June downed her shot in one gulp and looked at her huge opponent impassively. "Alright then, big shot, let's see whatcha got. You better not be a sissy like the rest of them." She lazily waved her hand toward a group of men that were lying against the counter pathetically, holding their sore arms.
The muscular man scoffed, taking a seat and facing her. "We'll see who the real sissy is once I'm thru' with you lil' girl." he threatened, voice slurring.
She distantly took notice of the sword tied to his belt as she extended her arm on the table.
"Bring it on!"
Just as June predicted, the guy was all talk. Not even a minute in, she had his arm pinned down.
The look of disbelief in his face was truly hilarious, causing June to lose her composure. She burst out laughing, bending over and holding her sides as her body violently shook with laughter.
The big guy slammed his fist on the table, cheeks reddening, and glared at the woman murderously.
"What are you laughing at, princess?!"
June's giggles slowly died down and she looked at the man in amusement. "You are all bark and no bite, ain'tcha?"
That comment from her was the last straw. The man jumped out of his seat, unsheathing his sword.
June didn't even blink, she was used to this reaction. Egotistical men having their ego and masculinity hurt after losing to a woman, so much so that they resorted to violence.
So predictable.
The bounty hunter narrowed her eyes as the man swung his sword at her. She was ready to block the incoming attack, but someone else beat her to it.
June watched, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline, as a metal fan clashed with the sword, stopping it.
The man looked down at the weapon in surprise, wide-eyes slowly moving from the fan to the one holding it. To his great shock and embarrasment it was another girl with short red hair.
Suki stared at the man, face hard as stone. "Move, we've got urgent business with her."
"We?" He muttered to himself as he looked behind the girl, only now noticing another figure standing behind her, clad in a black cloak with the hood up.
The embarrased man could hear the people that were sitting by the bar howling with laugher at the sight of him losing to not one but two different girls.
Anger rushing through him for being humiliated again, the man didn't back down. He pulled his sword back and swung it again, this time at the Kyoshi Warrior.
Suki's eyebrow twitched, did he not understand what urgent meant. She ducked under the sword and delivered a strong blow to the man's temple, making him slump back to his seat, eyes rolled to the back of his head.
June stared at the newcomer, looking annoyed at the girl for interrupting her fun. But she couldn't hide her curiosity.
The bounty hunter looked Suki up and down, kicking her feet up on the table
"You look kind of familiar, have we met before?"
"I was part of the Avatar's group that asked you for your help on the day the war ended. I need your help again." Suki told her, getting straight to the point. She didn't have time to waste on small talk.
The older girl's face flashed in recognition. "Oh yeah, I remember you." She casually stated, making Suki's fingers twitch in impatience.
June noticed it and smirked. "You had some urgent business, you said?"
Suki nodded sharply, before looking back and nodding to the person behind her.
June watched in curiosity as the man in the cloak came up to her, pulling out a bag of coins from the inside of his cloak and throwing it on the table.
"I see." She drawled out, looking at the bag of money before looking back at the two. Pushing her chair back, she got up. "Follow me." The two wordlessly followed her outside the bar and to the woods.
When they were in the woods, far away from everyone else, June sat down on a fallen log, facing the two. She smirked when the man's cloak blowed in the wind, revealing orange clothing under it which confirmed her suspicions.
"How long are you gonna hide behind that cloak, Avatar?"
She heard him inhale sharply, before pulling the hood down. "How did you know?"
June threw her head back in laughter. "You're not very good at this, are you?"
Aang grumbled under his breath, arms crossed. He thought he had done a good job. The reason he wore the cloak in the first place was so that he didn't get recognized by the people in this town, and it worked until now.
He was glad he chose to wear it. It saved them a lot of time, and it felt good to visit a town without being stopped every other second by total strangers.
He made a mental note to thank Hakoda for the brilliant idea whenever he saw the man next.
June looked at the Avatar more closely, licking her lips. It was hard to believe this was the same kid she met four years ago, he looked very different.
"You look good with hair." She observed aloud.
Aang looked at her weirdly, before shaking his head. "Never mind that, we need to get going already our friends could be in danger as we speak." He said, voice turning serious.
