Chapter 4 A Few Scams

The day after Sokka forged his awesome space sword, Aang wakes up telling everybody he was visited by Fire Avatar Roku in a dream and talked about the history between Fire Lord Sozin and Roku or something. Honestly I wasn't paying attention, too busy rising with Agni the Sun. The Fire Nation and Firebenders rise with the Sun, we call the sun spirit Agni. We have a special relationship with Agni. An Agni Kai is a technically fire meeting between two people for expressing grievances of honour. This is the Fire Nation get real "meeting" is a duel to the death for settling disputes. The victor claims honour, considered right and the loser is… well dead. Fire is the element of power and taught as the superior bending art above the other three. The solar connection is awesome, but has one closely guarded super top-secret weakness: When there is a solar eclipse, firebending does not work. No Sun, no firebending. If the enemies of the Fire Nation figured out the solar eclipse schedule, national security is basically gone. Judging by Sokka's tight schedule, I suspect he knows.

We are currently camped outside Fire Fountain City, named after the huge fire-breathing statue in the city centre. Fire Fountain City is a large industrial town on Shushon Island known for being a haven for gambling and other such activities and nobody goes out after dark if you value your life. Shushon Island is directly east of Capital Island, the largest of the Fire Islands shaped like a crescent. From Shushon Islands the rest of the Fire Islands string out in a northeastern line ending at my home island of Amami.

Katara and Toph are trying to train Aang to detect their attacks with earthbending. He is blindfolded. The idea is for him to dectect movement by feeling the vibrations through the ground. I say it is going ok. Not great, but not a disaster either. That changes after about five minutes. Katara and Toph have radically different teaching methods.

Katara angrily storms over to Toph after Toph hits her in the chest with a small pebble. "What is your problem, you're supposed to train Aang, not attack me."

The Blind Bandit yawns. "Yea, whatever Miss Fussy-pants. ¿Who made you my mother anyway? You can't tell me what to do. I'm busy teaching the Avatar earthbending. Now, if you excuse me I need to throw rocks at him. You two can play with water later."

Katara's eyes narrow. Uh uh. It's about to get real. Toph can't stand how Katara acts like her mom and Toph has parental issues. It devolves immediately into ta mud-wrestling match. It got really intense with scereaming, dirt, hair pulling and insults. My only thought was, I wish I had a bag of fire flakes. Sokka and Aang just stare in shock and fear at the scene. Aang comments, "This is crazy and not helping. I need them to get along. My seismic sense will not imporove like this." Katara, who likes to act like team mom, comments that we have only one silver piece left.

Toph shrugs, "No big deal, we can get some in town."

When we arrive in Fire Fountain, we can plainly see it is a rough place. Toph smiles, "This is my kind of place. We can win money from the scammers who think they can stif us. Watch the game." I see two men sitting at a table. The dealer has three shells that he spoins on a complex pattern. The goal is to pick which shell has the rock under it.

Toph decides, "Ok I'm playing." She places the silver coin on the table.

The dealer looks up. "Ok miss. ¿How lucky do you feel?"

Toph shrugs. Her plan is to use earthbending to scam the local con artists and gamblers. I have no moral objections, as the game is rigged against you anyway, so cheating is the only way to win. Katara crosses her arms showing that she thinks otherwise which Toph blows off. To the shock and annoyance of the locals, Toph wins the first game making two silver. So now we have three.

The dealer congratulates Toph on winning. Then he asks, "Do you want to make it more interesting?" Toph nods. "Ok let's put your friend's excellent sword and I put down twenty silvers."

Toph grins and snaches Sokkas space sword declaring, "I'll put forty." Sokka is outraged, but is too suprised to do anything else. The shells move lightning fast. I can't keep up. But Toph doesn't have to. She also notices the scammer trying to pull a fast one on us by sliding the rock up his sends it back under the shell without the dealer noticing. The shells stop moving. "I choose the middle one."

The con man smirks. "Sorry, kid -" His eyes bug out as the middle shell lifts off revealing the stone.

Toph winks, "I won thanks." The crowd is stunned in silence. Sokka grabs his weapon back and we sprint out of town laughing.

Back at camp I ask her, "Hey Toph, ¿why do you react like you do with Katara?"

She faces me pale jade eyes staring blankly at me. "I have issues with my parents. You see I come from a very wealthy family in the Earth Kingdom. They saw me as weak and fragile due to my blindness. Through earthbending I can see using my feet instead of my eyes."

