Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world.

----

The sky was cloudy above the southern temple when a naked boy ran through it. He’s bald and has tattoos lining his limbs and back that’s a light blue that ends with arrows on his feet, hands and forehead. This kid is running through this temple in search of something.

After a small search, he finds the small hut he’s looking for. Peering in through the curtains, he sees another naked boy sitting on the other side of the room, sitting in front of what looks like a skeleton. What unnerves him slightly was the fact that his spine was glowing, from the top of his head to his tailbone. The sitting boy turns to him and…

It’s the same boy, bald, tattooed and naked.

The glowing boy is suddenly enveloped in a sphere of air, destroying the hut. Turning around, the boy briefly sees two other people, a boy and a girl. They have darker skin, brown hair, and were both also naked.

Another gust of wind pushes him away, and when he gets to his feet, he’s in another temple.

Now he sits in front of a massive door, with piping lining it. Then the pipes begin to turn and the door opens. A brief bright light temporarily blinds him, and when he has his sight back, he sees his glowing double again, this time floating mid air surrounded by a light blue ball of light. The glowing boy raises his head to the regular boy, and breaths fire before slicing the ground below him, causing him to fall.

He lands on a metal war ship at night in the arctic. In front of the ship, rapidly approaching, is a giant being of pure blue energy. It has fish-like arms and face, while having a humanoid body shape. In its center is a white sphere, inside it being the boy's double.

The being raises it’s fin, to the boy's horror, and it slices down on the ship, and everything goes dark, but only for a moment.

----

Aang wakes up harshly and breathes heavily. His eyes dart around the area, searching for the next onslaught of his visage, but after a moment calms down slightly. When his eyes adjust, he sees he’s not in some random location where he did something major before, but in the interior of a decently sized Northern Water Tribe ship.

It was three weeks since the siege of the north ended, and while not a lot happened in that time, it sure felt like it. A decent chunk of the adult male population of the tribe were dead, all fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, betrothed, or friends. The first week or so nothing much happened, as the survivors needed time to heal and mourn.

One of the first big decisions made after the fighting was made by Waterbending Master Pakku, who would travel all the way down south to the South Pole with a select group of volunteer waterbenders and healers to help restore the connection to their sister tribe, among other reasons.

The trio decided after a little time that they’d leave with this group when they sailed out and stay with them for a bit of the first leg of this trip. This was so they could allow their flying bison, Appa, an easier travel to properly recover from the action of the battle.

In the meantime, since it would be a bit more than two weeks before they’d leave, the gang had some time to spare, and it wouldn’t go wasted. Since Pakku was satisfied with what he had taught her, Katara put all of her focus on getting as much healing knowledge as she could, since she had a feeling they’d face a lot more combat in the near future, and they’d need all the help they could get should someone get hurt. Of course, with the recent combat, she’d had a decent amount of live people to practice actual healing on rather than those mannequins.

Of course the hard part, both out of practicality and tradition, was the fact that healing was done naked. While she has had problems with nudity since the moment she left the South Pole with Aang all that time ago, this time was a bit different after a bit. While she was hesitant at first, mostly just providing minor assistance while being fully clothed, after a little bit of thinking (and a bit of prodding from healing master Yagoda about taking up space if she wasn’t going to be very helpful), she decided to start being more helpful in the healing of the wounded men of the tribe, despite the fact that she needed to bare it all to do so. Despite her increased confidence while in the classes themselves, doing it in front of a dozen men at a minimum was a bit unnerving for her. It was to her own surprise how easy it was after just a few days of this. So when the southward bound group where ready to go, she had a different view on the whole nudity thing. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was something.

Her brother had his own progress in his chosen field of learning as well in the downtime. He was advancing in his warrior training much faster than before the siege. Maybe it was because there were a reduced number of students in his class, or maybe it was because those that remained stopped poking fun at his, how you say, open dressing habits while protected from the cold. He was already a capable fighter before, but coming out of the barracks for the final time and he felt like a new man. Of course, he didn’t feel all that good, since he was still hung up on losing someone he loved.

Aang, on the other hand, found himself with little to occupy himself with. Sure, when she was available, Katara was there to train him further in waterbending, but this was pretty inconsistent. So the boy, even way up in the city of ice as naked as the day is long, found himself spending a decent chunk of time in the Spirit Oasis, a place where two koi fish, black and white, circled each other. In the days since the siege, he had made a few attempts to contact them, specifically the spirit that now inhabits the white fish, the new moon spirit, to personally give his thanks for her actions that night. No luck, they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, speak to him.

Not helping this were his nightmares of seeing himself when the Avatar spirit fully takes control, which would continue all the way up to when they left on that ship, to three days into the voyage where he’d wake up in a start.

So now fully awake, the fully nude boy climbs out of his hammock cot and walks up to the ladder. This motion causes Katara, who’s sleeping a bit away in a lower cot, to stir. She wakes up and turns her head to see the boy climbing up the ladder onto the deck. “Aang,” she says in a confused and sleepy tone.

Getting out of bed, she climbs up the ladder herself and ascends on deck. She sees him in the moonlight, standing against the edge of the ship, looking out into the sea. Walking up to his side, she says, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah, just a nightmare,” he says in a casual tone. “I was in the Avatar State, but I was left outside my body watching myself. It was scary.” He lowers his head and shuts his eyes. “I was scary.”

With nothing else to say, Katara places her hand on the boy's shoulder, and the two stand there for a good while, before returning to the lower deck to get at least a few hours of sleep.

----

It was just past dawn when they began to stir, and the three quickly found that there was something off with the air, but none of them could figure out what it was. Aang, Katara and Sokka get out of their hammocks and rub their eyes, stretch, or just do something to get themselves fully awake. It’s only when they fully back to their senses and all turn to the person one or two rows further down the bow that they understand.

Stretching her arms as she walks away from her cot, is a familiar servant of the Northern Tribe palace who had decided to accompany the southbound group. The thing that got their attention, despite being familiar with the sight, was the fact that she’s as naked as Aang is. “What,” she says as she notices the, “I woke up covered in sweat, figured it was warm enough to do this.”

Well, she certainly was in a better mood now. Ever since the siege concluded and the sun rose, the girl had been in a sour mood. Understandable, given the fact that she has for sure lost both men in her family. She actually saw her older brother's body when she, her mother and little sister identified him, while her father didn’t return at all. Despite it being obvious, it took a week for him, along with the other missing men, to be ruled as dead, as they’d certainly be by now even if they survived to the sunrise. She hasn’t so much as smiled since the day the siege began, and here she now stands with a slight smile. Despite her personal hang ups about nudity, even after accepting that this specific Northern Tribe tradition wasn’t sexist, Katara couldn’t help but feel a bit happy, seeing this girl have some sense of normalcy in at least being able to be naked again.

Katara’s raised spirits wouldn’t last, however, as now it was her brother's turn to react.

Sokka, hearing Buti’s words, lets out a massive sigh of relief, shouting, “Finally!” sliding off his winter coat in the process. “Glad to be back in warmer weather,” he says as he continues this action, shirt coming off next. Sticking his thumbs either side of his waist between his waistband. “My body needs to breathe.” Pushing downwards, he stands as the third naked person in the room.

Katara rolls her eyes as the two naked boys ascend to the upper deck, this being the day the three were set to leave. It sure was nice though, the brief respite of not seeing her brother's privates full time, but she always knew it was going to end at some point. She walks over to his discarded clothes and begins to stuff them into her bag, determined not to lose them. It’s while she’s doing this where the naked girl in the room approaches her, holding something in her hand.

“I was originally planning on giving this to you when you left the North Pole,” she says, “but since you decided to leave with us, I decided to hold off until you and the others actually leave.” She hands Katara something decently sized wrapped up in brown fur.

“What is this,” Katara asks the former servant, “and why?”

“You know why,” Buti says in a serious tone, before shifting to a more calm one. “And since I know you’re not like, well, us women from Northern Tribe, and, well, I also couldn’t help but notice the clothes you wear under your winter jacket…” She pauses to allow Katara, who was building up a sweat, to slide off her own winter jacket, revealing the patchwork, torn in several areas, and visibly hastily stitched up tunic and pants she’s worn everywhere outside the poles. “And what bad shape they’re in, so I asked Mom if she could make these for you, just so you’re not forced to wander around in that thing, or pay a lot of gold to get a new one.”

Katara was surprised to say the least. She unties the rope holding the packaging together and removes the fur, revealing a brand new tunic. “Thank you,” she says, making sure to neatly tie it back up so as not to lose anything.

Getting back to her feet, the older girl pats Katara on the back and walks towards the ladder, saying, “No problem. Might want to head out to the deck now. You know, I’ve never been naked outside before, especially to a warm sun, so this’ll be new.”

Sure enough, once Katara heads up the ladder, the gathered group of people aboard carry the energy of a going away party. As she joins her brother and friend in front of Appa’s tail, Pakku steps forward, white sack in hand, and begins to speak.

“As gratitude for your services in defending our tribe from the invaders, I will present each of you with a gift that will help you on your journey. Katara,” he says, signaling the girl to step forward. “I want you to have this.” he pulls up a necklace, attached to which appears to be some sort of ornate vial or flask of liquid. “This amulet contains water from the Spirit Oasis. The water has unique properties. Don’t lose it.”

She takes the amulet and looks at it for a moment. Then she walks up and hugs her old master. “Thank you, Master Pakku,” she says before separating, making her way up the bison's tail.

Protruding a box, the old man passes it onto the Avatar, who slides it open to reveal at least a dozen scrolls, saying, “Aang, these scrolls will help you master waterbending. But remember, they’re no substitute for a real master.” Aang glances up and behind him, towards Katara, who passes him a glance back.

Now it was Sokka’s turn, and he trots up to Pakku trying to mask his light excitement. “Sokka,” the old man says, before patting the young man on the shoulder. “Take care, son,” he says, leaving the boy dismayed.

“Fly straight to the Earth Kingdom base to the east of here,” Pakku says as Sokka walks to Appa’s tail. “General Fong will provide you with an escort to Omashu. There, you will be safe to begin your earthbending training with King Bumi.”

Excited both to begin his training and to once again be reunited with his old friend, Aang tightens his grasp on Appa’s reins and says, “Appa, yip yip!”

As the Water Tribe people wave them on, Appa takes off for the skies. Before they’re far enough away, Katara shouts down to them, “Say hi to Gran-Gran for me!”

With that, the boat begins to shrink and fade away in the distance, and the three kids, their flying bison, and friend lemur, are left to themselves once again.

----

The place they were staying at, to no one’s surprise, was a paradise compared to the either too cold or too hot metal warship they’ve spent the last three years sailing on what at the time felt like a wild turkey duck chase.

Three years exactly.

Inside the courtyard of a resort built onto a bridge overlooking a waterfall, an older, larger, fully nude man gets a full body back massage from two men.

“This is what I've been missing,” Iroh says, as relaxed as he’s been in the past three years. “Who knew floating on a piece of driftwood for three weeks with no food or water, and sea vultures waiting to pluck out your liver could make one so tense?” He turns his head to the boy he’s asking the question to. His nephew, sitting at the other end of the courtyard alone, in a light rose colored robe and a rice hat. This boy, who’s visibly upset, bears a large scar on the left side of his face around his eye. Standing up and sliding his own robe on, Iroh walks up to his nephew and in a calm tone, says, “I see. It's the anniversary, isn't it?”

“Three years ago today, I was banished,” Prince Zuko says in a brooding tone, looking down at the ground. “I lost it all.” He looks up sharply. “I want it back. I want the Avatar, I want my honor, my throne.” On the verge of breaking down, he says “I want my father not to think I’m worthless.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Iroh says in a calming tone. “Why would he banish you if he didn’t care?” Zuko gives his uncle a look, before standing up and walking away. To the men massaging him, Iroh asks, “Uh, that came out wrong, didn’t it?”

The two share a confused glance at this statement.

Of course, his failure to capture the Avatar was about to become the least of his worries, as miles away, a Fire Navy ship sails onwards towards port.

This one was different from the one Zuko sailed on, which was a standard war ship. This one was more elegant, more aesthetically pleasing, more, for lack of any better words, royal, and for good reason.

Along the deck of the vessel, two neat rows of soldiers stand facing each other. A signal is called, and each man, two at a time, from bow to the bridge, gets down on their hands and knees. Only once everyone on deck is in the position do the doors open.

Out of it walks four servants carrying a fancy palanquin, which they walk all the way to the top edge of the steps. As the sun shines through, it partially reveals the silhouette of what looks like a girl inside.

Placing the carriage on deck, the two frontal servants walk up and pull away the curtains, revealing its occupant,

The younger sister

The Princess of the Fire Nation

Heiress apparent to the title of Fire Lord

Azula

Standing up and stepping out of the palanquin, naked as the sun is hot, she walks up to the edge of the stairs and raises her arm, signaling the men to rise and face her.

This girl, despite her visibly youthful stature, carries this aura about her that says she is not the person you want to trifle with, if you value your life anyways. With it she bears a look of superiority so intense, it makes Admiral Zhao (rest in peace) to seem like a humble man by comparison. Not helping is the fact that the fire shaped crown that holds up her top knot is her sole item of clothing.

She begins to walk down the stairs and past her men slowly, all the while saying, “My brother and my uncle have disgraced the Fire Lord, and have brought shame on all of us. You might have mixed feelings about attacking members of the Royal Family. I understand.” She stops in her tracks and turns her head lightly to her right. “But I assure you, if you hesitate, I will not hesitate to bring you down.” turning her head straight in front of her, she says, “Dismissed.”

Her men do as they’re told and leave the deck. The girl stands there alone for a moment, when someone, the captain of the ship, runs up behind her.

After stopping at a respectable distance and bowing, he says, “Princess, I'm afraid the tides will not allow us to bring the ship into port before nightfall.”

“I’m sorry, captain,” she says as she turns her head lightly, “but I do not know much about the tides. Could you explain something to me?” She turns and walks closer towards the edge of the ship.

“Of course, your Highness,” the captain says, still facing straight on.

“Do the tides command this ship?” she asks in an innocuous but vaguely threatening tone.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“You said the tides would not allow us to bring the ship in.” In a sharper tone, Azula repeats herself, “Do the tides command this ship?”

“No, princess,” he says, throwing a quick glance her way.

“And if I were to have you thrown overboard, would the tides think twice about smashing you against the rocky shore?”

“No, princess,” the captain says in a slightly worried tone.

The naked girl lightly runs her fingers through her bangs as she delivers her last threat. “Well then, maybe you should worry less about the tides who have already made up their mind about killing you, and worry more about me.” Azula turns full to face him head on, anger visibly on her face. “Who’s still mulling it over.”

With a bow, the captain says, “I’ll pull us in.” He turns and walks, no, runs towards the main building and towards the bridge to give the orders, all the while Azula stares at him, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

----

The ocean disappears beneath them as they finally reach solid land. After spending at least a month standing on ice with no guarantee of land beneath them, the greens and browns were a welcome return.

Katara, with nothing to preoccupy herself, takes another glance back down at the partially opened package for her, and the blue tunic that’s partially revealed wrapped within. Her gaze then shifts down to her current attire.

She had long since stowed her winter coat within the saddle to lay for probably months. Now she was in her warmer weather attire, and boy have they seen better days. Despite the fact that they were still holding together and serving their purpose, they were almost in tatters. Even now, she can still trace each stitching line to ever tear the poor tunic and pants had to endure ever since she left the South Pole. Even without the constant action, in the days leading up to their extended visit to the north, she’d have to check almost nightly to make sure these things weren’t falling apart, they were that abused. The prospect of new attire was alluring, and some she doesn’t even need to pay for to boot.

She considered waiting till nightfall, where she’d swap in privacy, but both boys, with both of their hindquarters in full view of her, weren’t exactly people who’d mind. So might as well do it now. Thanks both to just how poor shape her tunic and pants were in combined with the month spent at the Northern Water Tribe, she was down to her white undergarments in under a minute. The only pieces of her old clothes she was keeping were her boots, bracers, waterskin, and necklace with the water insignia carved into it, as none of them were damaged in the slightest. The tunic and pants, due to both how bad of shape they were in and the painful memories they contain, Katara decided to just toss them behind Appa.

They haven't even passed his tail when they started disintegrating into cloth and string.

Turning back to the package, she opens it fully and pulls up the tunic to get a good look at. It’s visibly identical to her old one, with a few exceptions. It’s a slightly darker hue of blue, has no sleeves, something she’s a bit appreciative of, and seems to be somewhat shorter than her old one, which kinda wigs her out a bit. Putting it on only confirms her suspicions, as the white frill at the end of the skirt part of the tunic doesn't even go past her knees. Not helping was that, on her left slide, the tunic has a slit that goes a little too high for her liking. She shrugged it onto her shoulders, but as she went to close it she found that it lacked the familiar system of fasteners, instead held shut by a single tie at her right hip. easy to put on and take off, as expected of women's clothing of the Northern Water Tribe. Not a bad look, familiar enough, although the omissions from her old outfit didn’t sit particularly well to her, especially that leg slit which, while not even revealing her underwear, still goes too far up. Still, once she gets the pants on, these will be mitigated.

It was here, looking down at the now empty packaging, that she sees this outfit didn’t have any.

(Ignore the flowers on her head. Those are only for next chapter)

She barely had time to process the fact that she was now stuck with most of her legs exposed when Sokka pipes up from his stupor. “There it is!”

Sure enough, beyond the mountain they were passing, a decently sized tower surrounded by a circular wall with golden roofs comes into view. As Appa flies down towards the designated landing area, Katara turns her gaze to her brother.

“Aren’t you going to clothe yourself?” she asks, getting his attention. “Or at least put your poncho on? You usually do this when we head to important places or places with a lot of people.”

With a shrug, he simply responds, “Eh, have no reason to, now. They’re expecting the Avatar, and I only dress to avoid unwanted attention.” Katara rolls her eyes as they land, but still keeps her mouth shut. She already knew there was no convincing him otherwise, and there's the fact that she's been making an effort to accept her brother's new lifestyle, even if she really doesn’t like the sight of it.

As the three dismount, sore from the days of travel, they start to stretch themselves as a man approaches. He’s a larger man with long brown hair held up in an ornate headdress and a matching beard. He’s decked out in high class green and gold armor. With a smile, the man raises his arms and says, “Welcome, Avatar Aang,” which causes the three to stop. He continues as he and the soldiers trailing him bow. “I am General Fong, and welcome, to all of you great heroes! Appa, Momo, Brave Sokka, the Mighty Katara…”

“Mighty Katara?” she says, a pleased look on her face. “I like that.”

The sound of several explosions high up behind them gets their attention. They turn and see that earthbenders are sending up fireworks in their honor.

“Not bad,” Sokka says, “not bad.”

Fong leads the three away from Appa and towards the building. While this Fong guy evidently does not care about the state of undress the two boys were in, the same can’t be said for his soldiers. As they walk, Katara notices several of them staring with barely visible disbelief at the two naked boys, and there are even a few eyes her way. Due to this not being the first time this happened, she barely gives this a second thought, as it’s basically the status quo.

They enter the building and ascend several levels of the stairs to see a mostly empty room. Near the middle sits a small wooden platform, which the three walk up to and sit on. Fong keeps going to the other side of the room, and takes a seat at his war desk. “ Avatar Aang,” he says, “we were all amazed at the stories of how you single-handedly wiped out an entire Fire Navy fleet at the North Pole.” The general starts to stroke his beard in contemplation. “I can't imagine what it feels like to wield such devastating power. It's an awesome responsibility.”

Very casually, Aang responds, “I try not to think about it too much.”

In a calm tone, Fong says, “Avatar, you’re ready to face the Fire Lord now.”

“What?” a shocked Aang shouts, this assertion of his skill level being downright ludicrous. “No I’m not!”

After a small pause, Katara reasons, “Aang still needs to master all four elements.”

“Why?” the general asks, “With the kind of power he possesses, power enough to destroy hundreds of battleships in a matter of minutes, he could defeat the Fire Lord now!”

“But sir,” Sokka jumps in, “the thing is, Aang can only do those things when he’s in the Avatar State.”

“See,” Aang starts, “it’s a special state where-”

“I’m well aware!” Fong cuts him off. “Your eyes and tattoos glow and you're able to summon unbelievable power. Without you, we'd be slaughtered before we even reach their shores.” He gets up and walks to the map on the back wall and starts to drag a path with his finger from their current location to the Fire Capital, all the while saying, “But with you leading the way, as the ultimate weapon, we could cut a swath right through to the heart of the Fire Nation.”

“Right,” the Avatar says doubtfully, “but, I don’t know how to get in or out of the Avatar State, much less what to do once I’m there.”

With a look as if he suddenly gets the grand solution to their problems, Fong says, “So, it's decided then. I'll help you figure out how to get into the Avatar State and then you'll face your destiny.”

All three rise to their feet. With anger audible in her tone, Katara says, “No, nothings decided. We already have a plan. Aang’s pursuing his destiny his way.”

“Well,” he says, walking towards them. “While you take your time learning the elements, the War goes on. May I show you something?” He leads Aang away from the siblings and toward a window. Looking down, they see a smaller building a bit away, where several bandaged and slow walking men are milling about. “That's the infirmary, and those soldiers are the lucky ones. They came back. Every day, the Fire Nation takes lives. People are dying, Aang! You could end it, now. Think about it.”

He walks away as Aang averts his gaze.

----

The sun was beginning to set above the Royal warship, but that was a good thing. It'll make the results easier to see.

Standing alone atop the main deck, still completely naked sans the crown on her head, is Princess Azula, who stands perfectly straight, facing out the starboard side with her fingers in her other hand. Her face is completely cold and emotionless.

She’s observed by two older, identical women, who sit quite a distance away, watching her every motion

She breaths in and out, before beginning her motions.

Moving her arms in circular motions, completely flawlessly I might add, blue sparks start to shoot out from her fingertips. She goes through her whole routine, ending it by shifting her torso and thrusting her left arm out.

The resulting lightning bolt shoots out of her extended finger, traveling quite a distance before connecting with the water and dissipating. Thunder claps before it’s silent again.

Despite the distance, the deck's pure silence allows the women's words to reach the princess’s ears with ease.

“Almost perfect,” one says.

“One hair out of place,” the other tells her.

The girl's crimson eyes focus on the loose strand of hair as her face gives away to anger. Pushing back the strand, she says, “Almost isn’t good enough!”

Standing up straight again, the naked princess repeats her motions to the tea, so that when she thrust her arm out and the lightning shoots out of her fingers, not a single strand of hair moves out of line.

----

It was just after sunset, where General Fong sits at his desk taking measurements on a map, when he has a visitor from a certain naked boy.

“General Fong?” Aang asks as he enters the spacious room.

Looking up, expectant, the man says, “Come in, Aang.” The boy walks up to the center of the room in front of the general. “Have you thought about our discussion?”

After some hesitation, and with great reluctance, Aang lowers his head slightly and says, “I’m in. I’ll fight the Fire Lord.”

“Then get some sleep,” the triumphant general says, “for your training begins first thing in the morning.”

Aang bows, turn around and walk out of the room. He traverses the compound alone, in the direction he was pointed towards the room he and his companions were assigned. He opens the door and sees both of his friends already laying on their respective beds either side of him. Keeping his head straight, he walks towards his own bed opposite to the door.

His motion gets Katara's attention, who shifts her body to face him. As he sits on his bed, he looks down and says, “I told the general I’d help him, by going into the Avatar State.”

This does not go over well for the waterbender. She sits up and objects, “Aang, no! This is not the right way!”

“Why not?” Sokka says, laying casually on his bed. “Remember when he took out the Fire Navy? He was incredible!”

“There’s a right way to do this,” she continues, “Practice, study, and discipline!”

“Or just glow it up and stop the Fire Lord!”

Annoyed at her brother, Katara stands up and raises her hands up, saying, “If you two meatheads want to throw away everything we’ve worked for, fine, go ahead and glow it up!”
With that, she walks out, unable to convince the naked boys of why this was a stupid idea.

“Katara,” Aang says, standing up and walking a bit towards her. “I’m just being realistic! I don’t have time to do this the right way!”

But his words were no use, since she had already left the room. He drops his head and turns back to his bed, determined to get some sleep so he can be at his best when he learns to control the Avatar State tomorrow.

It can’t be that hard, right?”

----

Wrong.

Boy was he wrong.

The Avatar State was proving itself to be quite tricky to activate, to say the least, and each attempt led to vastly different results. Here are just a few.

First thing in the morning, Aang is basically shoved all the way towards their chosen destination. A gazebo atop a mountain next to a waterfall, Under it is a single table, where Aang sits across a man, one of Fong's underlings, who’s brought a tea set. The general himself sits at the side end of the table and Katara and Sokka sit a bit behind Aang.

The man pours the boy a cup of tea. When that’s done, he retrieves a clay jar and takes the lid off. Using a pair of chopsticks, the man pulls out a small white thing from the jar and drops it into the tea. “This rare chi-enhancing tea is a natural stimulant,” he says as he does this. “In an ordinary warrior, it improves strength and energy ten-fold. In you, it may induce the Avatar State.”

“Ten-fold energy, huh?” Aang says, before picking up the cup and taking a drink.

The effects are instantaneous, starting with a simple twitch of the eyebrow, but very quickly escalating. Within a matter of moments, he’s riding on an air scooter, shooting around the area at the speed of wind and talking a mile a minute.

“Isitworking?Isitworking?Ican'ttell!SomebodytellmeifI'mintheAvatarState'causeIdon'thaveagoodviewofmyself!AmItalkingtooloud?”

Tired by his friend's shenanigans, Sokka says, “I guess he could talk the Fire Lord to death.”

Before he could continue, the Avatar smacks head first into one of the support polls and knocks himself out.

Once he’s conscious, they return to the base to try something else.

Aang now sits cross legged by the entrance gate, Katara sitting and Fong standing behind him, while Sokka stands in front of him, in the process of wrapping a cloth around his shoulders.

“Maybe I can shock you into the Avatar State,” he suggests.

“I love surprises!” Aang says excitedly as Katara covers his eyes.

Some shuffling is heard, as well as some struggling, that lasts for a few moments, before his eyes are uncovered. Towering over him is Sokka, or well, his body anyways, with Momo’s head, who shrieks at him.

Aang screams, throwing his arms around. After catching a sight of his still blue tattoos, he calms down. “Still not glowing,” he says.

Seeing as this didn’t pay off, Momo struggles against the cloth around Sokka’s neck, causing him to fall to the ground.

Dismayed at the lack of progress, Fong moves on to the next trick.

Aang now stands in a dimly lit room. While still naked, he’s now adorned by a few articles of clothing, those being a blue cloak, a red armored skirt and a rice hat with leaves sticking out of it.

Standing in front of him is some sort of oracle, who’s sole item of clothing is some thick brown fur piece that’s open at the front, standing in front of a small pillar with a wooden bowl atop it. “You are wearing a ceremonial piece of clothing from each of the bending nations,” he says, addressing the boy's attire. The cloak goes with water, the hat earth, the lower piece of armor for fire, and bare skin for air. “Now I will join the four elements into one!”

“Water,” he says, pouring a jug of water into the bowl.

“Earth,” he says, pouring in a bowl of dirt.

“Fire,” he says, taking a torch from behind him and dropping it in.

“Air!” he says, using an air puffer to blow air into the bowl.

“Four elements together as one!” he finishes, raising the bowl for spectacle, before flinging the contents at Aang.

Aang, now covered in the brown sludge and very annoyed, simply says, “This is just mud.”

“So …” the oracle says, “Do you feel anything?”

Aang suddenly gets an odd look and holds up his finger, getting everyone's attention. Is this stupid trick going to work? It’s clearly doing something to him, all that’s needed is his eyes and tattoos to start glowing to know for sure.

Then Aang sneezes, and the winds caused by it splatter everyone in the room in mud and knock away the three articles, leaving Aang clean and fully naked again.

Wiping the mud from his face, a still determined Fong says, “We have to find a way.”

----

Since both of its occupants were out, there was no reason to light even a single candle. The dim lighting was better anyways, and this was going to be brief, so why bother.

The small building at the resort doesn’t stay empty for too long, as Zuko, followed shortly after by Iroh holding a small bag, return to their place of stay, completely oblivious to anything different.

Iroh seems excited, it having to do with what’s in the bag, which he quickly pours out onto the table closest to the door. It’s contents are shells of varying sizes, shapes and colors. Picking up a sand colored clam shell, the old man says, “Look at these magnificent shells!” He puts the clam down and picks up a decently sized blue conch. “I’ll enjoy these keepsakes for years to come.”

“We don’t need any more useless things!” Zuko, annoyed, shouts. “You forget, we have to carry everything ourselves now!”

“Hello, brother,” a calmly threatening yet familiar voice calls out. The two turn to the corner of the room, where she’s sitting, fully decked in royal Fire Nation armor. “Uncle.”

Already angered by his younger sister’s mere presence, Zuko takes a step towards her and says, “What are you doing here?”

Azula picks up a shell and examines it causally. “In my country, we exchange a pleasant hello before asking questions,” she says, before rising and walking towards the two. “Have you become uncivilized so soon, Zuzu?”

“Don’t call me that!”

Iroh, while still in a calm tone, can’t hide the fact he’s upset when he says, “To what do we owe this honor?”

“Hmmm … must be a family trait. Both of you so quick to get to the point.” Azula smashes the shell with her fingers before she herself gets to the point of why she’s there. “I've come with a message from home. Father's changed his mind. Family is suddenly very important to him. He's heard rumors of plans to overthrow him; treacherous plots. Family are the only ones you can really trust.” She pauses as she turns to face the painted window. “Father regrets your banishment. He wants you home.” She turns back to face her brother, to see that he still hasn’t reacted, even visibly. “Did you hear me? You should be happy. Excited. Grateful. I just gave you great news.”

Iroh steps forward, saying, “I’m sure your brother simply needs a moment.”

“Don’t interrupt, Uncle!” she shouts furiously, before shifting her attention to her brother. “I still haven't heard my thank you. I’m not a messenger. I didn’t have to come all this way.”

Zuko, having finally processed what his sister said, finally speaks up. “Father regrets? He … wants me back?”

“I can see you need time to take this in. I’ll come to call on you tomorrow.” With that, Azula begins to walk away. “Good evening.”

Zuko continues to stare out the window in consideration. After three years, he might just finally be allowed to return home, to where things could be even slightly more normal. To where things make sense. Finally his search for the Avatar is at an end, since he doesn’t even need to find him anymore.

Plus there was the fact that he’d finally be able to leave this resort, where his uncle would barely bother to tie the front of his robe, if he wore one at all, anyways.

----

The sun sets over the Earth Kingdom base yet again. At the top of the main tower, two people stand by the railing, a naked boy and a girl in blue.

After standing up there for a little while, Katara starts talking, “Can we talk about something?”

“Sure,” Aang responds.

“Do you remember when we were at the air temple and you found Monk Gyatso's skeleton? It must have been so horrible and traumatic for you. I saw you get so upset that you weren't even you anymore. I'm not saying the Avatar State doesn't have incredible and helpful power … but you have to understand … for the people who love you, watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary.”

“I’m really glad you told me that,” Aang says, slightly subdued and resigned. “But I still need to do this.”

“I don’t understand,” an upset Katara tells him.

“No you don’t,” he says, downcast. “Every day, more and more people die. I’m already one hundred years late. Defeating the Fire Lord is the only way to stop this war. I have to try it!”

Acknowledging his point, but still upset at this course of action, she says, “I can’t watch you do this to yourself. I’m not coming tomorrow.” She starts to walk away. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Aang responds, letting her go.

----

“We’re going home!” Zuko says as he packs his things, the sun having long since set. “After three long years, it’s unbelievable!”

Iroh, sitting and facing out the window, hand scratching his beard in contemplation, agrees with the last sentiment. “It is unbelievable,” he says. “I have never known my brother to regret anything.”

“Did you listen to Azula?” he asks his uncle, irritated.. “Father’s realized how important family is to him! He cares about me!”

Iroh takes a few steps towards his nephew and holds his arm out. “I care about you! And if Ozai wants you back, well, I think it might not be for the reasons you imagine.”

Zuko stands there in silence for a moment, before turning his back to his uncle. “You don’t know how my father feels about me. You don’t know anything!”

“Zuko, I only meant that in our family, things are not always what they seem.”

“I think you are exactly what you seem!” he shouts, turning back to face his uncle. “A lazy, mistrustful, shallow old man who’s always been jealous of his brother!”

Leaving Iroh saddened, the possibly soon to be former exiled prince walks away.

----

Now finding himself standing atop another metal warship, this time in daylight, Aang looks on in horror as he sees himself rise out from the water, a cyclone of water circling his lower torso with his eyes and tattoos glowing.

His double lands a bit in front of him, and as the Avatar State Aang swirls the pillar of water around his naked form, it smacks the real Aang back, all the way to the railing of the ship.

As he catches his breath, he looks up and sees his double, eyes and tattoos no longer glowing, as he turns to stare down Prince Zuko, as he looked when they first met. The scarred prince turns and runs away as the vision of Aang viscously attacks him with the stream of water.

----

Aang wakes up in a hurry, breathing heavily. He must’ve been tossing and turning severely, since there wasn’t a trace of blanket on any of his nude body. Shifting himself to see the fast asleep naked boy, he says, “Sokka! Sokka, wake up.”

“Huh?” a drowsy Sokka says, shifting his weight to lie on his back.

Sitting fully up, Aang says, “I don’t think we should be trying to bring on the Avatar State.”

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Sokka says very nonchalantly.

“Do you think the general will be mad?” Aang asks.

“What can he say?” Sokka retorts. “You’re the Avatar. Who knows better than you?”

Somewhat reassured, Aang lies back down and rests his head on his arms.

----

Zuko left the resort early, determined to not start anything with his uncle. So he now walks down the steps of the mountain, towards the pier.

As he walks down, he glances to his side at the opening of the trees and rocks that line the path, revealing the distant Royal Fire Navy ship sitting at the dock far away, This was it. She wasn’t lying.

“Wait!” a voice cries out from further up the stairs. Zuko turns and sees Iroh running down after him, hastily back in his armor and holding his stuff in one hand. “Don’t leave without me!”

This gets a smile out of the boy. “Uncle!” he shouts as the man reaches him. “You’ve changed your mind!”

“Family sticks together, right?” he says, before placing his hand on Zuko’s shoulder.

This notion brings something back into the boy that he hasn’t felt in years. The soft touch of a father figure.

“We’re finally going home!” he shouts, before resuming his descent down the mountain.

Iroh lags behind for a moment, glaring in the direction of the docked ship. Despite his nephews excitement, he knows his brother too well, as well as his niece. He can’t help but eye this ship with suspicion.

----

“The thing is, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to trigger it.”

Aang stands in the conference room in front of the general, Sokka standing a bit away to his side.. He’s in the midst of explaining why this whole Avatar State training needs to be put to a stop now. Fong seems to be taking this well.

“So I guess that’s it,” Aang finishes.

“You sure I can’t change your mind?” the general asks calmly.

“I’m sure,” the naked boy responds. “I can only reach the Avatar State when I’m in genuine danger.”

“I see,” Fong says, “I was afraid you’d say that.”

After a light shift of his footing, the general pushes hard against his stone desk, sending the entire thing speeding towards the boy. He doesn’t even have time to react before the pure solid rock collides with him, forcing him all the way back to the front wall and beyond it.

“Aang!” Sokka shouts, attempting to run up to his aid, only to be forcefully held back by the two soldiers behind him.

Aang crashes out of the wall and begins to freefall. Luckily, he manages to catch himself with airbending, as well as rolling out of the way of the massive stone desk that nearly crushed him.

Laying on his back, the boy looks back up at the top of the tower, seeing Fong staring down at him from the opening in the wall. “Men! Attack the Avatar!” he shouts, pointing down.

His eyes widen as he gages his surroundings, and the Earth Kingdom soldiers staring him down in all directions, slowly advancing towards him. But that’s not his only concern. He turns as Fong leaps down from the top of the tower, the impact causing a wave of earth to come crashing towards the boy, knocking him back further from the main tower.

“What are you doing?” Aang shouts at the general, who’s raised himself slightly on a platform of earth.

“I believe we’re about to get results,” Fong says smugly.

The boy looks around as he sees soldiers on either side, raising large earth coins from the ground, turning them to their sides in preparation to send them his way. He dodges the two vertical coins by some good maneuvers and the horizontal ones by leaping between the two. Landing back on the ground, he straightens up and raises his hands in a calm manner. “I’m not your enemy!” he shouts. “I won’t fight you!”

Still, they continue, and Aang has to leap into the air to avoid four coins being thrown at him. Landing atop one of them, another is rolled into the one he’s standing on, forcing the boy to the ground. Two of the stationary coins encase him and it starts to roll, disorienting him.

It goes on for a few seconds when something, an earthbender, shatters the coin, forcing Aang back to the ground and having to stare up at his attackers.

As this is going on, the other naked boy in the base is having trouble with soldiers.

Sokka struggles against the two soldiers holding him back while everything goes on outside. He tries to shake out of it, but these are grown men and he’s still only fifteen. That's when he realizes something.

Both men, despite being completely decked in armor, are barefoot (thanks to both being earthbenders), while he’s naked from his shoulders to his knees, and has some pretty hefty boots on his feet. He leaps up into the air, obviously being held in place, and when his legs fall, his booted feet land atop the exposed ones of the guards.

Reeling in pain from a sensitive area, both guards loosen their grip, allowing Sokka to slip away to assist his friend.

Speaking of which, back outside, Aang narrowly avoids two pairs of thrown coins through the holes of the vertical ones. Not wasting a second, Aang generates an air scooter and scoots along the ground, dodging walls of earth as he goes. He manages to dodge three before catching the focus of two ostrich horse riding soldiers, who immediately pursue him.

Seeing this, Aang steers himself towards the wall, which he starts to ride up it. Not messing around, the two soldiers use earthbending to propel themselves upwards after the boy. His troubles far from over, Aang’s scooter begins to shrink, and within moments, he’s now running up the wall.

It’s only then when the two soldiers catch up to him, Aang leaps off the wall as they swing their spears, the naked boy narrowly avoiding the blades. He lands on the ground, as do the ostrich horses.

He rolls away before either of them could take a swing, but in doing so, he lands within the outline of an earth ring. It rises around him and forces him closer towards the insane general.

“You can’t run forever!” Fong shouts as the boy reaches him.

“You can’t fight forever!” Aang shouts as the coin falls around him.

The general leaps into the air towards Aang. The boy leaps out just in time as the force of the man's foot shatters the coin into rubble

----

Zuko and Iroh reach the bottom of the long and winding staircase, now finding themselves on the dock leading towards the waiting ship. Lining the dock all the way from the entrance gate to the ramp are soldiers fully decked out in armor. Azula stands at the top of the ramp with her hands innocently behind her back, flanked by two more soldiers. A royal procession for the returning royals,

So the two begin to walk towards the ship.

While Zuko retains his standard cold expression, he’s absolutely giddy with excitement at the thought of finally returning home. Getting to sleep in his actual bed, rather than the peasant cot he’s dealt with for the last three years. Properly cooked food rather than the cheap stuff bought at ports. Servants rather than soldiers. The return of his honor and the respect of his father. It couldn’t be better.

Granted, he’d have to be regularly exposed to his sister's nudity again, but one small gripe is still negligible.

Iroh, on the other hand, still is suspicious of the motivation for this sudden shift in his brother. He eyes the men around him, squinting all the way. He doesn’t trust his brother, nor his niece. Something was going on, and he didn’t like it.

Still, he walks with his nephew. They reach the base of the ramp and stop, Azula looking down at them.

“Brother! Uncle!” she shouts in a way that’s impossible to tell if she’s being genuine or not, so like how she always talks. “I’m so glad you decided to come.”

The two bow at her, though Iroh opens his eyes slightly to throw one last glance towards the soldiers behind him.

The soldiers line up behind the two, and the ship's captain walks in front of them. “Are we ready to depart, Your Highness?” he asks her.

With a sweet tone in her voice, the young princess says, “Set our course for home, captain.”

“Home,” Zuko says quietly as the group begins to ascend the ramp.

“You heard the princess!” the captain shouts, leading them up. “Raise the anchors! We’re taking the prisoners home!”

There it is

He blew it

The jig was up

His eyes widen

Zuko and Iroh’s eyes widen

Azula’s eyes widen

Then her brows drop to a furious expression.

The caption, understandably nervous, stutters out. “Your Highness, I …”

But he never gets the chance to finish, as a fiery swing from the princesses leg causes him to fall off the ramp to his left. He’s dead before he splashes into the water, hell before his feet are off the ramp.

Zuko watches in shock as the man's burning, limp body falls off the ramp, now staring his sister straight on. Iroh, as this was going on, already started to act. Each soldier that charged him found themselves either getting knocked back or thrown off the ramp, either into the water or back onto the pier, not even getting a single hit off.

Zuko charges all the way up the ramp. “You lied to me!” he shouts at his confident sister.

With the smuggest look on her face, Azula says, “Like I never done that before.”

She turns her back and begins to walk away, leaving her two presiding guards to deal with her brother. The two shoot fire blasts his way, but Zuko crosses his arms and, when they reach him, spreads them out quickly to deflect them as he charges up.

----

Completely unaware of what was going on downstairs, Katara just sits on her bed, toying around with some water from her waterskin. She does this for a while, all while Momo sleeps on the floor in his bed.

Then the ground begins to shake, and the noises of rocks falling are faintly audible.

“I wonder what that crazy thing they’re trying to do now,” she says to a rising Momo. The lemur stares at her for a few seconds, before yawning and lying back down. Katara was about to start relaxing herself, when there’s another rumble. “Maybe we should just make sure Aang’s okay.”

She rises from the bed and begins to speed walk out the door and down the stairs to the entrance of the tower. The closer she gets, the louder and more rough the action outside feels, causing her to speed up. By the time she’s outside and descending the stairs, she’s in a sprint.

As she reaches the bottom, the chaos visible in front of her, she’s joined by Sokka, who ran down the other set of stairs.

“What’s going on?” she asks her brother frantically.

Pulling his boomerang from his sheath, Sokka responds, “The general’s gone crazy! He’s trying to force Aang into the Avatar State!” He chucks the boomerang as Katara runs off to maneuver herself in a prime position.

The boomerang's first target is a soldier, who’s in the process of turning an earth ring to throw at the boy running past him. The thing hits him in the head and knocks him out, causing the ring to fall as well.

Aang, not even having a respite, then finds himself being chased by a spear wielding, ostrich horse riding soldier. Well, spear wielding for a moment, as the boomerang slices the top part of it off. And ostrich horse riding for a moment as well, as a whip of water, thanks to Katara, knocks him off the horse.

Sokka, approaching carefully, says to the creature, “Good … bird … horse thingy …”

The beast pauses for a moment, before allowing the naked boy to approach and mount it. Reins in hand, Sokka whips them, and the ostrich horse speeds off to assist in defending the Avatar, leaving Katara standing alone.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Fong, who sees a glorious opportunity for results. He stops his foot and within moments, on both sides, the girl finds herself surrounded by earth coins. He turns his head up to the top of the staircase, where Aang managed to escape to. “Maybe you can avoid me,” he shouts to him, “but she can’t!”

The coins shift their positions to face their flat sides towards her, forming an arrow shape. She, in turn, sends a long water whip his way. He sees this and, as it approaches, raises dust pillars beneath it. The water collides with the dust, forming mud, which falls harmlessly to the ground.

He shifts his stance, causing the ground to shift beneath Katara’s feet. Her boots and lower legs sink into the ground up to her knees. She starts to struggle immediately. “I can’t move!” she shouts.

Seeing this, Aang leaps down to ground level, shouting, “Don’t hurt her!” He sends a gust of air the general's way, who simply turns and raises a wall of earth to block it. Fong brings it down after the gust dissipates, and with it Katara sinks lower.

Now down to her waist deep, she begins to notice a problem. While her body and, thankfully, her underwear sank down together, her tunic seems to be staying above ground. Probably because of the position the hems were when she sank, but if she went any lower, it would become a real problem. And she just got this thing too.

