I missed it, but happy International Men's Day for a few days ago!

Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: A new type of bending? Well then, has to be steambending.

Zigzagdoublezee: Well, that's Lu Ten's theory. But Lu Ten has never met these men, so he may not be entirely reliable.

As Always, Please Review!

Gembul dipped his head into the river and took a long slurp, licking his lips happily, while Rinzen rubbed his head and told him how good he was being. Yue watched them for a moment, and then her attention was dragged back to what she was doing by a splash of water to the face.

"Concentrate," Katara chastised her. "In a real fight, that would have been a fireball."

Having judged that they were far enough away from the village, the team had landed to rest in a clearing in a forest by a river. Rinzen was tending to Gembul, Sokka and Suki were sitting watching with interest, and Yue was practicing her waterbending with Katara.

"I know," she muttered. "I'll try not to do that in a real fight then."

She settled into a combat stance, and Katara did the same.

"Come on Avatar!" Suki shouted.

"I don't mind who wins!" Sokka joined in, diplomatically.

Yue concentrated, feeling the rushing water as she prepared to strike, but before she could move she heard something.

The faint sound of drumbeats.

She straightened up in confusion.

"What's that?"

"What's what?" Katara asked, confused.

Yue held a hand up, and everyone hushed. Katara's eyes widened as she heard it. It was definitely coming closer.

"That," Yue said.

More sounds reached their ears, of voices, some seemingly straining with effort, some yelling in rage, others crying out in pain.

Yue began dashing for the treeline as she began fitting the pieces together in her mind.

"I think it's a boat," she called. "We probably don't want to be here when it gets here!"

Immediately Rinzen began coaxing Gembul after her, as the others stood up and began gathering their things. Suki and Sokka were picking up bags and draping blankets over themselves as they dashed for the treeline. Rinzen hid his bison behind a tree, and then rushed to Yue's side as a shape began to slide around the bend in the river.

It was indeed a ship, its hull painted blood red in the colours of the Fire Nation. A pennant hung from the mast with the insignia of the Firelord, confirming it.

Except instead of a steam-powered ironclad warship, like the ones she had destroyed in the Avatar state after leaving the Northern Air Temple all that time ago, this one was made of wood, and Yue could see rows of oars rhythmically rising and falling in time to the beating of the drums, driving the ship onwards. Another followed it, and then another, and another, until five of the craft were gliding past on the river. Each was a slightly different shape and a slightly different size, but all were painted red, made of wood and powered by oars. Cracking noises could be heard every so often, and the Avatar realised with a start that those were whips. The Fire Nation were whipping their oarsmen.

Yue pressed herself down lower behind the bush, hoping that her white clothes and hair wouldn't give her away and observing them with confusion. She really should have had some kind of hood installed, she realised. And why were the Fire Nation using galleys?

The decks were lined with soldiers, but there were a few holes above the waterline in the hull, and with a start Yue saw a face peering out of one, a young man, green eyes full of terror.

Yue started as she made eye contact with the man. The green eyes widened, and he mouthed something at her.

Help us.

And then he was borne away as the oars splashed up and down and the ship carried on down the river, followed closely by the others.

Suddenly she knew what this little fleet was. Those weren't frontline combat ships, they were prison ships, and they were carrying captives from the interior of the Earth Kingdom. In fact, the rowers must be prisoners too! She had to do something. She was the Avatar, defender of the downtrodden, and there were a whole bunch of the downtrodden right there who needed freedom.

She went to stand up.

Sokka grabbed her arm.

"Wait!"

"Why wait?" Yue rounded on him. "Those are prison ships! Those people need our help!"

"Yes they do," Sokka nodded.

"So why are you stopping me? We're waterbenders, stopping those ships should be easy."

"Yes!" Sokka raised his voice slightly. "We can help those prisoners, we can. Or we can help all the other prisoners."

Yue frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Those ships must be going somewhere," Sokka pointed out. "A prison on the coast, or some ship to take them across the ocean to the Fire Nation. If there are others there, we can follow these ships, track them to their destination, then rescue all the prisoners at once!"

"That will mean going into Fire Nation-occupied territory," Suki pointed out.

"And?" Sokka asked.

"Just putting it out there," Suki shrugged. "I've spent a lot of time in Fire Nation-occupied territory recently, I'll manage."

"We'll find a way," Katara said fiercely. "Hey, maybe one of us could deliberately get captured."

"No!" Yue rounded on her. "Too risky. I don't want to lose any of you. And we don't even need to, anyway. We can just follow these ships."

Yue looked down the river at the receding fleet. Then she sighed.

"Fine," she said. "We'll just walk into a Fire Nation prison, blow it open and get away with maybe hundreds of prisoners. What could possibly go wrong?"

She turned and walked deeper into the forest, where Rinzen was already beginning to load up Gembul. Blankets were folded up and things were being strapped to the saddle.

"When can we leave?" She asked.

"We should probably leave it a while," Rinzen replied, "We don't want to be spotted."

"Should we even fly at all?" Katara asked. "They might see us."

"I'm not walking to the coast," Sokka complained.

"We could get on Gembul's back and float down the river," Suki suggested. "Can he do that?"

"He can, but surely we'd be spotted?" Rinzen said.

Yue just sighed, looked back in the direction the ships had gone in, and hopped on Gembul's back.

"We'll fly low," she decided. "And keep a safe distance."

And then we'll fall upon these kidnappers with a vengeance, she vowed to herself.