My brown eyes widen in amazement. "Wow that's incredible. Earthbending has such cool sub skills. Firebending has only lightning, but I think there are other sub skills. I just need to find them, I know they exist."

Toph mentions, "Well in order to do that you need to figure out what firebending is first. ¿Like how does it work? Stuff like that."

I think for several moments. "Well firebending comes from within. It's pushing out your internal energy…¡Wait a minute, THAT'S IT! Firebending is about energy. Firebending is the transfer of internal energy outward as fire. It's a heat exchange between you and the air. Thank you Toph. I think I found one or maybe two."

Katara questions us on where we got he money to pay for the cooking supplies. Aang bluntly states, "Toph won it by playing these games against these shady con men in town."

Crossing her arms in disapproval, Katara states, "So you cheated a bunch of fraudsters. Can you please not make it a habit."

Toph blows air. "Oh come on I cheated a bunch of cheaters. I don't see how it's a big deal. And you have no idea how to have fun anyway."

I comment, "I see Soka has all the humor in the family."

Katara screams, "¡I can be fun!" She places Momo on her head waving his big ears around. I do not think it proved her point.

The next day we are in the Fire Fountain plaza for the local fair. Aang and I are doing tricks for the residents. Toph see some locals playing dice. They call us over. This game, unlike the shell one is about the dice. The dice has six sides each with a number one to three on each face. The probility of a number facing up is something I cannot calculate. The dice are made of stone with the number etched in. There are a ton of games you can play with them, though generally those are played using two dice with six numbers on them. Most board games advance you piece by hiting a number.

Toph rolls the firs die. To win, she needs both dice to show a 3. It lands on a 3. Toph tosses the second die. This one lands on a 2, but the stone falls forward slightly, showing a three. Ha Toph wins. Thew dealers are stuned. Yea we cheated, but it is impossible to prove it, so we did not.

We move down to another classic: the test your strength hamer machine. The goal of this is straight forward. Take the hammer and hit a spring pad launching a small stone up into a metal bell. I try it because it is fun and I really want to see my upper body strength. Ok I have none but I am working on it. My friend has no such issue. Toph steps up after my sad attempt. Hey quit laughing, I am 12, screw you. Toph pickes up the hammer. She breathes in and releases the stone. It rockets past the bell and soars into a nearby tent. I laugh as everyone's jaw hits the ground. Haha. Toph collects he rwinings. We now have a ton of money, this is going amazing.

The next scam is a bit more complex. There are a lot of really rich people who live here or just outside the city limits. Sokka has his guard uniform. I think he needs a better name than Wang Fire. It is so obviously a fake name. Only an idiot would fall for it. Most people are too intimidated by the uniform to get that far.

We wait until we see a carriage approach down the road. Toph steps out and bends a tiny pebble right in way of the front left wheel.

Toph shrieks in an overly dramatic way. Wow what an actress. The carrige screechs to a halt and this fat guy waddles out. He is big but I can tell there is no muscle anywhere. The lives of rich peole are really boring. ¿Are they all lazy slobs or is it just me. Personally if I was wealthy, I would be super fit and a master firebender.

Sokka in his costume marches up. The rich guy starts protesting. "I am terribly sorry miss, here is some money for you soldier. ¿Can we forget this ever happened for twelve bags of gold?"

Sokka smiles at the noble. "Yes sir. I did not see anything unusual on my patrol. Nope, nothing at all. The town is safe and secure. Carry on."

Katara goes nuts when we get back to camp. "¿Are you all crazy? These little scams have gone on far too long. You're going to get caught eventually."

Toph shrugs. "I don't care what you think of me. You need to relax and live a little."

Katara waves her arms furiously. "Be like you, some wild child with parental issues. You're only acting this way because you had controlling parents and now you want to get back at them by doing whatever you want. I don't think you really hate them."

Sokka left to go into Fire Fountain City to buy stuff at the market. He likes shopping and trying new food. He has an announcement when he returns three hours later. "First, I bought a messenger hawk. Now we can send letters to everyone. Even Gran-gran in the South Pole. And I found this." He unfurles out a sheet of paper.

I grab it as Toph looks around blankly. "This is a wanted poster for you Toph. Or as this says 'The Runaway'. Well they got the first part technically right."

Toph brightens up a lot. "I have my own nickname. This is so cool.¿Does the picture look good or show off my best features?"

Katara screeches, "¡I told you so! Now we have this on top of that three-eyed freak after us."

Her brother comments, "Oh right forgot about him. We need a better name like Sparky-Sparky boom man. If you don't like it I can come up with a better name later."