“Katara! No!” Sokka shouts, riding the ostrich horse up towards the general. Fong sees this and, with a quick shift of his foot, causes the critters' feet to sink into the ground, stopping it in its tracks. Sokka, still going the same speed, is thrown off the creature. The naked boy flies in the air for a moment, before falling into one of the earth coins holes.

By now, the other naked boy reaches Fong, and now grapples onto his arm. “Stop this!” Aang shouts, “You have to let her go!”

Staring down at the poor boy, Fong shouts, “You could save her if you were in the Avatar State!”

“I’m trying,” a teary eyed Aang shouts, “I’m tying!”

“Aang,” Katara shouts, twisting deeper, chest deep, into the ground, “I’m sinking!” Now that she’s deeper, her fears are confirmed, as most of her new tunic lay around her head. One thing she notices is that it felt much looser as she sank. She looks and catches a quick glance at the hip area of her tunic, she sees the tie has been loosened. The women of the Northern Tribe, it seems, have thought of everything when it comes to disrobing without damaging.

Meanwhile, Fong stares down the boy expectantly. “I don’t see glowing!” he shouts, shifting his foot and sinking Katara down to her neck.

“Please!” the girl shouts desperately.

Falling to his knees, the boy begs, “You don’t need to do this!”

“Apparently, I do,” Fong says, clenching his fists, causing the poor girl to sink further as she shrieks in fear.

Aang makes a dash to save her, but when he gets to the spot, all he has in his hands is her tunic. From behind the boy, Fong watches as he clenches his fists around the clothes, before dropping it. He then watches in excitement as the tattoo along his spine begins to glow.

The naked boy turns to face the general, eyes and tattoos pure white.

“It worked!” Fong shouts, “It worked!”

A powerful gust of wind sent his way shifts his face from triumph to fear, now fully realizing just how much danger he finds himself in. The boy slices, and the resulting gust pushes him all the way back to the stairwell.

When he regains his footing, he looks on in horror as Aang rises up into the air, lower torso obscured by the massive cyclone of earth, dust and sand.

----

Zuko leaps up onto the deck and blasts away the guards either side of him. Once he lands, he gets into a fighting stance towards his sister, who has her back to him. Unknown to him, she’s smirking as he prepares his fire daggers.

Back on the pier, Iroh is having a pretty easy job pushing back each guard who gets close. Once charges and he grapples him. Turning his head back as he struggles to hold him, Itoh shouts, “Zuko! Let’s go!” He then throws the guard off the edge and side steps to avoid a fire blast sent his way.

Zuko charges, swinging his daggers wildly at the girl. Azula dodges each blow with ease and precision. Still the prince is undeterred, so he keeps swinging. She keeps dodging and dodging, quickly tiring him out. He swings once more, and she pushes him back, causing the fire daggers to dissipate.

“You know,” she taunts her panting brother, “Father blames Uncle for the loss of the North Pole. And he considers you a miserable failure for not finding the Avatar! Why would he want you back home, except to lock you up where you can no longer emberass him?”

Angered, Zuko conjures his fire daggers again and leaps into the air, shooting a fire blast from his mouth towards her. She naturally avoids this blast, as well as the several swings with the daggers, moving further along the deck as they continue this routine. Zuko performs a fire slash with his foot, but she ducks underneath it. As he’s recoiling from his motion, Azula throws a swing at him, scraping his head with her sharp nails.

After falling back a few feet, three small scratch marks on his temple, an enraged Zuko yells loudly as he charges her again. He swings wildly and Azula backs up to avoid each slash, accompanied by some dodging and pushing to avoid the daggers. They move further stern and up the stairs to the bridge door as Zuko continues on that forward pressure.

Once they’re almost at the top, Zuko attempts another fire slice with his foot, which Azula pushes away, causing him to almost lose his footing. After regaining composure, he charges again, but this time gets in close.

However, as he goes for the slash, Azula catches his arm and holds it down between them, forcing the two to stare each other down. Her brow shifts down into an evil glare as Zuko’s eyes widen in alarm.

She punches upward with her free arm, causing a burst of blue flame to fly up as Zuko falls all the way down the stairs.

After a rough landing, with blurry vision, Zuko glances back up at his sister, who stares down at him. She then widens her stance and begins to rotate her arm, a light blue light following her hand. She repeats the process with the other arm, before bringing her hands to her chest, ready to unleash her might on her foolish brother.

She begins to thrust her arm in the direction of Zuko, the lightning bolt already starting to emerge from her fingertips, when a hand clasps onto hers, stopping it.

Iroh, as this happened, had dealt with the last of the Fire Guards and is currently allowing the electricity to flow through his form. He raises his free hand to the sky, the bolt of lightning harmlessly striking the nearby cliff wall.

Shifting his attention back to his niece, Iroh pulls her arm, bending her forwards, and delivering a kick to her torso. She falls off the edge of the ship and splashes into the water, keeping her subdued.

At least it subdued her long enough for her failure brother and traitor uncle to flee the ship and the dock itself.

----

“Avatar Aang! Can you hear me? Your friend is safe!”

When Katara sank fully into the earth, she expected a full burial, no room to move or even breathe sort of thing, and that she’d just be left there until either Aang went into the Avatar State or she suffocated.

While she was tightly buried, not able to move anything from her neck to her feet, there was a small sphere of open air where she had the room to move her head slightly and was barely able to breathe. So that crazy general wasn’t actually putting her in real danger, just trying to make it look like she was to trigger Aang into glowing. Still, she attempts to wiggle herself some more room to at least move, to no avail. Making it harder was the fact that the rock is pressing hard against her arms, legs and torso, and with so little covered, it still hurts.

At least she wasn’t naked, and who knows how uncomfortable the tight stone would make her.

However, she was barely in there for a minute when the rock around her feels like it’s liquifying and she begins to rapidly ascend. In under a second, she’s back on the ground, on her hands and knees, breathing slowly.

She slowly glances up at Aang, seeing his eyes and tattoos glowing and surrounded by a cyclone of earth. The sight horrified her. So much that she didn’t even notice that her top was pulled down, fully on the left and partially on the right, and her bottoms pulled halfway down her thighs. Side effect of her fast ascension from tight earth as well as loose undergarments.

Without noticing or caring, Fong maintains his attention on Aang. “It was just a trick to trigger the Avatar State,” he says with a wide smile, “and it worked!”

Aang, fully under the influence of the Avatar state, floats up there for a few more moments, before finally making his move. He rushes down to the ground in an instant, the resulting gust of dust forcing Fong all the way back. Upon impact with the ground, the naked boy causes a wave of rising earth to spread around the area, knocking every soldier to the ground, as well as damaging several of the smaller huts around the area.

Then something happens, especially for Aang, who now has his senses back. Well, his sense of self anyways, but nothing else, a familiar feeling. He starts to raise up, looking down to see his body, still in the Avatar State, being left behind.

He was now in the Spirit World.

He isn't sure why he’s there, until he looks around and sees he’s now riding atop a long serpentine creature with wings, also the pale, see through blue he was in.

Sitting in front of him, and steering the dragon, is an older man, naked as Aang was, with a fire shaped crown in his hair.

Looking back at the boy, Avatar Roku says, “It’s time you learned,” as they fly away from the base.

They fly all the way up to the clouds. As they fly, dark silhouettes begin to peak out from the clouds, hundreds of them.

As they fly, Roku begins his explanation. “The Avatar State is a defense mechanism, designed to empower you with the skills and knowledge of all the past Avatars.”

As he says this, Aang begins to have visions of people, past Avatars, performing miraculous feets in the Avatar State.

The first person he sees is a young woman, late 20’s early 30’s, with reddish brown hair and a sharp face, and a physique that can be described by no other words than amazonian, tall and muscular. Besides the gloves that go halfway down the shins and the fan adorned crown on her head, she’s completely naked. Kyoshi, with her eyes glowing right, raises one foot, knee as high as her chest, with both hands extended the other way, golden fans in hand. She stomps her foot on the ground and raises one fan, doing so raising a massive statue of a badgermole and moving it a great distance. She repeats the process with another statue on her other side.

“The glow is the combination of all your past lives, focusing their energy through your body.”

Next, he sees a dark skinned man standing atop a raft in the middle of the ocean. The white bear cap and cape his sole item of clothing, Kuruk’s eyes glow for a moment, before he raises his arms. Behind him, massive, tsunami-like waves rise rapidly behind him,which the carefree Avatar begins to ride atop.

Then he sees a field surrounded by a forest, and a lone, fully nude woman standing within. With the same blue tattoos lining her limbs and back like Aang, and her long hair tied back to show the arrow on her forehead, Avatar Yangchen’s eyes glow briefly before she begins to spin, rotating her arms as she does so. The resulting high winds blow violently against the entire forest in the direction she thrusted her arms towards.

“In the Avatar State, you are at your most powerful,”

Then there’s another man in a crouching position atop a brown flat surface, four mountains behind him. Tall and lanky, with a thin long beard and mustache and a bizarre headdress his sole item of clothing, Szeto straightens up, raising his arms as he does. Behind him, all four volcanoes spew molten lava out like geysers.

“But you are also at your most vulnerable.”

“What do you mean?” Aang asks.

“If you are killed in the Avatar State,” Roku says as he and the figures atop the clouds, now more visible as the mostly nude Avatars of the past, disappear into dust. “The reincarnation cycle will be broken.” Aang now finds himself standing above the clouds in the yellow sky. He turns to his right as Ruko continues talking, seeing the old man now standing next to him. To Roku’s right is Kyoshi, hers Kuruk, his Yangchen, hers Szeto, and so on and so on for seemingly forever. “And the Avatar will cease to exist,” he finishes as each Avatar vanishes starting with the presumed first Avatar and ending with him.

To say the boy was concerned would be an understatement.

Before he could ponder any further, he feels himself being pulled down towards the ground again. It seems the dragon they were riding was carrying him back down to his body, which he now sees is surrounded by an air sphere. The dragon flies past the boy's body, and his spirit reenters.

Aang collapses to his knees. He glances around at the destruction he’s caused, his nightmare, and looks down in shame. Katara walks up to him, not even noticing her limited mobility, due to the cloth now almost down to her knees, and crouches beside him to give him a hug.

“I’m sorry, Katara,” he says, full of regret. “I hope you never have to see me like that again.”

“Ha!” Fong, who regained composure, shouts triumphantly. “Are you joking? That was almost perfect! We just have to find out a way to control you when you’re like that.”

Agitated at the fact that this guy learned nothing, Aang shouts, “You’re out of your mind!”

As an ostrich horse trots up behind him, Fong continues, “I guess we’ll figure it out on the way to the Fire Nation.” Then a blunt force hits him on the head and knocks him out.

“Anybody got a problem with that?” Sokka asks, club in hand, to which the soldiers around them shake their heads.

The three closest ones walk up and bow to the three, one of them holding a blue tunic. “Do you still want an escort to Omashu?” he asks as he hands Katara her tunic.

With a look of annoyance, she says, “I think we’re all set,” before snatching it.

It’s here where Aang notices Katara’s, how we say, unstable underwear condition. “Uh, Katara…” he starts, to which Katara shuts her eyes tight.

Holding her tunic to her chest, she says, “Not another word,” as they walk to where Appa was resting, ready to just leave this joint.

----

The working and current residents of the village resort stare up in fear at the girl standing atop one of the stone foundations, a guard either side of her and a paper in hand.

Azula, enraged both at her prisoners getting away, certainly not a good look for her, and the trouble it took to get her armor dried, now stares down the crowd, demanding they all focus on the faces on the wanted poster in her hand. And to the faces of her brother and uncle.

“Anyone who harbors these traitors will face the wrath of the Fire Lord!” Placing her free hand onto the balcony, instilling fear into the two men closest to her, she continues, “There will be no place left to hide!”

Meanwhile, the two people on the poster run along the path beside a river for a good while, putting as much distance between them and the dock as possible. However, no one can run forever, and they stop directly by the riverside to catch their breaths.

“I think we’re safe here,” Iroh comments.

Zuko then reaches back into his robe, retrieving a small dagger from it. He stares at the blade for a few seconds, Iroh seeing this and knowing full well what his nephew intends on doing.

He uses his free hand to grab the band holding his ponytail up, before placing the knife directly behind it. He hesitates for a moment, before slicing the entire thing off.

He holds the severed hair in his hand, passing the knife to Iroh, who glances at the blade for a moment, before doing the same to his own topknot.

Zuko, after a moment, finally lets go of his severed ponytail, and he watches as it and Iroh’s topknot floats away with the river current, never to be seen again.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 1
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

Today was a calmer day than they expected, not to mention pretty warm too. Makes sense, as they were now in spring weather and were basically at the equator, so naturally the air would be much warmer. Besides, they’re not very far from their current destination, so why not take some time off.

At the bottom of a canyon sits a lake. It was here where three people had taken up camp and are currently swimming in.

The oldest of them, a boy with tanned skin, lazes around the water on a large leaf. He lays there, his hair, usually tied in a ponytail, now lays atop his eyes. Also lazing atop the leaf and the boy, is a sleeping lemur. Now, to anyone who happens upon here, this wouldn’t be an unusual sight. Not even the fact that the boy was completely naked wouldn't raise any eyebrows. After all, it’s hot and he’s relaxing in water, so why wouldn’t he? Of course, any potential observer wouldn’t know that this boy arrived at the lake naked, or that he was naked for several days prior to arriving, and after leaving, intends on spending the rest of his life naked as well.

Of course, no one showed up, and the only other people who could observe him are his two traveling companions, who stand a distance away in shin high water, practicing their skills with it.

The two stand by a bridge-like formation of rock, the boy standing closer to the beach while the girl stands further into the water. The girl, skin tanned like the boy on the leaf and sporting similar brown hair done up in a longer ponytail and hair loopies, stands in a fighting stance. Her normal attire of a blue tunic was discarded for her white undergarments that hang loosely on her. The boy standing opposite her, hairless sans eyebrows and lashes and sporting blue tattoos lining his back and limbs (ending with arrows on his forehead and the backs of his hands and tops of his feet), also stands ready to fight. Like the boy on the leaf, he’s as naked as the day he was born, and that’s how long he was naked (besides a few times he was forced into clothes).

Overall, a pretty relaxing scene.

However, it was starting to become a bit of a problem, as by now they’ve been there for a good two hours or so, and all three did want to reach their chosen destination, the city of Omashu, before nightfall. Not the least of which being the boy on the leaf.

“You guys are going to be done soon, right?” Sokka asks his friends, “We have a lot of ground to cover if we’re going to make it to Omashu today.”

Katara straightens up from her stance and turns to face her brother. “What?” she asks smugly. “Like you’re ready to go right now, naked guy?”

Sokka, who at most needs to put on his boots and sheaths for his boomerang and club, simply retorts, “I could be ready in two minutes, if even. Seriously,” he pauses to part his hair from covering his eyes, “whenever.”

Aang, wanting to get back on topic, turns back to Katara and says, “So you were showing me the octopus form?”

“Right,” she says, shifting her attention back to the less annoying naked boy. “Let me see your stance.”

Aang assumes a defensive stance, which Katara scans over. Not satisfied, she begins to walk towards the boy. She ducks under his right arm and wraps herself around his back. “Your arms are too far apart,” she says, repositioning the boy's arms so they'd be a bit closer. This physical motion, plus the fact that she’s so close, makes the boy blush. “See, if you move them closer together, you protect your center. You got it?”

Aang’s heart skips a beat, before he manages to say, “Oh, yeah … thanks.”

She walks back to her position, turns back to Aang, and shifts into a fighting stance. “Okay, let’s see what you got.”

He leans forwards and brings his hands close to the water. Bringing them up, a glob of water follows them. He shifts it around for a few moments, before extending his arms out to his sides, creating four water tentacles on each side.

Katara, raising a bit of water herself, begins to freeze strands of it into ice spikes, which she starts to shoot in Aang’s general direction. Aang, swinging his body, utilizes the swinging water tentacles to deflect each spike sent his way. Seeing how easily he’s handling it, Katara begins to advance towards him, sending more and more spikes at a time, all while using sudden forceful motions. One of her motions evidently was a little too intense, and she’s in the midst of this motion when she feels her bandeau sliding down from her chest again.

Due both to the fact the thing is loose due to the hastily repaired damages from her journeying and being weighed down by absorbed water, her top had slid down four times already as she and Aang were practicing, the first two taking a few minutes for her to notice.

She does notice it this time, and she quickly slides it back up before resuming her assault. However, her distraction did leave an opening, one that Aang quickly exploits. He sends a tentacle her way and it tightly wraps around her leg, pulling it lightly.

Katara looks down at her leg, dropping her stance as the tentacle recedes back to Aang. Looking up at the naked boy with a proud smile, she says, “You make a fine octopus, Pupil Aang.”

Aang, in celebration, completely surrounds himself in water and uses it to mimic the creature for a few seconds.

As this was happening, Sokka and Momo were still lazing around on the leaf, uncaring towards the waterbending to their side. What does get their attention is the strange, fast approaching noise. The two rise up, Sokka parting his hair to see clearer, as the noise gets clearer, clear enough to figure out what it is.

It’s music

Emerging from the three’s was a strange procession of people. Five of them, three men and two women. They were decked in flower jewelry and decoratives as well as wearing strange hats. Naturally, for the most part, that was all they were wearing. The man leading the group with a red guitar and the man and woman dancing were completely naked from the neck down, the man with the small drum is wearing only white crapings around his lower torso, and the woman with the flute has a small belt with a thin cloth hanging down to cover her crotch. They slowly walk up to the water and the people within, while the leading guy sings a strange song.

“ Da, da, da. Don't fall in love with the traveling girl. She'll leave you broke and brokenhearted.”

The three stare at this group in confusion as they walk up towards the riverside. It’s such an absorbing sight that it causes Sokka to lose balance and fall off his leaf into the water (Momo managed to fly off his chest before this happened).

As they walk up, the splashing noise must've momentarily snapped these folk out of whatever trance they seemed to be in and they eye the three in the water. The leader leans slightly back to the larger man with the drum, points at them and says, “Hey, river people!”

“We’re not river people,” Katara corrects, puzzling the man.

“You’re not?” he asks. “Well then what kind of people are you?”

“Just,” Aang pauses, “people.”

“Aren’t we all, brother?”

Sokka, who by now has gotten to his feet, stomps up to these weirdos, Momo laying on his back. He may be just as naked as most of them, but at least he doesn’t parade around acting like that, and he’d like some answers. “Who are you?” he asks the lead man in an accusing tone.

“I’m Chong,” the man says cheerfully, “and this is my wife, Lily.” He raises his arm to address the flute lady with the thin cloth around her waist. “We’re nomads, happy to go wherever the wind takes us!” He then starts to strum his guitar in a manner so strange it’s almost like he’s doing it in a style that won’t be created for a century or so (if it ever does in this world).

“You guys are nomads?” Aang asks, getting a bit excited at the idea of there being even more people who are still like him after his people were wiped out a century ago. “That’s great! I’m a nomad!”

In a tone as excited as the boy in front of him, Chong says, “Hey, me too!”

“I know,” the boy says blankly at the guys evident absentmindedness. “You just said that.”

“Oh,” Chong says, before shifting his attention back to the accusing boy. “Neat birthmark,” he says, directing his attention to the strangely shaped birthmark positioned just below the meeting point of his hips.

Sokka objects to this bit of attention. Being buck naked in front of people he just met is one thing, he’s been doing that for a little while now, but having attention on his nether region he was not. Quickly grabbing Momo, the boy holds the lemur in front of his crotch before slowly scooting away from the scene.

----

However things were for team Avatar, it was essentially the opposite for team Capture the Avatar. Having to ditch their old red Fire Nation attire, Zuko and Iroh now bear black and dark green full body outfits they managed to swipe from the waste of a nearby Earth Kingdom village.

But that was the least of their problems. Now they had no money and basically no food, not to mention no shelter and the fact they were now on the run from their home deep in enemy territory.

Overall, not the best of circumstances.

While Iroh examines a strange plant with white flowers with red streaks on the inside, Zuko bursts out of the bushes in frustration, now sporting very short black hair instead of his usual ponytail. “I didn’t find anything to eat!” he shouts to the air and his uncle. “I can’t live like this! I wasn’t meant to be a fugitive!” He raises his fists to the sky. “This is impossible!” Lowering his gaze, he catches his uncle examining the plant. “Uncle, what are you doing?”

“You’re looking at the rare white dragon bush,” the old man says as his nephew walks up behind him. “Its leaves make a tea so delicious, it’s heartbreaking. That, or it’s the white jade, which is poisonous.”

“We need food, not tea,” Zuko says at this, annoyed by his uncle's insistence on having the drink at least once a day. Walking away, he says. “I’m going fishing.”

“Hmm,” Iroh ponders dreamily but with an air of suspicion. “Delectable tea? Or deadly poison?”

----

As it turns out, these hippies are way more interesting than they initially appeared. Not only had they traveled basically the whole world, but they wrote songs about almost everything they saw. They’re also really chill people too, but that was to be expected.

Of course, Sokka is the odd man out, due to mostly avoiding them, since he finds them to be odd. But he has to come back to Appa eventually, and now's the time.

So he walks back up to the group, his friend's hair (or big head in Aang’s case) decked in flowers. They even managed to weave Appa’s hair with the stuff. The lead hippie, Chong, strums his lute casually while the rest just relax on the limbs and torso of the massive beast. Overall, a chill scene. So chill that even Katara is still in her underclothes, even if she’s still having troubles with her bandeau.

“Hey, Sokka,” Aang says, a pink flower crown on his head. “You should hear some of their stories. These guys have been everywhere!”

“Well, not everywhere, little Arrowhead” Chong says as he stops strumming, “But where we haven’t been, we’ve heard about through stories and songs.”

“They said they’ll take us to see a giant night crawler!” the enthusiastic little arrowhead says.

“On the way,” says the larger drummer, who’s laying on the ground talking dreamily, “there’s a waterfall that creates a never-ending rainbow!’

“Look.” Sokka interrupts. “I hate to be the wet blanket here, but since Katara is busy,” he addresses his sister, who’s currently getting her hair braided with yellow flowers by that Lily woman and shooting him a glare, “I guess it’s up to me. We need to get to Omashu. No sidetracks, no worms, and definitely no rainbows.”

“Wow,” Chong says, “sounds like someone has a case of destination fever. You’re worried too much about where you’re going.”

“You got to focus less on the “where” and more on the “going”,” Lily says, gesturing with her hands and accidentally tugging against Katara’s braid, causing her to wince in pain.

“O. Ma. Shu,” Sokka says impatiently.

“Sokka’s right,” Katara admits, leaning up a bit. “We need to find King Bumi, so Aang can learn earthbending somewhere safe.”

Chong looks at her for a moment, before something clicks in his head. “Sounds like you’re heading to Omashu.”

Sokka smacks his forehead in frustration.

“There’s an old story about a secret pass right through the mountains.”

This intrigues the girl. “Is this real or a legend?”

“Oh, it’s a real legend. And it’s as old as earthbending itself.” Chong then begins to strum his lute and sings, “Two lovers, forbidden from one another, the war divides their people and the mountain divides them apart! Built a path to be together!” He realizes something and stops playing. “Yeah, I forgot the next couple of lines, but then it goes…”

…

Oh yeah

…

You all know where this is going

…

And I know how you must be feeling right now

…

And I see you shiver

…

With antici-

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…
…

-pation

…

…

…

“SECRET TUNNEL! SECRET TUNNEL! THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS, SECRET, SECRET, SECRET, SECRET TUNNEL, YEAH!”

He sings loudly as the other naked man and naked woman start to dance wildly, while Aang, Katara, Lily and the drummer bob their heads. When he’s done they all clap, except Sokka.

Sokka is still unamused.

Folding his arms, he says, “I think we’ll just stick with flying. We’ve dealt with the Fire Nation before. We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Aang says with a smile, “thanks for the help, but Appa hates going underground. And we need to do whatever makes Appa most comfortable.”

--

“Launch!”

Several catapults are launched into the air at the flying bison upon the commander's orders.

The bison narrowly dodges each fireball all while the three scream in terror.

--

The five hippies are naturally a bit confused at the reappearance of the two naked boys and girl in white undies, all three now covered in ash and scorch marks, all the while being very casual.

“Secret love cave, lets go,” Sokka says as he leads his friends past them

----

There was good news and bad news.

The good news, despite Zuko’s utter lack of knowledge\of how to fish, even by sphere, he had still managed to skewer a fish.

The bad news, it was tiny., and it needed to feed two, and one of them was on the larger side.

Suffice to say, the exiled prince was already in a bit of a sour mood when he walks back to where his uncle, now crouched down and facing away from him, is.

“Zuko,” the old man starts. “Remember that plant I thought might be tea?”

“You didn’t,” the shocked Zuko says.

“I did,” Iroh says, turning around to reveal his face and bare arms, which were swollen with red rashes, which he was scratching rapidly with his hands and a branch. “And it wasn’t.”

Zuko drops the branch in shock as he screams at the sight.

In a surprisingly calm tone, the man says, “When the rash spreads to my throat, I will stop breathing, but look what I found.” He pulls up the branch from behind his back, revealing the reddish orange spherical berries filling the tips of it. “These are bacui berries, known to cure the poison of the white jade.” he pauses to think. “That, or maka’ole berries that cause blindness.”

Already snatching the branch and throwing it far away, Zuko turns back to his uncle and shouts, “We’re not taking any more chances with these plants! We need to get help.”

“But where are we going to go?” he asks. “We’re enemies of the Earth Kingdom and fugitives from the Fire Nation.”

“If the Earth Kingdom discovers us,” Zuko starts, “they’ll have us killed.”

“But if the Fire Nation discovers us,” a rising Iroh says, “we’ll be turned over to Azula.”

They glance at each other in silence, before nodding.

“Earth Kingdom it is,” Zuko says, already walking from the scene.

----

Deep within a canyon, a group of mostly minimally dressed folk walk the path, closer towards one of the walls of the gorge. Sokka leads by a little bit, while the rest of the group is intermingled between him and Appa, who trails.

Despite the eccentricities of these hippies when they first arrived, the walk was actually pretty subdued. They mostly just walk in silence, no one talking or even playing their instruments.

The only person doing something more than walking is Katara.

See, because of how relaxed she was with these hippies, Katara didn’t put her tunic back on, and she hadn’t noticed she was still in her underwear. At least, not until her bandeau starts to slide down again. She quickly shifts it back up and hastily begins to make adjustments, even attempting to tighten it to prevent further slippage. She, of course, couldn’t do this in silence, as the effort would cause her to grunt lightly, and while it mostly goes unnoticed, it’s not completely overlooked.

Lily, standing closer to Katara, shifts her head to face the young girl, a look of confusion on her face. “Why not just take the thing off?” she asks in a semi hushed tone.

Katara shifts her gaze to the woman completely baffled. “Uh, why would I?”

“Because you look like you’re hurting yourself to keep that thing up. Besides,” Lily says, before looking back in front of her and stretching her arms high into the air. “Letting one’s breasts out is much more liberating, both for them and me. It’s why I wear only this,” she says, stretching the sides of her belt out a little bit. “You’ll feel much better when you do.”

Katara was about to make an objection, but she stopped herself. Despite her hesitance, the woman did have a point. The bandeau was pretty uncomfortable and difficult to manage while still being damp and without the extra support of her tunic, and going up to put it on would be awkward. Adding to that was the fact that she’s heard similar rhetoric from the women of the Northern Water Tribe. And anyways, she’s the only person in this group to have some sort of clothing above their waist. Of the five guys, four of them are completely naked and the one that isn’t is shirtless. One of the women is also naked and the other only has her crotch barely covered by a thin cloth. She’ll be in a dark cave anyways, it’s not like anyone else would notice, right?

As Katara makes herself one article of clothing lighter, Sokka has a question for the hippie leader. “How far are we from the tunnel?”

“Actually,” Chong starts, “it’s not just one tunnel. The lovers didn’t want anyone to find out about their love, so they built a whole labyrinth!”

“Labyrinth?” Sokka says, halting in his tracks in shock.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

They start to walk again, Lily walking up next to her husband, saying, “All you need to do is trust in love … according to the curse.”

Sokka halts in his tracks again to process what was just said, the others not stopping this time and walking past him. After a few moments, he flinches in fear, before saying lightly, “Curse?”

But still, they walked on, and after a little while longer, they reached the edge of the canyon, and the massive hole in it.

“Hey-hey!” Chong shouts as they approach. “We're here!”

Walking up to the man's side, Sokka asks, “What exactly is this curse?”

“The curse says that only those who trust in love can make it through the caves,” he explains. “Otherwise, you’ll be trapped in them forever.”

“And die,” Lily butts in.

“Oh yeah, and die.” The man brightens up, readying the lute. “Hey, I just remembered the rest of that song!” He strums the instrument and says in a deep, low voice, “And die!”

“That’s it!” Sokka says, already turning on his heels and beginning to walk away. “There’s no way we’re going through some cursed hole!”

They all turn their heads behind them, towards the way they came. Coming up from behind one of the canyon walls, is dark grey smoke.

“Hey,” the larger drummer says innocently, “someone’s making a big campfire!”

Katara, on the other hand, saw the smoke as something else, exactly what it was. “That’s no campfire, Moku,” she says in a serious tone, as unpleasant memories of her last encounter with the people causing the fire come rushing back.

“It’s the Fire Nation,” Sokka says grimly, “They’re tracking us.”

“So all you need to do is trust in love to get through these caves?” Aang asks the lute player, just to make sure.

“That’s correct, Master Arrowhead,” Chong says.

Aang turns his head back towards Katara, who has her own back to him. The wind blows gracefully through her hair and sole item of clothing, causing them to lightly dance in the air. With a smile, the naked boy says, “We can make it.”

Gesturing towards the maw, Sokka shouts, “Everyone into the hole!”

With a loud groan from Appa, the group begin to enter the cave, slowly descending into the labyrinth. Well after they’ve already been consumed by the darkness, the Fire Nation tanks arrive. They drive right up to the mouth of the cave, but the commander stops them from going any further.

“Hold on! It’s too dangerous,” he says as the tanks halt in their tracks. “Haven’t you heard the song? Just close them in. The mountain will take care of the rest.”

The tanks aim upwards, and shoot their hooks at the rock directly above the cave. They begin to pull, dislodging the stone from position and causing it all to collapse over the entrance.

This action obviously doesn’t go unnoticed by the people already in the cave. While they’re all far enough to not be hurt, they are still close enough to see the only source of natural light be covered by tons of stone. Appa doesn’t like this naturally, and immediately charges for the new wall in an attempt to paw each stone away to little success.

As Chong lights a torch to give them some visibility, Katara approaches the distressed beast. “It’s okay, Appa,” she says calmly. “We’ll be fine. I hope.”

“We will be fine,” Sokka says with much more confidence than his sister. “All we need is a plan. Chong, how long do those torches last?”

In a casual tone, the naked man says, “Uh, about two hours each.”

“And we have five torches,” Lily says, quickly dragging the other four along the ground to generate sparks and flames, “so that’s ten hours!”

Snatching the torches, Sokka says, “It doesn’t work like that if they’re all lit at the same time!” He begins to stop the torches to extinguish them.

“Oh, right,” a slightly emberassed Lily says.

“I’m going to make a map to keep track of exactly where we’ve been,” he says in a commanding tone, already ascending Appa’s tail to get a parchment and a pen to begin the process. “Then we should be able to solve it like a maze and get through.”

Aang and Katara share a glance at the older boy's antics as he slides down, an open roll of parchment in hand. Pen in hand, Sokka leads the group deeper into this labyrinth, where night is blind.

----

The longer they walk, the more Iroh’s condition worsens. Each second spent on this trail is another second of the poison of the white jade taking its effect. By the time they reach a smallish village, his rashes had spread to cover a decent chunk of his body and were starting to bloat and turn a light green.

Upon passing the gate, the villagers took one look at the old man and directed the pair towards a small hospital. Once inside, the attendants just take a single look at Iroh before acting. He’s stripped of his clothes and led to an empty cot and the woman presiding over it.

The woman, naked from the waist up and with her hair in a braid down her back, immediately sits the man down and starts to quickly prepare some medicine. Seeing as he has nothing better to do, Zuko just takes a seat on a bench by the opposite wall.

After a few moments, the woman places the dish containing the medicine to her side, before taking a washcloth and dipping it into the liquid. She then starts to rub the cloth against the man's skin on each rash, saying as she does so, “You two must not be from around here. We know better than to touch the White Jade, much less make it into tea and drink it.” She flicks away Iroh’s hand, which was attempting to scratch a bit of his rash, as she turns to refill the cloth.

“Whoops!” Iroh says slightly emberassed.

“So where are you traveling from?” she asks, taking Iroh's hand from continuing to scratch and whipping it.

Nervously standing from his seat, Zuko says, “Yes, we’re travelers.”

“Do you have names?”

“Names?” Zuko repeats, “Of course we have names.” It was fortunate that Iroh couldn’t go even a single second without scratching, because otherwise, this shirtless woman would almost certainly notice the boy’s anxious demeanor. He obviously can’t give their real names, since they’re not only undeniably Fire Nation, but belong to members of the Royal Family. He has to think fast. “I’m, uh … Lee,” he says. “And this is my uncle, uh … Mushi?”

Iroh shoots his nephew an angry look, before brightening back up as he shifts back to the woman. “Yes, my nephew was named after his father, so we just call him Junior,” he says as the woman prepares some sort of lotion for his skin.

Zuko glares at his uncle, and goes to make a slashing motion across his own neck. He stops halfway through as the woman starts turning to face him.

“Mushi and Junior, huh,” she says. “My name is Song. You two look like you could use a good meal.” She pauses to slap the old man's hand. “Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

Zuko, nervously looking away, stammers out, “Sorry, but we need to be moving on.”

“That’s too bad,” Song says, screwing up the lid of the jar of lotion. “My mom always makes too much roast duck.”

“Where do you live exactly?” Iroh asks immediately, always being one with a good meal, regardless of his nephews interests.

----

This ragtag group of adventurers traverse deeper into the labyrinth. They follow the clear path on the map provided by the leading boy. It’s not a long path, and not too complicated to where they’ll be able to get out in under an hour at most, so they follow it.

One problem, though. After just a few minutes, they find themselves face to face with a dead-end of earth. Sokka isn’t deterred, and just chooses a different path, one that should, at most, add a few minutes into their walk.

Then they reach the next dead end.

They keep trying paths, each one eventually being blocked by stone. They even retread old ground just to be sure, and it’s then they find that formerly open paths were now closed.

“Sokka, this is the tenth dead end you’ve led us to,” Katara says as her brother examines the map desperately.

“This doesn’t make sense,” the naked boy says. “We already came through this way.” He turns around and begins to walk past the group.

“We don’t need the map,” Chong says as Sokka passes him. “We just need love. The little guy knows it.”

Aang, the one being addressed, says, “Yeah, but I wouldn’t mind a map also.”

Sokka scans over the map again and again, trying to see what he’s doing wrong, and why these walls keep appearing in previously open tunnels. “There’s something strange here,” he says, finally getting it. “There’s only one explanation. The tunnels are changing.”

The tunnel then starts to shake around the shocked people, quickly confirming what the Water Tribe boy said.

----

The sun was getting close to setting when Zuko and Iroh approached the house of the nice nurse lady, Song. Zuko was a little grumpy at the prospect of staying in enemy territory for longer than necessary, but Iroh’s hunger for some real food (plus his own) won out in the end.

Once they reach the house, the door slides open, the people inside evidently expecting them. Standing in the doorway was a woman, visually similar to the young Song, but with distinctively lighter hair and visible age on her face. This must be her mother.

The main thing that stood out about this woman, which was revealed the moment the door slid open, was that, unlike her daughter, who was only shirtless, this woman was as naked as the day she was born.

She greets the two and lets them inside. She leads them to the other side of the house, where the dining area sat open to the air. Sitting on one side was the lone Song, The two take seats on the other side of the table as the mother leaves the room to start the last bits of preparation for the meal.

Song and the two exchange a small greeting, but beyond that the conversation is minimal until the woman arrives, a platter full of roast duck in her hands. “My daughter tells me you’re refugees,” she says as she lays it on the table before taking a seat next to her daughter. “We were once refugees ourselves.”

This brings something back up in the girl, who’s demeanor shifts to a more somber one. “When I was a little girl, the Fire Nation raided our farming village. All the men were taken away. That was the last time I saw my father.” She drops her head.

Zuko, relating, says, “I haven’t seen my father in many years.”

With sorrow in her tone, Song asks, “Oh, is he fighting in the War?”

Zuko hesitates for a moment, not sure what to say. His father was the man currently running the war, and he can’t just blurt that out. He probably made a mistake by saying that in the first place. Even Iroh stops slurping his food at the situation, and Iroh never does that.

Setting his own bowl down, all he says is, “Yeah.” He looks away from the two women in front of him shamefully.

----

“The tunnels, they’re a-changin’.”

Upon this realization, the travelers within the cave slowly start to panic. Even the laid back Chong wasn’t immune to this.

“It must be the curse!” the naked man shouts, almost frantically. “I knew we shouldn’t have come down here!”

Sokka, annoyed by this man's sudden change in opinion about the cave, sarcastically says, “Right, if only we listened to you.” He then brings his attention back to the fork in the cave, which they had just reached.

“Everyone be quiet,” Katara says, holding up her hand to get the chatter to halt. Her minimal state of dress, among other things, heightens her senses to her surroundings, and she hears something. “Listen.”

They all glance up as some strange noises begin to fill the air. Sokka, torch in hand and Momo on his shoulder, turns to the dark tunnel in front of the group as the noises get loud, emanating from the darkness. Then a snarl is heard, and the lemur flees. Turning back to the darkness, Sokka raises his torch to possibly get sight of whatever’s causing the noise, to no avail.

At least it was until the flying wolf like creature flew into the light.

“It’s a giant flying thing with teeth!” Chong shouts as everyone devolves into panic.

The creature lands a bit away from the group, but still in the light. It turns and snarls at them before beginning its advance towards them.

“No!” the larger drummer, Moku, says. “It’s a wolfbat!”

The wolfbat takes back off, more in confusion and territorialism than straight up aggression, towards the group. In an attempt to fend the beast off, Sokka swings his torch around the creature. He does this twice, the second slash landing, directing the wolfbat away, but at a cost.

A couple embers fly away from the torch, right towards the foot of a massive, strong, and very emotional bison.

Appa, as a natural reaction to getting a foot burnt, charges away in pain. However, the sheer weight of the creature causes the area of the cave to lose stability, and him smashing into parts of the wall, especially the bit dividing the two caves making up the fork, makes things worse, and debris begins to fall. Aang sees this and, instincts taking over, uses a push of air to blast Sokka and the hippies to safety from a mass of stone. He turns around to Katara and begins to charge towards her. All she could do was turn and watch as the boy flew towards her. The force of his big head against her chest causes both of them to fall to the ground, luckily safely away from the new wall of stone formed by the action.

Luckily for the two, there’s still a lit torch on the ground to at least keep the area visible. It allows them to see the stone blocking their view of the others, all the while Appa paws helplessly at these stones.

On the other side of the wall, the hippies and Sokka get their bearings as they take in the sight of the divider.

Once back on his feet, the naked boy charges towards the wall and begins to dig his way through. The hippies watch this feeble attempt for what it is.

“Yeah, it’s no use,” Chong says. “We’re separated. But at least you have us!”

Sokka’s eyes widen.

“Nooooooooo!” he shouts, before turning back to the wall and starting to rapidly dig through the rubble.

----

When he finished his food, the scarred boy, Lee, leaves the table immediately. This was pretty confusing for the young Song, as he didn’t even excuse himself or tell them where he was going. He just got up and walked away.

This wouldn’t do, as she really wanted to speak to him about something, what she wanted to talk about from the moment she saw his face.

After she finishes her meal, she excuses herself and leaves the room, leaving her mother to make small talk to this Mushi man.

She searches around for a little while, before seeing his shadow through one of the windows. She walks out the nearby door and heads onto the porch, seeing Lee sitting in a meditative pose facing out to the gate.

“Can I join you?” she asks as she walks outside to him. He doesn't respond, so she walks up and sits beside him. “I know what you’ve been through. We’ve all been through it.” She eyes the boy's scar, the reason she’s taken interest in this boy. “The Fire Nation has hurt you,” she says as she reaches out to touch it.

He sees this and lightly pushes her hand away.

With compassion and sympathy, she says, “It’s okay.” She looks down to her lower body. She hesitates for a moment, seriously wondering if she should do this. It’s been so long since anyone other than her mother has seen anything of hers from the waist down. Was tonight really when that would change? Well, if this boy can walk around with his damages displayed without even a mask or bandage to cover them, then maybe it was about time she showed hers as well.

She begins to undo her belt, much to the confusion of Lee. Is this girl really going to expose herself to me, all because of that, he thinks.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what she’s doing, as the moment the belt is slid off, she grabs the front ends of the cloth making up her skirt and tosses them off to her sides, leaving her now fully naked.

She flattens her right foot onto the ground, straightening up her calf, and the scars that line it from ankle to knee, for Lee to get a full view of.

“They’ve hurt me, too,” she says as Lee takes in the sight, “Before I was burned, me and my family lived a completely natural life. Grew our own food, wore no clothes, rarely used actual money, and only used medicines from nature. Then the Fire Nation attacked. Dad was taken and I was hurt. I couldn’t bear to even look at my leg, so much I had to keep it and everything below my waist covered. I hated it, but I hated looking at my leg.” She turns her head to face Lee straight on. “You aren’t hiding your face, despite your scar. You seem confident in the body you have even with your burn. So, I guess if you can display your scar, why can’t I?” She shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“The Fire Nation took my body confidence away from me. So I just wanted to say, thank you for bringing it back to me.” The naked girl gives the boy a small smile.

Zuko’s eyes shift back to Song’s leg, onto her burn scars, before placing his hand onto his own on his face, mind racing.

To the Fire Nation, receiving a burn meant a loss of honor. Allowing oneself to be scared like this was just because they were a weaker fighter.

This… this wasn’t a loss of honor.

This was cruelty, plain and simple. She’s not a firebender, probably not a bender of any kind, so why her? She didn’t wrong anyone, she wasn’t a massive egotist that needed to be brought down a peg. She was just a girl who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, absolutely not deserving to have her leg permanently scared.

It’s then that he asks himself the question, one that would certainly get him killed on it’s own, but one he has to ask himself, especially given because of how similar her leg scars look to the one on his face.

If her burn was an act of cruelty, then what was his?

----

As the group walk along the dark cave, Sokka goes over every bad thing he’s done in his life, wondering what he did to deserve the hell he now finds himself trapped in.

He just trots along the cave, visibly annoyed at the hippies continued insistence on singing and dancing.

“Don't let the falling rocks turn your smile into a frown!” Chong sings as he and the rest of the troupe begin to slowly pass the grumpy Sokka. “When the tunnels are darkest, that's when you need a clown, hey! Don't let the cave-in get you down, Sokka!” he finishes.

Sokka only scowls in response.

In another, much more quiet part of the caves, Aang and Katara walk along the winding path, Appa trailing them, where they reach another dead end. Unlike the many ones Sokka led them too, this one is flat, with some very intentional carvings in the shape of a circle on it.

Katara catches sight of it first and cheerfully says, “Aang, look!”

The two run up to the wall, obviously some kind of door. “We found the exit!” Aang shouts.

The two begin to push on the door hard, but despite their effort, they’re both still kids, and don’t move it an inch. The two then hear a noise behind them, and both turn to see Appa exhaling harshly, readying his footing to charge the door.

The two have barely jumped out of the wave before the bison rushes towards the door, forcing it open.

After regaining their feet, Aang and Katara leap past the door, and into the still very dark space, and not the darkness of the night.

“This isn’t the exit,” Katara says.

“No,” Aang says as he walks up to her side. “It’s a tomb.”

Sure enough, as Katara walks deeper in, her torch light reveals the centerpiece of the room, a circular platform, holding atop two large and fancy caskets of stone, laying side by side. Statues along the room, as well as carvings, prominently feature two naked people, a man and a woman.

“It must be the two lovers,” Aang says, piecing it together immediately. “That’s who’s buried here.”