"We need you to lead us to their location."
"Fine." She said, before getting up and whistling sharply. It took less than a minute for the Shirshu to arrive, jumping from behind the bushes and running to his owner.
June patted him on his head and looked at the two, holding her hand out expectedly.
"What?" Aang asked, looking clueless.
June rolled her eyes. "Do you have any items that has your friend's scent on it, like used clothes or something?"
Aang's heart dropped to his stomach. He didn't have anything, they came all the way here for nothing. He didn't even know the Shirshu needed a scent to track down people.
Suki spoke up before he could freak out, interrupting the two.
"Does this work?" She wondered, holding up one of Katara's old water pouches she had packed with her just in case. June nodded, taking it from her hands.
Aang looked at Suki, his body slumping in relief. "Suki, you're the best."
The girl smirked. "I know."
June held up the empty pouch in front of the Shirshu. After sniffing it, he started pacing in circles before facing north. June fed him an apple as a reward and hopped on.
"Well, he picked up something, you guys got a way to travel?" June asked. "Nyla can't carry all three of us on his back for the whole journey."
Suki also shot Aang a questioning glance, the airbender nodded.
"We can ride on my bison but we can't get too close to where Sokka and Katara are, otherwise Appa will be spotted immediately by the enemy." Aang pointed out. "We want the element of surprise to be on our side."
June nodded in understanding. "I'll just stop before we get too close then."
"Thanks." Aang exclaimed, pulling out a whistle from the inside of his cloak and blowing on it.
As soon as Appa landed in front of them, Aang jumped on the saddle and helped Suki up.
"Let's go!"
They had been flying for two hours now, following June.
Aang sat on Appa's head steering the bison and Suki sat at the front of the saddle so she could talk to the airbender.
They were in the middle of a light conversation when Aang's head dropped down all of a sudden, chin nearly touching his chest.
Alarmed, Suki twisted her head to take a closer look at the airbender but with his head down and his hair covering his eyes, she couldn't properly see whether they were open or not.
Based on the way his body started going limp Suki assumed they were closed. Quickly, before the boy could fall from the bison, Suki grabbed his arm and pulled him onto the saddle.
She watched him, frowning. Now that she thought about it she hadn't seen Aang sleep or take a nap ever since they took off from the water tribe, not even once.
The Kyoshi Warrior crawled onto Appa's head and leaned down a little, being careful not to fall. "Appa, you think you can follow June without Aang steering you? It's best if we let him rest for a little." Suki whispered gently in Appa's ear, making the bison growl softly.
Suki took that as a yes and moved back to her previous position on the saddle, it was best for her to not steer Appa either since she had never done it before.
They could not risk losing sight of June now because of her poor steering skills.
Suki laid on her back and stared at the clouds, her thoughts drifting back to Sokka for the hundreth time since the boy was taken away from her.
Deep in her thoughts, she didn't notice the Avatar's body trembling. It was only when Aang's hand came up to clutch his chest that Suki realized something was wrong with him.
Concerned, she moved closer to shake the boy awake when he suddenly jolted up, gasping. The sudden movement surprising her.
"Aang?" Suki drew back, watching wide-eyed, as the airbender struggled to calm his heavy breathing.
"Are you okay?" Suki asked after a moment of silence, worried for her friend. His breathing had calmed down but he looked troubled.
Aang's tired eyes snapped to her's, forcing a smile.
"I'm fine, Suki." He replied, waving it off. Suki didn't believe him for one second.
Aang looked around, confused. "What happened?"
"You fell asleep and would've fallen to your death if I wasn't there to catch you."
Aang held back a flinch at her blunt statement, making sure to look unbothered on the outside. They didn't have time to deal with his personal problems right now.
"Huh, that's a first." He casually stated, shrugging.
His carefree additude when it came to his lack of sleep pissed Suki off. It made her think that she had imagined the whole thing.
She opened her mouth, ready to yell at him for lying when Appa suddenly dived down, startling them both.
Suki quickly grabbed onto the edge of the saddle and looked at Aang, shocked.
"What's happening?!"
Aang jumped shakily to his feet so he could see what was going on. After taking a quick look, he turned back around, face serious.