I state, "Well now you have enough money for the invasion, but I an not calling it that. You know because I live here."

Sokka muses, "Yea you're right, plus I have this idea for armour for Appa. And for you consider it less invasion and more like a liberation. It is clear to me that the Fire Lord is hurting his own citizens with the war. I might have enough for a good map. You know how I like expensive atlases."

Toph pulls me over. "It is nice having you around. This is the closest thing I have to a friend or sister."

While we were taking Sokka and Aang proved they were not smart. I know Sokka is highly intelligent. But then he will do something that makes me shake my head. Their idea was to use Sokka's bird to deliver an apology to Katara from Toph, forgetting one tiny detail. "I know this was from you Sokka. Toph can't write."

Sokka walks up to us. "Hey Toph, I know you do not get along with my sister because she acts like our mom."

Toph sighs. "This is the part were you say Karata is not that annoying. Blah blah blah."

Sokka looks over at his sister. "She drives me crazy, but I need Katara. After our Mom died." He glares at me because I directly represent the nation who killed her. "Katara ran the village while I tried and failed at playing soldier. Dad left with men of our tribe and I remained with Katara, gran gran and the couple women plus their toddlers. Katara has this need to always be right about know about everything going on. She can be very bossy, but I would be totally lost without her. I have never told anyone this, but I cannot remember my mom's face, all I see is Katara's."

Katara hugs her brother. "Thank you. I never knew you apreaciated me so much. I will always take care of you." She pauses. "Because you cannot be trusted on your own. You get into too many stiupid accidents. Oh and Toph, ¿do you want to pull of the ultimate scam? Your wanted poster says a thousand gold pieces for reward of your capture."

THE city police director thanks us when we were in his office. "Katara states, "The _ is the only reward. Saying that, I will take the money."

"Arrest them."

I turn around and come face to face with this buff guy. The most intresting feature is the third eye tattoo on his forehead. Uh oh. So this is Sparky Sparky Boom Man.

We are thrown into the cell with Toph. We are in serious trouble. The bars are made of wood, not metal. "Oh no, budget cuts. Wooden cells are cheaper than metal ones. Good news the two boys are not idiots. I can't bend us out of here. I could light up thre whole cell and we would just burn."

I realize something. "This whole thing was an elabrate trap, but not for us. This is all to capture Aang."

Katara sarcastically comments, "Gee, ¿how did you figure that out, using your Fire Nation education? I will file this under duh."

I glare at the waterbender. "You are mocking me."

She glares back. "¿You really needed to ask that? I was such an idiot. I knew we should have been more careful and stopped the scams."

Toph points out, "Um, this was your idea."

Katara retorts, "I wanted to prove I can have fun and am not the team mom all the time."

The blind bandit fires back. "Katara you are a fun person. I enjoy arguing with you."

This is great watching this. I wish I had some fire flakes. Toph and Katara arguing is solid gold entertainment. Not that I would ever admit that. I don't want to die.

After about twenty minutes, I hear explosions. "I believe that means Sokka and Aang have arrived along with Three Eyes."

Toph mentions, "We need bendables. I can't see any earth so we are left with water, which we don't have."

¿Bendables? Oh that's a great name. Although for some reason I am thinking of lunch. "We do have water. ¿Do you know that seventy percent of human body mass is water?"

Katara suddenly starts running in place. "On Ji, I take back the Fire Nation education comment. I am bringing out some of that percentage."

Toph exclaims. "Katara, you are a genius."

Katara slices through the wooden planks efortlessly. The power of water, high pressure water can cut through steel. We race out into the street. I see our assassin on the roof of a nearby house.

My eyes widen in total shock. "Agni, it's really possible. The ability to superheat air into a compressed beam of high-energy. I thought combustion was just a legend. We need to leave immediately or there is going to be nothing left of us."

Katara nods in confirmation. She bends an ice wall, which gets vaporized. In the confiusion caused by the vapor cloud we vanish. Racing back to camp, we throw everything on appa before taking off.

Sokka breathes a sigh of relief. "Anyway I have the perfect name for Sparky: Combustion Man."

Toph and Katara are in a corner whispering something. I assume it is very personal matter and I would rather not get involved. Katara attaches a letter to Sokka's messanger bird. It flies east toward the Earth Kingdom. Oh I get it: Toph's parents.

AN: Well that chapter is done, finally. I am totallyshockedpeople read this and actually enjoy it after all these years. The other chapters will come outmuch faster.