Katara leans closer to the tomb, reading the panels of the naked couple, saying, “These pictures tell their story.”

The carvings along the base of the tomb spell out the full story of a man and woman who fell in love under very specific circumstances, starting with the panel of the two atop a mountain, accidentally seeing each other naked. A story which Katara recounts in its entirety.

“They met on top of the mountain that divided their two villages. The villages were enemies, so they could not be together, but their love was strong and they found a way. The two lovers learned earthbending from the badgermoles; they became the first earthbenders. They built elaborate tunnels, so they could meet secretly. Anyone who tried to follow them would be forever in the labyrinth. But, one day, the man didn't come ; he'd died in the war between the two villages. Devastated, the woman unleashed a terrible display of her earthbending power - she could have destroyed them all … but, instead, she declared the war over. Both villages helped her build a new city where they would live together in peace. The woman's name was Oma and the man's name was Shu. The great city was named Omashu as a monument to their love.”

The two glance at each other, not knowing how to take in this story. The story of the founding of the city they were traveling to, the origin of earthbending, and the reason for this very labyrinth existing.

They then slowly turn around, seeing the two massive statues being them of the couple kissing. On the wall between them is an inscription, which Katara reads aloud.

“Love is brightest in the dark.”

----

With Momo perched on his head, Sokka leads the group of hippies down another pathway for a little while, before finally leading them to a familiar sight of a rock and stone wall.

“Oh, great!” Moku says, even he has had enough of this. “Your plans have led us to another dead end!”

Sokka glares at the shirtless nomad. “At least I’m thinking of ideas and trying to get out of here, Moku,” he says in defense of himself.

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Chong says, also starting to get annoyed. “We’re thinking of ideas? Because I’ve had an idea for, like, an hour.”

“Yes!” Sokka shouts angrily, spreading his arms out to emphasize his words. “We’re all thinking of ideas!”

“Well, then listen to this,” the naked man says, readying his lute. “If love is the key out of here, then all we need to do is play a love song!”

Much to Sokka’s dismay, Chong begins to perform another, even more annoying song, this one about love.

----

“How are we going to find our way out of these tunnels?” Aang asks Katara, who’s further examining the statues and inscriptions.

Love is brightest in the dark. What does that even mean?

That thought keeps repeating itself through the girl's head.

It's some sort of clue to get them out, that’s pretty obvious, but what did it mean?

Well it’s pretty dark right now, thanks to the torch that's starting to lose flame, but what of the rest of it?

Love.

It has something to do with love.

Maybe it's…

No, that’s stupid.

But is it?

It’s called the Cave of Two Lovers after all.

Well, it certainly can’t hurt to bring it up to in, would it?

Turning to face the naked boy, Katara says, “I have a crazy idea.”

“What?” Aang asks, turning to face her.

Having the boy suddenly looking straight at her, combined with how little she has covering herself, causes Katara’s nerves to kick into overdrive. Emberassed, she turns and starts to walk away. “Never mind. It’s too crazy.”

“Katara,” he says, taking a step towards her, “What is it?”

She leans against the statue, but still faces away from him as she says, “I was thinking … the curse says we’ll be trapped in here forever unless we trust in love …”

“Right…”

Turning to face him, Katara continues. “And here, it says Love is brightest in the dark, and has a picture of them kissing.” She gestures towards the statues to emphasize her point.

Aang, lost and not entirely sure he’s getting what she’s putting down, simply says, “Where are you going with this?”

All the times she’s blushed as a result of being nude have nothing on how red she was now. “Well,” she says shyly, “what if we … kissed?”

This was kinda shocking for the bald boy. “Us … kissing?”

“See?” Katara says, trying to regain composure. “It was a crazy idea.”

“Us … kissing …” he says, much less shocked and more, for lack of any better words, dreamily.

“Us kissing,” Katara says jokingly, or at least, in an attempt to sound jokingly. “What was I thinking? Can you imagine that?”

“Yeah,” Aang says in a similar tone, before laughing awkwardly. “I definitely wouldn’t want to kiss you!”

…

Awkward

…

Insulted, Katara shouts, “Oh, well! I didn’t realize it was such a horrible option. Sorry I suggested it!”

“No, no, I mean,” Aang stammers out, already realizing his mistake. “If there was a choice between kissing you and dying…”

“Ugh!” She cuts him off.

“What?” the naked boy asks, desperately trying to save face. “I’m saying I would rather kiss you than die - that’s a compliment.”

“Well,” an enraged Katara shouts, “I’m not sure which I’d rather do!” She slams the torch into his arms and storms off.

Aang stands there alone for a few moments, before saying, “What is wrong with me?”

Almost as miserable as Aang, depending on your perspective, is Sokka, who just had to deal with another, MUCH longer song from the hippies.

“Even if you’re lost, you can’t lose the love because it’s in your heart…”

As Chong sings and the others play their instruments and dance, all he does is slap himself in the forehead.

----

Despite nothing much happening during the night, it sure felt like it. Iroh got a nice meal in who knows how long, the woman got some interesting company for a few hours, Zuko got some more perspective on his scar, and Song, through Zuko’s example, finally embraced her scared leg and finally allowed herself to have some confidence in her body again, much to her mothers delight to her reentering the house, dress over her shoulder rather than around her waist. And while both would wish they’d stick around for the night at least, it was understood that they needed to leave.

“Thank you for the duck,” Iroh says to the woman, genuinely impressed by her abilities to cook. “It was excellent.”

“You’re welcome,” she replies. “It brings me pleasure to see someone eat my cooking with such …” she pauses to hand him a wrapped container. “Gusto.”

Patting his stomach, the old man says, “Much practice.”

Iroh and the lady bow, but Zuko just turns and begins to walk away.

“Junior,” the old man says as the boy stops in his tracks, “where are your manners? You need to thank these nice people.”

He turns around and bows. “Thank you.”

He turns around and starts to walk again, as Song tells him, “I know you don’t think there’s any hope left in the world, but there is hope. The Avatar has returned.”

Stopping yet again, staring straight out into the wilderness ahead, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice, he says, “I know.”

He’s the first to pass the gate, followed by Iroh. They walk for a little, but the exiled prince stops beside the smaller structure just away from the gate to be easily seen. Tied to a post in front of it, is an ostrich horse, which he eyes with interest.

He walks up to it, unfastens it’s rope, and leads it away. Iroh turns to see his nephew mounting the animal, and rather objects to this move by his nephew. “What are you doing? These people just showed you great kindness.”

With barely a hint of emotion in his voice, Zuko whispers, “They’re about to show us a little more kindness.” He stands there for a moment, watching his uncle. “Well?”

Despite his reluctance, Iroh mounts the ostrich horse, and Zuko whips it’s reins and the creature runs off. As far as he’s concerned, he stole it without anyone knowing.

Of course, how would he have seen the naked girl peering out of the door, very visibly upset.

Because even if he didn’t see her, she saw him.

----

Now it’s really getting dark down there. As Katara, Aang and Appa walk through the cavern, the torch light begins to die at a more rapid pace.

Aang notices this first, and stops in his tracks to look down at it. “We’re going to run out of light any second now, aren’t we?” the naked boy asks.

“I think so…” the shirtless girl says, also stopping.

“Then,” he says, walking up towards her, “what are we going to do?”

Turning to face him, Katara says, “What can we do?”

She closes the short gap and grabs his hand holding the torch. Aang looks up from the dying light to meet her eyes. They stare each other down, the distance between their heads slowly closing as the light flickers more and more.

With both of their faces barely lit, they shut their eyes and lean in.

Then the torch died, obscuring everything in darkness.

…

…

…

After the moment passes, the room begins to light up again.

Not from a torch, Sokka’s group has the rest of those.

No, from the ceiling.

Lining the ceiling of the labyrinth, are blue luminescent crystals, now glowing brightly.

Bright enough to light up the whole area, even down to the floor, bringing Aang and Katara back into the light, still holding the dead torch.

----

Thankfully, by now the hippies' song had stopped, leaving Sokka’s ears in the piece of pure silence, only broken by footsteps as they continued to walk along the pitch black cave.

But it wouldn’t last.

Several low growls emit from behind the mostly nude troupe. They turn, seeing a whole pack of wolfbats, snarling towards them.

They then begin to fly towards them, scaring everyone.

Sokka, in fear, begins to flail his arms around in the air in a hope that the sudden motion would scare them off. And it seems to work, as they all just fly past him, not even glancing down towards him.

Wait, it wasn’t him who scared them off.

Unaware of this fact that Sokka already realized, Chong says, “Hey! You saved us, Sokka!”

“No,” the naked boy says, “they were trying to get away from something!”

“From what?”

The sudden rumbling of the cave is Chong’s answer. They all panic as one of the rock walls collapses into rubble. Emerging from the new hole, were two massive badgermoles, the first earthbenders.

Living up to that rep, one of them slams its hands together in prayer style, and the tunnel closes behind it. Following suit, the other mole slams it’s paws into the ground, causing the other path to be blocked, trapping the six humans and lemur in the room with them.

They barely have time to react to this development when a fissure forms underneath them. Luckily, no one fell within the newly formed split, but the hippies and Sokka are separated from each other, a good thing any other time for the boy, but definitely not now. Making things worse is that each badgermole stands on either side of the room, one per side of the divide.

The one on Sokka’s side swipes at him, which he dodges. He repeats this several times, before another slam of the beast's paw causes the nude boy to fly back against the wall. Before he could get up, the paw slams down on his foot, holding him in place. He reaches around for anything to use as a weapon, when he feels an object laying down. After a small movement with his fingers, a music note produced in the process.

It was Chong’s lute.

Sokka looks back up at the creature, to find it cocking its head in curiosity. Taking inspiration, he pulls the instrument up to him and starts to strum it, continuing the effect.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Chong. “Hey, those things are music lovers!”

Wanting to keep them placated, Sokka nervously sings, “Badgermoles coming toward me. Come on guys, help me out!”

Chong joins in on the singing, always willing to sing, especially to help a friend out. “The big, bad badgermoles who earthbend the tunnels, hate the wolfbats, but love the sounds!”

As the other hippies join Chong and Sokka in the singing, the badgermoles calm down exponentially, and a new plan is formed.

----

The completely naked boy and mostly naked girl, hands still locked, could do nothing but look up at the ceiling, and the rows of glowing blue shapes lining it, in complete awe. After all this time, the way out was right above them. All that was needed was a bit of darkness.

“They’re made of some kind of crystal,” Aang says aloud, confirming the obvious. “They must only light up in the dark.”

The same realization hits Katara at the same time, but much more elaborately. “That’s how the two lovers found each other,” she says, gesturing to the ceiling. “They just put out their lights and followed the crystals.” She trails the crystal path with her fingers, going all the way towards the other side of the channel, which is noticeably brighter than the rest of the cave. “That must be the way out!” she shouts, before the two turn and hug each other.

When they separate, Aang sorta awkwardly goes, “So, uh…”

“Let’s go!” Katara cuts him off, already running towards the exit of the cave. Aang turns his head and just stares at her rapidly shrinking back for a few moments, before he and Appa follow suit.

They catch up to her quickly, and seeing the light of day causes the bison to charge ahead of them. So when Aang and Katara are back into the sunlight, Appa was already laying on his back in relief of being free from that tomb. But of course, they’re the only members of their party free of the tomb.

“What about Sokka?” Aang asks Katara. The two, now somewhat concerned, turn their heads back towards the open maw of the cave in search for their friend, when the ground starts to rumble.

Suddenly two massive explosions of earth and rock shoot out either side of the cave exit, filling the air with dust. Emerging from the dust are two badgermoles, one carrying the hippies and the other a certain naked Water Tribe boy.

“Sokka!” Katara shouts at the return of her brother, lemur flying past his head towards Aang.

He slides off the badgermole and approaches his sister. “How did you guys get out?” he asks.

“Just like the legend said,” Aang jumps in, smiling sheepishly, “we let love lead the way.”

“Really?” Sokka says. “We let huge, ferocious beasts lead our way.” He turns back and waves to the two badgermoles, the second having dropped off the hippies. The two massive creatures walk back into the holes they made, the earth reforming behind them as they disappear into the darkness.

The siblings embrace, Momo and Appa have some sort of conversation about their own respective journeys, and Aang runs off towards the group of hippies.

It’s here where Katara notices something. “Why is your forehead all red?” she asks her brother.

Almost out of nowhere, Chong materializes beside the boy and leans in close. “Nobody react to what I’m about to tell you: I think that kid might be the Avatar!” he says, pointing his thumb back to Aang.

Annoyed, Sokka slaps his forehead, making the red mark larger.

Aang, meanwhile, has a little chat with the other nomads.

“So are you guys going to come to Omashu with us?” he asks.

“Nope,” Moku responds.

“Okay,” Aang says, “Thanks for everything Moku.”

The troupe begins to walk away, although Chong lags behind to take care of one thing.

“Sokka,” he says as he places a flower necklace around his head and placing his hands on his shoulders. “I hope you learned a little something about not letting the plans get in the way of the journey.”

He then hugs Sokka, which is kind of awkward for the boy, considering they’re both completely naked.

“Just play your songs,” an irritated Sokka says.

“Hey! Good plan!” Chong says, releasing the boy from his grasp and repositioning his lute. He then starts to sing, “ Even if you're lost, you can't lose the love because it's in your heart. Da, da, da …” He walks away, leaving the three alone with their animal companions.

Sokka crosses his arms at the now slowly fading music, Aang flashes a quick glance towards Katara, who’s standing to his side with a light blush on her face, resulting from the memories of those moments in the cave waving past her.

What also comes waving past her is the wind, and one feel of it makes her go completely red as she remembers just now exposed she is.

Arms crossed over her chest, she speeds off towards Appa.

----

Continuing up a familiar rock face, the two naked boys and once again fully clothed girl resume casual conversation about what they’ve just gone through and, more importantly, where they’re going.

“The journey was loud and annoying,” Sokka says to his friends and sister, leading the group, “but now you get to see what it’s really about: the destination.”

“Speaking of which,” Aang says with a light laugh, “remember the last time we were here, and how you clothed yourself because you were anxious about people seeing my nakedness.”

Also laughing a bit, he says back, “Well, I was different back then. I had only just been introduced to the joys of being nude twenty four seven, so of course I’d be a little hesitant.” He begins to pass the threshold to where the city would be hidden by the earth. “But now, I present to you the Earth Kingdom city of O- '' He stops dead in his tracks at the sight before him. “Oh no…”

Aang and Katara reach the top too, and their faces match his.

In front of them stands the pyramid city of Omashu, initially seeming unchanged from the last time they were there, sans a few key details. The first of these being that there was way more smoke emitting from the various buildings than before.

But the detail that caught their attention was the entrance wall, formally a simple slab of earth, now covered by a large tapestry. A red tapestry.

A tapestry with the Fire Nation insignia emblazoned on it.

It seems that in the intervening time since their last visit, Omashu has fallen.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 2
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun was high and the sky was clear. A good day for anyone, let alone the three people standing atop the canyon edge, looking towards the city of pyramids in the near distance.

Well it would have been, had it not been for the red banned emblazoned across the wall surrounding it.

Standing closest, relatively speaking, to the city among the three is a boy, bald, covered with blue tattoos lining his limbs and spine, and is as naked as a newborn. “I can’t believe it,” he says in a shocked tone, before turning to face his two companions. “I know the war has spread far, but Omashu always seemed … untouchable.”

“Up until now it was,” says one of the boy's companions, another boy. This one had tan skin and held his hair up in a ponytail. Like the other boy, he was nude, with the exception of the gloves, boots and holsters for his weapons, a club and a boomerang. He crosses his arms over his bare chest as he continues. “Now Ba Sing Se is the only great Earth Kingdom stronghold left.”

“This is horrible,” the last member and sole girl in the group says. She has tan skin and brown hair like the second boy, but in a longer braid and held up in front in loops. Unlike either boy, she wasn’t naked, instead sporting a blue tunic that goes halfway down her thighs. Walking up to the bald boy’s side, she continues. “But we have to move on.”

“No,” he says, “I’m going in to find Bumi.”

“Aang, stop,” the other boy objects. “We don’t even know if Bumi’s still…”

“What?” Aang asks angrily. “If he’s still what?”

“A-around,” he responds, pretty unsure of his wording.

“I know you had your heart set on Bumi,” the girl says, “but there are other people who can teach you earthbending.”

“This isn’t about finding a teacher,” Aang says sternly. “This is about finding my friend.”

And he was going to try, and if he can’t go in the front, they’ll just need to go under.

----

Deep down into the canyon, the flying bison hovers along a narrow pathway on the stone base of the city, where the three kids stand by a pipe jutting out of it. Katara is wearing her blackish brown poncho, with another one slung over her shoulder. Sokka has one as well, but he keeps it over his shoulder rather than putting it on. Aang stands at the top of the pipe, attempting to pry it open with his staff.

“A secret passage?” Sokka says at this, passing his own poncho back to Katara. “Why didn’t we just use this last time?”

After a bit more struggle, the tunnel cap is pried off, the force of the green sludge pouring out providing a major assistance.

“Ugh!” he says at the sight of the sewage.

“That answer your question?” Aang asks with a hint of sarcasm.

“Eww!”

Still, they need to enter the city, and this is the only way to do that without having to deal with the Fire Nation, so in they go.

Aang leads, brushing off Katara’s attempt to hand him the spare poncho. As he trucks through the gunk, he makes an airball at the end of his staff, and holding it out in front of him, deflects most of the sewage from his nude form.

Katara rolls her eyes, both at what she’s about to do and the fact that both boys are still going into the Fire Nation infested city butt naked, as she follows. Due to her being a waterbender, she’s able to direct basically all of the green sludge from touching her.

Sokka takes the rear, and due to both him being a non bender and the actions of those in front of him, isn’t so lucky.

After a bit of walking, Aang catches a manhole cover above him, and quickly directs the airball up towards it, loosening it enough to be moved by hand from down there.

Aang peers up, sees the coast is clear, and leaps out of the sewer with some airbending. Katara crawls out right after, saying, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought.” She tosses the smaller poncho Aang’s way, who catches it with ease.

However, crawling out of the sewer, last of all, is a boy completely covered in slime. Aang and Katara look on in disgust. The girl then glances at an open pale of water, and directs it towards her brother, leaving the slime covered boy as he was, wet, naked, and annoyed. Aang follows suit with an air blast, leaving him dry, naked, and annoyed.

However, Sokka’s woes aren’t over yet, as he feels several things stuck to his body. Two on his cheeks, one on the neck, a few dotting his arms and legs, three on his chest and gut, two on his back, one on his right butt cheek, and luckily nowhere else. Each one is an octopus-like creature, but with five legs, that's a light purple.

“Ahh!” he shouts, trying to pull the purple things off his cheeks, to no avail. “They won’t let go! Help!”

Aang, now reluctantly in his poncho, sees this and runs up to his distressed friend, tackling him against the wall, “Shh!” he whispers in a calming tone. “Stop making so much noise. It’s just purple pentapus.”

Sokka glances at the pentapus in utter fear as Aang focuses on it. He then rubs the thing lightly on the head, causing it to loosen enough to be pulled off, leaving small red spots on Sokka's cheek, where the critters' suckers were. Sokka quickly does the same on the one on his other cheek, freeing his face of the things as Aang removes the one on his neck. Through the next few moments, Sokka’s body is freed of the purple pentapus, and only finds himself covered in red spots.

However, all this activity wasn’t unnoticed, as a handful of guards started making their way towards them.

“Hey!” one shouts at them. “What are you kids doing out past curfew?”

“Sorry,” Katara says, having already come up with a decent excuse. “We were just on our way home.” They then begin to walk away, Sokka walking groggily after what he just went through.

This, plus his current state of dress, gets the immediate attention of the guards.

“Wait, what’s the matter with him?” he says, pointing directly to the naked boy and slowly approaching.

“Uh,” she says, thinking fast. “He has pentapox, sir. Umm, it’s highly contagious. So bad, we won't even risk putting his clothes back on.”

Sokka, ever clever, decides to play along. Slowing turning to face the men, he groans out, “Oh, it’s so awful. I’m dying.”

“And deadly.”

“Hey,” another guard chimes in, “I think I heard of pentapox! Didn’t your cousin Chang die of it?”

“We’d better go wash our hands,” the first guard says, the whole group already turning to run away. “And burn our clothes.”

Within seconds, the three plus Momo are alone again. Aang holds up one of the pentapus to meet his gaze. “Thank you, sewer friend.”

Now the three were able to traverse the city with a little more ease, although Katara still insists on Sokka putting on his poncho.

----

Miles away, an impressive ship is docked in one of the Fire Nations extensive harbors. Sitting on deck, in front of the bridge building, is a palanquin, two old women seated either side of it. Inside the palanquin, Inside is a girl with long black hair done up in a topknot, afixed to which being a golden fire shaped crown, crimson eyes, pinkish red lips, and is completely naked.

“When tracking your brother and uncle,” one of the old women says, “traveling with the royal procession may no longer be an option.”

“May no longer be wise,” the other one says.

“If you hope to keep the element of surprise,” they both say in unison.

“You’re right,” Azula responds to this advice. “The Royal Procession is dead weight. If I want to catch my prey, I must be agile, nimble. I need a small, elite team.” She pauses in thought for a few moments, a couple of faces appearing in her mind for the first time in a while. “It’s time to visit some old friends.”

And who are these old friends?

----

The three poncho-covered kids dash through the city, running around, under cover of night, laying low, staying out of sight. Making sure not a single guard catches them. After a while they finally reach the stairway.

Waiting for the coast to be clear, the three dash up the first level of stairs. They would’ve kept going, but they quickly hid behind some metal bars, which were being used for some sort of construction effort the new Fire Nation rulers were undertaking with the place.

The patrolmen pass the spot they're hiding behind, and after they’re out of earshot, Katara whispers, “Let’s find Bumi and get out of here.”

“Where would they be keeping him?” Sokka asks, knowing that this king, despite his advanced age, would be a challenge to keep in one place for very long.

“Somewhere he can’t earthbend,” Aang says, knowing the primary obstacle many earthbenders face. “Somewhere made of metal.”

They scan the city around them for a few moments, before departing this level, ascending up to the next.

Unbeknownst to them, however, on the level just below them walk another procession of people, although this one is far larger and more welcome within the city.

Two women, accompanied by a small task force of soldiers, walk along the pathway. One of them, the older one, is wearing the light red getup that signifies she’s Fire Nation nobility. Not a part of the royal family, but close to it. She holds an infant boy in her arms.

To her side is the other woman, no, girl more like it, who is more distinct that the older lady. Her long hair is noticeably darker than most Fire Nation people, bordering on being completely black, and it’s mostly being held up right behind her head. The only bits of it escaping are the two hair buns either side of her head and the two strands of hair that go over her shoulders and go down to just past her chest. The only hints of Fire Nation red in her outfit are her sleeves, the rest is made of a dark maroon jacket/dress thing. Her face is devoid of emotion, with her light brown eyes being next to impossible to read.

What’s not impossible to read, however, is what she’s saying. “There really is no fathoming the depths of my hatred for my place,” she tells the lady to her side in an almost bored tone.

The woman turns her head to face her companion as she says, “Mai, your father was appointed governor. We’re like royalty here. Be happy and enjoy it.” All the while the baby cries for her attention.

Unbeknownst to Mai and the woman, far up above, they’re being watched by a group of people who were looking for them. Soldiers, but not loyal to the Fire Nation.

“The targets are approaching,” the guy keeping watch says quietly. He’s standing by one of Omashu’s many signature ramps, two massive boulders loaded on them.

Another man, with a decently sized beard, gave the order, “Take them out.”

The other man nods, and earthbends the mass off and down the ramp.

Mai, unaware of the impending assassination attempt, continues her rant in her dull tone. “I thought my life was boring in the Fire Nation, but this place is unbearably bleak. Nothing ever happens.”

While she’s unaware that something is in fact happening, Aang, Katara and Sokka are quickly alerted by the sounds of falling rock. They look up to confirm what they heard, and Aang looks down at the small precession below him. Thinking they’re just civilians, Aang swings his staff at the rocks, destroying them and causing a wave of dust to fall further down.

This causes some noise, naturally, and the Fire Nation precession looks up at the source. Mai squints her eyes at the sight of a poncho wearing young man, in some sort of fighting pose, with a staff in hand directly at the source point of the dust. An obviously suspicious character from her perspective.

She’s not the only one who sees this. “The resistance!” her mother shouts, causing the men with her to begin to make their way towards the various ladders bridging the stairway gap between levels.

Mai gives off a brief smirk, almost perfectly in sight of the boy, before throwing her arms out towards him. Emerging from her robes are a series of thin silver objects that go speeding towards him.

Aang knows weapons when he sees them and dodges the sharp projectiles by jumping up onto the construction materials behind him. He quickly jumps off to rejoin his friends as they run away from the area, all the while the guards reach the top of the ladders and begin to pursue them.

Katara turns as the boys run, unscrews her waterskin, and creates a water whip, using it to knock both of them off the side and into an early retirement.

However, by then, Mai had ascended the ladder, and was now charging at Katara, arms held straight behind her. She shoots her right arm forward, causing another barrage of arrows towards Katara.

Katara blocks this assault with an ice shield before resuming her escape, Mai in hot pursuit, even jumping over the wall (which by the way was at least a head taller than her, and Mai was a pretty tall girl in her own right).

She continues her pursuit of the group as they pass some support platforms. Aang stops as he passes them and turns around, allowing Katara to pass him. Right as he sees the girl approaching, he swings his staff towards the bottom of the supports, sending the whole thing down.

While it does block her, as it falls, Mai is able to throw a single knife through the falling debris, which embeds itself in Aang’s staff.

The trio stare this girl down for a moment, and Mai does the same to them, before she swings her arms again, sending another barrage of arrows towards them. Luckily for the three, however, they won’t need to dodge, as the whole section of floor they’re standing on just sinks below the ground.

The earth reseals itself before Mai could even react, so when it registers to her that her prey was gone, she just straightens up and sighs loudly, before walking off.

----

The Royal Fire Nation ship hadn’t left the port, as the princess’s first destination was decently close to where they were anchored. Azula stands up from her palanquin and walks out of it and begins to make her way to the ramp. As she walks, one of her crew members walks up to her with a mannequin decked in royal Fire Nation armor.

“My Princess,” he says with a bow, “your armor is ready for you upcoming tra-”

Azula raises her hand to cut him off. “That won’t be necessary, I shall make this trek as is.”

The crew member watches anxiously as the still fully nude girl walks right past the mannequin without so much as even glancing towards it. “Uh, but your highness, if you were to be attacked-”

“Then I’d be more worried about the safety of the fool who dares such a thing if I were you,” she says, fully turning to face the man directly. Defeated, he begins to roll the mannequin away as the girl resumes her walk.

Heading down the ramp, naked as the sun is bright, Azula steps into the provided carriage and makes herself comfortable (well, more comfortable than she already was), as the driver assures her it won’t be a long trek.

And he was right. In an hour or two, the princess was already dismounting the carriage, telling the two accompanying guards, “You two are to remain here until I return,” before beginning her walk towards her destination.

A series of haphazardly set up tents and structures dot the area, a temporary set up for this group of people milling about the area, performing strange actions or moving props or directing live animals.

She searches the area for a bit, until she finds the unmistakable person she’s looking for, and promptly stands right in front of them.

“Ty Lee, could that possibly be you?”

The girl she’s talking to, Ty Lee, stands in front of her, on just her index fingers. She has a round face with gray eyes and long brown hair that’s tied in a single, long braid. She glances forward at the familiar voice and breaks out into a wide smile at the familiar sight of the naked princess standing upside down in front of her.

“Azula!” she shouts, flipping around so she’s back on her feet, before gracefully turning around to face her, before getting to the ground to bow. Each motion she makes is precise and accurate, almost like an airbender.

Also like an airbender, was her current clothing style, which is to say, none at all.

After bowing for a few seconds, Ty Lee runs up to Azula and gives her a hug, saying, “It is so good to see you!”

As the two separate, Azula says, “Please, don’t let me interrupt your … whatever it is you were doing.”

Maintaining her wide smile, Ty Lee does a backflip, resting on her chest, elbows one the ground to allow her hands to support her chin, all the while holding her waist straight up into the air (incidentally allowing her old friend a full view of her hindquarters), while she moves her legs forward and back.

“Tell me,” Azula continues, glancing around at the people mucking about, “what is the daughter of a nobleman doing here? Certainly, our parents didn’t send us to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls to end up in … places like this.”

Her attention shifts towards a group of men trying to deal with a platypus bear, trying to get a move from its seated position and to ready it for the night. When they finally do coax it up, it reveals that the beast had laid an egg.

Disgusted, Azula turns back to her nude friend, face contorting back into a grin. “I have a proposition for you.”

Ty Lee, who was also glancing at the shenanigans involving the bear, shifts back to her nude friend as she’s addressed.

“I’m hunting a traitor,” Azula says, looking at her nails, “You remember my old fuddy-duddy uncle, don’t you?”

“Oh yeah,” the contortionist says, feet now resting on her own head. “He was so funny.”

Dropping her arm and turning her head back towards Ty Lee, she says, “I would be honored if you would join me in my mission.”

“Oh,” a slightly surprised Ty Lee responded, not sure how to approach this. “I … uh … would love to.” In a single motion, she shifts from her current position to being back on her feet and facing straight at Azula. With a sincere smile, she continues, hand to her chest. “But the truth is, I’m really happy here. I mean, my aura has never been pinker!”

Well, that was certainly true.

Raising her hand to stop her friend from elaborating further, Azula says, “I’ll take your word for it. Well, I wouldn’t want you to give up the life you love just to please me.”

Piping up slightly at her friends surprisingly not pressing the issue, Ty Lee does a little bow and says, “Thank you, Azula.”

The two nude girls turn their backs to each other, Azula to walk away and Ty Lee to resume her stretching by lifting her leg all the way up into the air,

“Of course,” Azula, stopping and shifting slightly to look back at her, “before I leave, I’m going to catch your show.”

There she is.

This piece of intel causes the girl to panic slightly, breaking her stance and gasping. With a look of panic on her face as she tries to get the right words, Ty Lee says, “Uh … yeah … sure … uh … of course …”

Satisfied, Azula resumes her walk, leaving Ty Lee alone to resume her stretching properly.

----

The place Aang, Katara and Sokka now find themselves is, how to say, different than where they just were. Just moments ago, they were up on the surface, being chased by a relentless knife wielding girl, and now they were in a deep dark cave, surrounded by soldiers.

Not Fire Nation soldiers, but more Earth Kingdom ones.

After allowing the three a few moments to recover, the men lead them through the passageways, not even a day since they were deep under a mountain in a massive labyrinth. Leading them is a man named Yung, the guy who gave the order to send the rocks down earlier.

After a bit of walking, they walk out onto a platform overlooking a group of people, the resistance, in states of dress varying from fully armored to starkers, although this crowd does seem to lean more towards the former.

When they stop, the three turn to face the group of three soldiers accompanying them, Aang asking the questions.

“So, is King Bumi with you guys? Is he leading the resistance?”

In response to the mention of the old king's name, Yang angrily balls his fist. “Of course not!” he shouts, to the surprise of the three kids. “The day of the invasion, we readied ourselves for battle. We were prepared to defend our city … to fight for our lives and for our freedom.” Turning to face the crowd, he finishes this rant by saying, “But before we even had a chance, King Bumi surrendered.”

The naked bald boy's face drops at this revelation, not sure how this could be the same Bumi he knew. The same Bumi he had reunited with just over a month or so ago. Katara, also realizing this, turns and throws a concerned look his way.

Continuing his rant, Yang says, “The day of the invasion, I asked King Bumi what he wanted to do. He looked me in the eyes and said…”

Here’s the scene.

At the very top of the tallest pyramid, in front of the royal palace, stands two men. One is Yung, prepared to die if it means keeping Omashu from Ozai’s dirty hands. The other is King Bumi, now sporting a blue version of his royal robes.

After Yung asks for his orders as to what to do, the king of Omashu stares out as he says, “I’m going to do…” His head jerks to the left to face the soldier as he says loudly, “Nothing!” before breaking out into a mad laughter, befitting the mad king.

As Aang looks down with sadness in his eyes, Yung continues. “It doesn’t matter now. Fighting the Fire Nation is the only path to freedom. And freedom is worth dying for,” he finished, a small smile forming on the man's face.

Bracing himself on his staff, Aang says, “Actually there's another path to freedom. You could leave Omashu. You're directing all your energy to fight the Fire Nation. But you're outnumbered. You can't win. Now's the time to retreat, so you can live to fight another day.”

There’s silence for a moment as the crowd takes this in. Then Yung says, “You don’t understand. They’ve taken our home, and we have to fight them at any cost!”

“I don't know, Yung,” one of the resistance members pipes up softly. “Living to fight another day is startin’ to sound pretty good to me.”

Before the man could respond, another person jumped in. “Yeah, I’m with the kid.”

The resistance leader glances around at the crowd as people begin to whisper among themselves, evidently at least considering Aang’s idea. Relenting, he turns back to the naked boy and says, “Fine. But there’s thousands of citizens that need to leave. How’re we going to get them all out?”

Luckily for them, they had a master tactician in their presence, taking the form of a nude Water Tribe boy with a ponytail. He’s glancing down, hand on his chin, at his body, and the reddish dots that cover him from his sewer escapade.

“Suckers!” was all he said, much to the confusion of everyone else in the room. Rather than elaborating at the moment, the boy smiles broadly at his ingenious plan.

“You’re all about to come down with a nasty case of pentapox.”

----

Being underground, the resistance obviously has access to the various sewer systems and, subsequently, the pentapi within. In under an hour, they had collected several bucketful's of the cephalopods that were in the process of being snuck up to the surface at several key points. There are hundreds of civilians, who were informed of the escape plan, gathered in preparation to leave their conquered home for the time being.

From then till sunrise, each of them had a pentapus placed on their skin at several points for a few minutes each. Long enough to allow the spots to appear on their skin, and which another would lightly brush the critter to release it. At Sokka’s suggestion, several people either loosened or ditched articles of clothing in order to make the whole delirious and uncaring sick person act more convincing. A decent few even decided to go full nude like the boy.

The sun now up, and most of the crowd being penta poxed, Sokka tells the people around him, “The marks make ya look sick, but you gotta act sick too. Ya gotta sell it!”

In response to this, an older man hobbles past him, leaning heavily on his cane, clutching his back and moaning at each motion.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Sokka says as he grabs onto the man next to him, the poor guy finding his sudden contact with this naked boy a bit uncomfortable and pointing excitedly towards the old man.

The old man turns back to the boy with a smile, tapping his leg with his cane, the solid knocking sound revealing it to be wooden. “Years of practice.”

“Okay everyone!” the boy shouts, pointing in the direction of the front gate. “Into sick formation.”

The civilians begin to walk, slowly, towards the gate, groaning and moving as if they were drunk, attempting to sell that they were completely flooded by infection.

As everyone moves, Sokka joins them, immediately putting back on the act he had perfected since last night. Katara starts to follow her brother, but she doesn’t hear Aang follow her. She stops and turns her head back to see that the naked boy is walking, not towards the gate, but towards the alleyway to the side.

“Aang, what are you doing?” she asks him. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

Turning back to face her, he says, “I’m not leaving until I find Bumi.” Momo then leaps onto Aang's shoulder and tugs at his lips to get his attention. The boy just grabs the lemur by the neck and places him back on the ground, saying, “Sorry Momo, I’ll feed you later.”

He then leaps into the air, jumping from rooftop to rooftop in search of his friend, only able to be observed by the guards patrolling the wall.

However, something else catches their eyes.

Their attention is quickly caught by the distant sounds of moans and groans, and when they shift their eyes and stances in the direction of the noise, the sight of a massive crowd slowly approaching causes them great distress. Only more so as the disturbing details begin to appear. These people are swaying as they walk, almost as living corpses, making the noises they’re making more disturbing. Adding to the living corpse looks is the fact that many of them look incredibly disheveled, with their clothes hastily thrown on and some articles missing all together. Some of them are even fully naked, including a figure that looks suspiciously like another sick person who one of the guards encountered the last night, infected with something called pentapox.

“Plague! Plague!” one soldier shouts as they begin to retreat from the area, all the while another guard hits a gong to alert the city to this developing crisis.

Even all the way at the top of the pyramid within the royal palace, the gong is still audible to the governor and his family, who rush out to the balcony to see what was happening. The man and his wife, holding their baby, look down in shock and unease at this new development in the territory they just got promoted to, all the while their black-haired daughter disinterestedly looks down at the spectacle, all the while eating from a bowl of small orange flakes.

“What is going on down there?” he says loudly at the commotion.

One of the guards, another one who patrolled a very specific route last night, jumps in, saying, “I saw some kids yesterday who were sick with pentapox. It must have spread!”

“Pentapox!” the panicked governor says, before starting to tug his beard in thought. “Hmm, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of that.”

“Oh, this is terrible,” says his wife, distressed at this news.

“What should we do?” the guard asks.

“Drive them out of the city,” the governor says, pointing out towards the gate. “But don’t touch them! We have to rid the city of this disease!”

The guard bows before heading out to execute this order. The two remaining adults in the room look back out towards the crowd of infected, the governor very visibly stressed.

Mai, very calm despite the situation, casually holds the bowl to her father, saying, “Fire flakes, Dad?”

The man says nothing or even moves. What happens instead is his wife putting down their baby to wrap her arms around his shoulders from the back, all the while gasping, “How awful!”

But their day was just about to go from bad to worse, as the unattended toddler stands up on his little feet, and slowly begins to toddle away from them.

----

Aang runs through the alleyways and leaps along rooftops, in search of his old friend. No luck, but he only just started, and he now has a lot more room to move about. So, he keeps going.

He runs into an alleyway and uses airbending to leap atop one of the roofs. He jumps from roof to roof, before landing on a railing, walking on it for a moment, before jumping onto another roof. He hears a noise and walks up to the edge and looks down.

Down on the ground is a large creature. Almost completely white with some brown on its body with some very long ears and horns. It also looks just miserable as it spins a turnstile very slowly. There’s something familiar about this creature to Aang, who leaps down to get a closer look.

Sure enough, it is something he knew.

“Flopsie!” Aang calls, raising his arms up in excitement at being reunited with his friend's beloved pet.

Flopsie, hearing his name being called, turns and sees a familiar face, and turns to run towards him, only to be stopped by his chain around his neck, tied to the turnstile. Aang quickly leaps atop the thing and eyes a water bowl, evidently provided to keep the goat gorilla alive. He pulls the water towards him and surrounds the lock, freezing it solid. A single swing of his staff destroys it and frees Flopsie. The animal, now happy at being free, pulls the boy in for a hug and licks his face.

“Come on, Flopsie,” the naked boy says, freeing himself from the goat gorilla's grip and mourning its back. “You gotta help me find Bumi. Yip yip!” The creature stands still, not rushing away like what usually happens with Appa. “Oh … I guess that doesn’t work with you. Let’s go!”

That gets Flopsie moving, who charges away down another alley.

As this is happening, Momo flies through the city in search of something to eat. After searching for a good while, he finally gets some luck when he peers into an open window. Not focusing on the bear toy being tossed in the air, he instead goes for the bowl filled to the brim with berries.

Salivating, the lemur leaps at it, immediately starting to stuff his face with the small fruits, only stopping to spit out the seeds, after which he immediately resumes. He’s so preoccupied he doesn't even notice that the bear stopped being tossed in the air.

He only notices when the small hand pulls on his tail.

Not even a second to react, Momo is pulled to the floor by an infant boy with small black hair. He tries to free himself, but the toddler's grip is very strong, at least enough to hold the critter in place.

He is eventually able to pull free, and half flies half falls to the railing where he stops to catch his breath His respire is only brief, as a quick look up reveals the child is now atop the railing, toddling towards him. The lemur backs up, turning around and jumping into a glide as the toddler goes for him. The movement causes the boy to lose his footing, and he slides off the roof, though luckily landing in a convenient cart which cushions his fall.

Now in the clear, Momo decides to get his berry fix somewhere else. That being one of the carts on Omashu’s famous railway delivery system, which is full of the fruit. He lands on it, ignoring the suspiciously toddler shaped hole, and begins to dig in.

He then feels another tug on his tail.

It seems the baby has landed in the same cart he went after. Momo tries to fly up, but the boy's grip keeps him suspended in place for a good few moments. Then the cart goes over a particularly steep section, causing him to lightly fly away.

However, he still has the load of the baby boy still holding on. The lemur tries to fight against it, but the weight is too much, and they start to descend. In a matter of seconds, they’re on the ground, the baby boy still laughing as if this were some game.

It’s then that the toddler's attention shifts again. This time, it’s directed towards the group of shambling, swaying, spot-covered people in varying states of dress slowly walking towards the now open city gate.

Momo then slides himself free from under the baby's weight and begins to run away towards the open gate. The infant son of the governor, still wanting to play with the lemur, stands up and begins to follow him out the gate.

----

Night has fallen, which means it’s time for the show to begin.

After a brief preshow with dancers in those giant dragon costumes, a man in elegant robes and a colorful and silly hat, takes center stage. Raising his arms to his sides, the man says, “We’re deeply honored to have the Fire Lord’s daughter at our humble circus.”

He directs one arm towards the high box. Sitting there, guarded either side by soldiers, is Princess Azula, wearing a simple makeshift outfit. While flawless, it’s plainness would be an unexpected sight on the body of a royal. Though to be fair, it’d be unexpected to see this particular royal to be wearing clothes at all, so it doesn’t really matter in the slightest. It’s a formal event, so to say, so she felt like an intimidation faction, besides just her presence, wasn’t necessary.

Still, her presence is more than enough to slightly scare people, among them is the guy standing on the stage.

“Uh,” he hesitates, “tell us if there is anything we can do to make the show more enjoyable.”

With a slightly evil smirk, she says, “I will.”

With that settled, the performance was on. A net was set up a few feet from the floor. At first, its purpose was unknown, until the attention of the crowd was drawn upwards.

High in the air, standing on her finger on a very small circular wooden platform, is Ty Lee. She wears a golden tiara and an orange and white outfit that was clearly designed to focus more on looking good than actually covering her, as evidenced to anyone with a close enough view with each movement as she quickly shifts from one hand to the other, again and again.

This death-defying display naturally impressed even the more jaded visitors of the circus, even Azula was impressed by the abilities of her old friend.

“Incredible,” she says as she looks up. “Do you think she’ll fall?”

“Of course not.” the man responds, standing to the side of the high box.

Now was the time for her to put her plan into motion. “Then wouldn’t it make it more interesting if you removed the net?” she says, turning down to look him right in the eyes.

Naturally, he was kind of concerned at this proposition, and doubly so if he were made aware of the princesses' motivations for this suggestion. “Uh … the thing is … the other performers…”

“You’re right, you’re right,” she cuts him off, “That’s been done.” Azula pauses for a moment to consider, before she smirks menacingly. “I know. Set the net on fire.”

The man would resist this call usually, but due to her position and rumored power, he doesn’t want to end up on her bad side. “Of course, Princess,” he says in a worried tone, before moving towards one of the nets supporting pillars. He punches forwards, a burst of flame making contact and setting the whole thing ablaze in seconds, before returning to his set.

Ty Lee, with her position forcing her to look down, sees the net burning and her sweating gets a bit more intense and noticeable. She was suspicious at her friend's interest in viewing her performance, but before she just chalked it up to not seeing each other for a while and wanting to see what she’s been up to, burying her suspicions. But now she knew something was up, and she didn’t like it. Still, she’s a performer, and the one rule performers always follow is that the show must go on.

So she continues her act, trying not to seem bothered by this sudden development. Most of the crowd is wow’d by this performance, while the leading man has his fist balled and teeth clenched in fear, that his prodigy will fall, or that he’ll incur the wrath of the princess.

“Brilliant, just brilliant!” an ecstatic Azula shouts at her former friend's perseverance. Shifting her head back to the man, she asks happily, “Ooh, what kind of dangerous animals do you have?”

The man looks back up at the girl, now silently thankful for the subject change that could save Ty Lee from potentially burning or falling. “Well, our circus boasts the most exotic assortment-”

“Release them all!” Azula commands.

