything I mentioned about the divorce, my grandparents' death, amongst other things. I kept thinking during some of these events that I wasn't worth anything at those points, a fraud even. I just taught myself to keep moving forward. But, the divorce was stemmed from something that I never talk about with anyone, not even with anyone I trust, it's that upsetting." I said, showing more empathy.

What was that event, you ask? I too was denied my opportunity to see a vivisteria. I was this close to seeing one, had it not been for my dad being way too excited to see the tree, and went off without me while I was taking a photo with my school friends. That was 10 years ago. Even then, I knew I couldn't share this with anyone, because everyone I knew would go under the impression that I was neglected, when in reality, I wasn't. I was just forgotten, and he didn't realize until it was too late. Remember the person that I attempted to plead Ember's shop with the first time around? Yup, that very person helped me through everything, even found my father and got him back to me.

Something in this response I gave hit Ember harder than that I would've thought. Looking more upset and blaming herself for everything that's gone wrong with her life.

"Ember, please. You did nothing wrong. Don't blame yourself for your life not going how you wanted it to if things go wrong. Mistakes only make us stronger." I replied. Well, that confirmed Ember was being turned into something she wasn't.

"I don't know anymore… maybe I'm just a mess… and I feel like a bad daughter." Ember replied with a noticeable delay in all those statements, looking like she was about to cry. I hated seeing anyone like this, even my own family. I went and said something on a whim in hopes of making her feel a little better.

"I don't think you're a mess at all. I think you're more beautiful, actually." I replied. To my surprise, it did make her feel a lot better, she was internally smiling at that point, I think it was something she needed to hear. I guess one person or statement can make a difference.

A few moments later, and the sun finally set, it was now nighttime.

I don't even know how at this point, but Ember was beginning to remember something I said a while back. Which was an even lighter topic than what we were just discussing. "Maybe you're right when you said that my temper was just me hearing something I wasn't ready to hear." Ember said, realizing at that point that maybe taking over for her ashfa (father in Firish) wasn't such a good idea.

I was listening, but noticed something else that no other element could do. Fire people had the ability to turn sand into glass. When I took notice, I couldn't help but point it out. I was that amazed.

"Ember… you may want to have a look beneath you." I said. So, she did, confirming the very fact that she, rather unintentionally, had an ability to make anything glass related with sand. Not like she could already repair anything with broken glass. With this in mind, she took a tiny piece of the glass, made it into a circular shape, and made something in this very glass ball. That thing would turn out to be a vivisteria. It looked beautiful.

"I don't think I've ever seen anything more life-like than this…" I quietly said.

A major epitome came over her right then. Remember when I mentioned that the sandbags didn't hold up at all? Welp, now we may actually have a way to make it hold, at least until someone could come and find a new solution.

"I think I know how to seal those doors! Come on!" Ember said rather enthusiastically. I knew what she was on to, so, back to that very canal spot we went.

Over the course of the next 65 seconds, I'd be blown away. The way she made the glass wall, I just… couldn't believe it. I had absolutely no words to say. And when she was done, of course, came the moment of truth.

No water broke the glass immediately! It worked!

Both of us were excited by that point! It was basically what they needed for the citations to be forgiven. Burn in hell to those citations that should not have been sent in the first place!

"Alright! All that's left for me to do is to let Gayle know about this all! I'll be sure to let her know tomorrow." I said. At that point, I couldn't contain myself, and came close to crying, only this time, it would've been happy tears.

Ember took notice and came under the assumption that I was upset. "No, no! I'm not upset! I've just never seen anything more spectacular as this!" I reassured her.

Shortly after, her & I caught a nearby train, and I took her back to The Fireplace without either one of her parents knowing. Parting ways with her was a little hard that night. I knew I wanted to make my family quit begging me and just… bring her back to my place one day. I finally expressed this idea to her.

"Wait! Ember, one more thing… my family is seriously begging me to have you over one day. Any chance you might come over so they can quit begging me at this point? Because it's starting to anger me trying to tell them that I can't. Even after explaining why, they don't listen." I said.

Ember was seriously considering this for a good minute. She knew she wanted to, but couldn't, however, she didn't want to say no to this at all.

"Look, Sam. I know you're showing major affection for me, as I am to you. But… I just don't think I can make this work at all. Plus, my ashfa is still holding a massive grudge against you, you don't understand that I now have to hide my feelings for you whenever they're around, which is all day, every day. They're watching my every move I feel like. I mean, I'd love to meet the rest of your family, don't get me wrong, but even you understand why I can't." Ember responded. Again, she didn't want to turn this down entirely, but felt like she had no choice.

"Oh… right." I said with a look that made it feel like I forgot something in terms of getting bad news delivered to me. I then found something nearby and put the address for where I lived on it and handed it back to her. "If you ever change your mind, then this is where I live." I said. I also had Ember's vivisteria creation, and right as she was about to head in, I stopped her once more. "Ember!" I called out.

Ember walked back over at that point; I half expected her not to.

"I almost forgot… I saved this for you. Didn't want you to forget about it." I said, holding out her vivisteria glass ball. So, she took it instantly. "Thanks for doing that for me." Ember responded. "Ah, don't mention it. Anyways, I'll be heading off now. See you around." I responded back.

"Same to you Sam." Ember responded. Ember was sure at this point that we may actually be going somewhere with our relationship. One train ride later, and I was home.

Of course, I had to lie about where the heck I was to my family so I wouldn't mention Ember to them. Because I knew that if I said her name again, I'm sure you know what'd happen at that point.

"But what about-" JoAnne started. "JOANNE! NO! I had no involvement with her today!" I responded back, knowing perfectly well I did. Let's just say she wasn't exactly the greatest at keeping secrets. However, the rest of my family somehow came to their senses about wanting to meet her, just accepting the facts that it probably wouldn't ever happen.

Little did they know this would all change, very, very, soon.

And that's Part 5 done and dusted! Even from my view, I just know that things are going rather swimmingly now.

I got nothing else to say, so I'll see you all in Part 6!

Have a great day/night!