"I think we've arrived."
Suki's face lit up with nervous excitement.
Finally.
Aang jumped on Appa's head, stroking his fur as the bison landed. "You've done a great job buddy, I'm proud of you." The bison growled happily, making a genuine smile appear on the airbender's lips.
"Rest here while we take care of things, alright?"
As soon as Appa growled again, Aang jumped down, running to where June was, Suki following behind him. They were in a forest which confused the Avatar but he knew not to doubt the bounty hunter.
"June." Aang caught up to her, all the previous signs of fatigue gone from his face. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins, giving him newfound energy.
He was so close to seeing Katara again.
"Judging by Nyla's behavior the scent is really strong here, meaning we're really close to their location." She informed them. "if you run north from here you should soon arrive to wherever they are."
Aang nodded at the woman. "Thank you, June. We'll handle the rest from here."
June jumped on Nyla's back. "No problem, pleasure doing business with ya, Avatar." and with that, the bounty hunter took off, back to the direction where they came from.
Suki and Aang exchanged a look before they wordlessly continued, running north. Deeper into the forest.
Aang's eyes were alert while they ran, searching for any clues of the siblings' whereabouts.
Few minutes had gone by when he finally caught sight of something suspicious. He put his arm in front of Suki, stopping her in her tracks. "Look!" He pointed to a clearing where a big mansion was.
They walked a little closer to the clearing, before crouching behind a tree. The mansion itself wasn't what made the place suspicious, it was the mysterious figures surrounding the mansion.
"That has to be it." Suki spoke, wide eyes running over the building. "Sokka and Katara must be somewhere inside that mansion."
Aang agreed, nodding and rubbing his jaw as he examined the figures guarding the building, there were eight of them.
They had to be careful, Aang didn't even know who or what they were up against, all he knew was the information Avatar Roku gave him.
A powerful spirit, he had said.
Aang had a strong feeling that the powerful spirit Roku was talking about wasn't any of those figures that were guarding the mansion.
Where was he then, and how were they supposed to find him without endangering their friends' lives.
Aang groaned inwardly, where was Sokka when they needed his skills. The warrior would've come up with a plan by now.
Suki's quiet voice interrupted his musings. "What are we gonna do? There's no way we can sneak in, they are guarding all the entrances."
Aang bit the inside of his cheek in thought. Screw it.
"I've got an idea, you're not gonna like it though."
"Sokka, how is your stomach still complaining, we just ate food!" Katara finally lost her temper when Sokka's stomach grumbled for the fifth time.
Not too long after Malik left their room, two of his subordinates brought them warm soup with some water and wordlessly unlocked their cuffs so they could eat.
Katara was surprised by the hospility, considering they were kidnapped by a power-hungry maniac.
Her hands were still hurting though. She contemplated drawing out water to heal her hands when the cuffs were taken off but then decided against it, last time she tried that she angered their captor and got her hands burnt, It wasn't worth the risk.
She just had to endure it for now, she was used to worse pain anyway.
"You call that food? That was nothing more than an appetizer!" The warrior complained, looking annoyed. "They didn't even give us any meat, a man needs his meat!"
Katara was about to retort angrily but was cut off by a loud explosion outside, followed by cries and then more explosions.
They looked at each other, wide-eyed, as their thoughts went down the same road. "You don't think that's..?" Katara started, feeling a surge of hope and dread.
She was caught in two minds, she wanted it to be Aang since he was the only one that could defeat Malik, but she also wanted Aang to stay far away from this place because he was the person Malik was looking for.
It was a lose-lose situation as far as Katara was aware.
Sokka swallowed past a lump. "I don't know. I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you, it could just be the sound of a practice drill or something." But even as he said that, he could feel hope growing inside of him as well.
Suddenly, they heard footsteps approaching the room they were in. Both Sokka and Katara's eyes were glued to the door, heart pounding in anticipation.
The door to the room was pushed open, revealing a familiar face.
Sorry for ending the chapter on a cliffhanger. Things will get spicy in the next one, I can't wait to finish writing the fight scenes.
Also, I wanted to thank Bay and eiliakkailie for their reviews, they mean a lot. Thank you.