Back up high, the acrobat continues her routine, with a noticeably worried look on her face. Still balanced precariously on her hand on the tiny platform, she seriously starts to consider her options, and the offer Azula made her earlier.

Her haste is quickened by the filling noises of various animals, now being released within the tent.

----

Deep within the mountains around Omashu late at night, several camps have been set up by and for the “sick” people who were “forced” out of the city. The people, now liberated from their Fire Nation rulers, sit around their campfires for the night, making plans for the next day.

Among them are Katara and Sokka, who sit by Appa near the edge of the camp closest to the city. It is here where they hear footsteps and turn to see a bald naked boy and giant goat gorilla walking up to them. The two stand up and begin to walk up to them as they approach.

“We looked everywhere,” Aang says sadly as he reaches his friends. “No Bumi.”

Katara hugs the boy. A sad moan from Flopsie causes Sokka to hug the large creature’s face.

“We’ve got a problem,” the approaching voice of Yung says, interrupting the hugs. “We just did a head count.”

Naturally worried, Katara turns to face the man. “Oh no. Did someone get left behind?”

“No,” he says, “we have an extra.”

He shifts his gaze, and the three follow it, seeing Momo staggering around, a young toddler clinging to the back of his neck.

Of course, the three weren’t immediately aware of just how serious the situation is, or how important having this boy is.

Back inside the city, the palace is in complete disarray at the disappearance of the youngest child of the governing family. Speaking of which, the governor's wife is completely inconsolable, sitting by the balcony bawling her eyes out. Standing to her side is her daughter, completely bored (or at least visibly so based on her expression). Mai, in an attempt to cheer her mother up, pulls a handkerchief from her robes and hands it to her, expression unchanged.

As his wife cries into the handkerchief, the governor stares out over the city. Worried for his son and enraged at what he assumes is the reason he’s missing, he says, “So, the resistance has kidnapped my son. Everything so clever, so tricky. Just like their King Bumi.”

He balls his hand into a fist as one of the two stationed guards approaches him. “What do you want to do sir?” he asks.

The man looks back at the guard for a moment, before shifting his gaze back forwards, to the walls of the city, where those rebels currently reside, with his only son.

----

How Ty Lee was able to make it out of that performance in one piece, even she doesn’t know for sure. She’s done a lot of death-defying stunts high in the air before, but they were nothing in comparison. Maybe she has a spirit on her side, or maybe her skills exceeded even her own expectations.

Regardless, she was fine, physically at least, and the moment the show was over, and her feet were back on solid ground, she made her way to the dressing room set up for her. She immediately slides out of her costume and tosses it to the side. Now naked, she takes a seat on the chair in front of the provided mirror. She starts to rub her face, both to clean the sweat and wake herself up from the obvious nightmare she’s having.

“What an exquisite performance,” the voice of her friend calls out, causing her to move her hands and look back up at the mirror, and the human figure engulfed in a bright blue light standing behind her.

She partially turns her head to get a glimpse of Azula, the blue flames surrounding her body burning her shift to ash, leaving her in nothing but her skin. “I can’t wait to see how you’ll top yourself tomorrow.”

Ty Lee shifts her gaze back to the mirror, to fully glimpse her nude friend's expression. She smiles, not wanting to fully admit that her implied threats worked. “I’m sorry Azula, but unfortunately there won't be a show tomorrow.”

“Really?” the princess asks, grin slowly forming on her face.

Taking off her tiara and standing up to place it on the hook above the mirror, she says, “The universe has given me strong hints that it’s time for a career change.” She turns around and both nude girls face each other head on. “I want to join you on your mission.”

Satisfied at being able to “convince” her old friend to join her, Azula flashes a smirk.

----

Sitting around their campfire, the gang along with the resistance people fully comprehend just the situation they’ve found themselves in. They are currently in possession of the child of the current governor of Omashu, who’s still currently following Momo, and don’t know what exactly to do with him. Their plan had gone off without a hitch. They were willingly let out of the city, meaning they could rally support for taking it back outside the walls without being pursued. Now they had the baby of the man in charge, there was no way he’d leave them alone. He would send a massive battalion of men after them, or his knife crazed daughter. So, the camp was silent, sans the sounds of burning flames as well as the noises the baby made and lemur’s shrieks.

The lemur does eventually get away from the baby, who falls down as he continues to toddle after him, but something else catches his attention. That thing is the top point of a certain naked boys club. He begins to teeth on it for a moment, before it’s forced from his grasp.

Sokka, not wanting his beloved weapon to be chewed on by an enemy baby, shouts, “No! Bad Fire Nation baby!”

The bad Fire Nation baby starts to loudly cry, earning Sokka his sister's ire. She smacks him and places her hands on her hips like a mom would.

With an eye roll, Sokka says in an annoyed tone, “Oh … all right,” before passing the thing back to the baby, who immediately resumes playing with it.

Katara, leaning up close and placing her hands on the baby's shoulders, says in a baby voice, “Oooh, you’re so cute.” She gives the toddler a kiss on the cheek as Sokka continues to scowl.

“Sure, he’s cute now,” says Yung, sitting on the other side of the fire, “but when he’s older, he’ll join the Fire Nation army. You won’t think he’s so cute then. He’ll be a killer.”

“Does this look like the face of a killer to you?” Katara asks, picking up the baby and holding it up to Yung.

Before the indifferent man could say anything, the sound of a bird landing nearby gets their attention. They all shift their gaze in towards the source, seeing a big bird with some sort of vest on it.

“A messenger hawk!” Yung says at the sight of the bird.

Aang gets to his feet and walks up to the bird, taking the scroll attached to its vest. The naked boy walks back up to the fire and his companions as he unrolls the scroll and begins to read it.

“It’s from the Fire Nation governor. He thinks we kidnapped his son. So… he wants to make a trade. His son,” his eyes widened at the last bit of the message, “for King Bumi.”

The three stand there in silence, pondering their next move, starting with whether or not to agree to make this trade.

----

Daylight comes, and the three have made up their minds as they wait on the outskirts of the city of Omashu. Not wanting to give themselves up, both boys are in their ponchos. Sokka and Katara have already finished their own preparations, all they need to do was wait for the Avatar.

“You realize we’re probably walking right into a trap,” Sokka says as Aang walks up to them, baby in his grasp.

“I don’t think so,” Aang says confidently. “I’m sure the governor wants his son back as much as we want Bumi.” He looks down at the sleeping baby boy he’s holding against his chest and smiles. “It’s a new day. I have a good feeling about this.”

Of course, he’s living under the assumption that the governor himself would be the one making the exchange. But things can change, and a wrench is about to be thrown into the current situation at Omashu.

Back within the pyramid city, Mai stands at the top of the staircase of the royal palace, while her face still showed a bored expression, inside her was something more. The moment she heard that a Fire Nation palanquin was within the city, she practically glued herself to the spot in wait. The options for who it would carry are limited, but there was one option that she really liked and, while she wouldn't be caught dead admitting it, wanting it to be.

Of course, it’s impossible, considering the circumstances, but still, the options were limited, and she hasn’t had word from the royal family in a while, things could have changed.

The palanquin ascends the stairs, and while the clear veils reveal her silhouette inside it, once it’s placed on the ground, the still fully nude figure of Princess Azula emerges and begins to approach.

Mai gives a light bow, saying in her normal dry tone, “Please tell me you’re here to kill me.” A quick glance to the princess’s side shows the noble girl, the other person emerging from the palanquin and walking up to her, the equally nude Ty Lee, leaving her the only of the three to be clothed, like many times before. Her eyes shift back to Azula, a small grin forming on her face.

The two girls then start to laugh. Putting her hands on her old friend's shoulders, Azula says, “It’s great to see you, Mai.”

Azula barely has seconds to move out of the way as Ty Lee rushes towards Mai, giving her a big hug.

Mai, still not fully comfortable with her friend's willingness to make physical contact with people despite her lack of clothing, simply pats her hand on the girl's bare back, saying, “I thought you ran off and joined the circus. You said it was your calling.”

Releasing her friend, Ty Lee says, “Well, Azula called a little louder.”

Mai eyes her friend up and down. “Interesting choice in attire,” she says dryly, “Haven’t seen you in that in quite a while. Did she tell you to come, uh, dressed like that, or…”

“Nope,” Ty Lee says cheerfully, before stretching her leg out behind her. “Just taking advantage of this newfound freedom that being with Azula on her task force allows. Haven’t enjoyed the pleasures and benefits of being nude outside my quarters and stretching time in a while.”

“Speaking of which, I have a mission,” Azula says, walking back up to the two girls and placing one hand on each shoulder, “and I need you both.”

“Count me in,” Mai says, turning to face her friend. “Anything to get me out of this place.” She shoots a dirty look at the palace, before the three walk inside.

The two thirds nude group of girls walk through the Omashu palace, before entering the throne room, now decked in Fire nation imagery and banners rather than the old earth stuff, the governor and his wife already being there. Azula promptly takes a seat on the throne, while the adults kneel on provided matts on one side of the central walkway. Mai and Ty Lee, in turn, do the same on the other side.

“I apologize,” the governor says, already getting into his own woes. “You’ve come to Omashu at a difficult time. At noon, we’re making a trade with the resistance to get Tom-Tom back.”

“Yes, I’m sorry to hear about your son,” Azula says, crossing her legs and folding her arms, “but really, what did you expect by just letting all the citizens leave?” She stays quiet for a moment to get an answer. When none comes, the naked princess stands up from the throne and continues harshly, “My father has trusted you with this city and you’re making a mess of things!”

The man and woman prostrate themselves before the girl in pure fear. “Forgive me, Princess,'' the man says.

Azula begins to walk past them, glaring scornfully towards the governor. “You stay here,” she orders him, while the two other girls stand up and turn to face him as well. “Mai will handle the hostage trade so you don’t have a chance to mess it up.” The girl then turns back out towards the entrance of the room. “And there is no more “Omashu”. I’m renaming it in honor of my father, the city of New Ozai.

She begins to continue her walk out of the throne room, the naked acrobat and clothed knife wielder following closely. When she reaches the servants standing by the door, she cranes her head to one of them and says, “Will you please provide my friend,” she pauses to gesture to Ty Lee, “some clothing for the upcoming trade. We don’t want those rebels to catch a hint of our secret.” The one she was looking at nods and saunters off. She slowly turns her head to the other one.

“And fetch me my armor!” she says much more harshly, causing the servant to stumble away as the princess stares out into the city, specifically in the direction of where the trade is going to take place.

The currently under construction statue of her old man.

----

Speaking of that statue of Fire Lord Ozai, standing on one end of a massive flat platform of scaffolding, stands Aang, Katara, and Sokka, the latter of which holding the infant Tom-Tom. Aang and Sokka are wearing their ponchos, while Katara is in her standard attire. The three stare down towards the other end of the platform, in wait for the governor's spokespeople to arrive.

Sure enough, after a bit, the three figures begin to emerge.

In the middle and leading them is Mai, the knife crazed girl who attacked them earlier. Trailing either side of her are two people the gang never saw before. The one on her right is a girl with long brown hair tied in a ponytail and wearing a pink top and long baggy pink pants. The girl on Mai’s left is a vaguely familiar looking girl with black hair tied up in a topknot held up by a fire shaped crown. she's decked in a far fancier version of the Fire Nation war armor and has a vaguely threatening expression on her face.

The three girls slowly walk up towards the three, and as they do, a crane at the top of the scaffolding turns his head and lowers its payload.

A metal rectangular box with a small window on one of its faces. Peeking out of that window is the face of the deposed King Bumi.

“Hi, everybody!” he shouts between chuckles, causing Aang to smile at his friend, as he’s lowered behind Mai, Ty Lee, and Azula.

Despite the decent distance between the two groups, the city was so silent and there were so few obstructions that they could hear each other clearly, demonstrated by Mai, who says, “You brought my brother?”

“He’s here,” Aang responds, gesturing to Sokka. “We’re ready for the trade.”

“I’m sorry,” Azula says quietly, “but a thought just occurred to me. Do you mind?”

“Of course not, Princess Azula,” Mai says, turning towards her friend.

“We’re trading a two-year-old for a king,” Azula says, looking up at the captive man. “A powerful, earthbending king,” she continues, while King Bumi, who was listening in on this conversation, nods and mumbles in agreement. “It just doesn’t seem like a fair trade, does it?”

Mai stands there for a moment, seriously pondering whether or not to do this. Her gray eyes shift from Azula towards her baby brother, who’s barely awake and resting against Sokka’s shoulder. A child who she personally cares about, or an old man who’s both a figure head and a powerful bender?

“You’re right,” she says coldly, causing the princess to smile slyly. Mai fully turns back to face the opposing three and walks forward slightly, saying, “The deal’s off.”

She raises her hand and gestures, signaling the crane crew to raise Bumi up again.

“Whhhoa!” he shouts, clearly amused by the situation. “See you all later!” all while he continues to chuckle and snort.

“Bumi!” Aang shouts at the rapid ascension of his friend and the betrayal of the agreement. Staff in hand, he sprints forward in the trio’s direction, airbending helping his speed.

Azula, seeing this, also charges past Mai, who falls back to give her some room. She lurches forward, thrusting her hand out and shooting a massive blue flame towards the boy's feet.

Seeing this, Aang uses his bending to leap above the flames high in the air. But not high enough to be completely untouched, as the hem of his poncho now was trailing a light blue flame. Azula stares up at this display in nothing less than pure shock. Could her eyes be deceiving her or is this boy basically flying in the air with his poncho being eaten away by her fire without breaking a sweat.

She’s further surprised, when this boy lands on one of the support poles way high up, and converts his staff into some sort of glider, and begins to fly with it. She had no explanation, at least, not until her fire finished eating the boy's cloak. The charred remnants of Aang poncho, hood and all, give away, leaving him in his preferred state of full nudity, and revealing to Azula the blue arrow tipped tattoos that line his body, an image she by now has gotten familiar with on wanted posters.

“The Avatar!”

She watches as the boy begins to rapidly ascend higher, circling the rising iron coffin, when her look of surprise shifts to a smug grin.

“My lucky day,” she says, reaching back behind her neck and pulling a small string attached to her armor, causing the whole thing to loosen around her. She then quickly charges towards the scaffolding, specifically the pulley system in front of her. She kicks a blast at the break rope, which causes the winch to start spinning rapidly. In the next second, she grabs the side of the pulley going up, and she’s pulled high up through the construction scaffolding. The speed of her ascension and the force the air puts against it causes her already loosened armor to slide off her form, starting with her boots, which peel off to reveal sandals, and working up to the shoulder piece, which splits along its seam and slides clean off her.

Also raising rapidly, is Bumi, who’s mostly content sitting in the steel coffin to restrict his bending abilities. A sudden force against the top of the case caused him to look up, seeing the familiar face and nude body of his old friend, “Aang, is that you?” he says in a surprised tone. “Where did you come from?”

“Hang on!” Aang shouts. “We’re gonna get you out of here.” He takes a deep breath and begins to blow on the chains, causing them to begin to freeze.

Back on the ground, Mai and Ty Lee charge forwards, towards the two resistance members on the ground. The dark-haired girl has her stiletto knives ready. Katara takes a defensive stance with Sokka standing behind her, white object in his hand.

“We’ve got to get the boy out of here!” she shouts.

Sokka, stopping from blowing the bison shaped whistle, turns his head and says, “Way ahead of ya!” He went to continue blowing the whistle, but the toddler had snatched it from his grasp.

The Water Tribe siblings begin to run towards the edge of the platform, Sokka leading with the toddler. He runs for a bit, before a sudden force under his foot pushes it upwards, causing him to lose his balance. He falls and slides up to the edge of the platform, Sokka holding the toddler to protect him from any potential fall.

Katara, seeing both this and the girl in pink emerging from a hole in the floor and rushing towards him, unscrews her waterskin and bends some water to attack her. Before she could, she hears several sounds behind her, and so quickly turns around and uses the water to whip the ground. A few wooden slabs break off from the scaffolding floor and fly into the air, the one directly in front of Katara catching the knives thrown at her by Mai. Another slap of the water whip sends the boards towards the knife wielding girl, knocking her back momentarily and allowing Katara to focus her attention on Ty Lee, who by now had almost reached the still down Sokka. She sends the whip towards the girl's leg, wrapping water around her thigh. The girl, moving so fast, stumbles and falls forwards. The strength of the water whip’s grip, the force of the speed she was running, and the looseness of her pants all cause Ty Lee to slide out of them completely as she falls, leaving her naked from the waist down. This action allows Sokka enough time to get to his feet, run towards the nearest ladder, and slide down it, putting him far enough away from the current fight to allow him to head to Appa.

Despite this success, Katara does feel a bit bad for this girl who’s name she doesn’t know, as she had just subjected her to the thing she was forced into dealing with for a while now; unwanted nudity (or partial in this case). However, her misplaced sympathy for Ty Lee is only for a moment, as Mai’s advancement towards her snaps her back into fight mode.

Back up in the air, Aang continues to blow on the chain, slowly freezing it.

“Aang,” Bumi says to him. “Stop your breathing for a minute.”

The naked boy did stop breathing on the chain, as by now it has fully frozen. He was going to take a swing with his staff to shatter the now frozen metal, but the sudden motions of something rising up through the scaffolding gets his attention.

Leaping high in the air, a cloud of dust and wood from the destroyed scaffolding directly below, is a girl with her arms spread out to her sides and staring him down. The sudden appearance of this girl is startling for the boy, doubly so since this is the same girl who was decked neck to toe in armor only a minute ago was now almost as nude as he was.

Of course, his held position breaks the moment Azula thrusts her foot towards him, shooting a burst of blue flame towards him and Bumi. Aang snaps back into fight mode and swings his staff, the air generated deflecting the burst. As he does this, Bumi says, “Now hold on just a-” but is cut off, as the swing also destroys the chains holding the iron coffin up.

The two begin to freefall. Aang, thinking fast, quickly shifts around the coffin, causing it to turn so that Bumi’s exposed face was looking up at the sky. The boy glances down and sees the rapidly approaching delivery chutes directly below them. He throws an air ball down, which breaks the coffins fall as it lands in the duct. They bounce off the ball and begin to slide down the chute.

Observing this, and not happy about it, is Azula, who quickly scans the area for what she needs. Spotting it, the nude girl sprints to the chute and leaps into the delivery box right by the edge, the sudden force against it and added weight pushes the box over the edge, and Azula is sliding too.

Further down the line, Aang momentarily lets the current situation go and starts to laugh at the old memories on this cart system a century ago.

“Just like the old times, isn’t it, Bumi?” he says while pressing his staff to the coffin for stability.

Bumi, who for what’s probably the first time in his life, has a serious look on his face and tone in his voice when he says, “Aang, I need to talk to you!”

“It’s good to see you too!” Aang responds, having misheard his old friend from the noises around them.

A sudden noise to his left gets his attention, and he shifts his gaze up towards the neighboring channel.

Having caught up to them, Azula stands on the edge of her cart and shoots blasts of fire down towards the nude boy. He in turn spins his staff above his head to deflect them. She shoots at him for a few continuous seconds, until the advancing height difference between the two chutes causes her to stop.

Aang stops to breathe for a moment, before he sees that the coffin’s rapidly approaching a convergence with another chute, one to their left.

They pass through it, and shortly after, Azula’s cart follows through the connection point, now directly behind them.

Aang turns around to face her, and he starts with a thrust of his hand forward, sending a gust of air towards the naked girl. She thrusts her hands, clasped together, forwards to divert the air around her. She retaliates with some more fire blast, which Aang dodges, using his staff to essentially paddle the coffin faster through the chute, rapidly putting distance between them and their full-frontal assaulter.

After sliding ever faster down, Aang and Bumi pass a part of the chute with these wooden arches built above it at short intervals. Getting an idea, the boy slices his staff, creating an air blade that slices the bases of these arches, causing them all to fall onto the track. And good timing too, because just behind the falling wood pillars is Azula’s cart rapidly approaching, only to be obscured by the dust.

When the cart does emerge from the dust, it seems to be passenger less, to the immense relief of Aang, who relaxes for a moment. His relief quickly turns back into fear as the girl rises out from the cart and shoots another blast of flame his way, who promptly ducks out of the way.

Meanwhile, the now pants less Ty Lee gets back on her feet and scans her surroundings. Mai is still locked in combat with the waterbending girl, so she wasn’t a threat at the moment. She turns to where the boy that was with her went, only to find him gone.

Figuring out where he’s probably going, she runs up to the ladder and slides down it quickly, jumping off several feet from the ground. She sees the boy's head disappearing beneath the scaffolding, and charges in his direction. However, something’s slowing her down, and by the time she reaches the edge of the level, the boy was out of sight.

She crouches down lightly, placing her hands on her thighs, as she catches her breath. She then stops when she realizes she’s not feeling the floozy fabric of those pants, but instead bare skin, and remembers that her pants are still up on the higher platform.

“Figures,” she says between breaths, “I’m off balance.”

She straightens up and, with great efficiency, slides her hands under her tops and slides it off, leaving her fully nude besides her shoes.

“There,” she says, tossing it to her side, “Much better.”

Figuring she wouldn’t be able to catch the boy, she makes a one eighty and begins to run back towards the ladder, now fully unrestricted by her clothes.,

Speaking of the higher platform, back up there, Katara and Mai are locked in combat.

Katara whips her water towards the gloomy girl, who bends backwards to avoid it and kicks her leg out, shooting another stiletto towards the waterbender. She, in turn, raises a wall of ice to stop the arrow in its tracks. Mai takes this time to charge at the girl and begins to thrust her arm forwards to shoot another arrow towards her.

Seeing this, Katara liquifies the ice and sends a thin stream towards the fast-approaching girl. The water covers her hand and goes up almost to her shoulder when it freezes solid, keeping her stuck there.

Mai tries to free herself by slicing the ice with her hand, but it predictably does nothing. She quickly realizes that if she were to get her arm free, she’d have to resort to more drastic measures. She starts to shift her arm to free it from the sleeve, and she promptly slides her arm out of it. Of course, since her robe is a one piece, she moves her free arm behind her back and begins to fumble around her collar.

This sight, plus the visible loosening of her attire, confuses Katara, who drops her guard just long enough to allow the first jab to the back of her shoulder.

As this quick bout of action occurred, Ty Lee had ascended the scaffolding back up to their level, and was now bouncing around Katara, placing very specific jabs with her fingers on her arms, before rushing behind Mai to back her up.

Katara was surprised at this, both by the sudden jabs to her arms and the fact that this strange girl was not only still pants less, but now fully naked despite obviously being Fire Nation, a place that, for all she knew, was completely opposed to any sort of nudity. She was so surprised that she lost grip of her water, which fell to the floor. She tries to bend it back up again, but it just barely moves. She glances back up in fear towards the girl who did this, the visibly less threatening of these girls, who somehow managed to stop her from waterbending.

Mai, both relieved at being able to avoid her own nudity and victorious at her main adversary no longer having her primary weapon, smugly slides her arm back into her sleeve and taunts, “How are you gonna fight without your bending?” She retrieves a sai from her robe and aims it at the now defenseless girl. Raising her arm high, she’s about to let it fly, when a sudden force strikes her hand and knocks the weapon from her grasp. Her and Ty Lee shift their gaze, following the boomerang flying through the air, before being caught in the hand of a boy, now naked, flying a massive bison.

“I seem to manage!” Sokka taunts as he flies Appa between his sister and the two attackers. As he lands, the bison slams his tail onto the scaffolding floor, the resulting gust sends the two girls flying off the platform.

Katara doesn’t even need to be told once, as she’s already on the bison's back next to her brother by the time the dust clears. They take off and immediately speed down the construction site and past the chutes, scanning the city for any sign of their friend. Katara catches a heavy amount of dust and the brief flashes of blue light speeding down one of the chutes.

“There’s Aang!” she shouts, pointing down to the chute in question.

Shifting his gaze to where she’s pointing, Sokka says, “We can catch him!” before making Appa change course down to the action below.

Speaking of which, Azula continues her assault on Aang, sending fire blasts his way, and him continuing to deflect them with the spins of his staff. They keep this routine until it’s broken by the arrival of Appa.

“Hang on, Bumi! Our ride is here!” Aang shouts to the man imprisoned beneath him. Appa begins to pull in close to the chute, but a massive blast of fire by the naked girl forces him back. As he pulls in closer again, Aang slashes his staff against the chute wall, causing a gust of air to push the coffin out of it and towards Appa. Katara and Sokka attempt to catch it, but it's just too high for them to stop, and it falls past them.

As they fall, Bumi screams and Aang attempts to readjust the coffin midair again to land in the next chute. He doesn’t have the time, however, and it lands perpendicular to the chute, momentarily stopping it.

Fortunately, the force of the fall causes the earth to shatter into dust, allowing them to fall properly into the chute directly beneath them.

Unfortunately, it was the same chute they were traveling on, meaning Azula is still on their trail, just at a further distance. Once she does have clear sight of them, she forms a spiral of blue flames in her grasp. After getting it big enough, she sends the fire disk towards them.

Bumi, face still out the coffin window, peeks down and sees the rapidly approaching disk of flame. He then clenches his teeth and raises his chin in intense effort, resulting in a pillar of stone rising behind the coffin, blocking the disk and dispersing it.

Azula naturally gasps at this display of earthbending, doubly so since the pillar is in her path, and she’s rapidly approaching. Just in the nick of time, the naked princess leaps above the pillar as her cart slams into it and shatters. Landing just beyond the pillar, the girl continues to slide down the chute on foot, visible sparks and the audible sound of metal grinding against stone emanating from the soles of her sandals.

However, she only slides down for a few feet, before coming to a halt. She stares down as Aang and Bumi continue to slide down the chute, displeasure visible on her face.

----

The rest of the slide down the chute was relatively calm, well as calm as sliding unsupported down delivery chutes not designed to be ridden by people and going as fast as the wind can be. But something was on the naked boy's mind, and it was now that he brought it up.

“You could earthbend? All along?” he says, still shocked at the display back up there.

“Well, they didn’t cover my face,” Bumi says as if this was obvious. He strains his face again, causing another pillar of stone to rise, this time in front of them to stop their descent. The coffin slides up the pillar, knocking Aang off it.

He lands on the ground in front of the end of the track as the coffin turns around to face him straight on. Of course, the fact that Bumi could earthbend this whole time, yet remained captured by these invaders raises a few questions, and the naked boy was going to get answers.

“I don’t understand,” he says, annoyance audible in his tone. “Why didn’t you free yourself? Why did you surrender when Omashu was invaded? What’s the matter with you, Bumi?”

In a somewhat surprisingly calm tone, the mad former king says, “Listen to me, Aang. There are options in fighting, called jing. It’s a choice of how you direct your energy.”

“I know!” the boy says, still annoyed at his friend's lack of clear answers. “There’s positive jing when you’re attacking, and negative jing when you’re retreating.”

With a wide smile, the old man finishes, “And neutral jing when you do nothing!”

“There are three jings?” Aang says, slightly shocked.

“Well, technically there are eighty-five, but let’s just focus on the third. Neutral jing is the key to earthbending. It involves listening and waiting for the right moment to strike.”

Aang, starting to get what he was putting down, says, “That’s why you surrendered, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he says, “and it’s why I can’t leave now.”

Turning around, audibly disappointed, Aang says, “I guess I need to find someone else to teach me earthbending.”

“Your teacher will be someone who has mastered neutral jing,” Bumi continues. “You need to find someone who waits and listens before striking.”

It’s here when something lands on the boy's shoulder. Aang turns back around to the sight of his lemur perched on his bare shoulder. “Hey, Momo!” he says happily.

“Momo’s mastered a few jings himself!” Bumi says, causing the lemur to screech at him. “Goodbye, Aang. I’ll see you when the time is right.”

The iron coffin falls backwards onto the chute and, all the while the old king laughs maniacally, begins to ascend back up it, leaving the boy alone to ponder what he told him.

----

After recovering from their less than stellar exit from the fight, Mai and Ty Lee dust themselves off and regroup with Azula, who looks a bit miffed that her targets got away. It was slightly improved when the mad king returned to captivity, but it was evident that something was on her mind, and whatever it was wasn't making her happy.

With nothing better to do, the three prepare to leave. A group of servants collect the pieces of Azula’s royal armor and place them back onto the portable mannequin, and another pair manage to separately collect the pink top and pants lent to Ty Lee. When the acrobat was handed these articles, Mai told her she could keep them. She hangs them over her shoulders as she thanks her friend. Azula loads herself into her palanquin, still with a stern look in her face, and the servants lift it up, and they begin to walk away from the palace back down to the entrance wall.

After a while of silence, Mai says, “So, we’re tracking down your brother and uncle, huh?”

“It’ll be interesting seeing Zuko again,” Ty Lee says, before turning her head to Mai, a knowing grin forming on her face. “Won’t it, Mai?” she says teasingly.

The gloomy girl turns her face away from the two, not wanting them to see the smile forming on her face.

“It’s not just Zuko and Iroh anymore,” Azula says in a serious tone, staring straight out towards the slowly approaching entrance wall of Omashu. “We have a third target now.”

----

The sun sets over Omashu, it has now been over a day since little Tom-Tom disappeared with no sign of where he is. With the trade with the resistance for Bumi falling through, hope in the governor and his wife were fading fast.

The two stand embraced on the balcony of the palace, looking out at the city in hope of finding their son. They’re so transfixed on their search; they wouldn’t be able to notice the person sliding into the balcony. Though since he was moving in silence, it’s not like they would have either way, and he was gone just as fast.

They only turn when they hear a familiar cooing of a young child.

Behind them, slowly toddling towards them, is…

“Tom-Tom!”

The two take the toddler and embrace them, thankful for whatever force brought him back, unaware that the naked airbender responsible is staring down at them in the shadows, smiling at the reunion of parent and child.

Satisfied with this sight, Aang leaps silently off the roof, ready to resume his journey to find his earthbending master.

----
End of Book 2 Episode 3
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun was high over this part of the Earth Kingdom. Specifically, a place of rice paddies and a nearby village. Here at this village, people go about their days, going to and from the farms, the marketplace is full of people buying and selling, children play in the streets, and beggars beg.

Draw your attention to beggars who rest by a mask salesman, sitting on straw mats, an ostrich horse seated behind them. One of them, a younger man or boy with a burn scar around his left eye, looks visibly upset at their current predicament, while the other, an older, larger man, holds out a rice hat out towards the passing pedestrians.

“Spare coins for weary travelers,” Iroh asks one man passing. He stops and tosses a few coins into the hat before moving on.

Folding his arms, the young man says, “This is humiliating! We’re royalty! These people should be giving us whatever we want.”

“They will if you ask nicely,” the man says as another pedestrian, a young girl, passes by them. “Spare change for a hungry old man?” Iroh asks in slightly over dramatic desperation.

“Aw,” the girl says with a smile, withdrawing a coin from her sleeve, “here you go.”

“The coin is appreciated, but not as much as your smile!” he says slyly, while his nephew does a facepalm.

The girl giggles as she walks away. Walking up to her place is another man, younger than the first, and wielding two broadswords.

With a more malicious smile, the man says, “How about some entertainment in exchange for … a gold piece?”

“We’re not performers,” Zuko says, annoyed at the further degradation.

“Not professional anyway,” Iroh says, standing up and placing the hat to the ground. He starts to sway lightly as he starts to sing.

“It’s a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, but the girls in the city, they look so pretty!”

“Come on,” the man says, slightly annoyed. “We’re talking about a gold piece here! Let’s see some action.” He withdrawals his swords, the noise causing Zuko to glance up coldly at him. The man begins to slice at Iroh’s feet, saying, “Dance!”

Hopping to avoid the swords, Iroh continues to sing.

“They kiss so sweet that you really got to meet the girls from Ba Sing Se!”

The man stops slicing as he starts to laugh at the spectacle. “Ha, ha! Nothing like a fat man dancing for his dinner!” The tosses a single gold piece on the ground in front of the old man. “Here ya go!” he says before turning and walking away.

Zuko glares at the man, full of anger and secondhand humiliation, all the while Iroh says, “Such a kind man.”

----

The sky above the trees is gray with fog. It’s in these gray skies that a giant flying bison soars through, the three people and lemur casually riding atop him.

One of them, the group's sole girl, is reading through a scroll with a subdued expression. She has tanned skin and dark brown hair braided down the back and loops in the front. She’s wearing a blue skirt with white trims that cuts down to just above her knees, blue leather bracers, brown leather boots, and a necklace with a strange etching on it.

Sitting on the opposite of her is a boy sharpening his club with a whetstone. Like the girl, he has tanned skin and brown hair, in his case tied up in a ponytail. He’s wearing brown leather boots, blue gloves above white wrappings, a white necklace, and two holsters, one for the club and another holding a boomerang. Unlike the girl, these are his sole items of clothing, and everything between his knees, elbows and hairline, are completely bare.

Sitting on the head of the bison with his reins in his hands. Slightly younger than his companions (visibly at least), this boy is bald with lighter skin than the two behind him, making his tattoos all the more striking. In light blue ink, these tattoos take the form of lines following his limbs, all the way up his legs and across his arms to the core of his back, connected by a spinal line that goes from his tailbone to the top of his head. Ending these lines on the top of his feet, back of his hands and middle of his forehead, are arrows pointing out or down. Of course, all of these tattoos would be completely visible to any onlookers, since he was as naked as the day he was born.

So the three sit on the bison, the siblings occupying themselves, while the bald boy steers the beast. He stares on into the gray horizon. Then his gaze shifts downwards, towards the trees below and…

What was that?

Did someone say something?

Is something down there?

In a haze, the boy begins to lean forwards slightly, answering the strange call of the trees below. His motion, in turn, causes the bison to begin to descend lightly, an act that doesn’t go unnoticed.

Looking up from his club, the boy with the ponytail turns to the bald boy. “Hey, you taking us down for a reason?” he asks, to no response, just the continued gradual descent. “Aang, why are we going down?” he says louder, snapping the boy out of his trance.

“What?” Aang says, completely confused by what his friend said. “I didn’t even notice.”

“Are you noticing now?” Sokka asks, all the while Appa continues to descend.

Katara, scooting up towards the front, asks him, “Is something wrong?”

Still slightly dazed, Aang responds, “I know this is going to sound weird, but I think the swamp is calling to me.”

Holding his stomach, Sokka says with slight sarcasm, “Is it telling you where we can get something to eat?”

“No, I … " Aang hesitates, thinking about what this strange call means. “I think it wants us to land there.”

“No offense to the swamp,” Sokka shrugs, “but I don’t see any land to land on.”

“I don’t know,” Aang says. “Bumi said to learn earthbending I would have to wait and listen, and now I'm actually hearing the earth. Do you want me to ignore it?”

The siblings peer over the edge of the saddle, along with the lemur, and glance down at the ominous looking trees surrounded by swamp fog.

“Yes,” Sokka says dryly.

“I don’t know,” Katara says, slightly uneasy, “There’s something ominous about that place.”

The area is giving off such a bad vibe, that even the lemur scampers into one of the pockets of Appa’s saddle. The bison himself is feeling uneasy, even groaning lightly.

“See,” Sokka says at this, even Appa and Momo don’t like it here.”

Resigned, Aang says, “Okay, since everyone feels so strongly about this.” He pauses to glance down at the swamp. “Bye swamp.” He whips the reins, shouting, “Yip, Yip!”

The bison groans again and begins to ascend away from the swamp. They’re barely back up to where they were before the whole area starts to shake violently and the wind starts to pick up.

Sokka hears it first, and so he turns his head. His face drops at the sight of a massive, rapidly spinning, quickly approaching tornado right behind them.

“You better throw in an extra yip! We gotta move!” he shouts, completely panicked.

The panic quickly spreads to everyone else, even Appa, who hastens his pace in an attempt to get away from the approaching cyclone.

Aang tries and tries to maneuver his way away from the tornado, but each move he makes the twister only follows, as if it’s specifically following them and not the winds. It’s still right on their heels, and the winds are strong. So strong that they start to pull on them harshly. Sokka, who’s closest to the funnel, is pulled the harshest, and begins to be pulled away from the saddle, screaming in terror. Katara quickly catches his hand, but they both know this won’t last.

Evidently, so does Aang, as it’s here where he leaps onto the middle of the saddle and slams his fists together, generating a shield of air big enough to cover the bison and everyone one it. This halts the tornado's winds from affecting them, and Sokka falls safely onto the saddle again.

However, the thing is moving so fast, and in a moment, the air ball is bouncing around the interior of the tornado. Aang is struggling to keep them shielded, but it’s not enough.

The ball bursts and the three humans, one lemur and flying bison are sucked around the whirling vortex for what feels like hours, but was realistically only a few seconds, before being spat out into the great unknown.

----

The landing was rough for the three. Well, at least for Katara and Sokka, as neither of them have the ability to airbend to slow their falls, unlike Aang. So while the naked bald boy calmly landed in the muddy swamp water, Sokka and Katara landed hard on their backs. The two roughly get to their feet, sore from the fall. Katara’s clothes and both of their bodies were almost completely drenched in the disgusting water.

But that wasn’t Aang’s immediate concern.

That was the fact that their two animal companions were nowhere to be found.

“Where’s Appa and Momo?” he says as he glances around the area and at his friends. He can’t find them. Looking up, the boy leaps from tree trunk to tree truck, higher and higher, until he’s way above the tree line and looking out from above the swamp. “Appa! Momo!” he shouts as he scans the area.

Back down on the swamp floor, the siblings wade through the water slowly. Katara in particular is in distress. Her usually bright blue and white dress was now darker and brown where it was white and very wet. A direct result of landing in this filthy water, and while a little bending could fix one problem, the staining would need to be washed out. Of course, since the only widely available water is the same stuff that dirtied the thing in the first place, washing would have to wait.

Glancing up to her less distressed older brother, she notices something on the boy's arm. “Sokka, you’ve got an elbow leech,” Katara says blandly, pointing at his elbow.

Sokka, despite his preference for being naked, was not fond of living things attaching themselves to his bare skin. So he starts to spin around, glancing at himself up and down in a panic. “Where? Where?”

Katara crosses her arms. “Where do you think?” she asks sarcastically.

Sokka glances down at his elbow, and the giant black leech with white spots sucking on his elbow. As he struggles to detach it, he shouts, “Why do things keep attaching to me?!” Finally pulling it off, he chucks the creature far behind Katara while Aang swings back to the ground.
“You couldn’t find them?” Katara asks, already figuring from the boy's expression.

“No,” he says as he leaps back into the swamp water. “And the tornado … it just disappeared.”

Slightly unnerved by this development, the siblings turn their faces away from Aang and towards the expansive swamp behind them. The darkness lays there, open and inviting, yet there was something undeniably sinister lying in wait within the darkness of the trees and leaves.

This was where they needed to walk through completely exposed, in more ways than one.

----

Now where exactly are Appa and Momo?

The bison is still in the air, but not in flight. He’s completely entangled in the vines of the swamp trees. He struggles harshly against the vines, yet despite his immense strength, the bison couldn’t free himself.

On his back, and not tied down, is Momo. After the bison stops shaking, the lemur scampers off the saddle and begins to cut the vines with his sharp teeth. Each cut vine means Appa hangs lower, and after the fourth vine is cut, the bison is free.

Of course, since he can’t start flying midair without jumping first, he just falls to the swamp water. After shaking off the mess, he starts to charge through the water, leaping up and taking off in flight to find his friends.

Only to immediately get caught in more vines, stopping him in his tracks.

Momo, flying lightly in front of him, stares confusedly at the trapped bison, until he groans loudly, causing him to start to chew the vines again.

----

High in the air isn’t the only place densely packed with vines. Down on the ground, the vines are much more tightly packed and difficult to navigate on foot without something to cut them.

Luckily for the group, one of the naked boys is armed with a club with a sharpened side, which he doesn’t waste time on using.

“We better speed things up,” Sokka says as he starts to slice the vines to clear a better path for them to travel.

However, not everyone is on board with this action, the least of which being the other naked boy, who’s already experienced something paranormal about this swamp.

“Maybe we should be a little nicer to the swamp,” Aang suggests, unease ever so slightly increasing as Sokka’s defacement of the area.

Not even slightly slowing down with the cutting, Sokka turns his head and says, “Aang, these are just plants. Do you want me to say “please” and “thank you” as I swing my machete back and forth?”

Katara, also getting uneasy feelings about their current surroundings, says, “Maybe you should listen to Aang. Something about this place feels…” she pauses to find the right word, “alive.”

“I’m sure there are lots of things that are alive here,” Sokka says, not uneasy at all. “And if we don’t wanna end up getting eaten by them, we need to find Appa as fast as we can.”

Despite his friend's hesitation, Sokka continues to cut through the vines, completely transfixed on his task. How could he be aware of anything besides that, let alone any potential observers, especially within the vines behind the group.

----

After being freed again from the vines, Appa decided it would be easier to just walk through the swamp. Yeah, it’d be slower, but he wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of repeating the same experience again. So he walks along a pathway big enough to fit him, while Momo lays on his back.

Despite his slow motion, he makes decent progress through the swamp, however, a downed tree branch gets in his way. It’s positioned in a way that prevents him from moving forwards on foot, high enough to allow him to crawl under with some effort, and low enough to allow a brief flight over it.

The problem was that by now Appa was done with putting effort into navigating this forsaken place, so he just collapsed on the ground.

Momo objects rather strongly to this, so he searches through the saddle's pouches until he finds a bison shaped whistle. When he blows into it the first time, the bison growls in anger, but ignores it. When he attempts it a second time, the annoyed bison raises his tail and smashes the lemur, causing him to collapse to the floor, unconscious.

----

If the area the three landed was unnerving, this area was just plain spooky. Less light was making it through the thick foliage above and a fog equality as thick was filling the area. Still, they have to traverse this place in order to find their companions.

“Appa! Momo!” Katara shouts in vain search for them.

“There’s no way they can hear us and no way we can see them,” Sokka says, stopping and turning around to face his sister and friend. “We’ll have to make camp for the night.” Before he can say anything else, a small group of flies fly up and start harassing him. He wildly slaps and swings his club in an attempt to swat them, but to no success.

As this is going on, a strange bubbling noise emits from beneath them, followed shortly by some sort of gaseous release that rises from the water to them.

“What was that?” the girl asks.

“Nothing, just swamp gas,” Sokka says, indicating the gas now rising from beneath the log they’re standing on. “Look, there’s nothing supernatural going on here.” While there’s nothing supernatural to the gas, it is still unpleasant, as the three’s noses now feel.

The three groan, Sokka even blocking his nose with his hands, before the terrified scream of a woman startles them. They huddle close together, scanning the area for whoever or whatever caused that horrible sound. Who spots it first, no one knows, but all three quickly find their eyes focused on a small round bird perched on a nearby branch. It opens its wide beak and lets out the same horrible cry before flying off.

The three separate, now way more taken aback at their surroundings, even Sokka, who’s now starting to sweat, and it wasn’t because of the humid air. “I think we should build a fire,” he suggests, voice cracking slightly.

He runs up to a tree on wider and more stable ground and begins to slice into the exposed roots to get some wood for a fire.

Aang, naturally, objects to this. “Sokka, the longer we’re here, the more I think you shouldn’t be doing that.”

“No, I asked the swamp,” Sokka retorts with sarcasm, “It says this was fine.” He grabs the end of a root before continuing. “Right, swamp?” He then starts to move the root up and down and says in a dumb voice, “No problem, Sokka!” before immediately resuming to slice into the roots, while a slightly annoyed Aang watches.

Katara, meanwhile, is panting heavily, drenched in sweat. It’s just so humid, and despite her outfit being much lighter than her old warm weather attire, her torso was soaked in the stuff. Not helping was the fact that, while her current dress was soaked in the filthy swamp water, it did little to prevent the humidity from beating down on her.

No question, it had to come off for a bit. Luckily, due to it being designed by and for women of the Northern Water Tribe, all that was holding it up was a single tie by her right hip, which she quickly undid. Now in her underwear, Katara lays her dress flatly on the ground and holds her hand above it. As she raises it higher, the water trapped within the cloth rises out of it, making the wet and dirty dress into a dry and dirty dress. Since there’s no clean water around, actually fixing that part would have to wait until they leave the swamp.

An issue that couldn’t wait, was her top. Despite her best efforts to fix it after some downtime after the cave and Omashu, the bandeau still hangs loosely on her chest, which would almost certainly cause problems. It could be snagged on a branch, or slide down at the wrong time, or just the general annoyance at having to keep it up while walking through this dense wilderness.

She looks up at the two boys, Sokka chopping wood and Aang standing a bit behind him. The two fully exposed buttocks stare at her right back, an explicit reminder of what exactly her companions' views on nudity are. She can count on a single hand the number of times she’s seen the bald boy in clothes, and ever since she’s left the south pole, she’s seen her brother's cheeks more times than she probably could count. They weren’t exactly the people who’d judge a person for deciding to show a little more skin. Besides, they’ve both already seen her nude countless times already. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal anymore, and one of them is her brother and the other one is both just a kid and someone raised in a completely clothes free society. A few hours with her breasts out should mean absolutely nothing to either of them.

By the time Sokka was satisfied with the wood he’s collected, the bandeau was already resting beside the skirt.

----

Sure enough, beyond an initial glance at the unusual sight, neither of the boys played any sort of attention to Katara’s topless state, so her initial slight unease about doing this fades quickly. So she quickly joins in assisting in building the fire with Aang and Sokka. So by the time the sun sets (or at least that’s the assumption, as the minimal amount of light making it through the leaves begins to dissipate), the fire is set and the three gather around it.

Regardless of her comfort with her friends, there’s still something making her uneasy about these woods, and her minimal attire only makes it worse. Crossing her arms over her chest, she glances around at the dark shadows of the swamp, the lack of anything there not helping the feeling of eyes boring into her.

“Does anyone else get the feeling that we’re being watched?” she asks, vocalizing her discomfort.

Sokka, pretending to be indifferent at the fly flying around his head, says, “Please, we’re all alone out here.”

Finally snapping, the naked boy begins to swing his club widely, trying to kill that damn bug. It flies directly above the fire, and he goes to take a swing at it, when it explodes into a ball of white light. It flies high into the air, the light reflecting on the dozens of pairs of eyes staring down at them from the trees. The three turn and stare up at them, now feeling way more exposed.

“Except for them,” Aang says, eyes wide in fear.

They turn around and huddle close together.

“Right,” Sokka says, his calm demeanor fading completely, “except for them.”

----

Back to Appa and Momo shenanigans.

The bison, wanting to get some shut eye after the rough day he’s had, lays lazily atop a massive branch. Momo, on the other hand, is too anxious to sleep within these woods, and all the noises that surround him. So he just scuttles around Appa’s back, head and tail, and this in turn keeps him awake. Annoyed, he growls loudly. scaring whatever was there into silence, calming lemur enough to cause him to settle down on the saddle. He shuts his eyes in an attempt to start sleeping, but a sudden small sound causes his ears to twitch and his eyes to widen.

Yeah, the little critter was not getting a second of sleep tonight.

----

Seeing as traversing this scary swamp will be much harder to do tired, the three decided that they need to sleep.

Now as their campfire dies, Aang, Katara and Sokka lay propped up against each other, back-to-back, in a vaguely triangle shape, fast asleep. They’re determined to get at least a few hours of shuteye before resuming their hunt for Appa and Momo.

Of course, the thing watching them has other plans.

It first moves on Sokka, and the vines stretch out from the foliage and begin to wrap around his leg. It reaches all the way up to his shoulder by the time the vines begin to wrap around his nude friend and topless sister. Still, no one wakes up from this motion.

At least, not until they’re pulled away from each other harshly. That wakes all three up.

Aang and Katara are pulled away into the fog in separate directions. Sokka briefly halts by stabbing his machete into the soft mud. Once the vines stop pulling on him, he pulls it out and slices the vines to free himself from its grip.

He gets to his feet, before another punch of vines begins to advance on him. He slices some, but another cluster catches him on the foot, tripping him. He rolls down the massive root until he lands in the water again. The naked boy gets to his feet and runs as the vines continue to attack him.

Meanwhile, Katara struggles against the vines wrapped around her torso, half around her upper body and half lower. Using the readily available water, she slices the stuff holding her arms and most of the stuff around her waist. She was about to do the rest of it, but some more vines came for her, and she sliced them instead, rolling out of the rest of the vines. Now completely free, she has a much easier time defending herself from the assault. Some would say it's too easy. Since a lot of the vines seem to be coming from the water itself, she’d naturally be partially glancing downwards. When the assault lulls for a moment, she catches something floating in the water as she turns around. It’s a decently dirty white piece of clothing. How did my top end up here? She asks herself. Nothing happened during this exchange that caused it to fall off, despite its inherent looseness.

Then she realizes that her top was already off, and still laying by the certainly dead campfire with the rest of her clothes, as well as the lack of any feeling of cloth against her buttocks.

Apparently, the vines' grip around her waist was a bit stronger than she thought, considering her bottoms were floating in the water and she was now fully naked.

Slicing away some of the vines that got too close during her realization, she turns fully and runs, quickly snatching her bottoms from the filthy water, before sprinting deeper into the fog in order to lose her pursuer.

Seeing how well these two naked people dealt with these vines, let's see how the third naked person deals with them.

Aang is in a similar position Katara was, vines wrapped around his torso and restricting his arms. Unlike her, water is far less available to use. Fortunately, all this nudist needs is air, and it’s everywhere. He creates a large airball, stretching the vines around him out away from him. The sphere dissipates, and he leaps away before they can retighten around him.

The boy leaps high into the trees, jumping from branch to branch as the vines continue to pursue him. One manages to catch his leg, and he’s pulled back to the ground. Landing in the water, he quickly shifts to laying on his back and, before the vine can pull him, he pushes against it with a powerful air blast, propelling him far away from the vines.

After landing, Aang gets to his feet and looks around the area, and how he’s now completely alone in the swamp as the fog clears.

“Guys?”

----

Due to Appa’s heavy treed, he naturally left some big footprints in the soft mud. It certainly makes him easier to track through these wildernesses, especially since there’s not many things his size and shape out here. If anyone was out there looking for them, they’d be easy to find, and two people do find them.

Unfortunately, it’s not Aang, Katara, or Sokka.

Who does find these prints are two older men. One of them is tall, scrawny, and hunched forwards harshly. The other is short, fat, and holding a stick that he uses to poke the print they’re looking down at. What they both have in common, besides the rugged look, is that, beyond the big leaf hats atop their heads, they’re both completely naked.

“What’d you reckon make a track like that, Tho?” the taller man says with a heavy accent.

“Don’t know, Due,” the fat man, Tho, says back in an equally accented voice. He continues to prod the print with his stick as he continues. “Some’in with six legs. Pretty big'uns too.”

The two nude men look up at the trail of the massive prints leading away.

“Leaves a nice, wide trail to folla’,” the tall man, Due, says at his observation.

“You know what’s at the end of that trail?” Tho asks, to which Due shakes his head. “Dinner.,” he answers himself with a wide grin.

Speaking of that dinner, Appa wades casually through the water, it now being deep enough for him to do so. This was less labor intensive for the bison, as he just pushes himself with the current. Calm and relaxing.

Sitting on his back is Momo, at least momentarily, before his attention shifts to a bug flying around his face. He flies after it, away from Appa, leaping across tree roots exposed out of the water, before catching it atop a weird rock. He eats the bug quickly, when he notices the rock beginning to rise from the water.

Then it snaps its jaws at him.

Momo flies away, barely avoiding the snapping jaws of the catfish alligator. Still, the lemur manages to keep just enough distance so he could be able to fly up as he reaches Appa, mouth wide open to catch the catgator in his own jaws. Momo lands atop the bison's head as he spits the catgator out. The two creatures hiss at each other for a moment, before the one in the water swims away.

----

Katara had finally managed to escape the pursuing vines by hiding between a couple tall, thick trees, allowing her to catch her breath. She goes to bend forwards and place her hands on her knees, breathing heavily to slow herself down and cool off from the running in this humid swamp. Of course, her being next to a tree, when she does bend forward, her fully exposed buttocks bumps it, jolting through her the fact that she’s once again completely naked in hostile territory. Not wasting another second, she quickly holds open the cloth in her hands and steps into it.

She only slows down to breath after her bottom’s secure and covering hers. Due to her clothes and top still being at the place they made camp; she’ll have to worry about those later.

After cooling off, she cautiously walks out of this protective area, back into the unknown swamp. Nothing comes out to grab at her, so she takes that as a sign that whatever attacked them has either lost her or moved on to other matters. Feeling a bit safer at this fact, she calls out to her friends. “Aang! Sokka!”

No response.

She scans the area for any sign of the two boys, but nada. The more she looks around, the more it draws on her just how alone she is out here.

Wait, who’s that?

She nearly missed it the first time, but as she focuses on it, the thing she sees is obviously a person with their back to her, crouching down towards the water. They have a similar skin tone to her, and the completely bare back and butt are enough for her to reason that this person is completely naked and bathing in the dirty swamp water. At first, she thinks it might be Sokka, but they didn’t respond to her call, and they have pretty feminine hips now that she’s slowly approaching, and she very much doubts that Sokka would willingly bathe in the filthy mush, which the woman appears to be doing.

Regardless, this nude woman was here, and considering how casual she looks as she seems to wash her hair, she must know her way around the swamp. “Hello?” Katara calls out to the lady. “Hello? Can you help me?”

The woman doesn't answer, instead continuing to mess with her hair. The thing that confuses Katara is that she doesn’t seem to be washing it at all. In fact, from the slowly closing distance, it seems like it’s bone dry. What the woman seems to be doing is styling it, all in a way that looks vaguely familiar to Katara, and speaking of it, the woman herself seems to have a familiar body as well. She was unmistakably Water Tribe, the dark skin and hair were dead giveaways, but there was something more there. She’s clueless, until the woman tosses the hair in her hands back behind her, falling back atop the black wavy sheet, done up in a braid.

The very same braid Katara now wears.

Then it starts to click. There’s a reason the way this woman looked and moved is so familiar to her, because she’s seen these exact motions before. Years ago, a memory that was left in the abyss of time, only now brought to the surface by this sight. In the fourteen years she’s been on this planet, she only had a handful of nudity encounters outside of bathing before meeting Aang.

She doesn’t remember what she was doing that day, or why she decided to cut it short. Regardless, she was heading home, evidently earlier than expected. Her dad and Sokka were out doing something that she can’t remember, so she expected to return to an empty igloo.

Greeting her instead of nothing is the same sight she’d see in the swamp years later; a fully nude woman with her back to her, crouched down slightly, in the process of braiding her hair. She never did learn why she was naked there, if she had just finished bathing, in the process of changing clothes, or just being naked because she felt like it, maybe after getting the idea of such from her mother-in-law. Just like now, the woman tosses her freshly braided hair behind her.

It’s here that Katara would repeat the very words she said years ago. “Mom?”

Just like in her newly resurfaced memory, her mother would turn her head slightly, before giving off a light giggle. In an echoey voice, she’d say the words she said then when she noticed her young daughter walking in on her. “Well, looks like you’re back early.” She then straightens up and stretches her arms in the air, before letting them rest at her sides.

“Mom!” Katara shouted, sprinting towards the figure of her nude mother, eyes flooding with tears of joy of seeing her again. Going to place a hand on her shoulder, she says, “I can’t believe…” but she cuts herself off.

What she now rests her hands on is a simple stump, not her mother. This cruel visage causes her to break down, and she falls to her knees in tears at both her missing her mom and the swamp for this reminder of what once was.

The actual memory ended differently. Katara giggled at her mom having her butt out, the woman got dressed, and life resumed as it was in the South Pole, who’s harsh colds were by now far preferable to the humid swamp that taunts her with what she misses, all the while being in minimal clothing.

It’s enough to break anyone, as a devastated Katara now shows.

----

The vines had long since stopped attacking Sokka, yet he still swings his machete at them, slicing through them. Partly to further clear a path for himself, but mostly out of anger. He alternates calling for his friends and venting his frustrations at his current environment.

“Aang!” he shouts, before resuming slashing the vines. “Stupid swamp! Dumb, ugly vines! Katara!” As he shouts, he goes to take a step forward unknowingly into another clump of vines. “You think you’re so tough, huh?” he says, before realizing he’s now caught in the vines. He slices his machete to free himself, but when it loosens and he’s free, he trips forwards and lands on his stomach in the water, completely covering his front in mud.

On his hands and knees, Sokka slowly lifts himself up and raises his head, his eyes stopping at the figure of a very familiar naked lady high in the air. Sheathing his machete as he fully rises, the naked boy slowly approaches this figure. “Hello?” he says as he slowly approaches the visage in front of him.

This visage was a girl around his age, with a pure white aura around her, different from the dim greenish yellow light escaping into the swamp from the sky. Her hair was long and wavy and pure white. Despite her expression being unbreakable, the face was unmistakable.

Because this is the face of the girl he loved.

Because this is the face of the girl who died in his arms.

“Yue?” he says at the divine image before him. He couldn’t believe it. Not the fact that she can appear, due to her being the new moon spirit, she probably could be able to appear at will anywhere. It was the fact that she was here, in the middle of this mysterious swamp, when his emotions were running high. He places his hands on his head, trying to comprehend something so unbelievable. And he couldn’t believe it. “This is just a trick of the light,” he says as he slowly turns his back to the apparition. “Swamp gas … I … hit my head running away last night. I’m going crazy.”

A bit reassured, but still uneasy, he turns back around to see that, yes, the naked girl is still there, staring down at him almost accusatory.

In an echoed voice, she says, “You didn’t protect me.”

Sokka quickly rubs his eyes, and when he uncovers them, she vanishes, leaving the bright light of the sun in her place. Sokka sighs in relief, before turning back around to walk away.

He fully turns and is met face to face with the visage of Yue, startling him to the point where he falls down backwards into the water. Once on the ground, he looks back up, only to find himself alone in the swamp again.

Getting to his feet, Sokka pulls out his machete and walks away from the area, something evidently very wrong here.

----

“Katara!” Aang shouts as he enters into a small clearing beside a hill. “Appa!” He glances around the area for his friends, before stopping at the hilltop.

Standing up there is a figure, a girl, and a winged pig by her side. The winged pig he could care less about, as he’s seen them before. It’s the girl that gets his attention.

Despite them being decently close to each other, he can’t make out her face. What he can tell is that this girl is young, due to her short stature, smallish frame, and flat chest. Her hair is dark, probably black, and is held up in a bun almost as big as her head with a headband. The headband is important because, as Aang can clearly see despite the distance, she’s not wearing anything else besides it.

“Hello?” Aang says to the girl, very much confused by who she is and why she’s here and, despite his fondness for people like minded fashion style of no clothes, why a girl her age was in the middle of a creepy swamp as naked as he was. “Who are you?”

The winged pig takes off in flight as the girl starts to giggle, before turning heel and running down the other end of the hill.

“Hey, come back!” Aang says, holding his arm out towards her. He leaps atop the hill and looks down, expecting to see the naked girl running into the foliage. Instead, he finds nothing. This was naturally impossible, as no one can run from the top of this hill into the dense trees in the time it took him to airbend to the top.

Of course, by the time he’s rationalizing all of this, he hears the girls giggling again, this time behind him and further up. He turns and there she is, staring down at him from atop a tree branch. She turns and runs behind the trunk, and Aang leaps up there in turn.He swings along the trees with the readily available vines to speed up his search, but no dice, he can’t find her up there either.

He then hears the naked girls laugh again, and he turns back to see her running across the grass behind him. He promptly turns around and swings down to where she was and runs in the direction she went.

As he runs, he passes beneath a tall, thin bridge made by the bark of one tree peeling off and resting atop another. It’s there where he hears the laugh again, and a quick look up and behind him confirms this nude girl's location. She runs across the bridge as Aang leaps up to where she was and continues his futile chase.

----

Appa lazes through the water, continuing to follow the light current, at this point very casually looking for his friends. At least he was moving. However, he stops once the things emerge from the fog. The scary sight causes the already on edge Momo to start to chitter.

On the opposite side of the river are six men and women, all wearing only leaf hats and the occasional arm or leg bands, divided evenly between three canoes. The middle one is taken by the two people who spotted the bison's tracks earlier, Tho and Due, who now start down their catch. Tho licks his lips at the sight of their future meal in anticipation.

“Look at that Tho,” the taller Due says at the sight in front of them. His attention is then focused on the chittering, and the creature making it. “Is that a little hairy fella ridin’ that thing?”

Tho, the more travel experienced of the two, glances up at the thing riding the bison and shakes his head. “No, that’s what they call a lemoo. Saw one at a traveling show once. Real smart they say.”

“Bet he tastes a lot like possum chicken.”

“You think everything tastes like possum chicken.”

“C’mon now, fellas,” Due says, edging his way towards the tip of the bow of the canoe, holding his arm out, beckoning the two creatures' forwards. “Just a little closer. Nice and easy. Nothing to worry about. We just fixin’ to eat ya.”

Hearing this, Appa promptly turns around and speeds off in the opposite direction.

“What’d you say that fer?” an annoyed Tho says to his friend.

With a shrug, Due says, “Well, we are!”

“But you don’t have to tell ‘em that.”

“Well how’d I know they’d understand me?” he says with another shrug.

“Come on!” Tho says, absolutely done with his friend and at the prospect of losing a hearty meal.

Due stands up and stretches his arms out to his sides. He then starts to rotate them, directed at the water. After a few seconds, the force of his bending picks up enough for the canoe to start to speed after the fleeing bison. The other two canoes do this as well, and in V formation, the three pursue their hunt.

----

It was lucky that Aang didn’t get fatigued easily, since a run this long would have winded anyone else. He had found and lost this strange naked girl so many times it was hard to keep count. Still, he wasn’t giving up on his pursuit.

He catches her glancing out from beside a tree, and like always, she turns and takes off the moment he sees her. He naturally chases after her, finding a massive sheet of moss blocking his view. He walks up to it and parts it with his hands, seeing the girl, back to him, atop a hill.

“Who are you?” he asks loudly, before beginning to run towards her. As he gets closer, her details start to become clearer. This soon becomes literal, as he gets closer, the girl starts to fade, in her stead a taller, more developed girl with tan skin, long brown hair in a braid, and wearing only underwear.

Katara only has the time to turn in response to the noise, before her naked friend collides into her, sending them both falling over the other side of the hill.

Further down, Sokka hears the sound of a major commotion, and naturally unsheathes his machete to defend himself. All he takes is this action, before the naked boy is hit by the force of his two friends falling into him, knocking him down as well.

The three roll far down, landing atop a root. Hurting, the three lay there for a moment, before slowly getting back up, although Sokka is back to his feet before the others so much as sit up.

“What do you guys think you’re doing!?” he shouts in annoyance as he puts his machete away. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Hand on her head, Katara turns to her brother and says, “Well, I’ve been wandering around looking for you!”

Aang glances away from his friends for a second, emberassed to admit that he’d forwent his search for them in favor of the girl. He airbends himself to his feet as he admits, “I was chasing some girl.”

“What girl?” Katara asks.

“I don’t know,” the boy says, walking up to her and helping her to her feet. “I heard laughing and I saw some girl, naked like the rest of us.”

Katara instinctively crosses her arms over her chest, Aang’s statement reminding her of her current clothing situation, before she starts to think about something. Sokka, on the other hand, throws his arms up high and says in a sarcastic tone, “Well, you could have suggested she hang with us. She’d be in good company.”

“I thought I saw Mom,” Katara says, ignoring Sokka’s comment.

“Look,” he says, trying to rationalize everything that happened, “we were all just scared and hungry and our minds were playing tricks on us. That's why we all saw things out here.”

Surprised by what he said, Katara pipes back, “You saw something too?”

Turning his back to them, Sokka admits, “I thought I saw Yue. But that doesn't prove anything,” he says, turning back to face them and taking a step towards Katara. “Look, I think about her all the time, and you saw Mom, someone you miss a lot.”

“What about me?” Aang jumps in. “I didn’t know the girl I saw. And our visions led us right here.”

“Okay…” Katara says as they glance around the area. “So where’s here? The middle of the swamp?”

Turning around, Aang’s attention quickly shifts upwards. “Yeah, the center…” he says at the sight in front of him. Of course he’d come to that conclusion, as standing in front of them, where the roots they’re standing on lead too, is a truly giant tree. Larger than anyone has ever seen. “It’s the heart of the swamp. It’s been calling us here, I knew it.”

“It’s just a tree,” Sokka says, raising his arms in emphasis. “It can’t call anyone. For the last time, there’s nothing after us and there’s nothing magical happening here.”

Sure enough, in the universe’s ever-present goal of proving Sokka wrong, something magical happened. After he says that, something massive emerges from the water, causing the three to huddle close together and scream.

The thing is basically a giant mound of seaweed, flawlessly woven together to form a massive behemoth. It has a massive torso and two arms as long as it. It has no legs, as its lower parts are hidden by the water (if any even exist). A small wooden mask at the connect point of the two arms only add to the terror to this thing now swinging its massive arm at them.

Aang and Katara take off in opposite directions of the root and Sokka leaps off it into the water in a run to avoid the devastating blow by the monster. It goes after Sokka first, thrusting its arm towards him, the seaweed extending the already fair distance he put between him and it and locks around his nude form, pulling him back towards it.

Aang leaps up to some more solid ground, before turning his head back to the thing. It has Sokka in its, for lack of better words, grasp, swinging him around and around. Seeing this, the naked boy sends an air slice towards the arm, freeing his fellow nudist, but getting the attention of the moss monster. It turns and extends its arm towards the boy, knocking him far back.

Sokka, now free, takes out his anger at the current situation on the dead vines lying around and on him. He slices and slices them with his machete at the things that are no longer a threat to him anymore. He’s so preoccupied, that he doesn’t notice the growing mass of vines and seaweed behind him before it’s too late. He only turns when it attaches to the limb Aang had cut, and the monster had no sooner done that than snatching Sokka with it’s other arm.

It immediately turns and throws its arms back, causing it to sail across the water, far away from the giant tree.

Luckily for the poor naked boy, his little sister was a waterbender, and not only a powerful one in her own right, but one that was almost naked, so she has no trouble catching up to the beast. She had no sooner got there when she shot an ice spike into the beast's shoulder. It cut a decent chunk of the vines and caused it to stagger back, but it didn’t sever the arm completely, her intended goal.

Her temporary victory is further muddled when the wound she made it the creature heals itself, the vines growing back as if they were never gone. Unperturbed, Katara advances around the monster, dodging swipes and sending small waves towards it to disorient it. Getting right in front of it, the mostly nude girl twirls around, moving her arms, sending a massive wave towards the moss monster sending it decently far back. She then parts the river, exposing a clear path of land between her and the creature. She charges towards it, intending on delivering a massive blow, but another limb shoots out the middle of it’s torso, knocking her far back.

This in turn distracts Aang, who was running towards the beast behind her, and her flying by him catches his attention. He barely turns back to face it when another mass of vines shoots towards him, knocking him back as well.

Now not being attacked, the moss monster readjusts its limbs, the one holding Sokka being absorbed into its chest, pulling the scared naked boy with it, leaving him with only his face out.

----

Appa leaps atop the surface of the water, between the trees, in an attempt to flee the pursuing waterbenders, though tall three canoes are fast on his trail.

Appa wasn’t completely defenseless in this state, he had Momo, and the various things the group no longer needed. One of these was a wooden thing that he threw towards the middle canoe, nailing Due in the face. He recovered quickly, as it did no major damage, just disoriented him. The next thing to be thrown was one of Sokka’s old shirts, Due to the boy’s policy of no clothes, he figured this was no longer necessary, and so chucked it. It nails one of the riders of a canoe, causing her to struggle, shaking the whole thing. The shaking becomes too much, and the boat smacks into something, sending the shirt-covered woman and the man steering flying off into the water.

This is observed by Tho, who remarks, “Now, what would a lemoo need a shirt fer?”

Appa continues to run, and Momo continues to throw, unaware of the low hanging branch the bison’s quickly approaching. Appa ducks his head to avoid being hit, but due to his speed, Momo doesn’t even have a chance before it smacks him.

He goes flying through the air before landing in an open sack, held up by Tho, which he promptly ties shut.

----

To say Sokka couldn't move would be an understatement. The vines were tied so tightly around him, he could barely feel them. Clothes were one thing, just restrictive and wouldn’t allow his body to breathe. This was next level, as he literally couldn’t move a muscle. The one saving grace of his was that his machete was still in his hands, and thanks to the motions of the moving swamp monster, was slowly cutting into the vines. With each light cut meant that the vines around the slice would be slightly weaker, and after a few minutes of walking, it was loose enough for him to move his hand. He quickly went to work sawing into the vines, slowly allowing the rest of his arm some light motion and relief. By the time the monster realized what he was doing, he had already freed his arm completely from the vines. The monster, in turn, quickly filled the empty space and attempted to force it back in. This would, in turn, lightly loosen the vines from the boy's upper torso, and he just slides his other arm free. The beast realizes it’s mistake and retightens, but by then, he was able to pull most of his shoulders and head free of the vines. He still struggles against the force, but he won’t be fighting alone for much long.

Aang, riding an air scooter, rushes towards the monster, rolling up its mossy body until he stands at the top of the living mound. The naked boy begins to spin rapidly, creating a funnel of air around the creature. Thanks to it being made of plants, it begins to contort and spin along with the current. By the time it fades, it’s an upwards pointing spiral of flora.

Now it was Katara’s turn. Standing atop a root, Sokka in her sights, she breathes in heavily, before sending a misty exhale straight towards him. The vines trapping the boy freeze solid, no doubt not doing wonders to the boy's naked body. Gathering a pillar of water behind her, she shoots herself towards the frozen sphere, going straight through the creature, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the thing.

She and Sokka land in the water as the moss monster gathers more seaweed to reform itself and begins to advance towards them. Luckily, the bald naked boy is midair, surrounded by spinning air. He nails the thing in the back of the, for lack of a better word, head, knocking it over.

Aang stands victorious in front of the downed beast, but it gets up quickly and smacks him far aside. Seeing this, Katara turns to face the creature, before beginning to spin her arms rapidly. This creates thin arches of water that cut into the vines at a rapid pace. So rapid that it can barely repair itself by the time the next few arches slice into it. As it repairs itself, Sokka notices something peculiar inside. Something brown. Not wood, something smoother, and slightly shinier. It almost has the look of skin. Then he starts to see it. An arm forming vines around itself, a leg burying itself deeper into cover, and even a bearded face.

“There’s someone in there!” he shouts, “He’s bending the vines!”

Of course, this goes uncared for by Katara, who delivers a powerful slice towards the upper half of the creature, cutting the wooden mask clean in two as the top sides off. The mound of vines and moss stand there still for a good few moments, allowing a sense of victory to fill the girl. It quickly fades as vines begin to dig into the ground, emerging below the girl and entrapment her. She’s held up high in the air, completely unable to move her lower half.

Of course, by now Aang has recovered, and he jumps back into the scene. He thrusts his arms forwards, creating a powerful gust of wind. So powerful, it blows the vines back far enough to expose the person inside, a short, fat, naked, tanned man with gray boomerang shaped hair and thin beard.

“Why did you call me here if you just wanted to kill us?” Aang demands loudly.

“Wait!” the man shouts, throwing his arms down, the vines fully dropping. “I didn’t call you here,” he says in a confused tone.

The two naked boys share an equally confused look, the older boy still on edge, seeing as this man attacked them. Still, Aang turns back to him and says, “We were flying over and I heard something calling to me, telling me to land.”

“He’s the Avatar,” Sokka clarifies, “Stuff like that happens to us a lot.”

“The Avatar?” the man says loudly. “Come with me.”

The trio are hesitant for a moment, before a mutual decision that they need answers overcomes their fight or flight sense, and they drop their stances and follow the man.

----

As it turns out, the giant tree at the center of the swamp was where Aang was supposed to go. He and the Water Tribe siblings are led up the roots to the base of the tree by the old man, who utilizes his bending to clear vines and other growths out of the way for their trek to be easier. Still, they had questions, and were going to get answers. But no one spoke until they had almost reached the top of the tree.

“So, who are you then?” Katara first asks him, in the process of moving some vines out of the way.

“I protect the swamp from folks that want to hurt it,” he says as the path clears, “like this fella with the knife.” He steps aside to allow the three to go on.

“See, completely reasonable,” Sokka says, lagging behind as he sheaths his machete. “Not a monster, just a regular guy defending his home. Nothing mystical about it,” he continues as he follows his friend and sister upwards.

“Oh the swamp is a mystical place all right,” the man says as he continues to lead the mostly nude trio up the tree. “It’s sacred. I reached enlightenment right here under the banyan-grove tree.” He turns around and takes a seat in the middle of the path. “I heard it calling me, just like you did.”

Sokka, ever the logical one, is still skeptical about all this mystical stuff. He decides to humor the old, probably senile man by saying, “Sure you did. It seems real chatty.”

Gesturing around at the tree they all stand on; the old man begins to explain. “See, this whole swamp is actually just one tree spread out over miles. Branches spread and sink, take root, and spread some more. One big, living organism. Just like the entire world.”

The three, still skeptical about this man and the swamp, look confused by this assertion, though Aang is the only one who vocalizes. “I get how the tree is one big thing, but the whole world?”

“Sure,” the man says as if it were the most obvious thing ever. “You think you’re any different from me or your friends or this tree? If you listen hard enough, you can hear every living thing breathing together. You can feel everything growing. We’re all living together, even if most folks don’t act like it. We all have the same roots and we are all branches of the same tree.”

The man's words were so entrapping, it made the three sit down as well to listen to him. It was fascinating, but it still didn’t answer their questions, so Katara asks, “But what did our visions mean?”

“In the swamp, we see visions of people we've lost, people we loved, folks we think are gone. But the swamp tells us they're not. We're still connected to them. Time is an illusion and so is death.” Sure enough, both Katara and Sokka saw people who fit that description perfectly. Katara relived a long-forgotten memory of her mother, who she misses dearly, as well as seeing something that, in hindsight, may or may not explain more recent developments in her life. Speaking of which, Sokka saw Yue, the girl he loved, who died in his arms after he promised her father he'd protect her with his life, the necessity of her sacrifice not making it any better for him. So, the man was right in that. Well, not exactly, as a bald naked boy is about to point out.

“But what about my vision?” Aang asks, “It was someone I had never met.”

“You’re the Avatar,” the man says. “You tell me.”

Aang looks down in thought for a few moments, going over everything the man said. “Time is an illusion,” he says, piecing it together and realizing where that nude girl fit in with his life. “So, it’s someone I will meet.”

To answer, the man simply nods.

“Sorry to interrupt the lesson,” Sokka jumps in, standing up and stretching, “but we still need to find Appa and Momo.”

“I think I know how to find them,” Aang says, shifting his position and placing his hand onto the bark of the tree and shuts his eyes. “Everything is connected.” The arrow tattoo on his hand starts to glow as the energy begins to flow through the tree, down the vein and all the way through the swamp. In a vision, the naked boy sees a giant bison being waylaid by a small group of people attempting to capture him in a net. Opening his eyes, he says, “Come on!” he says as he stands up, “We’ve got to hurry!”

----

It was a rough fight, but after a bit the six waterbenders managed to get the next around the poor bison. Now secure, the net was tied to the back of the leading canoe as they prepared to sail back to their settlement.

As the boats travel downstream, Tho taps the side of his in rhythm as he sings, “Set my lines by the riverbed! Caught ten fish and I killed 'em dead! Cut 'em and gut 'em and I tossed the heads in the water to keep them catgators fed.” Due to the mans, shall we say, untrained vocals, the singing is grating to the lemur trapped in a sack in front of the nude man.

Luckily for Momo, a noise causes the man to stop singing, as well as the benders at the fronts of the canoes from moving. The people inside are only able to turn as a massive water jet comes barreling towards them. The boat next to Tho and Due’s is destroyed, sending the two benders inside flying, and almost capsizes theirs as well. The two men look on as a bald, tattooed, completely naked boy seemingly flies from the air and lands on the branch in front of them.

“Appa!” the boy shouts, before sending a powerful gust of air towards them, knocking Tho away and into the water, allowing Momo to free himself from the sack and rejoin his friend.

“We’re under attack!” Due shouts, before throwing his arms back to collect a massive wave of water. He sends it towards the naked boy and the topless girl who just ran up to his side.

The two stop it and attempt to send it back towards the man. The three remain in this standoff, fighting over the direction of the wave, before a mutual realization occurs.

“Hey, you guys are waterbenders!” Katara says as she realizes.

“You too!” Due says in surprise, “That means we’re kin!” The water wall drops, allowing the two to see the tall, almost bone thin, hunched over naked man, a sight Katara really wished she hadn’t seen. It was then when Aang and Katara were joined on the branch by two other naked people, Sokka and the old man, who Due looks at with familiarity. “Hey Huu! How you been?”

With a shrug, the old man, Huu, says, “You know, scared some folks, swing some vines, the usual.”

The three on the branch turn their heads to the old man, baffled looks on their faces. “Huu? Sokka says.

----

With the misunderstanding cleared up, the gang found these swamp waterbenders to actually be decently pleasant people. Appa was freed and the group was led to the tribe they lived at. Naturally, like the six they encountered, the men, women and children of the tribe were naked, allowing the two boys to fit right in. Katara too, though it was evident that some of these folks have never laid eyes on someone in any sort of clothing, even as little as she’s wearing.

Still, they weren’t bad company, especially as they were willing to feed the three. Sitting around a small fire with Huu, Tho and Due, as well as a few others scattered around the area, Aang, Sokka and Katara were each given sticks with various small animals, bugs, and fish skewered on them.

Despite never having tried these creatures before, food was food, especially for the ever-hungry Sokka.

“How you like that possum chicken?” Due asks the boy as he digs in.

“Tastes just like an arctic hen,” Sokka says, before looking back up at the men. “So why were you guys so interested in eating Appa? You've got plenty of those big things wandering around.” he gestures towards the catgator lying behind Tho.

“You want me to eat old Slim?” Due says in a baffled tone. “He’s like a member of the family!” The skinny man then slides the fish off his stick and tosses it to the catgator, who eats it quickly.

“Nice Slim!” Sokka says, taking the bug off his own stick and tossing it towards the creature. It bounces off Slim's nose, and he growls at the nude boy, who lightly cowers at that.

Due just laughs. “Oh, he don’t eat no bugs! That’s people food.”

“Where’d you say you was from? Tho asks the unoccupied and slightly nervous girl.

Katara, sitting with her knees to her chest, responds with a nervous smile, “The South Pole.”

“Didn’t think there was waterbenders anywhere but here,” the big guy says. “They got a nice swamp there, do they?”

“No, it’s all ice and snow.”

“Hmm. No wonder you left.”

Sokka, after he’s done with digging into his meal, turns to face his sister and says, “Well, I hope you realize now that nothing strange was going on here. Just a bunch of greasy people living in a swamp.”

“What about the visions?” Katara asks.

“I told you, we were hungry,” he continues, “I’m eating a giant bug!” He then takes a bite out of the abdomen of the bug in his hands, which took some effort to get down his throat.

Still, there was doubt. Aang, feeding Momo, turns to him and asks, “But what about when the tree showed me where Appa and Momo were?”

“That’s Avatar stuff, that doesn’t count,” he handwaves, before turning to Huu, a question of his own on his mind. “The only thing I can’t figure out is how you made that tornado that sucked us down.”

“I can’t do anything like that,” the old man admits, “I just bend the water in the plants.”

“Well, no accounting for weather,” Sokka says. “Still, there’s absolutely nothing mysterious about the swamp.

Just as he says that, another human-like scream rings out from the woods. Another one of those birds, which Huu simply bends some vines to smack away.

It’s here when Katara’s eyes shift around the area, catching details she didn’t notice before, mostly because of the litany of naked people walking around the area. Something in particular catches her eyes. What looks like some cloth or towel hanging from a line along with several, much smaller cloths, which baffled her. These people are clothesfree, why would they need a towel or dress? Then she notices the details. The cloth seems dirty, muddled, with some visible blue and white shades.

She stands up and walks up to the line, and the woman tending to it. “Excuse me,” she says, getting the naked lady’s attention, “but that’s my dress. Can I have it back?”

“Oh,” the lady says, glancing back and forth between the girl and the dress. She takes it off the line and hands it to her. “Here you go girly.”

She takes her dress but is disgusted by how dirty it still is. She turns and begins to walk away, saying to her friends, “When we leave, our first stop is a clean lake so I can wash this thing!”

“Why not just wash it here?” the lady asks.

“Because that filthy water was what got my dress dirty in the first place,” Katara says, turning back around to the naked woman.

“It doesn’t have to be filthy.” The lady then turns to the closest stream and raises her arm up towards it. She begins to make rotating motions with her fingers, a small area of the water starting to spin as a result of this. After a few seconds of doing this, she raises her arm, a nice stream of clean water emerging from the dirty swamp stuff. She promptly bends it over to Katara, enveloping the girl's dress completely. She holds it there for a few moments, making more movements with her fingers, before tossing the water aside, leaving the dress spotless.

Katara is baffled by this. She looks back up at the woman. “How do I do that?”

----

It was a full moon over the farming village, and it was quiet. Most people went to bed, so the streets and alleyways were empty.

That wasn’t the case for one person, a specific man who wields two broadswords who had earlier forced an old fat man to dance for a simple coin. He was still up, walking along the alleyways alone in the silent town.

While he’s walking down a particularly enclosed alleyway, he hears a noise behind him. Drawing his swords, he turns around to face whoever caused it.

“Who’s there?”

Nothing. There was nothing behind him.

He turns back around, swords still drawn, when a shadowy figure grabs the man’s hands. The figure twists them, causing him to let go of the swords. Before he could catch a glimpse of his assaulter, he is then thrown away, knocking into a stack of boxes that fall all around him, knocking the man out.

The figure then approaches the prone man and his discarded swords, into the faint light. He picks up the broadswords and looks down at the prone man, fortunately unconscious so he can’t describe the figure to authorities.

Nude except for black leather boots and gloves, his body hastily coated with black coal dust, and wearing a blue and white mask.

How could he alert the authorities that the Blue Spirit has returned?

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 4
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun had just fully risen above the Earth Kingdom's east coast, and while most people would already be awake by now, that’s not so for a certain group of people.

In a forest by the southeastern coast of the kingdom, a group of three people sleep in, two on tree stumps and one atop the head of a massive bison, also asleep.

Laying atop the bison is a boy. He’s bald sans for his eyelashes and brows, and compared to his two companions, fairly lighter skinned. Adoring his body are light blue tattoos that line his limbs and back, ending with arrows on the backs of his hands, tops of his feet, and middle of his forehead. Of course, every single bit of the tattoos were visible for everyone to see, considering this boy is as naked as the day is long.

On one of the stumps is this group's sole girl resting in her sleeping bag. She’s psychically a little bit older than the bald boy. She has tanner skin than him, and has her long, brown hair tied up in a long braid. Also, in contrast to the boy, she’s not naked. Instead, she wears a blue and white sleeveless and pants-less dress, as well as leather boots, blue braces also made of the stuff, and a carved necklace.

Across the girl on the other side of the now dead fire pit, is the other tree stump, sleeping boy laying atop it. He’s the oldest psychically in the group and the brains. Like the girl, his skin is tanned and hair brown, held up in a ponytail. Unlike her and like the bald boy, he’s nude, albeit hidden by his sleeping bag. Well, he wasn’t fully naked, he was wearing knee high boots and navy gloves covering arm wrappings. Also on his body is a sheath containing a club, the one holding his boomerang he had to talk off due to it resting uncomfortably against him.

It’s him who gets the attention of the group's final member, a small lemur. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to sleep with his mouth open, that being the spot a certain spider decided was perfect real estate. Now as the sun rises, the spider’s web has the lemur’s attention, specifically the fly that just got caught in it. After all, he’s gotta eat.

Momo jabs his hand towards the spider and, subsequently, down Sokka’s mouth, causing the boy to wake up in a start.

“What are you doing in my mouth?” the angry naked boy shouts at the uncaring lemur, who’s chittering as he eats the fly. “Momo, you need to be a little more sensitive to my boundaries.”

But the lemur wasn’t listening. Instead, he stands stiffly atop the boy's chest, looking off into the middle distance. He climbs onto Sokka’s head, scanning around the area.

Then the ground starts to shake, waking Aang and Katara up as well. All they had time to do was turn their heads as four men riding armored rhino’s leap out from the foliage and begin to circle their camp.

“Give up!” a bald man, evidently the guy in charge, shouts to them. “You’re completely surrounded!”

Sokka immediately tries to inch away from the combatants, still in his sleeping bag, when one of the riders, armed with a bow and arrow, shoots three flaming arrows towards him. Two hit either side of the bag, though Sokka is able to slide his nude form out before the third hits.

Nonetheless, he and Katara are on their feet, Aang seated atop Appa’s head ready to take off.

“Come on! Come on! Come on!” Sokka shouts as they run up to the bison and begin to climb atop him.

Katara was about to reach Appa, but a sudden realization causes her to stop in her tracks and turn around back to the stump. “My scrolls!” she says as she witnesses another rider wielding a guan dao stopping right beside the stump. He stabs the blade into the wood besides a wooden box of the scrolls Katara got from her waterbending master. In fact, most of the supplies and other stuff they need are scattered around the area, including…

“My staff!” Aang shouts, leaping off Appa as Sokka climbs to the top of the bison's back.

Katara charges towards the stump, unscrewing her waterskin and sending a strand of water towards the weapon, freezing the blade in place. This gives her time to snatch the box and get away.

Aang, meanwhile, runs along the camp towards where he left his staff. Now, these men attacking them knew who they were, and just how deadly this naked boy could be with his staff, so they have to stop this. One of these rhino riders who’s wielding chains, swings them around a tall tree. He pulls hard, sending the whole tree down to block the boy's path. Aang pays little heed of this, as he just leaps over the fallen tree without slowing down. Another rider lowers his hand to his belt, holding several small explosives. He uses his firebending to light the fuse of one of them and tosses it towards the Avatar.

Aang manages to get a hand on his staff when the still lit explosive lands by his side. Taking one look at it, he swirls the staff and knocks the explosive further away into the woods. He turns around and propels himself into the air as the bomb goes off, all it does to him is lightly toast his buns as he flies away.

Landing on Appa’s head, the boy immediately grabs the reins and shouts, “Yip yip!” Appa takes off immediately, quickly gaining distance between them and the men now shooting fireballs towards them. Their evacuation was so hasty, they had to leave a lot of their stuff behind, including…

“Wait, my boomerang!” Sokka shouts, reaching down over the bison's saddle in a feeble attempt to grab the still visible weapon laying amongst the besieged camp.

Leaning forwards slightly and grabbing her nudist brother's arm, Katara says, “There’s no time!”

“Oh, I see,” he says, annoyance audibly in his tone. “So there’s time to get your scrolls, and time to get your staff, but no time for my boomerang?”

“That’s correct!”

Sokka drops his head in defeat, as even he knows she’s completly right, and that going back now would be far too risky. “Oh.”

----

Needless to say, Sokka was still pretty upset by the loss of his treasured weapon, even as they flew away from their site and further south. They land Appa in a more secluded area of the woods by the tree line and dismounted. Right on the edge of the woods is a little shanty house, a path connecting it to the cliff edge by the ocean and the village right beside it, as well as extending the other way, presumably to another village.

The guy living there also looks like he’s selling stuff, and they might as well replace the food and other supplies they lost.

They’re about to walk out of the woods, when Katara pulls Aang aside. “Listen, before we just go out there, you’ve got to cover yourself.”

“What? Why?” the boy asks, genuinely baffled. “You said you were-”

“I know, I’m fine with you and Sokka being naked,” she cuts him off. “I was referring to your tattoos.” Aang looks down at his nude form, and the blue lines and arrows that adorn him. “They’re a dead giveaway for who you are, and we have the Fire Nation on us enough as it is. I hate doing this to you, I really do, but can you at least put on a poncho while we deal with this guy?”

Aang, naturally, wasn’t a big fan of this idea. It’s one guy, and it’s unlikely he’d be in contact with anyone from the Fire Nation anytime soon. Still, Katara was worried about their safety, so he decided to play along. He quickly thinks of something that’ll keep both of them happy.

Katara watches Aang leap into the air and onto Appa’s back. She turns to see him digging into the pockets of the saddle, hopefully looking for the poncho. Her face drops when he leaps right back in front of her, still as naked as a newborn, with the exception of the rice hat on his big head.

“If I wear this and keep my back away from him, he’ll never know I’m the Avatar!” the boy says enthusiastically.

Katara eyes him up and down, not satisfied with this result. “What about your arms and legs?” she asks.

The boy stands there stumped for a moment, looking at his limbs, before another thing clicks in his mind. “I’ll just hold my arms behind my back,” Aang says, doing exactly that, “and I doubt he’ll look low enough to see my legs and feet anyways, so it’s all good.”

Seeing as there’s no way of arguing him into any more coverings, Katara just rolls her eyes and the three leave the woods and approach the wooden house.

Despite a small eyebrow raise, the man didn’t really react to the sight of the two naked boys walking up to his shack with a girl in blue. Luckily, it’s only the girl that approaches him to buy supplies.

Sokka keeps his distance. He turns around and sits down, still upset. Aang stands next to him, standing by his side, making sure he keeps his back and butt out of sight of the man as he consoles Sokka.

“Sorry about your boomerang, Sokka.”

“I feel like I’ve lost part of my identity,” he says sadly. He jumps to his feet and grabs Aang’s wrist and pulls it out. Pointing at the back of his hand, he says, “Imagine if you lost your arrows, or Katara lost her…” He stops, not knowing what to call the loops of hair around the sides of her head. “Hair loopies,” he says, gesturing the look with his hands.

He saunters up to Katara, who hugs her sad brother to comfort him on his loss. It’s here when the merchant brings of a basket full of the supplies she bought.

“Here’s your produce, naked ponytail guy,” he says as he hands it to Sokka.

Visibly dejected, Sokka takes the basket and walks away, saying, “I used to be the naked boomerang guy…”

Aang goes to follow him, but Katara lags behind as the merchant leaves his house and walks up to her. She turns to him and hands him a couple coins, which he examines with interest.

“Hey,” he says in a surprised tone, “Water Tribe money!”

“I hope that’s okay,” she says.

“So long as it’s money,” the merchant says as he closes his shop for the day.

Katara walks up to Sokka and Aang, the former sprawled over the basket weeping, the latter now not really caring if the man sees the tattoos on his back. Good for him that as the merchant walks past the group, his eyes were shut in that particular moment.

“Have a nice Avatar Day!” he says as he passes them.

This gets Aang’s attention. He stands up straight and turns to face him, saying, “Avatar Day?”

Turning around, he says, “You guys are going to the festival, right? The people down there have been doing it for centuries.”

He then walks away down the path towards the village by the cliff coast. The three share a glance, seriously pondering if this could be worth the probable waste of traveling time.

Aang is smiling widely at the prospect of a holiday about him, the Avatar. Katara has a lighter smile at her friend's excitement, and Sokka’s still in tears.

----

The Avatar Day festival was certainly something alright, as is the village it’s celebrated in, as the trio would discover.

The first thing they encountered that was off was outside the village. As they were walking down the path, the three were fairly close to a group of the villagers, a mother, father and child, who evidently left for some reason and were returning. Katara calls to them, looking to get more information about this Avatar Day, and when the three turn, they flip out.

The mother forcefully covers her daughter's eyes with her hand while she alternates between babbling incoherently and gasping in shock. The father, on the other hand, is far more upfront about how he feels. “PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON YOU TWO!” he shouts, fist shaking at them. “DON’T WANT YOU SHOWING YOUR GROSS BODIES TO MY DAUGHTER!”

Aang, Sokka and Katara are left standing there as the three speed away towards the town. Bit of an odd reaction, to say the least, from a group of people presumably about to go to a village to celebrate Avatar Day, where the sight naked men and women would essentially be inevitable.

Still, it was enough for them to turn back to Appa to retrieve coverings for the boys. “Probably for the best you do this,” Katara tells the now mutually sulky boys. “Don’t want to advertise to the Fire Nation and all that, and I know you won’t be able to hide your tattoos without covering up, Aang.”

The boy simply groans as they walk away, quickly regaining lost ground. His spirits quickly pick up again when they actually enter the town and see the green lanterns hanging across the streets and alleyways. They walk around the village, Sokka taking a stop to obtain some of the free festival food.

“There’s a holiday for the Avatar,” he says as they enter an alleyway on the way towards the town square, a crowd of people blocking their direct view. “Who knew?”

The noise from the crowd picks up, and the three turn towards them to see what it is. “Look!” Katara shouts, pointing at a wooden effigy of a woman rolling by.

She has reddish brown hair tied neatly down her back. Her face is painted white with red streaks coming out from the side of her eyes and deep red lips. Her head is adorned by a golden crown that has two fan-like shapes jutting out, matching the one’s she holds in her hands. Clothing wise, from the waist up she’s nude. Around her waist is a brown wrapping that serves as a belt that holds up the two pieces of dark green fabric at her sides that go down just below the knee. These cloths, while protecting the outsides of her legs, do nothing to cover her crotch or buttocks, which they can tell clearly as the effigy moves by. Big brown boots complete this thing that can barely be described as an outfit, one all three have seen before.

“They made a giant Kyoshi float!” Katara continues as the likeness of the last earth Avatar rolls by. The three run along the alleyways, looking for a place to get a closer look at the wooden statues. As they emerge from a side street, they catch a glimpse of another statue.

This one is a man. Older, with long white hair and pointed beard. Adorning his head is a golden crown to symbolize a Fire Nation noble. Beyond that, the man is completely naked.

“And here comes Avatar Roku,” Sokka says as the effigy of Aang’s predecessor.

These two statues are rolled into the main square, side to side. The crowds cheering and chanting pick up around them at the display.

“Having a huge festival in your honor is great,” Aang says, “but frankly, it’s just nice to be appreciated.”

“And it’s nice to appreciate their deep-fried festival food!” Sokka says, before taking a bite of a big deep-fried ball of stuff that tastes really good based on his reaction.

Katara, giving an annoyed glance at her brother when she sees something down the street. “Aang, look!” she says, pointing at the approaching effigy.

Aang turns his head and sees a giant, wooden version of him rolling up to the other two. It perfectly represents the real boy. The lack of hair, the blue tattoos, wide smile, and complete lack of clothing. “That’s the biggest me I’ve ever seen!” he says as his duplicate stops beside the Roku statue.

The three’s attention is drawn to their right to the sound of someone running. In the distance is a young man, shirtless, holding what looks like a lit torch, running towards the statues.

“Now a torch, that’s a nice prop,” Sokka says as the man runs past them. “It’s bright, dangerous…” he pauses to take a sniff, “smells manly. But I’m not sure I could carry it off.” He takes another bite of the fried ball.

Katara also follows the man with her eyes, watching as he runs, getting closer to the backside of the Kyoshi statue, and not slowing down. “Hey, what’s that guy doing?” she asks no one in particular.

With a loud shout, the man jumps up and through the back of the Kyoshi effigy’s legs, the torch lighting fire to her thighs and nether regions. The crowd cheers as the flames quickly engulf the entire statue. “Down with the Avatar!” one villager shouts as the man runs and flips onto the platform of the Roku statue, slicing the torch across his upper legs, catching him on fire as well.

Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Momo stare in shock as the true purpose of the Avatar Day festival is revealed to them.

----

Far away, in another village built around and atop a hill, two people walk carrying their purchases for the day. Leading them is a man holding a carrying pole, affixed to it are two buckets full of pastries. Behind him is a woman, his wife, who’s holding a large green fruit above her head.

Just two average people walking with their hauls, who in any other story wouldn’t be important enough to mention.

However, the person stalking them from the rooftops would say otherwise.

After walking through a stretch of the village conveniently closed in and devoid of people, he makes his presence known.

Leaping from the rooftops and landing in front of them, his two broadswords brandished, is the Blue Spirit, an outlaw of the Fire Nation for his part in freeing the Avatar from their capture. Beyond the black leather boots and glows, black cloth head wrappings, and bright blue and white mask, this man is completely nude, skin coated in what appears to be charcoal.

Regardless of his state of dress, these two were terrified of this figure, who wastes no time in charging them. With two slices of his swords, the wooden pole breaks apart and buckets fall to the ground.

The Blue Spirit slowly walks up to the man threateningly, and he backs up in fear. The figure slides his arms between the ropes of the buckets, sliding them up to his shoulders. He then charges the woman, swooping up and snatching the fruit from her grasp.

The couple cower in fear for a good few moments, knowing he’ll then attack them directly, but as they look around, the figure and their purchases are just gone. Naturally, they’re confused by what just happened to them.

Now what happened to the Blue Spirit exactly.

He travels rooftop by rooftop until he’s at the end of town. Unobserved, the nude figure leaps to the ground and speeds into the nearby woods. Despite his pretty hefty load, he makes good speed and distance. Helps that he’s dressed in so little.

When he does finally slow down, it’s because he needs to change. Placing the stolen goods onto a log, he peels off the mask, revealing a boy with really short black hair and a burn scar around his left eye. He turns to one of the trees, a brown rope stored away in a particularly big knot in the trunk. He pulls them out and places the mask inside the knot.

He quickly dresses himself before peering around the tree towards the cave a few yards away. He grabs his loot and walks towards the cave. He approaches the cave's sole inhabitant, an older man in a green robe meditating by the wall.

He tosses the baskets and fruit towards him, snapping him out of his funk. “Where did you get these?” Iroh asks, light wonder in his tone.

Zuko, already walking out of the cave, coldly says, “What does it matter where they came from?”

“Hmmm,” the man says in suspicion of his nephew. However, his hunger gets the better of him, so he takes one of the pastries and takes a bite of it. “Mmmmmm,” he says in delight at the taste, the best thing he’s had in a while.

----

As the outer layers of the Kyoshi and Roku statues burn away, the crowd is in absolute hysterics, cheering and chanting for the Avatar to fall. The man with the torch climbs up to the roof of one of the nearby buildings directly in front of the Aang statue, waiting for the signal.

The man who’d give the signal, the town leader, is a tall, lanky man with brown bushy hair, sideburns, and a handlebar mustache. He’s in a ridiculous green outfit and an equally ridiculous hat to boot.

He raises an arm and gestures with his fingers, signaling the man to do it. He reels back, and tosses the torch into the Aang statue’s eye, immediately catching the area on fire, the crowd going wild, and causing the real Aang to wince, shutting his respective eye.

That was it, they weren’t going to take this abuse of the Avatar’s image anymore.

Katara is the first to act, running from the crowd onto the main street, right between two large pots. Both of them are full of water, evidently to be used to extinguish the flames once the effigies were nothing but ash and smoldering remains. However, Katara was planning on doing that task a bit earlier. Raising her arms, she pulls the water out of the pots as she leaps in the air towards the statues. She thrusts her arms forwards, creating a wave big enough to extinguish all three wooden statues in an instant.

Needless to say, the village folk were not happy at their festival being interrupted. “That party pooper’s ruining Avatar Day!” one man, coincidentally next to Aang, shouts as he points at the girl.

Aang takes issue with that statement, anger visible on his face. In a second, the boy leaps high into the air, poncho being left behind, and lands on the shoulder of the unburned side of his statue's face. Now fully nude again, Aang challenges the crowd by saying, “That party pooper’s my friend!”

Immediately people start to shout in fear and disgust at the sight of a fully nude boy standing atop their statue.

“He’s naked!” one person should.

“Get that thing out of my face!” one man shouts as he turns away.

“Put some damn clothes on you freak!” an older woman yells, shaking her fist angrily.

“Get your oversized ass off our statue!” someone else shouts.

Comments like these are mixed in with screaming, groaning in disgust, and people at complete loss of words.

The screams get louder as the boy tosses his hat away, revealing the big blue arrow tattoo atop his head, as evidently no one was able to see the smaller, thinner lines and arrows adorning the rest of him.

“It’s the Avatar himself!” the ridiculously dressed village leader shouts in an equally ridiculous voice, pointing at the nude boy.

“It’s here to kill us with its awesome Avatar powers!” one of the villagers says, separating himself from the crowd.

“No, I’m not, I…” Aang says as he raises his hand lightly, but this only makes it worse. The leader turns away and drops to the ground, protecting his head with his hands. The villager who said the last statement frantically jumps back into the crowd. Several other villagers turn and run from the square entirely. Aang glances at his hand, before hiding it behind his back.

“I suggest you leave!” the leader says, turning around and getting back to his feet. He gestures with his hand towards Katara, who’s standing right beside him, to wave her and the Avatar away. “You’re not welcome here, Avatar!”

“Why not?” Katara asks, turning to face the man. “Aang helps people.”

“It’s true!” Aang shouts as he leaps off the statue, landing by her side. “I’m on your side.”

“I find that hard to swallow,” the man says in a calm tone, hands balled up together by his chest. His voice raises as he continues, “considering what you did to us in your past life!” pointing accusingly at him. “It was Avatar Kyoshi; she murdered our glorious leader, Chin the Great.”

This assertion naturally shocks the boy, and his strict morals. “You think that I … murdered someone?”

“We used to be a great society before you killed our leader!” an older man shouts, getting Aang’s attention. “Now look at us!” he continues, pointing to himself, with his rough skin, scraggly gray hair, different sized irises, and hunched over back. The villagers immediately around him pull back in disgust.

“Huh!” Aang lets out, also frightened by this man's appearance.

Placing her hand on the boy's bare shoulder, Katara continues her defense of him. “Aang would never do something like that. No Avatar would.” she shakes her head in disapproval, before pointing at the villagers themselves. “And it’s not fair for you all to question his honor!”

Raising his arm to get attention on him, another villager shouts, “Let’s tell her what we all think of the Avatar’s honor!” He then turns his back and mockingly shakes his rear and blows raspberries. The crowd cheers at this display.

“Give me a chance to clear my name!” Aang shouts desperately, walking closer to the leader.

“The only way to prove your innocence is to stand trial,” the village leader says coldly.

“I’ll gladly stand trial!” Aang shouts with confidence.

“You’ll have to follow all our rules,” the man says. “That includes paying bail.”

“No problem,” the boy says.

----

“How was I supposed to know they wouldn’t take Water Tribe money?” Aang shouts, his hands and head in a wooden panel, behind a barred window, where Katara, Sokka, and Momo stare at him, confidence gone. He was still naked, at least, as apparently people locked in the stocks have their clothes forced off to shame them. Not really possible for someone who’s naked all day, every day without a care in the world, so there’s that.

“So some people don’t like you,” Sokka, still in his poncho, says to the boy, “big deal! There’s a whole nation of firebenders who hate you. Now let’s bust you out of here!”

“I can’t,” a resigned Aang says.

“Sure you can!” he says in an upbeat tone. “A little swish-swish-swish!” he continues, making fake airbending motions with his hands to demonstrate. “Airbending slice!” He makes a slicing motion with his arm, before joining his sister, visibly ashamed by her brother, by her side. “And we’re on our way!”

“I think what ‘Master Swish’ is trying to say,” Katara says in a slightly mocking tone to her brother, before shifting to a more serious one as she turns to Aang, “is that you’re supposed to be saving the world. You can’t do that locked up in here.”

“I can’t do that without people thinking I’m a murderer either,” the unhappy boy protests. “I need you guys to help prove my innocence.”

“How are we gonna do that?” Sokka rightfully asks. “The crime happened over three hundred years ago.”

“That’s okay, Sokka,” Aang says cunningly, a plan forming in his big head. “For some reason, I thought you were an expert detective.”

“Well,” the boy says, “I guess I can be classified as such.”

Katara, realizing Aang’s plan of stroking her brother's massive ego, joins in on doing so by saying, “Yeah! Back home, he was famous for solving the mystery of the missing seal jerky.”

“Everyone wanted to blame it on the polar leopard,” he brags, gesturing wildly. “but I figured out it was Old Man Jarko wearing polar leopard boots!” Katara, annoyed by her brother's monologuing, places her hand to her brown and shuts her eyes. “See, a real eight hundred-pound polar leopard would have left much deeper tracks.” He’s so preoccupied in stroking his own ego, he doesn’t notice Aang mocking his gestures, or Katara holding her hand to her mouth to stop the laughter. “Okay, I guess I am pretty good.”

“So, you’ll help me with my case?” Aang asks.

Sokka places a hand to his chin, clearly pretending to ponder the boy's question, all to Katara’s confusion. “Fine!” he says. “But I’m going to need some new props.” He grabs the bottom of his poncho, and throws it upwards, spreading dust all around the area. When it clears, the poncho is on the floor, and the now naked Sokka’s head is adorned by a weird blue hat that has a monocle connected to it. How he managed to get that hat so quickly, no one knows (Cartoon logic, sue me!) “I’m ready,” he says confidently

Katara eyes the strange hat, and how ridiculous it makes her brother look, and she starts to giggle.

“What?”

----

Far away from the village is an ostrich drawn carriage controlled by an Earth Kingdom soldier. Inside the carriage is a middle-aged man who, based on his clothes, was some sort of noble from the Earth Kingdom. On his lap is a wooden chest filled to the brim with gold coins, which he plays with. Nobody would suspect that this man’s life would intersect with the story of the Avatar, would they? Well, sometimes stories coincidentally cross paths, like this man is about to discover when his carriage jolts to a stop.

After straightening back up on his seat, he quickly shuts the chest shut and holds it close to his chest. He nervously looks around the carriage. Nothing happens, and whatever caused the carriage to stop seems to be gone, so he sighs in relief.

Then two swords slice down from the roof of the carriage. A sudden force knocks the whole thing down, covering the man in light debris. When he looks up, he sees the nude, black coated, masked form of the Blue Spirit standing threateningly above him.

Wanting to not die, the man raises the chest up to his full-frontal assaulter, turning his head and shutting his eyes in the process. He feels the box of gold being swiped from his hands, and after a second, he turns back up and opens his eyes.

Both the Blue Spirit and his gold are nowhere to be seen.

----

Once the terms were settled on, Sokka and Katara were led from the jailhouse towards the crime scene. Naturally, the town leader threw a massive fit at the sight of Sokka’s nudity, as did the villagers they passed when they walked through the streets. Despite the cruelty, Sokka didn’t care. He had grown used to the often weird stares and the hat gives him confidence to fight off the insults. After all, if the greatest investigator of the Southern Tribe preferred to do his investigating nude, then nude he shall be.

The leader stops by a stone shrine a short distance away from the cliff edge and overlooking the ocean. “This is the crime scene,” he says to the two.

Sokka takes his monocle and scans the area, both the shrine itself and the general area around it in an exaggerated manner, clearly trying to show off to his sister, who’ll never be impressed by this act, or the leader, who’s too revolted by his nakedness to be impressed with anything he does.

With the naked nuisance distracted, the man, standing by the edge of the cliff, continues, “This is the footprint of the killer, Kyoshi.” Sokka speeds towards the small print, squatting next to it to get a better view. The leader, not flattered by the view beside him, turns and walks towards the shrine, saying, “It was at sunset, 370 years ago today, that she emerged from the temple, and struck down Chin the Great.” By now he had passed the shrine and made way towards the other decorative artifact in the courtyard, a statue of a proud, bearded warrior with one arm up, fist pointed to the sky. “After that tragic day, we built this statue to immortalize our great leader. Feel free to appreciate it,” he finishes, before finally leaving the area.

Now alone, the Water Tribe siblings examine the statue, though he’s doing it more closely and showier. Despite his bravado, while examining the base of the statue, he does catch something. The nude boy runs over to the shrine and bends forwards to get a closer look to confirm his suspicions.

“This temple and this statue were cut from the same stone,” he says before running back towards the statue and his sister. “And we know that the statue was built after Chin died.”

Katara, drawing her own conclusion, excitedly says, “So they were built at the same time, that means-”

“Shhhhh! I wanna solve it!” Sokka cuts her off, to which she obliges. “That means Kyoshi never set foot in this temple!”

“That’s a big hole in the mayor’s story,” Katara says, before her tone drops, “but it’s not enough to prove Aang’s innocence.”

“You’re right,” Sokka says, before blowing into a dragon shaped pipe, bubbles coming out. He stands there in thought for a moment, pondering their next move, before he remembers one place they could check out. The place that got him on the trail to his full time nudism. The place he got his first real kiss (even if it was on the cheek). The place that was the accused’s namesake.

“We need to go to Kyoshi Island.”

Katara hesitates at this suggestion. Her sole prior experience at Kyoshi was not a pleasant one from her perspective. It was the first of a long list of times her clothes were damaged or destroyed, she was forced to be nude against her will for a good day or so due to their strict no clothes policy, had to go out in public like that, and had to watch Aang give in to his ego as the younger girls swooned all over him. Naturally, she didn’t really like the idea at first. She then realized that things will be different this time around. For one thing, it’s only a brief stop, not any longer than a few hours. There’s also the fact that things have changed in the past who knows how long, and she’s fully accepted the fact that nudity was now a constant in her life that was impossible to avoid, both from others and herself. Lastly, she wouldn’t have to be forced out of it, due to both knowing the rules and being a familiar face to the nudist islanders. So overall, it wouldn’t be as bad of an experience as last time.

Of course, as she’s coming to this conclusion, something else crosses her mind.

“Where did you get that?” she asks her brother, pointing at the silly dragon pipe.

----

Aang, still locked up in the cell, has really nothing better to do besides lean against the wall by the bars, completely dispirited about his current position. Yeah, due to the open roof, he could just leap out and break the stocks he’s held in, but he really wants to clear his name to these people, even if they’re jerks.

So he just stands there, against the wall, watching the rats, when a deep voice calls out to him.

“You got a bald head,” the voice says, getting Aang’s attention. He looks up to the other side of the room and sees a silhouette of a man leaning against the wall. “No clothes. Some nice tattoos.” The figure then walks closer, revealing a tall, muscular bald man with a snake tattoo that wraps around his neck and spirals down his right arm. He’s also naked, his impressively scary physique fully on display. He then charges at him, Aang cowering to the ground. Luckily for the boy, the man is forced to stop a few feet away from him, the chain around his neck keeping him there. “You’re going to fit in real well around here,” he says, balling his fist.

Aang, ever the guy who wants to keep things cool, just smiles awkwardly.

----

With the destination settled, Sokka and Katara called on Appa with the whistle a bit away from the village. Sokka whips the reins, says, “Yip yip,” and they take off. Katara sits in the middle of the saddle, taking deep breaths slowly as she psyches herself up for the inevitable nakedness due to heading to the island. She quietly starts reminding herself both that she’ll be in control of her nudity this time and everyone else will be naked too, so it won’t be so bad.

“Wow, we’re already almost there!” Sokka shouts, not even two minutes into their flight.

Katara glances up and, sure enough, she can already see the faint shapes of the mountainous island slowly getting closer.

Okay, she thinks, realizing she doesn’t have the time to psyche up, Can’t prepare, so might as well get it over with. Her hands go to her waist, specifically her right hip where the sole tie holding the dress closed, and begins to untie it. She slides out of her dress, leaving her in her underwear. The incredibly loose-fitting bandeau is off next, mostly thanks to the fact that without the outer clothes, it could barely cover her chest anyways, so removing it was easy both physically and mentally. Lastly were her bottoms. Hands going to her hips, she slides her thumbs either side of the underwear and hesitates for a moment. She breathes in deeply, and as she breathes out, slides the waistband past her waist, then butt, then down her legs. After stepping out of the discarded white bottoms, she stands up straight for a moment, blushing lightly at both her nudity and the feeling of the wind blowing around her.

She snaps back into reality and collects her discarded clothes, storing them inside one of the pockets, before walking up behind her brother as they approach Kyoshi island.

On the island itself, the approaching giant flying bison naturally gets the nude population's collective attention. The first people to notice are two men atop a watch tower, and one of them promptly rings the bell to get the villagers attention. They hear the ringing and look up, seeing the shadow of the familiar bison approaching and all of a sudden, whatever they were doing was suddenly irrelevant, now with the Avatar returning after a while. People put down their stuff, the children, especially the girls, begin to run in the direction the bison seems to be landing. The village people, every man, woman, and child completely naked besides the occasional hair tie or blue hat, gather around by the pole with the Kyoshi statue sitting atop it, as the bison lands in front of it. Many of them clap at the return of the airbender. Like last time, a teen boy foams at the mouth and collapses to the ground, his immediate neighbors looking at him awkwardly.

Sokka, seeing the attention their arrival is causing, awkwardly waves at the crowd, unintentionally bringing attention to the fact that their group has a very noticeable absence, at least for a few people.

One of them is a young girl, Koko, who’s standing right in front of the crowd, a bit more enthusiastic about a potential reunion with Aang than the others. She naturally pics up his absence quickly. Stopping her foot, the girl shouts, “Where’s Aangy?”

Katara, who slowly climbed down to the ground, turns and faces the girl, saying gently, “He couldn’t be here, Koko.”

There’s a unison sigh of disappointment from the crowd as Sokka dismounts as well. “I wanted to see Aangy,” Koko nags. The guy with the foaming mouth gets to his feet woozily, before glancing side to side, visibly emberassed. He wipes the foam from his mouth and pulls down his hat to cover his face as he awkwardly sneaks away.

He’s not alone in doing this, as basically the entire crowd of naked people turn and walk away from the Avatar’s companions, which Katara is secretly thankful for. Less people she has to be around while totally exposed.

The sole villager remaining is an older man, who naturally wants to know why Katara and Sokka have returned so soon, and without the Avatar.

“Oyaji!” Katara shouts, wasting no time in explaining. “Aang is in jail. The town of Chin says he murdered their leader in a past life.”

“They say it was Kyoshi,” Sokka continues.

“Kyoshi?” the old man shouts in shock. “That’s crazy talk! I’ll take you to her shrine. Maybe something there will help you clear her name.”

He leads the naked Water Tribe siblings through the village, most people having resumed their daily lives. People sell their produce, fishermen fish, children play, and, as Katara notices, Koko throws her what looks like a dirty look which she ignores. Hey, at least this is still better than her last visit to the island. Actually taking her clothes off herself rather than having them forcefully pulled off makes a hell of a difference.

Also noticing something a bit off is Sokka. Like how the villagers noticed a noticeable absence from their group, he notices a very significant absence in the village. During his first visit there, he was a bit more of a jerk, both towards girls and nudity. It was here that he was properly challenged in both by the island's protectors, The Kyoshi Warriors, the exclusively girl group of fighters with their bodies exposed yet still armored. Specifically, it was their leader that gave him the necessary push into his current, women respecting, full time nudist self, thanks to her emasculating him by beating him in a fight and teaching him the two words he used to get used to being naked, confidence and comfort, which were basically second nature to him now. And now she, as well as the rest of the warriors, weren’t there to greet them, and as they three pass the training dojo, he stops and turns to it. He notices that it’s completely empty.

Turning back and speeding back up beside his sister as they ascend up a slope, he pretends to be casual as he asks, “So, uh … what’s Suki up to? Is she around?” He then awkwardly glances around, before eying his sister, grin on her face.

“Actually,” Oyaji says, “she and the other warriors left to fight in the war. You kids had a big impact on Suki. She said you inspired her and she wanted to help change the world.”

“Oh, well….” Sokka says, disappointment audible in his tone, “that’s great.”

They pass a large paifang gate, in front of them sits a small wooden building that, while simple, is eloquently designed.

“This temple was converted into a shrine to Kyoshi,” Oyaji says as they enter the shrine. It’s filled with relics and other trinkets belonging to the deceased Avatar. “The clerics tell us these relics are still connected to her spirit.” Katara heads to one side while Sokka heads to the other to examine what’s inside. Oyaji turns and raises his hand to the side Katara is on. “That’s her kimono,” he says, addressing the very minimal piece of clothing hanging in front of her. It looks exactly like the warrior outfits inspired by it, chainmail top, brown waist wrapping, two green cloths going down the sides and connected with more chainmail on the front and back. Hanging to the sides of the kimono are the Avatar’s old gloves, and on the ground in front of it are her old boots. Unlike the Kyoshi Warriors attire, which were designed to have these elements, the outfit worn by Kyoshi herself is far rougher. Poking up from underneath the brown wrapping are a couple small, ripped pieces of green cloth. Small patches of green adorn the chainmail itself, and the two green cloths on the lower half of the attire have ripped edges and look less like they’re connected by the chainmail and more like it’s supposed to just cover it. This implies to Katara, who’s now stroking the fabric left, that this was a full kimono at one point, but had its entire top as well as the front and back of the bottoms torn or ripped off at one point in her life and she never got it repaired. Makes sense, considering she’s an Avatar, but it was still fascinating.

“She has exquisite taste,” Katara says as she strokes what’s left of the fine fabric.

“Please don’t touch!” Oyaji shouts, at which she stops immediately.

On the other side of the room, Sokka is examining the Avatar’s old weapons. “These fans,” he says, picking one up to examine. “They were her weapons, no?”

“Also refrain from touching the fans,” the old man says much more sternly, to which Sokka complies.

Katara, meanwhile, crouches down to get a good look at Kyoshi’s boots, one being almost as big as her head. “These were her boots?” she asks. “Her feet must have been enormous!” She continues to gawk at the shoes, when all of a sudden, Momo pops his head out of one of them, surprising the naked girl.

“The biggest of any Avatar!” the naked man says with pride.

Then Katara realizes something. “Wait a minute … big feet?” she says, remembering the footprint left behind at the cliff face back at Chin village. “Little footprint?” She grins widely as she shouts her findings, “There’s no way-”

Sokka clears his throat to cut her off, wanting the spotlight on himself. “Special outfit?” he says in an annoyed tone, addressing the hat on his head, the sole item of clothing on his body. “Hat and pipe? These things mean anything to you?”

“You’re right,” the nude girl says sarcastically, “I’m sorry.” She then bows forward mockingly. “Please.”

He raises his hand in the air dramatically as he says, “Aha! There’s no way Kyoshi could have made that footprint. And therefore there is nothing linking her to the crime.”

Unimpressed by her brother’s antics, she says, “Brilliant, Sokka,” with an eye roll.

----

As it turns out, after talking a bit, the scary prisoner, as well as the four others sharing the cell, wasn’t as bad as initially presented.

Besides the buff scary man that first spoke up to Aang, there were two men and two women in the cell. One of the men had short brown hair and a little mustache and was wearing a light green headband. The other man was older, had a bald head and white beard, and bore a similar snake tattoo to the other man, just dimmer. Of the women, one of them was older, around her late 40’s early 50’s and had several burn scars dotting her body, the most noticeable being at the top right of her head, a decent chunk of her graying black hair. The younger woman was livelier, more sturdily built, and has short cut hair and the same snake tattoo as the others. These people, once they started talking, were surprisingly sensitive folk and great talkers, which put Aang a bit at ease.

Also putting him at ease was the fact that they were all nude, always a plus in Aang’s mind.

While he was allowing himself to let his guard around these people, they in turn warmed up to their new cellmate. Due to all five being out of towners, they didn’t share the same attitude about the Avatar like the rest of the town and actually found him interesting, especially as he discusses his various adventures.

The thing that drew them all in, however, was when he brings up a certain someone.

“This girl you’re talking about?” the scary prisoner says in a friendlier voice than how he introduced himself. “She’ll come around. You gotta hang in there.”

Aang, removing his head and hands from the wooden panel, says with hope in his tone, “You think so?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Without a doubt.”

“You’re a catch.”

Aang, still doubtful about his prospects, rests his head against the board and says, “I don’t know…”

“Hey!” the scary prisoner says, “You’re smart, handsome, funny. Not to mention you’re the Avatar.”

This gets the boy smiling. “You guys are great,” he says with sincerity.

The older bald man, teary eyed and with a soft voice, tells the boy, “Don’t be afraid to tell her how you feel.”

----

Back at Kyoshi Island, Oyaji continues showing the visiting companions of the Avatar around the shrine so the two can look for proof of her innocence. After a bit of looking, he draws their attention to a portrait.

“This piece is called “The Birth of Kyoshi”,” he says, raising an arm towards the portrait. The painting features Kyoshi, fully nude except for her headdress, gloves and boots, facing to the side with her right arm closer and clutching one of her fans to her chest. She holds her left hand out towards what looks like the very shrine they’re in, just newer, and seems to be addressing a small crowd of people. Unlike their Kyoshi Islander descendants, this crowd of ten people (plus one baby a mother is holding in her arms) of what was once called Yokoya Port are a bit more mixed when it comes to nudity. The two children and one other, an older man, are the only ones fully nude. Three more, the aforementioned mother being one of them, are topfree. The four remaining people are fully clothed in the blue fabric that now only makes their hats and headbands. Overall, a very beautiful painting, and it has a story to it, as the old man continues. “It was painted at sunrise on this day this island was founded. Why, it was today in fact, three hundred and seventy years ago.”

That number catches Sokka off guard. He quickly spins around to face the man, stopping to cough up some of the bubbles from his pipe he accidentally swallowed, before raising up and saying, “Three hundred and seventy years? Wait,” he says as he grabs the man's shoulders, “are you sure it was today?”

“Oh, seeing how it’s Kyoshi Day, yes,” Oyaji says as he pulls himself from Sokka’s grasp, “I’m sure.”

Sokka turns back to the painting, scanning it for any details. He stands there, looking through his monocle, when he sees it. “This ceremony didn’t take place at sunrise. It took place at sunset.” He motions for his naked sister to get a closer look. “Look at the shadows.”

“They point east,” Katara says, also catching this very important detail. “So the sun must have been in the west.”

“So what?” the old naked man asks.

Sokka, shoving his sister out of the way, says dramatically, “If Kyoshi was in the ceremony at sunset, she couldn’t have been in Chin committing the crime. She has an alibi!” As he finishes, he points the pipe behind him in a dramatic fashion.

Katara, unamused by the shove, snatches the pipe from his hand and smacks it atop his head, knocking him to the ground.

----

With their investigation concluded, Sokka and Katara bade farewell to the islanders and head back towards the mainland as the sun starts to set. Katara redresses herself and, to no one’s surprise, Sokka does not, not even putting the poncho on as they dismount and head back inside the village. Due to most people either having dinner or already asleep, the dirty looks and nasty words directed at him were few and far between.

The two reenter the jailhouse and head for the holding cell where Aang is. When they enter the room, the mayor is already waiting for them. He’s visibly disgusted the moment they enter the room, naturally directed at the naked person not behind bars.

Katara starts things off quickly by saying, “Honorable Mayor, we’ve prepared a solid defense for the Avatar. We did an investigation and found some very strong evidence."

Sokka, who’s closer to Aang, smiles broadly and leans towards the imprisoned boy, pointing to himself to indicate that he found the evidence. Aang returns the smile.

Not smiling, however, was the mayor. “Evidence?” he says dismissively. “Hmph! That’s not how our court system works.”

“Then how do I prove my innocence?” Aang asks.

“Simple,” the man says, an air of smugness audible in his tone. “I say what happened, then you say what happened, and then I decide who’s right.” The three gasp at this revelation. Things just got ten times harder, and the already uphill battle is made even more treacherous. “That’s why we call it justice,” the mayor continues. “Because it’s “just us”.”

He then turns and walks away, laughing maniacally in the process, having the three behind, watching him go, mouths still agape.

----

In the early morning, the villagers rise from their beds, dress in their best, have hearty breakfasts, and make their way to the cliff edge. There they take their seats in the amphitheater overlooking the Chin statue and the shrine. Katara and Sokka take their seats up front, the villagers giving them a noticeable distance and several directly behind the boy really intently focus on keeping their heads high.

Standing with the statue of Chin between himself and the crowd, the mayor begins his emotional retelling of what happened centuries ago. “Everyone loved Chin the Great because he was so great. Then, that shameless Avatar showed up, naked and with no respect towards our people, and killed him, and that’s how it happened.” After finishing, with a wide smile, he walks away like a goose.

Behind and to the side of him is Aang, still bound in the wooden plank. A guard behind him motions for him to take center stage, saying in a deep voice, “The accused will now present his argument.”

As the boy walks up to the center of the amphitheater, Sokka holds his hands to his mouth, saying, “You can do it, Aang. Just remember the evidence.”

“Right,” the Avatar says,” evidence.” He shifts his eyes left in an attempt to remember what exactly he was supposed to say. Piping up, he enthusiastically says, “Ladies and gentlemen ... I'm about to tell you what really happened. And I will prove it with facts. Fact number one.” He stops talking, completely blanked out as to what exactly was the first piece of evidence.

“The footprint!” Sokka whispers.

“Oh, yeah. You see … I have very large feet.” The villagers' eyes jolt down to the boy's bare feet, which needless to say, are not the size Kyoshi’s were. Hell, they’re probably smaller than the one left in the ground. They were unimpressed, and this is coming from a biased crowd. “Furthermore…” Aang goes on, “your temple matches your statue.” The village people glance at each other, baffled, not having a clue as to where he’s going with this. “But … I was in a painting at sunset. So, there you have it, I’m not guilty.” He finishes with a wide smile.

Yeah, even with their basically rigged system of law, that was the worst defense anyone there has ever seen. Even if the crowd wasn't raised to loathe the Avatar, they’d still not be impressed by this.

Still, Sokka and Katara both bore wide smiles, him even giving his friend a thumbs up. Still, the looks in their eyes gave away how much they realized how hopeless he is.

“He’s dead,” Sokka whispers to his sister.

“Not yet,” Katara whispers back, getting to her feet. “I have something that might work. I’ll be right back. Tell him to give us an hour.”

Before he could get a word in, Katara had already taken off back into the main town and headed towards the front gate. The moment she thinks she’s out of sight of the villagers, she begins to untie the hip tie of her dress.

She’s silently thankful that the place she needs to go is close enough that she can go in, get what she needs, and be back with time to spare.

----

Zuko sits alone in the cave, hastily attempting to wipe away the still visible charcoal on his neck after his most recent heist as the Blue Spirit. Luckily for him, his uncle was still away and still hadn’t caught onto his little crime spree, at least as far as he knows.

When Iroh does finally enter the cave, his sights are immediately drawn to an ornate and very expensive looking tea set, which he promptly takes a seat behind. “Looks like you did some serious shopping,” he says, picking up the gold-colored teapot. “But where did you get the money?”

“Do you like your new teapot?” Zuko, lazing against a nearby tree trunk, asks the old man.

“To be honest with you,” Iroh says, placing the teapot down, “the best tea tastes delicious whether it comes in a porcelain pot or a tin cup.” The old man stands up and walks over to his nephew. “I know we’ve had some difficult times lately. We’ve had to struggle just to get by.” he places his hand calmly on Zuko’s shoulders. “But it’s nothing to be ashamed of. There is a simple honor in poverty.”

“There’s no honor without the Avatar,” Zuko says coldly.

“Zuko…” Iroh says with a sigh “Even if you did capture the Avatar, I’m not sure it would solve our problems. Not now.”

“Then there’s no hope at all,” the prince says, turning his back to the man.

He starts to stand, but Iroh grabs his shoulders and pulls him back down.

“No, Zuko! You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.”

Zuko turns his head back at Iroh, sadness visible on his face. They stay there for a moment. Then, abruptly, the prince pulls free of his uncle's grasp, gets up and walks away, heading back into the forest.

----

The trip back to Kyoshi island was comparatively shorter than the one yesterday, but Katara was in a bit of a rush to get what she needed before heading back out.

She lands Appa on the beach, the same area where they first landed on the island all those days ago, in the days when her brother wore clothes voluntarily. She does this to prevent a similar scene from yesterday, especially since she really doesn’t want to be slowed down by anyone. All she was looking for was Oyaji to ask for her favor. Failing that, she has an alternative, but she’ll get there when she gets there.

Once on the ground, the bare waterbender takes off up the hills in the direction of the village. Before she actually reaches it, she takes a turn and slips into the light forestry surrounding it. She does take a look at the village square, and among the light crowds of fully nude men, women, and children, the person she’s looking for is nowhere to be found.

She slinks around the village, staying relatively hidden in the tree line. It’s only after she’s at the other side of the village, where she’s certain she won’t be noticed, when she emerges from the tree line and starts booking it down the path that she knows leads to the Kyoshi shrine. As she runs, she takes sporadic glances back towards the village to be sure she’s not noticed. She’s so focused on making sure the people there won’t notice her, that she herself doesn’t notice the person emerging from the Kyoshi Warrior dojo until she feels the force against her lower chest and stomach. Katara staggers back a bit and is hurting a bit on her stomach, but she still keeps her footing.

The same cannot be said for Koko. She’s in a seated position, palms firmly planted on the ground, with her eyes shut and teeth gritted. Impact knocked the wind out of her, and the force of it plus the fall caused her to be hurt.

“Ah, sorry Koko,” Katara says, offering a hand to the girl. She takes it and Katara pulls her back to her feet.

“It’s fine, just watch where you’re going,” the girl says, letting go of Katara’s hand and rubbing her sore hindquarters. Her head turns back to the girl who ran into her, and when her eyes open, her pained expression instantly shifts to one of annoyance. “What are you doing back here?” she asks coldly, “Didn’t you already do that investawhats?”

“Just wanted to get a second look,” Katara says defensively. She then notices the girl's teeth gritting again, as well as a few winces. “Are you okay?” she asks in a much softer tone.

“Butt’s pretty sore,” Koko says casually. “How bad does it look?” she asks, turning her back to the visitor.

Before she could object, Katara found herself facing the unfortunately placed injury she caused. Both cheeks have decently sized blotches of purple and red. She also notices some small drops of blood sprinkled around the girl's backside.

“Bruised,” Katara says, “and a few scrapes. If you want, I can help make it feel better.” Katara unscrews the cork on her waterskin.

Koko had no objections to making her pain go away, so she bends forwards slightly. She does start to question it when she feels the ice-cold water cover her backside, but those quickly fade away with the sensation of the pain slowly fading.

“So…” Katara says awkwardly, “why were you over here, coming out of the dojo anyways?”

Koko sighs before answering. “A little while after you all left, I turned twelve, meaning I could finally sign up to get trained to be a Kyoshi Warrior. But a few days after my birthday, Suki and the others left to go fight, meaning no one can train me until they get back. I’ve been sneaking up here every now and then to study their style and try to do the moves myself. Could never do them, but I tried.” This causes Katara to snicker, and temporarily lose focus on her healing. This causes a temporary relapse of pain, causing the girl to wince before the waterbender regains focus. “So why are you here, really?”

“Clever girl,” Katara admits, a slight smirk forming on her face. “Truth is, I need something from the shrine, and I’ve been trying to find Oyaji to get his help.”

This causes the nudist girl to grit her teeth again, though not because of pain. “Yeah, grandpa’s out.”

“Out!” Katara says, dropping the water entirely. “What do you mean by out?”

Koko straightens up and turns to face Katara, what was once her bruised butt now pink and smooth, saying, “He went to talk with some of the other villages on the island. Said he won’t be back until later tonight.”

“Tonight!?” Katara says loudly. “But I only have an hour, less, to get what I need and back to Chin Village! Tell you what, can I just head up there, take what I need, do with them what I need to, and be back? No one will notice they’re gone, and if I’m quick, they’ll be back before Oyaji comes back.”

The younger girl places one hand on her hip and the other around her chin. “Hmmm, well, what’s up there are our island's most valued possession,” she says in a fake serious voice. “We can’t just let anyone take them, even if they’re with the Avatar. Sorry, but I can’t help you,” she says with a shrug.

This complicates Katara’s plan in a way she wasn’t expecting. She can’t talk to Oyaji until well after her allotted time, and she can’t steal what she needs, otherwise this girl will know who did it. Still, she needs that stuff. Thinking fast, she comes up with a plan.

Throwing her arms up, she dramatically turns her back and begins to walk away. “Fine,” she says, pretending to give up, “I guess Aang will just have to lose this trial and spend the rest of his life in a jail cell.”

“Aangy? Jail cell?” the girl says in a confused tone. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Katara says, “Chin Village claims that Kyoshi did something bad to them centuries ago and they’re putting Aang on trial because of it. I’m trying to prove her innocence, but to do that, I need something from her shrine.”

The girl turns her head to the side and looks up, placing her hand on her chin again in such an exaggerated manner that gives away that she’s only pretending to contemplate this. The couple side glances she shoots Katara give it away directly what she wants.

After a sigh, Katara relents. “Fine, if you help me, I’ll make sure Aang comes with me when I return them.”

----

“Mayor Tong,” Katara, now reclothed and plan underway, announces, “I’d like for the court to hear one last testimony.”

This does not go over well, as the mayor immediately objects. “I’ve already told you, it’s just me and the accused. You can’t call any witnesses!”

“This isn’t just any witness. I’m going to call…” she pauses, before spreading her arms out for dramatic flair. “Avatar Kyoshi herself!’

She moves out of the way, allowing the guard to bring forward the Avatar herself. She’s a lot shorter than the statues portray, and skinnier, and less psychically like a woman, cause if that’s her, then those statues and portraits left a few things out of their portrayals of her.

Of course, this isn’t actually Kyoshi, but Aang decked in the way too big for him kimono, headdress and makeup synonymous with the Avatar, he’s even got her fans.

“What are you doing?” Sokka whispers and Katara walks up and takes her seat next to him.

“Well, she is Aang’s past life,” she says hopefully. “Maybe wearing her stuff will trigger something.”

“I do believe in the power of stuff,” he says, messing with the magnifying glass.

Naturally, Mayor Tong wasn’t a fan of this display. Getting back to his feet, he shouts, “This is a mockery of Chin Law!”

“Please!” Katara pleads, “If you could just wait one more second, I’m sure Kyoshi will be here!”

But Kyoshi was not here. In her place was Aang, who hides his face with one of the fans, visibly emberassed in not only being partially clothed, but in these. Peaking over the fan, he says in a higher pitched feminine voice, “Hey, everybody! Avatar Kyoshi here.” He then begins to flutter his eyes rapidly, trying in vain to pretend to be the woman who he used to be centuries ago.

“This is ridiculous!” Tong says, walking over to the Avatar. Pointing at the sad display, he addresses the audience by shouting, “For the murder of Chin the Great, this court finds the Avatar-”

The sudden powerful gust of wind cuts him off. Within an instant, a brown tornado forms around Aang, completely hiding him from view. The area around the amphitheater darkens despite the sun still being up. The tornado continues spinning for a few solid seconds, before finally dissipating, and it’s not Aang standing there, where it once was, in those “clothes”.

In his stead is a much taller figure, easily the tallest person in the entire village. They’re also much more well-built than Aang, her strength very evidently displayed on her body. She’s not bald, instead having long reddish-brown hair. Her skin, while not as dark as the two Water Tribe siblings, was noticeably darker than the airbender, and dotting it on her shoulders, upper back and chest, waist, and buttocks were freckles.

Here standing before the crowd is the amazonian Avatar herself.

Kyoshi

She’s finally arrived, here to clear her and Aang’s name of the murder of Chin. She's the sole witness, and she’ll be able to get the story straight in that she’s innocent. Raising her head to face the crowd head on, she begins her testimony.

“I killed Chin the Conqueror.”

~~

By this point, there were few, if any, Earth Kingdom subjects who hadn’t heard the name Chin. If they hadn’t seen the man himself, then they certainly were exposed to his many legions and their cruelty.

“A horrible tyrant, Chin was expanding his army to all corners of the continent.”

And expand his army, he did. In a matter of years, his influence and control over the Earth Kingdom's territory was absolute. As his moniker tells, he had conquered almost the entirety of the kingdom, just a few small, resilient cities and villages. There was also Ba Sing Se, it’s walls ever proving to be reliable at keeping unwanted faces out. Even for a man of his earthbending abilities, it would be basically impossible to breach without the full might of the Earth Kingdom, which he was about to fully obtain. The only way Ba Sing Se could survive would be for an outside power to help, and Chin was absolutely confident that would never happen.

Those naked airbenders would not interfere, as those people are naturally pacifistic. Neither Water Tribe would come either, and even if they did, it’d take ages for them to amass a big enough force and by then he’d probably already have taken it. The Fire Nation was a definite no. If Fire Lord Zoryu could barely handle the conflicts in his own nation, no way would he be able to put up a good enough force to take him down. Beyond them were the remnants of the Yellow Necks, the Fifth Nation, and other resistant Daofei groups which were all small and could be easily taken down. In fact, many of them have already been defeated, and their numbers were either forced into his ranks or hanged.

So why doesn’t he just go to take Ba Sing Se?

Well, he doesn’t have the full might of the Earth Kingdom yet. There was still one area that he wasn’t under control of, and ironically, it’s the peninsula just to the south of his home village. The peninsula held several small, mostly fishing villages, the most important being Yokoya Port.

On paper these small villages would seem like easy pickings, and one would wonder why it took him so long to make an attempt at taking them, especially since they're so close to his base city. Well, there’s a reason. A reason why he’s held back for so long, that being that this place had a key defense in maintaining their independence, and one that most sane or rational people wouldn't trifle with at all.

However, with his ego inflated by his conquest of the rest of the Earth Kingdom, Chin decided to finally make his move on Yokoya.

“When they came to the neck of the peninsula where we lived, he demanded our immediate surrender.”

With the full might of his army behind him, the tyrant figured that would be enough to scare the villagers into submission and he’d be able to move on to more pressing issues, like Ba Sing Se.

Unfortunately for him, the villagers weren’t backing down, as their army in the form of a six foot six, scarred and shredded, basically nude protector walked right up to him, with only like a few meters of distance between them, to challenge his statement.

“I warned him that I would not sit passively while he took our home. But he did not back down.”

The two stare each other down, Kyoshi easily having at least a foot on him, even with his silly hat. After a solid minute long standoff, the short man gets into a fighting stance, ready to actually fight the Avatar herself. The movement anchors the man to the ground, his small shoe leaving a print in the earth beneath it.

Naturally, the woman who could bend all four elements to their fullest potential was unimpressed by his display. With her golden fan in hand, she both displays her pure power and evens the odds slightly by thrusting her arm forwards. The resulting brief gale force wind pushes his soldiers back and strips the man of his clothes, sans silly hat, but otherwise he was unmoved and still ready to fight. He wasn’t backing down, so she had to put a stop to his invasion another way.

“On that day, we split from the mainland.”

Shutting her eyes, the woman raises her other hand up behind her neck. The flicking motion she does is blocked by her head, but she only does it once before moving her free hand back in front of her to grab her other fan. A few shifts of her shoulders, and her chainmail armor slides off them, falling off her body. The now completely nude woman takes a few paces forwards, stepping out of her boots to allow her feet to feel the earth.

Then she opens her eyes, which glow pure white for a good few seconds, before fading back into her natural green eyes. She holds her arms out wide to her sides, fans now open. She leaps up and stretches her arm far out to her left, creating a powerful fissure that goes all the way to the cliff edge. She repeats this motion on her right side, effectively creating a thin crack extending the entire distance between the two sides of the peninsula. The Avatar stands up straight, closing her fans. She leaps into the air again and slams the closed golden weapons into the ground.

Chin and his armies feel the ground start to shake violently, and while many of his men are starting to second guess their reasons for being her, the man himself remained absolute.

Her motions cause the fissure to widen considerably, an impressive feet of earthbending in and of itself, but she wasn’t done yet. She glances back up at the man and his army for a moment, standing up straight again. She starts to move her arms in wide motions.

At first, it’s not clear what she’s doing, at least until the lava starts to emerge from the fissure. She straightens herself once again, ready to finish this. With a full spin, she thrusts both her arms forwards, fans opening. The resulting winds are truly inconceivable, and they blow a decent chunk of Chins army away, those that aren’t decided to cut their losses and run for their lives.

Not Chin though, he still stands his ground stubbornly. His view of the whole peninsula slowly moving away obscured by the water now flooding into the widening gap boiling and steaming over. Only when the wind starts to weaken and the steam starts to fade does he truly see the scale of what he had just caused.

In the near distance, he sees the former peninsula quickly moving far away from his grasp, his army fleeing or blown away, leaving him alone and defeated. He screams in anger, still standing his ground, even as the unstable earth beneath his feet begins to quickly give away.

He’s still screaming as the cliff edge gives away, as well as all the way down to the water below.

“I created Kyoshi Island so my people could be safe from invaders,” Kyoshi finishes, before the sand tornado engulfs her again. When it fades, Aang is back in place, still in Kyoshi’s “clothes”. He’s very woozy, and after a moment, begins to fall to the ground.

Luckily, Katara is able to catch him. Looking up at her, still very dazed, he asks, “So, what just happened?”

Katara grits her teeth awkwardly, her plan, while technically a success, still backfired. “Uhhhh…” she says, “you kind of confessed.” Aang’s eyes widen. “Sorry.”

Getting up to his feet, Mayor Tong brushes himself off and addresses the boy. “And I find you…” he points dramatically at him, “Guilty! Bring out the wheel of punishment!”

The crowd cheers in delight, as their hated enemy will finally get his just dues.

----

After going over all that’s happened and what Iroh just told him, Zuko finally made up his mind, even if it was a hard decision. He stands up from the stump he was sitting on and turns to head back to the cave.

Upon entering, he sees the old man bending over and looking at the supplies gathered (both legitimately and otherwise). “Uncle,” the prince says, “I thought a lot about what you said.”

“You did?” Iroh says, his sad expression clearing up. “Good, good.”

“It helped me realize something,” Zuko continues. “We no longer have anything to gain by traveling together.” The old man’s face drops at hearing this. “I need to find my own way.”

Iroh bows his head further down, Zuko still looking at his sorrowful uncle for a few moments. He then takes his backpack and turns to walk away. He’s a few feet away from the cave when he hears a heavy tread behind him.

“Wait!” Iroh calls, causing Zuko to turn around. He sees the ostrich horse standing by his uncle's side, the old man holding the reins. He takes the reins and mounts the animal, stopping to take one last look at his uncle, before heading off.

----

“The accused may now spin the Wheel of Punishment to determine his sentence,” the monotonous guard announces.

Aang, still decked in Kyoshi’s old stuff, now finds himself in front of a big wheel divided into several wedges. Illustrated on each of them is a kind of punishment, one of them he’s going to have to endure. Some of them are fairly minor, like community service, being publicly shamed in the stocks, forced nudity for a year (the one Aang is personally hoping for). Then there are the bad ones. Legs tied together and thrown into the ocean, being fed to bears, having your flesh melted off in scalding oil, and many other unpleasantries.

Aang turns his head back to the crowd, specifically towards Katara and Sokka, who shoot him sympathetic looks. “I said I would face justice,” he says, “so I will.”

He turns, grabs onto the wheel, and gives it a forceful spin. Everyone in the audience is watching the wheel intently. Some are nervous, others are giddy, and most just watch and wait. While it spins, the villagers shout their hopes.

“Come on, torture machine!”

“Eaten by bears!”

“Razor pit!”

“Community service!” Katara begs. “Please stop on community service!”

The wheels spinning starts to slow down, the crowd's anticipation growing with each spoke passing by the arrow. It slows and slows, Aang’s spirit’s lifting up as it looks like it’s poised to stop at forced public nudity. However, just as it slows to a stop, it passes that spoke, and the arrow points to the one next to it, and Aang, Katara, and Sokka’s eyes all widen at the result.

“Looks like it’s boiled in oil,” the guard says in the same monotonous tone.

The three stand where they were, completely unable to move in shock. No choice, they had to find some way out of this, but right now none of them could think of anything.

Luckily, they don’t have to do anything, as a small lit bomb bounces into the area and stops the crowds cheers as it detonates. Luckily no one was hurt, but the shrine was now severely damaged.

Standing at the top of the amphitheater were five men riding rhinos, the same five men that drove the trio here in the first place.

“We’ve come to claim this village for the Fire Lord!” the middle rhino rider shouts. “Now show me your leader so I may dethrone him!” As he says this, the guan dao wielder slices his weapon through the statue of chin several times, causing it to crumble when he stops.

One villager, scared for his life, points towards Tong and shouts, “That’s him over there!”

The mayor squeals and darts behind the wheel for protection. Once behind it, he turns his head to Aang and commands, “You, Avatar, do something!”

“Gee, I’d love to help,” the boy says apathetically, “but I’m supposed to be boiled in oil.”

Not wasting a second, Mayor Tong grabs onto the wheel and tips it to the next slot, picturing a man holding a broomstick. “There,” he says, “community service! Now serve our community and get rid of those rhinos!”

Aang smirks, flicks the back of Kyoshi’s outfit’s neck, before charging forwards. He leaps into the air out of the boots, the chainmail top and minimalist skirt sliding off his body. Now properly nude again, he charges towards the guan dao wielding rhino rider, fans in his hands. The rhino starts to charge at him in turn, but just before they collide, Aang sidesteps and airbends the man out of the saddle. Before he even hits the ground, he slashes his fans in the air, sending him over the cliff and into the waters below.

The rhino, minus one rider, continues to charge at the wheel, mayor still cowering behind it. His fear only getting worse when the rhino’s horns embed into the stone wheel, missing his body by inches.

Meanwhile, fresh on taking down one rider, Aang turns his head to their leader, who’s visibly displeased by now being one man short. Raising his hand, the man shouts, “Rough Rhinos, to the town!” Three of the rhinos take off for the town, the lone remaining rider loading his bow with three flaming arrows to shoot into the town. As they land, the arrows set fire to the roofs they land on. The others do some serious damage as well. The leader just burns shit with his firebending, the bomb thrower tosses a few into a hay wagon, the subsequent explosion destorying it and damanging several nearby houses, all the while the chain wielder uses his weapon to pull down the supports of building as he rides past them. This man lets out a loud shout, spinning his chain above his head, before lowering his gaze towards a certain girl in blue.

Katara easily deflects the chain with her water whip. The chain falls back towards the man, winding itself around its wielder, holding his arms in place. Another water whip, this time to the rhino’s hindquarters, sends the creature running away from the area, taking the man with it.

As this is happening, Sokkaa finds himself in a similar situation. As he walks down a set of stairs, he finds himself between the bomb thrower and the archer. Luckily, neither of them are focusing on him. The archer gets the boy's attention first, and he quickly begins to adjust his monocle, directing the sunlight towards his eyes. The archer, suddenly with a bright light in his eyes, shifts his aim and lets the arrow fly in the direction it’s coming from. Sokka ducks out of the way, the arrow catching his hat as it flies past him. He turns and sees that the arrow, which is still flaming, has embedded itself in the bomb throwers saddlebag. The man turns down and looks at his bag, realizing too late what’s happening. He takes off the bag and tosses it towards a nearby house, but it explodes right as it leaves his hands.

Sokka, shielding himself with his hands, looks down at the ground as he sees the man’s helmet rolling past him. He then hears something falling to his side, and he turns to see an open bag, and something very familiar sticking out of it.

“Boomerang!” he shouts, picking up his favored weapon. “You do always come back!”

His reunion with his boomerang is cut short as his attention is brought back up towards the other rhino rider, who’s now loading an arrow to shoot at him. He aims it right towards the middle of Sokka’s chest, poised to let it fly. Thinking fast and weighing up his options, the nude boy tosses something in his hands in the direction of the rider. It wasn’t the boomerang, but his new dragon pipe, which slides neatly onto the arrow, extinguishing it. The man looks down at his bow, surprised by this, when he suddenly starts to slide off the side.

Taking advantage of the archer rider's distraction, Katara uses her water whip to slice the saddle cord, causing the man to slide off the rhino. Still, his leg is caught on it, which makes it easy to get rid of him. With another crack of the whip, the rhino takes off, dragging the man with it.

Meanwhile in an alleyway on the other side of the village, the nude boy with white and red makeup on his face and fans in his hands stands off against the firebender atop his rhino. Holding his hands up, the lead rider begins to shoot flames from his palms. Shooting them back, the man accelerates his speed, charging the Avatar. Aang, in turn, leaps in the air to avoid the creature, using an airshield to block the man's sudden upwards blast of fire. He blocks it, but the force knocks the fans from his grasp and the headdress of his head as he lands. The rhino turns back to face him, and the boy creates an air scooter. The two charge at each other, the man shooting a fire blast towards the boy. He dodges it by riding under the rhino, emerging behind the man. He shoots up an air blast towards him, but the rider slides out of the way.

Dissipating the air scooter, Aang lands on his bare feet as the rhino turns to charge one last time. They stare each other down for a few seconds, before the rhino begins to charge, the rider shooting a massive fire blast. Aang leaps into the air, propelling himself towards the blast feet first. He flies through it, parting the flames as he shoots through the air, before making contact with the man who shot it.

He’s sent flying back through a wooden fence, knocking him cold.

----

With the threat of the rhino riders gone, the village of Chin was in celebration. Of course, much of the village was damaged and/or burned, but making repairs could wait. Beyond the celebration, however, the city officials corral people into preparing something special for the people who saved them.

When night falls, the fireworks are sent flying in honor of the Avatar and his friends for saving them, well, mostly the Avatar. Still, all three are handed decently sized bowls containing weird white shapes inside.

Now, these people celebrating the Avatar saving them comes into direct conflict with their centuries long hatred of them, but times change, as do beliefs and customs, as the mayor announces to the crowd.

“From now on, we’ll celebrate a new Avatar Day in honor of the day Avatar Aang saved us from the Rough Rhino invasion.”

The crowd cheers and the three grin wildly, before actually looking down into their bowls. Inside them are several small, vaguely humanoid shapes of what looks like putty or dough, with a light blue paint job going cross its “limbs” and head. “What is this?” Sokka asks.

“That’s our new festival food!” Tong says enthusiastically. “Un-fried dough. May we eat it and be reminded of how on this day the Avatar was not boiled in oil.”

The crowd continues cheering, the gang giving each other looks of uncertainty. They each take a dough cookie in their hands.

Katara, her cookie drooping in her hands, quietly says to her friends, “Happy Avatar Day, everyone!” before tossing the thing into her mouth. Due to the relative lack of flavor, she’s not sure how to make of it.

Aang, meanwhile, doesn’t care, and is in the process of slurping all of it up in an almost continuous line of dough. Whether or not he’s genuinely enjoying it or just rushing to get them out of this village, head to Kyoshi island to return her stuff (Katara making a big stink about how he needs to come with her while she does it), and head off.

Sokka, the eternal food guy, stares skeptically at the cookie. “This is by far the worst town we’ve ever been to,” he says, before eating the dough cookie he had in his hand.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 5
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

Midmorning, high in the mountain range, sits a decently big Earth Kingdom village. Protected, isolated, and untouched by the war that ravaged the world for almost a century. Within its roads and alleyways, the villagers go about their days, working on the farms, buying and selling goods, a man passing out fliers for his classes, children playing in the streets, stuff like that.

Among these villagers, most of them decked in varying shades of green clothing, three people in particular stand out. Two boys and a girl, who stand under a patio, where they’re checking out products being sold there.

The girl, visibly bored out of her mind, is wearing a blue dress with white trims, brown boots and blue bracers and has a lemur seated on her shoulder. Her brown hair is tied in a braid down the back and loops either side of her face.

Standing next to her is a slightly older boy with the same tanned skin and brown hair, his tied in a ponytail. He has knee high boots, arm wrappings up to the shoulders covered by blue, fingerless gloves, a seath for his club and one for his boomerang. Besides that, he’s fully nude, but based on what he’s currently wearing, this was obviously a choice of his. He’s currently looking at a green carrying bag with keen interest.

“It’s pricey,” Sokka says pensively. “But I really do like it.”

“Then you should get it,” Katara says, “you deserve something nice.”

“I do, don’t I?” he asks, to which his sister gives him a bored look that he doesn’t respond to. “But no, it’s too expensive. I shouldn’t.”

“All right, then don’t,” she says, before turning and walking away.

Joining her, getting up from his seated position, is the third member of their group. Noticeably paler than the siblings, this boy is bald and skinny, his limbs and back and forehead lined with blue tattoos ending in arrows. This boy is also completely naked, not even wearing shoes. He gets to his feet and begins to follow Katara.

Sokka turns away and goes to join them, but at the last minute he turns back around and rushes back to the stand the bag’s laying on. “You know what?” he says enthusiastically. “I’m gonna get it.”

Meanwhile, Katara, Aang, and Momo walk along the street, a few people passing glances towards this completely naked boy, but he doesn’t care at all and she’s gotten used to the looks sent her way when she’s with her nudist friend.

As they walk, a man with a bunch of fliers in his hands turns to them. “Psst, psst! Hey, you kids love earthbending?You like ... throwing rocks?” he asks. When he gets silence as his answer, he continues anyway. “Then check out Master Yu's Earthbending Academy,” he finishes by handing them a flier, which Aang takes. He and the other two read it up and down, even the lemur being enraptured by what’s on it. Getting him practically giddy is what’s written on the other side, which is revealed when he turns it over.

“Look! There’s a coupon on the back!” he shouts in excitement. The coupon details an earthbending academy which teaches the best techniques Gaoling has to offer, all taught by a mister Yu. “The first lesson is free.”

“Who knows?” Katara says, while Sokka joins them, the green bag in his hands. “This Master Yu could be the earthbending teacher you’ve been looking for.”

----

Needless to say, Aang’s attempt at getting earthbending training at this academy was a complete disaster.

The first problem came when Aang first entered the academy building itself and handed the man attending the front his coupon.

He takes one glance at the boy, before he says, “Sorry kid, but naked training is left to the more advanced students. You can purchase a uniform over there.” He raises his hand to his side, directing the now reluctant boy down the hall.

Now in the courtyard, the now several gold piece poorer Aang stands there, uncomfortable in these new clothes. What he now adorns are a pair of white floofy pants that go down to his knees, which itself was covered by a dark green, sleeveless poncho with gold colored lining that extends down to just his mid-thigh on either side. A green bowl-shaped hat completes the getup, and it’s the only full outfit Aang was ever in that wasn’t prison attire or hastily thrown together. Not a bad look, for sure, but Aang is the kind of person who prefers no clothes at all, so he was still a tad grumpy and distracted.

He mindlessly starts to pick at his ear, and when he pulls the finger up to his face to sniff, he turns his head and sees his classmates, all younger than him (psychically), standing there with completely straight faces and arms to their sides. He quickly snaps into this position as the earthbending master, Yu, walks between the two rows of students, the row opposite of Aang’s having a decently sized rock in front of each kid.

“Take your stances!” the man commands, to which all the students follow, except Aang, who's still distracted. “Now, strike as if you’re punching through your opponent’s head!” he continues, demonstrating the motion himself.

The four boys with the rocks in front of them punch forwards, shooting it towards their opponent. The three students on the other side do the same to defend themselves. Not Aang, whose focus is messed up thanks to his clothed state. The rock impacts his chest, and he’s sent flying back into a big jar, destroying it and covering him in sand.

Yu, approaching the boy, says, “So, are you ready to commit to more lessons? If you pay for the whole year in advance, I’ll bump you up to the next belt!”

Aang, with only his eyes and nose sticking out of the sand, simply stares up at the man, before the shifting sand cuts his vision off.

----

With class dismissed, the boy felt it fit to start to ditch the uniform. The hat can stay, he needs his arrow to be covered to avoid detection. The poncho, on top of being incredibly expensive, was something he probably needed. Ever since his old poncho was burned at Omashu, he was using Katara’s every time she insisted that coverage was necessary. So that was staying, at least for now. What absolutely had to go were those white pants, which he slides off as soon as they were dismissed.

Walking outside, he turns to face Katara, Sokka, and Momo (on the latter’s shoulder), who were leaning against the wall waiting for him. “Ehhh,” he says casually, “he’s not the one.”

While the boy tries to clear the sand from his various parts, two other students walk out of the academy past them, mid conversation about something they seem very excited about. Aang overhears them saying the following.

“I think The Boulder’s going to win back the belt at Earth Rumble VI.”

“He’s going to have to fight his way through the best earthbenders in the world to get a shot at the champ.”

Aang, immensely curious, runs up to the two and says, “Excuse me, but where is this earthbending tournament, exactly?”

The two turn around, look down at the bald boy, already snickering at him. “It’s on the island of Noneya … Noneya business!” The two turn away and burst into laughter as they walk away from the disappointed boy.

The two walk up to Aang, Katara shooting them a nasty glare while Sokka laughs along at the joke. “Oh, I got to remember that one!” the nude boy says.

Katara, in a consoling tone, says to Aang, “I’ll take care of this.” Her demeanor quickly shifts to something more perky as she chases after the two, saying, “Hey, strong guys! Wait up!” She runs after the two as they walk around a corner.

Sokka, meanwhile, glances back down at his new bag, second thoughts filling his head. “What was I thinking?” he asks angrily to Aang, who doesn’t respond. “I don’t need a new bag! Why did you let me buy this?” He drops it on the ground, turns his head, and crosses his arms over his chest, Momo leaping off his shoulder and burying himself inside the bag to rest.

As this happens, Katara runs back to the group. “You ready to find an earthbending teacher?” she asks Aang. “Because we’re going to Earth Rumble VI!”

This surprises Aang, who responds, “How’d you get them to tell you?”

“Oh,” she says with a smile, “a girl has her ways.”

Meanwhile, around the corner, the two boys are there, head against head, with their feet against either wall of the alley way. They weren’t doing this by choice, obviously. The ice encasing them both from their feet to their necks give that away.

----

Night had fallen, and as such, the underground earthbending fight was about to start. In the shadows, people slowly load into the small torchlit opening in one of the mountaintops where the Earth Rumble was held.

The inside is actually fairly big, though most of the cave is taken up by the spectator area, consisting of bleachers carved into the stone and going almost all the way to the ceiling against the four walls. The actual fighting arena itself is comparatively smaller, just a raised up, rectangular shaped platform of earth, a giant crystal on the ceiling directly above it providing the only major light in the whole place.

Taking their seats in the best spot in the house were Aang, Katara, and Sokka, amazed by their luck in getting these spots.

“Hey, front row seats!” Aang shouts as they sit down, him between the siblings. “I wonder why no one else is sitting here.”

Answering his question is a massive boulder, specifically, the one that smashes into the seats just barely missing Sokka, causing all three to turn in fear.

“I guess that’s why,” the nude boy says.

Before they could consider changing seats, the sound of earth moving for the ring gets their attention. They turn and see a man with long black hair raising himself onto a platform, before quickly bringing it back down, the resulting noises getting the rest of the crowd's attention.

Raising his arm, the man shouts, “Welcome to Earth Rumble VI! I am your host, Xin Fu!”

As the crowd cheers in excitement, Katara rolls her eyes and looks the other way. “This is just going to be a bunch of guys chucking rocks at each other, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I paid for!” an enthusiastic Sokka shouts.

“The rules are simple,” the deep voiced announcer, Xin Fu, continues. “Just knock the other guy out of the ring, and you win!” He leaps up onto a high platform to allow the first two fighters to take their places on the ring.

“Round one: The Boulder vs. The Big Bad Hippo!”

On one end of the ring, the fighter known as The Boulder flexes his arms, back facing the crowd. He has darker skin and an angular face, a nice fix for his muscular figure. He had short black hair tied up in a small bun at the top of his head. He also has a well-trimmed beard and decently sized sideburns. On his back is a gray, badgermole shaped tattoo, which he displays proudly to the crowd. He turns around, raising his arm, and the crowd goes wild for him, an obvious fan favorite.

On the other end of the ring, The Big Bad Hippo stomps into position. Boy, does he live up to his name. A larger man, both in height and width with a small tuft of black hair, the man scowls at his competition, before letting out what can only be described as a roar, showing that most of his middle teeth were missing, those remaining contributing to the Hippo name. A tank, without a doubt, and a tough opponent for anyone, his intimidation factor was undeniable.

Not intimidated was The Boulder, who points at him before saying in his exaggerated wrestler voice, “Listen up, Hippo. You may be big, but you aint bad!” Grinning with a light hint of insanity, the man continues. “The Boulder’s gonna win this in a landslide!” he finishes, throwing his arms behind him.

Not amused was his opponent. “Hippo,” the large man says, before throwing his arms high into the air. “Mad!” he shouts, stomping his foot with such force, Momo cowers in fear in Sokka’s bag.

With a shift of his foot, The Boulder raises three rocks from the arena floor. He thrusts his fist forward, sending all three towards The Hippo. They impact, but he doesn’t visibly react, besides crushing the one that got caught in his jaws with his powerful remaining teeth. Spitting out the pebbles, the large man begins to jump up and down, landing at an angle alternating between his left and right with each jump. This causes the stage to start to tilt back and forth, knocking The Boulder off his balance, causing him to stumble backwards.

“Unbelievable, ladies and gentlemen!” Xin Fu shouts over this. “The Hippo is rocking the boat!”

The Boulder stumbles all the way to the edge of the ring, but before he falls off, he bends out a thin, rectangular piece of earth from the side. Picking it up, he tosses it towards his opponent, impacting the man's back. The Hippo turns around, but before he could do anything, he feels the earth beneath him rising, knocking him down. The Boulder, raising his arms, holds the stone holding the man in the air for a few seconds, before tossing it over the edge of the ring. He raises his arms in victory.

“The Boulder wins!”

The crowd cheers at this victory, completely enamored with this man. He also gains the interest of Katara, who had turned back to watch as the fight started.

“How about The Boulder?” she asks Aang. “He’s got some good moves.”

With a shrug, the boy says, “I don’t know. Bumi said I need a teacher who listens to the earth. He’s just listening to his big muscles. What do you think, Sokka?” Aang turns his head to his fellow nudist, who’s cheering along with the rest of the crowd.

“Next match,” Xin Fu announces after the stage is cleaned by a massive badgermole. “The Boulder versus,” he pauses to address the figure approaching the stage on a makeshift earth bridge, swinging a pole holding the Fire Nation flag. “Fire Nation Man!”

In contrast to the cheers from the earlier fighters, the crowd boos this man as he walks onto the ring, the bridge collapsing into dust after him.

Despite the booing and insults thrown his way, Fire Nation Man trots into his designated position. In an incredibly exaggerated accent that wasn’t even Fire Nation, he says, “Please, to rise for Fire Nation national anthem.”

Placing his left hand over his heart, Fire Nation Man drops to his right knee as he starts to sing.

“FIRE LORD, MY FLAMES BURN FOR THEE!”

He finishes his song by stretching out his left arm to the ceiling, the crowds booing intensifying, them even starting to chuck or bend small rocks towards him. Among them is Sokka, stone in hand, who shouts, “Go back to the Fire Nation!” before chucking it at the man.

This particular stone impacts his head, causing him to drop the flag. Well, it was either that, or the fact that he was sinking into the earth beneath his feet, courtesy of The Boulder. He then rises a massive platform beneath his feet, Fire Nation Man looking up at him in fear.

“No, no, please!” was all he was able to get out, before The Boulder leaps from his pillar. Upon impact, another pillar of stone rises, this time beneath Fire Nation Man, who is sent flying through the air, screaming. He impacts the boulder next to the trio face first, crowd cheering enthusiastically at the quick defeat of their hated enemy. The three turn towards him immediately.

“Yeah! Woo!” Sokka shouts, pointing mockingly at the man. “The Boulder knows how to put the hurt in the dirt! Yeah! Wooo!” He continues to mock the downed man, even as the ring is cleared for the next fight.

The fights keep going like this, with the boulder winning each one.

He beats The Gopher by slamming him between two stones.

The Gecko is taken out by being hit in the stomach by a massive stone pillar when he makes an attempt at jumping, never a good thing to do in these sorts of matches.

He utilizes the provided Earth Kingdom ring in the center of the stage to knock out Headhunter.

With each victory, the crowd and Sokka get more and more enthusiastic, The Boulder relishing in it.

With all those fights out of the way, it was time for the main event. The lights dim as Xin Fu announces, “Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The Boulder versus…” He paused for dramatic effect as the final fighter walks onto the platform, escorted either side by two female assistants. Due to mostly being obscured by the frankly large championship belt, the only things that can be made out about them was that they had black hair and was short.

“Your champion, the Blind Bandit!” Xin Fu shouts, the crowd going wild.

The Blind Bandit raises the belt over her head, revealing her to not be a short young man, but a young girl. Her hair is black and held up in a large bun by a green headband with white fuzz balls either side, though it still left her with some bangs. Clothing wise, she was barefoot, like the rest of the fighters, and was wearing loose green pants and an open, sleeveless light brown vest. She also has a cape, but one of the assistants takes it from her, and the other one takes the belt.

As the ring clears sans the two fighters, Aang and Katara look at this girl intently.

“She can’t really be blind,” she says, turning her head and squinting. “It’s just part of her character, right?”

Aang wasn’t so sure it was an act, as he could plainly see the girl's most striking feature, her eyes. The girl's eyes, while big and evidently supposed to be a shade of green, have a milky look to them, as if something wasn’t there.

“I think she is,” Aang says, convinced that this wasn’t an act.

Deadpan, Sokka has his own comment. “I think she is…” his tone suddenly shifts to shouting, both hands gesturing downwards. “Going down!”

Back in the ring, The Boulder stomps down into position, cracking the floor. “The Boulder feels conflicted about fighting a young blind girl,” he says in a way that, despite his exaggerated wrestling voice, sounds so earnest you can’t help but believe he’s telling the truth.

The Bandit, meanwhile, just points at the man mockingly before saying, “Sounds to me like you’re scared, Boulder!” She places her hands to her cheeks and leans forwards slightly to give the impression of someone who’s scared.

…

“The Boulder is over his conflicted feelings,” he says, before beginning to gesture to match his words, “and now he’s ready to bury you in a rock-alanche!”

“Whenever you’re ready, The Pebble!” she says, before throwing her head back and laughing.

This girl's laugh gets Aang’s full attention, as he’s heard it before.

Trapped in a swamp, the trio separated, they all saw someone, a naked lady in each case. Katara saw her mother, reliving an old, almost forgotten memory of one of the few instances of non-bathing nudity she’s experienced in her life before meeting Aang. Sokka saw Yue, the girl he loved, who was from a culture where women being naked was common, who died in his arms naked, and who came back as the new moon spirit naked. Aang, on the other hand, saw someone he had never met before, a short girl with black hair held in a bun with a headband, who was with a winged pig, laughing as it flew around. During his vision, even though he could never clearly catch the girl's face, he now sees it in his mind, as he finally found a face for his vision.

It was this girl, The Blind Bandit, who he saw, who he was destined to meet at some point, and someone who will be important to him in some way.

“It’s on!” The Boulder shouts, snapping Aang back into reality.

What happens next is so quick it’s hard to tell. The Boulder takes a step forward, The Blind Bandit standing completely still. The moment his heel makes contact with the earth, however, the girl shifts her footing and opens her arms. As the man shifts his leg to take another step, she slams her foot onto the ground, resulting in a shockwave that churns up a line in the ground, which travels all the way towards him in less time for him to take a step, as Aang follows with his eyes. The instant his foot makes contact with the ground, his stance shifts painfully into a perfect spit.

“Oooooooh!” he shouts, visibly in pain from the pose, the tight pants he’s wearing only making it worse.

Sokka’s expression drops at this humiliating display, it only getting worse when the girl slices her arm, sending up three angled stalagmites towards him, ejecting him from the ring and slams into the wall.

The Boulder was defeated, to which The Blind Bandit only reacts with a satisfied smile.

“Your winner, and still the champion,” Xin Fu shouts, to which the girl raises her fist in victory, “The Blind Bandit!”

“How did she do that?” Katara asks above the cheering crowd.

Aang, who was watching intently, finally realizes what he just saw was, as he’s heard those exact words before. “She waited … and listened.”

He suddenly had an idea for who his earthbending master should be.

Leaping from the platform, a green sack in his hands, Xin Fu walks up to the girl's side and announces, “To make things a little more interesting, I’m offering up this sack of gold pieces to anyone who can defeat The Blind Bandit!” He motions towards the girl, only to be met with silence. “What? No one dares to face her?”

“I will!” the voice of Aang calls out, the boy himself already ascending the stairwell to the arena. The crowd murmurs as the boy approaches the girl and the announcer, the latter of whom leaping up back onto the platform when he gets close enough.

Back on the bleachers, Sokka and Katara watch intently, the former being far more enthusiastic about this development. “Go Aang!” the nude boy shouts, “Avenge The Boulder!”

The Bandit, despite being blind, somehow tells that this person has a small, scrawny stature, and only just taller than her. “Do people really want to see two little girls fighting out here?” she asks tauntingly, the crowd giving out a collective, “Oooh.”

In response, Aang places a hand onto his shoulder and begins to untie the earth academy poncho. “Well, I’m not a girl,” he says, tossing it aside, the crowds murmuring increasing at the sudden appearance of nudity. “And I don’t really want to fight you, I want to talk to you.”

“Boo!” Sokka shouts, causing his sister to turn her head to him. “No talking!”

The girl raises an eyebrow lightly, before flashing an expression that Aang couldn’t read. No doubt she heard the poncho flying off his body, but how could she tell he was now completely nude sans rice hat?

He takes a step forward, but the smirk on the girl's face the moment his foot touches the floor shows that this is what she was waiting for. She slides her foot against the ground, causing a large rock to grow from the ground beneath the boy, launching him up in the air. He lands softly behind her, causing her to turn around to face him, visibly angry.

“Somebody’s a little light on his feet!” she shouts. “What’s your fighting name: The Fancy Dancer?” Aang grins and shrugs his shoulders, to which the girl bends up another pillar beneath him, launching him skyward. Unlike last time, it takes a while for him to land. “Where’d you go?” she shouts.

Landing behind the girl, Aang shouts, “Please, wait!”

“There you are!” she says, turning around and raising a massive boulder and sending it his way.

Thinking fast, Aang shoots a powerful blast of air towards the rock, deflecting it from hitting him. What the gust also does is push The Blind Bandit back, all the way off the arena.

Needless to say, everyone was shocked by this scrawny naked boy being able to defeat the champion. Xin Fu, a recovering Boulder, and Katara and Sokka look down at the arena in complete surprise. Then the crowd breaks out into a cheer for him, many even chanting, “Nude Boy! Nude Boy! Nude Boy!”

Aang, however, was not concerned by his newly found fame. His priority was the girl he saw in his vision. He runs up to the edge of the ring where she went over, specifically towards the stair on that side. He goes a bit down the stairs, before turning to face the girl, angrily walking away from the ring.

“Please, listen!” he shouts to her. “I need an earthbending teacher, and I think it’s supposed to be you!”

Not even turning her head, the girl shouts in anger, “Whoever you are, just leave me alone.” Walking up to the wall, she stomps her foot, causing a slab of stone to slide down, revealing a tunnel. She promptly walks into it, turning around and with her hands, shuts the tunnel behind her, just as Aang reaches it.

“Wait!” he shouts, but it’s too late. She was gone.

Seeing as he has nothing else to do, he climbs back up the stairs onto the ring, where Xin Fu waits with the bag in one hand, belt on another, visibly moody. A crowd of cheering men and women stand around on the platform, many of them having already ditched their clothes in celebration of their new(d) champion, with several more in the process of undressing when he ascends onto it.

Among the crowd is Katara and Sokka, the latter rushing up to hug the announcer, visibly disgusted by the physical contact with this naked boy. Taking the gold and belt, Sokka turns and places an arm on his friend's shoulder. “Way to go, champ!” he shouts in celebration.

Aang, meanwhile, wasn’t in the mood to celebrate, having just lost the chance to talk with his probable earthbending teacher.

----

“I’ve got to admit,” Sokka says, the champion belt wrapped around his torso above his hips, “now I’m really glad I bought this bag. It matches the belt perfectly.”

Katara, both annoyed at her brother for him being unsure if he wasted money and the fact that where he was wearing this belt didn’t cover a thing, simply says with sarcasm, “That’s a big relief.”

The three were walking through the marketplace the following morning. They weren’t shopping like yesterday. They were looking for someone, and as they approach the gates of the place they learned about the earthing fighting tournament the previous day, Aang reminds them of what they were searching for.

“If we want to find the Blind Bandit, the Earthbending Academy is a great place to start.”

As they walk past the gate, they see two boys in the midst of practicing. It was, in fact, the same boys which Katara got the intel about Earth Rumble from. Evidently, they had attended the fight after all, considering that, not only were they both completely naked sans hats, but there was no sign of any discarded clothes in the whole yard, implying they walked there nude as well. They’re both practicing bending either sand or clay, based on the substance they were currently shooting their hands into within massive jars.

The three, naturally, don’t go unnoticed for very long, as one of the boys looks up at them, stopping instantly. “Oh great,” he says as the other one stops, “you again.”

Katara shoots a glare at them, causing them to back off. “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” she says in response to their cowering.

“Nicely done,” Sokka says smugly.

The eyes of the boy who spoke then shift towards Aang, piping up in recognition. “Hey!” he says, “You’re that naked kid who beat the Blind Bandit!”

“We need to talk to her,” the boy says, wasting no time. “Do you guys know where she lives?”

“The Blind Bandit’s a mystery,” the student says, raising his fist dramatically. “She shows up to fight, then disappears.”

Laying a hand on Aang's shoulder, Katara says, “Let me handle this.” She trots up to the second student, stern look on her face. In an accusing tone, she says, “You’re not telling us everything!”

“No, no, I-I swear it’s true,” he says, raising his hands up defensively. “No one knows where she goes, or who she really is.”

Aang glances to the ground in thought. “That’s because we’re asking about the wrong person. In my vision, I saw a girl, naked, with a pet flying boar.” He looks back up at the two boys. “Know anybody like that?”

The two boys think for a moment, there being something familiar about what was said.

“Well, a flying boar is the symbol of the Beifong family. They’re the richest people in town. Probably the whole world.”

“Yeah, but they don’t have a daughter.”

“A flying boar is good enough for me,” Aang says, turning his head to Katara and Sokka. “Let’s check it out.” He waves his hand and the three begin to leave the academy, Aang leading.

Watching them leave, visibly angry, were the two boys, one of them saying, “Yeah, you better leave.”

“Hey,” Katara says, turning her head back to them, “I got my eye on you,” she says with the appropriate gesture as she passes the gate.

Last to leave was Sokka, who turns back to them, and coolly says, “Water Tribe,” before turning back to leave.

----

Meanwhile, back within the Earth Rumble cave, Xin Fu and The Boulder were in the midst of a tense conversation. After a night's sleep to recover, the fighter finally got a clear image in his mind of what happened in the last fight that night, which he was all too willing to share with the host.

“I'm telling you, The Boulder was standing right there. I saw the kid strike, but there was no earthbending. Nothing made contact. The Blind Bandit just fell out of the ring. She must've took a dive and split the money with the kid.”

This accusation, naturally, infuriated Xin Fu, who slams his fist into the wall. The resulting tremors cause several stones of varying sizes to come falling down in the small room. A decently sized one lands on his bare foot, causing him to howl in pain.

Regaining his composer, he says, “Nobody cheats Xin Fu.”

----

Finding the Beifong Estate was rather easy, seeing as it was the biggest piece of property in the whole area. Relatively isolated from the rest of Gaoling, there being only a single path leading to the front gate with the flying boar crest directly above it, the Beifong’s seemed to enjoy a peaceful life, at least from what they could gather. At the current time, there were only two members of the family, patriarch Lao and his wife, Poppy who, due to being very influential and powerful figures, rarely, if ever, mingled with the common folk. So if they, for example, had a secret child, no one besides them and their servants would ever know, and it’s not like any of the latter would compromise their livelihoods, if not their lives themselves, by blabbing.

Peering out behind rocks by the road leading up to the guarded gate are Aang, Katara, and Sokka. The three look on at the estate, Aang’s eyes gliding up to the crest to confirm.

“That’s the flying boar from my vision. Come on!”

The three slink back into the foliage, emerging well away from the entrance of the estate. Instead, they enter through the wall several yards away. Aang propels himself into the yard with ease while Sokka and Katara climb in. After running through a stone pathway, they run into the estate's massive garden, where they will conduct their search. There was no way in hell any of them would dare approach any of the buildings within these walls, that’ll almost immediately get them caught, and they all know that they won't be amused by two nude boys and a girl in a pretty revealing dress being on their property.

No, they'd conduct their search for this girl in the shadows, behind the foliage. They peer from behind a tree overlooking a pond, glancing around for any sign of this girl, without luck.

Naturally, their search is put to an abrupt end when the ground starts to shake beneath them. It rises quickly, launching all three in the air. Aang and Katara are lucky, as they land on bushes. Not Sokka, naturally.

Looking up from his prone position, Aang sees the girl, the Blind Bandit, looking down at him, hastily adjusting the shoulder strap of the fancy white dress she’s wearing. She's very visibly angry at his presence

“What are you doing here, Twinkle Toes?!” she asks, no, demands.

“How did you know it was me?” the naked boy asks, genuinely baffled by this blind girl's ability to sense certain things.

“Don’t answer to Twinkle Toes,” Sokka interjects, “it’s not manly!”

“You’re the one whose bag matches his belt,” Katara shouts back.

“How did you find me?” the girl says in a slightly calmer, but still annoyed, tone.

Using airbending to shift his body into a standing position facing her, Aang explains, “Well, a crazy king told me I had to find an earthbender who listens to the earth. And then I had a vision in a magic swamp,” the girl raises her eyes at the absurdity of this boy's ramblings, “and-”

“What Aang is trying to say is,” Katara cuts him off as she approaches the girl, “he’s the Avatar. And if he doesn’t master earthbending soon, he won’t be able to defeat the Fire Lord.”

Throwing her hand up to the girl in blue's face, the Blind Bandit says, “Not my problem.” She then begins to walk away as she continues, “Now, get out of here, or I’ll call the guards.”

“Look, we all have to do our part to win this war,” Sokka says, causing the girl to stop, “and yours is to teach Aang earthbending.”

The girl turns to face them and, shifting her aggressive tone into a much more meek and helpless voice, calls out, “Guards! Guards, help!”

The three immediately scamper away from the girl. Just as the three vanish, two guards run up towards the girl, one of them saying, “Toph, what happened?” as they both scan the general area.

In this meek tone, the girl, Toph, says, “I … thought I heard someone. I got scared.”

The guard places his hand on the girl's shoulder and begins to escort her away, saying, “You know your father doesn’t want you wandering the grounds without supervision, Toph.”

As the two guards take Toph back to the main estate building, Aang watches from just beyond the wall, holding onto the top of it. He thinks for a moment, trying to get a better way of getting to her to at least try to get through to her, before he remembers something he has that could help. A wide grin forms on his face as the plan forms in his mind.

----

Inside the Beifong estate itself, things were calm as they usually were. Patriarch Lao and matriarch Poppy sip tea on their sofas in their golden robes and fancy accessories as they converse with a man. That man being Earthbending Academy head Yu himself.

After taking a sip of tea, Lao says, “I’m pleased to hear that Toph’s private lessons are going well. But I want to be sure she’s not trying anything too dangerous.”

“Absolutely not,” Yu says in a reassuring tone. “I am keeping her at a beginner’s level.” He glances towards the girl, who’s sitting in a chair a bit away from him, hands folded on her lap, looking as meek as everyone in the room sees her as. “Basic forms and breathing exercises only.”

“Very good,” Lao Beifong says, taking another sip.

Interrupting this discussion is a servant, who has come bearing news. “Excuse me sir,” he says with a bow, “but you have a visitor.”

Lao, unamused, says, “Who thinks they are so important they can just come to my house unannounced?”

“Uh,” the servant says, hesitating. “The Avatar, sir.”

Toph's eyes widen in surprise, both at the relentlessness of this boy, as well as his audacity to come to her home after she kicked them out. Unseen, she angrily blows some hair out of her face.

The man and woman turn to each other as the servant backs away. “Very well,” the patriarch says, getting to his feet and walking towards the servant, “tell the chiefs to prepare a meal fit for the Avatar.” He walks right up to the servant's side and, trying to keep his daughter from listening, begins to whisper, “The Avatar, I’m well read on the stories about them, so I must ask, he’s-”

“Naked?” the servant finishes, whispering as well. “Yes, completely.”

Lao sights. “Figures. Then make sure you find the Avatar’s special seat covering. It’s been over a century since it’s been used.” The servant nods at his request, and is about to turn and go, but Lao tightens his grip on him. “How many are with him?”

“Just a boy and a girl, sir. Water Tribe, I’ve heard through the grapevine and by the looks of it.”

“And which of them are-”

“Just the boy, sir.”

Another sigh from the patriarch. He turns his head towards the back of his daughter's chair. “Then make sure to fetch another chair covering for the other boy. Doesn’t need to be one of the fancy ones.”

The servant nods and Lao releases him to fulfill his orders. He keeps his eyes on his daughter as Yu helps the girl out of her chair and begins to escort her out of the room.

With the upcoming duo of nude boys, this is the only time in his life he’s thankful that his daughter is blind, so she doesn’t have to be exposed to them.

----

When the trio were let into the estate, no one really batted an eye at the nudity. Maybe a few odd looks by a passing guard or servant, but as they were led through the garden path towards the main building, no one raised a fuss.

Upon entering the building, they’re greeted by the man himself, along with his wife and his trying not to be visibly annoyed daughter. By his side is another familiar face, the academy professor, Yu. Servants led them through the estate into the main dining room, table and seven chairs preset up for them. Lao takes his seat at the end of the table, his daughter sitting to his side on the right, followed by his wife and the teacher. The patriarch motions for Aang to take his seat across from Toph. As he goes to sit, he sees that resting atop his chair is a covering with what looks like a lotus symbol.

“You’re not the first Avatar to grace our estate with their presence, or sit on that cloth,” Lao says as the nude boy takes his seat. “There hasn’t been one since the great Salai to never dine with our family. And considering your, shall we say, ‘consistent’ clothing style through your many lives, we have something special for their visits. That seat covering is familiar with an Avatar’s touch.”

Katara takes her seat next to Aang and across Poppy, and before Sokka takes his seat across Yu, a servant places a regular seat covering over his chair. Dinner is presented soon after. Sokka, ever the gentleman, proceeds to immediately begin to dig into his meal as the rest start to eat. All except Toph, who just stares forwards, body completely straight, eyes barely blinking. She doesn’t even blink as a servant places a steaming bowl of soup in front of her.

Lao sees this and takes issue with the steam. “Blow on it,” he orders the servant. “It’s too hot for her.”

“Allow me,” Aang says, gesturing with his hand. A small tornado forms and flies over to Toph’s soup bowl, blowing away all the steam in an instant before dispersing.

Everyone claps at this, well, besides Toph, who’s still motionless.

“Avatar Aang, it’s an honor to have you visit us,” Poppy says.

“In your opinion,” Lao starts, “how much longer do you think the war will last?”

“I’d like to defeat the Fire Lord by the end of summer,” he says to the man, before shifting his gaze straight towards the blind girl, “but I can’t do that without finding an earthbending teacher first.” Toph is very visibly annoyed by this comment in particular.

Not catching his daughter's look, Lao just chuckles. “Well, Master Yu is the finest teacher in the land.” He gestures towards the man, who’s in the process of patting his mouth with a napkin. “He’s been teaching Toph since she was little.”

“Then she must be a great earthbender!” Aang says with light enthusiasm. “Probably good enough to teach someone else!”

Having enough of this boy basically exposing everything she does, Toph decides to act. Completely hidden from view of the others, she kicks her foot forwards, sending a small fissure towards Aang. He lets out an “Ow!” as he sits up a little in reaction to it hitting him. Lao turns to his daughter, who's now innocuously drinking a spoonful of soup.

“Toph is still learning the basics,” Yu says between bites.

“Yes,” Lao says, sadness audible in his tone, “and sadly, because of her blindness, I don’t think she’ll ever become a true master.”

“Oh,” Aang says, “I’m sure she’s better than you think she is.”

Toph drags her foot backwards, pulling the boy's chair right up to the table. The force of the table against his gut causes his face to fall into his soup. Everyone stops eating instantly, turning to look at him. He rises up and pulls the bowl off his face, then starts to rub his eyes. Then, trying to make it look natural, he sneezes, “accidentally” sending a wave of air that knocks over every dish on the table, scattering the food all over the walls and people in the room.

When the soup bowl falls off her face and back onto the table, Toph finally explodes. Slamming her hands on the table, she pulls herself forwards, shouting, “What’s your problem?!”

“What’s your problem?” Aang shouts back in an equal tone.

Whipping her face with her napkin, Poppy attempts to lighten the suddenly tense mood by saying, “Well, shall we move to the living room for dessert then?”

----

Dessert was held in silence, the atmosphere still tense. When finished, the trio stood up and were going to leave, not wanting to cause any more trouble. When they realized how late it was, Lao and Poppy allowed the three to stay the night in one of the guest rooms. They were led there by two servants, and upon entering the siblings collapsed onto the provided bed.

Aang, meanwhile, heads to the window where, out of the shadows, Appa emerges right outside. Patting his bison, the nude boy says, “Good night, buddy.” Hearing footsteps behind him, he turns around, only to see Toph, in a white nightgown, standing in the doorway.

He immediately gets into a fighting stance, but the girl just leans against the doorway and says, “Relax. Look, I’m sorry about dinner. Let’s call a truce, okay?”

Aang drops his arms and faces her head on. “Okay,” he says.

Toph gestures with her fingers. “Follow me,” she says, “I … have some things to discuss with you.” Aang walks across the room to follow her. Katara and Sokka in turn begin to rise from the bed, but Toph sharply turns her head to them. “I meant alone!” she shouts, causing the two to fall back into the bed.

She leads Aang into the dark hallway and the two begin to walk. The instant the door to the room is far enough for Aang not to see it, Toph grabs the bottom hem of her nightgown and begins to lift it up.

“What are you doing?” Aang asks curiously.

“Getting comfortable,” Toph says casually, pulling her head out from the neck hole of the gown. “Mom and Dad aren’t the biggest fans of nakedness, so I can only undress when I’m alone. You’re like me so you’re an exception, but mostly I keep to myself when like this. I just have too; those things are so restrictive!”

“Tell me about it,” Aang says, shuddering at the memories of those few times he’s had clothes forced onto him. He turns back to her and sees her tossing the discarded nightgown behind a piece of furniture he can’t make out. “Aren’t you worried you’re going to get caught?” he asks as the two leave the building and into the nice spring air.

“I have gowns stored everywhere,” the nude girl says. “If I feel my parents or a servant coming, I just rush to the nearest one and slip it on.” A small grin forms on her face. “No one’s the wiser. Well, except you now, but you don’t wear clothes at all, so it’s safe with you.”

“Speaking of which,” the boy says as they begin to approach the garden side of the estate, “How could you tell I was naked? I mean back at the match; I saw it in your face.”

“Well,” Toph starts, “Anyone could hear you throwing off that poncho, but I couldn’t hear any other cloth on you, so that’s a dead giveaway.”

“Hear any cloths?”

“When wearing clothes, the fabric brushes against your skin every time you move, or even breathe. It lets out a faint rustle that most people probably can’t hear, but I can, and the lack of any is a dead giveaway to a person being nude. One time, I walked in on my mother after she got out of the bath, not a towel in the room. She tried to play it off like she was clothed, but I knew better. It’s how I figured out you being naked back there. Besides, you’re the Avatar. Isn’t nudity one of your whole things?” she finishes, hopping onto the railing of a bridge they’ve walked up to.

Aang just shrugs as he walks onto the bridge next to her. He watches the girl make each step, arms outstretched to keep balance, as she walks next to him on the railing. Since she answered his first question, might as well bring up the other one. “Well, that answers some things, but I’m still baffled by how, how do I put this, perceptive you are, despite being blind.”

“Even though I was born blind, I’ve never had a problem seeing,” she says, leaping off the other end of the railing onto the ground next to him. “I see with earthbending,” Toph explains. “It’s kind of like seeing with my feet. I feel the vibrations in the earth, and I can see where everything is. You, that tree, even those ants.”

Aang, not surprisingly, was genuinely very impressed by this feet, especially from a young blind girl. “That’s amazing,” he says.

“My parents don’t understand,” Toph says somberly, walking closer to the lake. Aang follows her as she continues. “They’ve always treated me like I was helpless.”

“Is that why you became the Blind Bandit?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why stay here where you're not happy?” Aang asks.

“They’re my parents. Where else am I supposed to go?”

“You could come with us,” the nude boy suggests, to which the nude girl just scoffs.

“Yeah,” she says sarcastically, but with a hint of sadness. “You guys get to go wherever you want. No one telling you what to do, that’s the life.” She sighs. "It’s just not my life.”

Suddenly, her eyes widen, and she turns her head. She crouches to the ground and places her hand onto the earth. “We’re being ambushed!”

Toph turns and runs towards Aang, taking his hand and pulling him with her. With her other hand, she bends a small patch of earth upwards, ejecting a stone slab from the ground. The moment it touches her grasp, the stone bursars, uncovering the spare nightgown, which she slinks over her shoulder.

Behind them, a decently sized fissure chases them, eventually cutting them off, forcing the two to stop. Emerging from the ground is the Earth Rumble fighter, The Gopher. The two naked kids get into fighting stances, but are promptly stopped when two metal cages fall over them, trapping them. Making things worse is the Hippo, who leaps off the side wall onto the cages, where he begins to stop in victory. Also leaping into the estate were the other fighters The Boulder, The Gecko, and Fire Nation Man.

Also with them, is Xin Fu, who stares tauntingly at the two caged benders. “I think you kids owe me some money.”

The rumble, naturally, got the attention of the rest of the estate. Patriarch, Matriarch, guests, servants, and guards. By the time any of them managed to reach the area, however, both kids and the kidnappers were gone.

The only trace of the event left behind was a scroll stabbed into the ground by a dagger, which Sokka promptly removed and picked up. “Whoever took Aang and Toph left this note,” he says, handing it to Katara.

She unrolls it and begins to read it out loud. ““If you want to see your daughter again, bring five hundred gold pieces to the arena.” It’s signed by Xin Fu and The Boulder.”

“I can’t believe it,” the nude boy says, snatching the note and running a few feet away. Sokka, ever the master of reading the room, sinks to his knees and shouts in ecstasy, “I have The Boulder’s autograph!”

Katara, naturally, is unamused, as is everyone else in the group.

Poppy, to no one’s surprise, is bawling her eyes out at her daughter being taken. Lao embraces her softly, trying to console her, before turning his head to the master earthbender. “Master Yu, I need you to help me get my daughter back.”

“We’re going with you,” Katara says.

“Poor Toph,” Poppy says between sobs, “she must be so scared…”

----

“You think you’re so tough?” shouts Toph from her iron cage high in the air above the Earth Rumble ring, right beside Aang’s. “Why don’t you come up here so I can snap that grin off your face?” she continues, pointing down in the general expression of the men who captured them.

“I’m not smiling,” Xin Fu says dryly, The Boulder by his side.

“Toph!” the voice of Lao Beifong shouts, causing the two men to turn to him. On the other side of the arena stand Lao, Master Yu, Katara and Sokka, the latter holding up the same green sack he took from Xin two days ago.

“Here’s your money,” the naked boy says, tossing the sack on the ground in front of Yu. “Now let them go.”

Yu kicks his foot against the ground, sending the bag across the ring, right to Xin Fu’s foot. He grabs it and examines for a moment. Satisfied, he signals with his hand, and after a second, one of the cages starts to get lowered down. A few feet off the ground, the bottom opens up, dropping Toph (who redressed herself the moment she heard her father's voice) on the ground. She gets up and runs towards her father. He places his hand on her shoulder and they, plus Yu, turn to walk away.

“What about Aang?” Katara shouts.

Xin Fu pulls out a rolled-up scroll from his pocket and holds it up to them. “I think the Fire Nation will pay a hefty price for the Avatar,” he says, allowing the scroll to roll open, revealing the wanted poster of the bald, naked boy. “Now. get out of my ring.”

Katara and Sokka shift their stances, intending to fight, however, this standoff is brief, as the others make their appearance. Fire Nation Man emerges from an earth tornado, the Gecko leaps onto the ground from the crystal light above, the sound of stomping gives away the Hippo’s presence, who in turn smashes a boulder in his grasp, Headhunter leaps onto the ring from the stands, and the Gopher emerges from the ground. These men, along with Xin Fu and The Boulder, were all master earthbenders, and more than outnumbered and outclassed the two, a naturally gifted but still learning waterbender and a nonbender who, despite his own skills as a warrior, was no match for these odds.

Knowing this is Aang, who shouts down to his friends, “Go, I’ll be okay!”

Knowing when to cut their losses, the two back off away from the men, and head down the stairs. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, they did have an ace up their sleeves (or in Sokka’s case, lack of sleeves), and when the two reach the end of the entrance tunnel, Katara calls out to her.

“Toph, there’s way to many of them,” she shouts to the girl, walking away with her father and teacher. “We need an earthbender. We need you.”

The three stop, Lao turning to face the girl. “My daughter is blind,” he says to her. “She is blind and tiny and helpless and fragile. She cannot help you!”

The girl lowers her head, fully fed up with her father's assertions of her. Freeing herself from his grasp, she says coldly, “Yes, I can.”

She turns and walks down the tunnel back towards the ring. Around halfway there, she pushes the right strap of her gown off her shoulder. She repeats this motion with the left strap, and she allows the gown to slide off her body as she walks. Stepping out of her dress, the now naked girl walks past the siblings, who look surprised at her sudden disrobing. Katara in particular is stunned at this, but she quickly chalks it up to her utilizing the strange buff nudity gives to one’s bending abilities (one she has gotten quite familiar with).

Of course, she doesn’t know that this girl doesn’t really need a boost to her abilities.

The rumblers are walking towards the other end of the ring, Aang’s cage firmly in Hippo’s grasp, when suddenly a massive section of the ground raises up, stopping them in their tracks. They turn around, seeing the Blind Bandit, now fully nude, flanked by the naked boy with a ponytail and the girl in the blue dress.

“Let him go!” Toph demands, pointing threateningly at them. “I beat you all before and I’ll do it again!”

“The Boulder takes issue with that comment.”

The Hippo tosses Aang’s cage to the side as the men get ready to fight. Katara and Sokka charge towards them, prepared to strike, but Toph raises her arms to stop them.

“Wait!” she says, listening intently. She hears the men charging towards her, all of them, and feels where each of them move, each step. “They’re mind.”

The girl's sudden assertion that she can easily take all these grown men on herself surprised the sibling, but as they stand there, they watch and see the girl prove that claim. Toph stomps her foot and raises her arms out in front of her, slowly raising them up. She strains to hold this position for a few moments, letting them get close enough, before bringing them together in front of her chest and crouching downwards towards the ring floor. This creates a large tremor that shakes the ring, kicks up a massive dust cloud, and sends all of the rumblers falling backwards. Lao, who by now has found himself standing within the bleachers with Yu, watches on, visibly unnerved by the sight.

Toph walks right into the dust cloud, it naturally having no effect on her. Who it does have an effect on, are the men now getting to their feet. The first one who encounters her is Fire Nation Man, who takes some time to notice her. When he does swipe away enough of the dust to see her, he shifts his foot to attack, unaware of the girl's smirk. He sends a wave of earth her way, and she easily dodges it. She in turn sends a wave of her own, and one much more powerful, and one he can’t dodge. He’s sent flying the moment it makes contact.

Back on the bleachers, without seeing any of this, Lao and Yu just see Fire Nation Man fly out of the smoke and land smack against the wall below them. The two watch this in shock.

Back on the ring, but not in the cloud, Sokka and Katara try to free Aang from his metal cage, him by smashing it with a rock below the bars, and her trying to pull the bottom open. No dice.

“Hit it harder!” Aang shouts.

“I’m trying!” Sokka shouts back, before resuming his hitting.

Meanwhile, the Gecko crawls along the floor, searching for the Blind Bandit in the thick mist. He’s unsuccessful, until a small rock hits his cranium, to which he promptly turns. He sees the short naked girl, and raises two decently sized rocks into the air, shooting them at her. Toph dodges, naturally, and before the man could land on the ground, she stomps her foot several times, each one sending a pillar below the man, launching him further and further away from her. After three pillars, he’s launched out of the smoke and ring, landing right onto a recovering Fire Nation Man, knocking both of them down.

Not even a few seconds after, the Gopher tunnels up to a few feet behind the girl. He emerges, sending a rock to the back of the nude girl's head. She turns and catches it, sending it right back at him with enough force to shoot him out from the ring, right into Fire Nation Man and The Gecko.

After enough hits, the bottom of the metal cage finally breaks, and Aang emerges, already getting into his fighting stance, but Sokka stops him. He points towards the part of the ring just beyond the smoke, where The Boulder and the Hippo emerge and get into fighting stances, the latter holding the earth ring. The smoke clears, revealing Toph, still in a fighting stance, standing on the ring in the middle of the arena. The three hold their positions in a standoff for a moment, before the girl's ears twitch to the sound of someone approaching behind her from the sky. The two men charge, The Boulder bending up a large piece of stone in the process. Toph shifts her foot and begins to rotate her hands. The moment The Boulder and the Hippo reach the other side of the ring, she begins to spin it. She stops after ninety degrees, placing the two men in the path of Headhunter, who’s swinging in on a rope, stone in hand. He collides into them, knocking them all down. She promptly ejects the three from the arena, once again knocking down the three men who just got back on their feet.

“I never knew,” Yu says to Lao, who just stopped biting his nails. “Your daughter’s amazing!”

With the rumblers out of the way, the trio think the fight is won, but Toph knows better. She throws her hands to her side, clearing away the rest of the dust covering the other end of the ring, revealing Xin Fu, who stares her down.

He cracks his neck before getting into a fighting stance. Toph returns this by spitting to the side, a lack of manners that shocks her father, already shocked by her abilities and shameless display of her naked body.

She gets into her own fighting stance and the two stare each other down for a moment as they circle the central ring. He makes the first move by firing several rocks towards her. Toph defects this by raising a pyramid shaped earth shield, afterwards sending half of it towards Xin Fu. He dodges it by leaping into a spin. Upon falling, he forces his hand into the ground, the vibrations reaching Toph’s ears, allowing her to shift her stance as he sends a large boulder her way. It glances past her face, and as she turns back, she thrusts her hands forward towards him. Xin Fu’s eyes widened at the massive fissure rapidly approaching him.

Lao and Yu move scoot out of the way as the man collides into the stands right between them, knocked out. On the ring itself, Aang, Katara, and Sokka stand there, eyes wide and mouths agape. Sokka even collapses at the shock of the sheer power he just witnessed as the other two rush towards the girl.

Yu summarizes this whole fight with a single sentence. “She’s the greatest earthbender I’ve ever seen.”

----

Poppy, even though she didn’t witness it, was just as shocked as the witnesses when they explained the whole situation, and how her daughter acted. Her raw earthbending strength, the fact she could basically see despite her blindness, her complete disregard she has towards other people seeing her naked. It was all a bit much. Still having trouble comprehending all of this is Lao. There hadn't so much as been a competent earthbender in the family since Lu Beifong, who himself was on record as saying he wanted a decent bender among his descendants, and he died around four centuries ago. The knowledge that his fragile, feeble, blind daughter was actually really powerful and skilled in bending, not to mention going out to fight in an underground championship, almost broke him.

So, when they returned to the Beifong estate, the Avatar and his companions in tow, they needed an explanation from their daughter herself.

“Dad, I know it’s probably hard for you to see me this way,” Toph starts, head bowed slightly downwards. “But the obedient little helpless blind girl that you think I am just isn't me. I love fighting. I love being an earthbender, and I'm really, really good at it. I know I've kept my life secret from you, but you were keeping me secret from the whole world. You were doing it to protect me, but I'm twelve years old and I've never had a real friend. So, now that you see who I really am, I hope it doesn't change the way you feel about me.”

“Of course it doesn’t change the way I feel about you, Toph,” Lao says softly. “It’s made me realize something.”

“It has?” Toph says, perking up slightly.

“Yes,” he says coldly. “I’ve let you have far too much freedom.” Her face drops. “From now on you’ll be cared for and guarded twenty-four hours a day.”

“But, Dad!”

“We’re doing this for your own good, Toph,” Poppy says genuinely.

“Please escort the Avatar and his friends out,” Lao orders his servant. “They are no longer welcome here.”

The servant begins to lead the trio out, Aang turning his head back to Toph. “I’m sorry, Toph.”

“I’m sorry too,” she says back, not turning her head. “Goodbye, Aang.”

As he and his friends are led out of the estate, he doesn’t catch the tears.

----

Seeing as they have no more reason to stick around, the gang begin to pack their things. Sokka’s in the process of polishing his new belt on Appa’s back, while Aang and Katara talk by the edge of the hilltop.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find you a teacher,” Katara says in a way to cheer him up. “There are plenty of amazing earthbenders out there.” She’s not denying it would have been nice to have another girl around, it’d be a nice change from the naked boy’s she’s exposed to on a daily basis, but she’s a realist, and the master they find could be a girl as well.

Aang, still having his heart set, simply looks up at the full moon. “Not like her.”

The two turn and walk back to Appa, Katara climbing onto his tail and Aang leaping atop his head with a gust of air. He’s about to whip the reins, when he hears the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. He turns his head and sees a small girl emerging from the shadows, small carrying bag tied around her torso.

“Toph!” Aang shouts as she runs up to the bison. “What are you doing here?”

“My dad changed his mind,” she says enthusiastically. “He said I was free to travel the world.”

Sokka and Katara glance at each other, visibly unsure about the truth of that statement. Nothing in her tone is saying she’s lying, but it just seems so unlikely that the man changed his mind THAT fast.

Not helping Katara’s unease is, as she turns her head back to Toph, her closer proximity now fully reveals the fact that… “She’s naked,” Katara whispers, turning away and sighing, her not sure how to act about this development.

More open to the idea of her joining them and already figuring out what she really means is Sokka, who says, “Well, we’d better get out of here, before your dad changes his mind again.”

“Good idea,” Toph says.

Aang looks back down at her, saying, “You’re going to be a great teacher, Toph.”

“Speaking of which,” she says, “I want to show you something.”

“Okay,” Aang says, leaping off Appa’s head.

The moment his feet touch the ground, Toph kicks her heel into the dirt, creating a pillar of earth directly below the nude boy, launching him into one of the trees.

“Now we’re even,” Toph says, raising her arm in the direction of the bison. “Un, I’ll take the belt back.”

Visibly moody, Sokka undoes the belt and tosses it towards her. “Ow!” she says as it smacks her square in the head, knocking her flat on the ground.

“Sorry,” he says.

After a few seconds, Aang falls from the tree and he and Toph regain their feet to board Appa. He whips the reins, says, “Yip yip,” and they take off. She’s naturally a little nervous about flying for the first time, but cools off rather quickly. She lays down against the edge of the saddle, content with her choices.

She then shivers lightly, which Sokka notices. “Don’t worry,” he says casually, “It takes a bit to get used to, but I’m sure you will come to love the feeling of the cool air against your skin. Did for me.”

----

Back at the Beifong estate, despite it being very late in the night, Lao is still wide awake. He has a problem, and very much doubts he’ll sleep a wink until it’s resolved. He sits on his sofa, opposite of him, two men standing behind a table. Earthbending Master Yu is not a surprise, but to his side is the Earth Rumble head Xin Fu, who is a surprising sight within the famed Beifong household. They’re both there for a reason, which Lao explains.

“I know you two are very different,” he says in a very serious tone. “But I believe you have a common interest.”

He signals a servant, who places a chest onto the table. He opens it, revealing it to be filled to the absolute brim with gold coins. The two men exchange glances with each other as Lao continues.

“The Avatar has kidnapped my daughter. I want you to do whatever it takes to bring her home.”

To seal this agreement, the two men bow.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 6
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun was high in the sky and the desert below was hot as hell. Not good conditions to be traveling in, let alone completely by yourself. No water, barely any salvageable food, the relentless sun beating down on you for hours, the nighttime barely cooling down. Even being naked, as many of the people who live around here are, won’t be that much of a relief, let alone someone covered neck to toe.

Still, that doesn’t stop one man, nay, boy, who’s riding along the barren path by himself. Scar surrounding his left eye, this boy is covered in a brown and green getup and sports a rice hat over his short hair. He rides his ostrich horse through this wasteland, alone by his own choice, as he faces the hazards.

The first one we’ll look at is when he reaches a chasm in the ground, containing a lake, the area’s sole major body of water. You’d think he’d take the chance to cool off by swimming through it or at least refill his water, but the canyon was fairly deep, and the water was rushing fast, making any attempt to get close futile and dangerous. Luckily, there was a wooden bridge to allow both him and his ostrich horse easy crossing. However, the moment they begin to walk over it, it’s immediately evident that this bridge hasn’t been used in years, if not decades, it was that weak. So weak that one of the boards broke under the horse's foot. Some quick maneuver saves them from making the hole worse or even falling themselves. After that little bout of action, he resumes his traveling.

After a bit more time, Zuko became aware of two things. One, the smell of something cooking in front of him to the right, and two, just how hungry he was. A bit further down the trail, he turns his head in the direction of the smell, hand on his stomach. A bit downhill, he sees a small fire with some meat cooking atop it. Between it and him is a man crouching in front of the bit and a woman laying against the tree. Both were completely naked, and by the shine on their skin, were drenched in sweat. His churning stomach being his full priority, he moves his hand to the hilt of his broadswords, fully intent on “freeing” these nudists of their meal. However, something held his hand. He watches as the man walks in front of the woman, before placing his hand on her bare abdomen, which was visibly bloated. Not wanting to rob a pregnant woman, he lets go of his swords and carries on.

He keeps going throughout the day, the hot sun beating down on the poor boy, sweating him dry. He pulls up his waterskin and unscrews it. He holds it to his mouth and starts to drink, but only for a few seconds as the last of it goes. He drops his head lightly as he continues to ride through the wasteland, vision starting to become blurry. He struggles to remain awake as he travels, the hot sun, lack of food, and dehydration making it hard. Every time his eyes shut, he jolts his head back up, but it wouldn’t work for long.

After feebly attempting to remain awake, his eyes flutter shut. He immediately starts to dream. In it, he sees a middle aged but beautiful woman standing in a dark hallway. With a sad look on her face, she covers her nude body in a dark red cloak before turning and walking away into the shadows. It’s brief, and the moment it ends, he wakes up, lucky that he didn’t fall.

He continues down the trail, keeping his head down.

----

There was admittedly not much there within this plain's village, and who would think there would? Most, if not all of the buildings were made of wood, and poorly at that. Despite being rather small, the roads dividing the village were wide, and all converge at a simple wooden watch tower. Just as poor as the buildings were the people. Most of them were haggard, rough around the edges, and a decent chunk of them were fairly shady, and who’d expect otherwise. After all, who would stay in this village, in the hot sun and poor infrastructure, without the desire to stay mostly away from the laws of the Earth Kingdom? At least those who live there voluntarily. People on the run from law enforcement, those looking to trade things of questionable legality (either in what they are, how they were made, or how they were acquired), or just people desperate to stay away from the war. There were normal people there too, but they were few and far between.

It’s this village that Zuko rides his ostrich horse into. As he rides through the road, he glances around at the people. Thanks to the hot sun and lack of much to cool themselves, they’re all dressed very lightly. Besides the hats and headbands, there’s not a single person who lives here who’s wearing anything above the waist, and for that matter, there are very few wearing anything below it either sans shoes. A few were wearing cloths wrapped around their lower bodies to preserve some sense of modesty, but most of the men, women, and all the children were Au Natural. He sticks out like a sore thumb, even without the scar. Being in a town full of naked or mostly naked people wasn’t new to him, he had been to Kyoshi Island before, but these people seem to do it more out of pragmatism rather than be naked by traditin or customs. The only people he sees that are fully clothed are a group of four earth soldiers gambling, but he keeps his distance, seeing them fighting each other over something dumb. As he passes them, he does notice one man shifting his gaze towards him, a glare he promptly returns.

Shifting his gaze away, Zuko rides and dismounts the ostrich horse by the side of a store. He walks up to the owner. “Could I get some water, a bag of feed and something hot to eat?” he asks, holding out two coins to him.

The merchant looks down at the coins, before looking back up at the boy. “Not enough here for a hot meal,” he says. “I can get you two bags of feed.”

The scarred boy drops his head, visibly disappointed. The feeling of eyes directed at him snaps him out of it. He subtly shifts his gaze behind him, catching the soldiers shifting back into their previous positions, obviously having just been watching him.

Unbeknownst to any of them, two naked boys run up and hide beside the store counter, one of them with an egg in his hands. He passes it to the other kid, who straightens up and throws it at the men. It smacks the back of one of the soldier’s head, covering the man in yoke.

The two run off before the four can turn, so that when they do, all they see is that stranger they've already taken a dislike to. They get to their feet and walk up to him, the group's leader, wielding two small hilted sledgehammers, being the first to speak.

“Hey!” he shouts, getting Zuko’s attention. “You throwing eggs at us, stranger?”

Zuko, not turning to face them, simply says, “No.”

“You see who did throw it?”

Turning to face them, Zuko says, “No.” He places his hand on the hilt of his blades, just to be safe.

“That’s your favorite word, no,” another soldier says.

“Egg has to come from somewhere,” the leader continues.

“Maybe a chicken flew over,” Zuko says, turning back to the counter.

This gets a laugh out of one of the soldiers, but a glare from the leader causes him to stop. Emerging from the store is the owner, two bags of feed in his hands. He places them on the counter, but before Zuko could take them, the soldier does.

“Thanks for the contribution,” he says, passing the bags to one of his men. “The army appreciates your support.” The men begin to walk away, though the leader does stop and turns slightly back to the boy. “You better leave town. Penalty for stayin’s a lot steeper than you can afford stranger. Trust me,” he says, patting his hammer threateningly before walking off.

Once the men were out of earshot, the nude store owner confessed to Zuko, “Those soldiers are supposed to protect us from the Fire Nation. But they’re just a bunch of thugs.”

Zuko, being from the Fire Nation himself, doesn’t even turn around. Instead, he just turns and walks back to his ostrich horse. Before he is able to mount it, one of the boys pops his head out from the other side. “Thanks for not ratting me out!” he says, to which Zuko promptly ignores him by mounting the animal and riding away.

He manages to make it a little bit away, but the naked boy just runs in front of him and grabs the ostrich horse’s reins. “I’ll take you to my house and feed your ostrich horse for you,” he says, “Come on, I owe you!” He starts to pull on the reins, leading the animal away from the area.

Zuko was going to object, but the pit in his stomach won out, and he was going where this boy was taking him.

----

The boy leads Zuko, who in turn leads the ostrich horse, down the dirt road, until they come upon what looks like some sort of farm. As they approach, it’s revealed to be a pig farm. On one side of the dirt path, is a fenced in pin, on the other is open land. Both sides are filled with pigs of various kinds. Pig cows, pig sheep, even pig chickens. They all start to oink as the boys walk past.

“No one can ever sneak up on us,” the boy tells Zuko.

“No kidding,” he responds.

Zuko stops as the boy pulls the ostrich horse away to the side into a farmhouse that seriously needs some roof repairs. He then hears the sound of a heavy trend approaching, and he shifts his gaze to the other farmhouse to his right. He sees the other occupants of this farm, a broad, bearded man walking up to him and a scrawny, short haired lady peeking out from behind the building. Both were also naked, like the boy.

“You a friend of Lee’s?” the naked man asks as he walks up to him.

“This guy just stood up to the soldiers!” the boy, Lee, shouts as he runs up to his father's side. “By the end, he practically had them running away!”

The man wraps his arm around his shoulders as the woman walks up to join them. “Does this guy have a name?” she asks.

“I’m … uh …” Zuko says nervously, seeing as his go to fake name couldn’t be used in this situation. Luckily, he didn’t need to say anything else.

“He doesn’t have to say who he is if he doesn’t want to, Sela,” the man says to his wife. “Anyone who can hold his own against those bully soldiers is welcome here. Those men should be ashamed to wear Earth Kingdom uniforms.”

“The real soldiers are off fighting the war,” the woman, Sela, says, “like Lee’s big brother Sensu.” There’s a brief pause, before she resumes, gesturing to the homestead. “Supper’s going to be ready soon. Would you like to stay?”

“I can’t,” Zuko says coldly. “I should be moving on.”

Sela frowns and shifts her glance to her husband. “Gensu could use some help on the barn,” she says, turning back to Zuko. “Why don’t you two work for a while, and then we’ll eat.”

Seeing as he has literally nothing else to do, and how hungry he is, the scarred boy nods.

The work itself wasn’t even that hard. All that he really needed help with was to cover the roof of the farm. So within a few minutes, both Zuko and this completely nude man were on the roof, hammering in the wooden shingles.

Watching from the ladder is Lee, who studies the strange boy quizzically. “You don’t seem like you’re from around here,” he says.

“Mm-mm,” Zuko mumbles, shaking his head

“Where are you from then?”

Lowering his hammer, he says solemnly, “Far away.”

“Ohhh,” the nude boy says in awe. “Where are you going?”

“Lee, give it a rest,” Gansu tells his son sternly. “Stop asking the man personal questions, got it?”

Lee, disappointed, rests his head on his arm and sighs. “Yes,” he says. He remains silent for a moment, before deciding to ask what was really on his mind the moment he saw this boy. “So how’d you get that scar?”

Zuko, surprised by being asked that, accidentally smashes his thumb with the hammer. He holds up his now red thumb, groaning in pain, as he examines it.

“It’s not nice to bother people about things they might not want to talk about,” the man says, much more sternly. “A man’s past is his business.” With that, he resumes hammering the roof, as does Zuko.

As he smashes the nails with his hammer, his mind begins to wander to this family. Stern yet loving towards their kids, perfectly functional marriage, very casual about nudity. Seeing these on this random Earth Kingdom family makes him reflect on his own life back at the Fire Nation.

When the world made sense to him.

----

It was a day like any other day, as to be expected in the Fire Nation Royal Palace, and it was a normal day for the young Prince Zuko.

He got up, went straight into his preset morning bath, tied up his hair, and left his room for breakfast, all without changing out of the clothes he slept in, which is to say, none at all. Naturally, the servants of the palace didn’t bat an eye as the naked boy walked along the corridors, nudity being a near constant sight for them.

This day went by as most of his do. Practicing firebending forms, being annoyed by his little sister, occasionally talking with his father if he catches him in the midst of his duties, the usual. But what he enjoyed most about each day was spending time with his mother. Like her children, Ursa has a preference towards being nude, and it’s something she’s actively encouraged in both of them. When she walks through the halls and rooms of the palace, it was rare to see her in anything more than her crown. The fountain within the pond in the Royal Gardens was the spot the noblewoman was most fond of, and it’s there where she usually was, and it’s there where she and Zuko would spend a lot of time together, like here.

The two sit at the edge of the pond, watching the turtle ducks that made it their home. A mother and four chicks. Ursa leans closer to the pond, lowering her open hand into it, a turtle duck swimming up and eating the small piece of bread on her palm.

“Hey Mom,” Zuko says, “want to see how Azula feeds turtle ducks?” He takes the rest of the loaf into his hands, and throws it into the water, creating a small wave that causes one of the babies to duck under the water.

Ursa looks on in shock at her son. “Zuko! Why would you do that?” she asks him.

The baby emerges from the water unharmed, and the mother swims up to it. She then turns toward Zuko, and swims right up to him. She starts to bite into his bare shin hard.

“Ow! Ow ow! Ouch!” he shouts as his mother gently pulls the turtle duck off his leg, placing it back into the water. It swims off with her chicks.

“Stupid turtle duck,” Zuko says, holding his knees to his chest. “Why’d she do that?”

“Zuko,” Ursa says, crouching down next to him and placing her arm around his shoulder. “That’s what moms are like. If you mess with their babies,” she playfully bites the air behind his ear, “they’re gonna bite you back!”

The two start to laugh.

Between his parents, Zuko did like his mother a bit more. He knew his father did love him, though with how little time he’s been spending with him as of recently, he rarely showed it. Ursa was there with him nearly all the time. She was nice, caring, and loving to him. She was also fairly easygoing, especially evident with how often she spends her time nude. Apparently, it was something to do with her family’s customs, which wasn’t so surprising. Despite the Fire Nations public stance on nudity, several noble clans retained their prewar practices relating to it, the one she belonged to being no exception. It was so constant in their upbringing, it must’ve rubbed off on both Zuko and Azula.

----

Speaking of Azula, the young princess had her own ways of killing time. Her morning routine was fairly similar to her older brothers. Wake up, clean, groom, and leave her room without a stitch. Like her mother, she basically never wore clothes unless she was going out in public or was attending some formal event.

Today, a little while later, was not one of those days, so no clothes for her. She was waiting for someone, or a few people. This was also fairly routine. She’d wait until the servants escorted them to wherever she was waiting for them, Ty Lee would undress instantly, and the two would softly coax Mai into doing the same. Nothing new.

Today the girls were outside in another part of the garden beside an artificial river, a small fountain seated in the middle. Azula and Ty Lee were practicing their cartwheels while Mai sat against a tree with her knees to her chest. Unlike her friends, she was never as enthusiastic about the whole nudity thing. Hell, among most of the girls her age and class, she was comparatively less willing than many others when it came to baring it all. So she just sits and watches her friends.

The two are in the midst of attempting a more complicated flip. Azula goes first, and while she does well, she messes it up on the last flip and falls flat on her back. Ty Lee follows suit and, ever the flawless athlete, even at her age, does it flawlessly. A jealous Azula, upon getting to her feet, pushes the girl to the ground and starts to laugh at her.

“Ugh! Azula!” she shouts, though not really that seriously.

Mai, who was watching this and is very bored, has her attention caught by a noise to her side. She turns her head and sees Azula’s mother and brother walking under the patio, both naturally as naked as the three girls. Mai, blushing profusely, turns her head and presses her knees harder into her chest.

Noticing this is Azula, and the plot begins immediately. She whispers something into Ty Lee’s ear, causing her to giggle, before turning and running towards her family members. “Mom!” she says innocuously, “Can you make Zuko play with us? We need equal teams to play a game!”

“I am not cart-wheeling,” the young prince objects.

“You won't have to,” Azula says, rolling her eyes. “Cart-wheeling’s not a game, dum-dum.”

“I don’t care,” he continues. “I don’t want to play with you!”

Azula goes all innocent as she says, “We are brother and sister. It’s important for us to spend time together! Don’t you think so, Mom?” She flashes an innocent smile.

Placing her hand on her son's shoulder, Ursa says, “Yes, darling, I think it’s a good idea to play with your sister.” She ruffles his hair before turning away. “Go on now, just for a little while,” she says as she walks away, leaving a very grumpy Zuko behind.

Azula runs back to the tree Mai was sitting under and picks a low hanging apple. Getting her friend to her feet, she positions the black-haired girl in front of the fountain. “Here’s how it goes,” she says, placing the apple on top of Mai’s head, who seems to be just as big of a fan of this game as Zuko. Azula runs back a few feet before continuing. “Now what you do is, try to knock the apple off the other person's head, like this.”

She then shoots a small flame towards her, setting the apple on fire, Mai looking up at it in shock. Also in shock is Zuko, who, without thinking, charges towards her. Mai looks down, sees him running towards her, and she screams. She backs up slightly, but it’s too late. He slams into her and they both fall into the fountain. He lands on top of her, his stomach across hers. Making it worse was the fact that they were both completely naked, so naturally, they were both red head to toe with blush. The two stay there awkwardly for a good few seconds, with Azula’s laughter snapping them both back.

“See,” she says, placing a hand on Ty Lee’s shoulder, “I told you it would work!”

“Aww, they’re so cute together,” Ty Lee says.

Zuko gets up and storms off. Mai stands up as well, turns to the girls, and shouts, “You two are such … ugh!”

As this happens, Ursa reemerges from the neighboring building, walking towards them with a scroll in her hands. Seeing Zuko storming towards her, she says, “I was just coming to get you. Uncle Iroh sent us a letter from the war-front.” As he walks past her, she notices that his bare skin and hair was glistening and he was dripping wet, puddles trailing behind him. “You’re soaking wet?”

“Girls are crazy!” the boy shouts, raising his hands in frustration.

As Zuko dries himself, Ursa sends Mai and Ty Lee home, though not without helping the former dry off before she’s reclothed. When Azula objects, Ursa tells her that this is a family matter, and she can always call them back later.

She was going to fetch her husband, but when the servant came back without him, he explained that Ozai was busy with other matters, and that he’ll have to read the letter by himself later. So it was just her, Zuko, and Azula. So she reads the letter out loud. Iroh, always, started the letter wishing them well and that he and Lu Ten miss them dearly, and apologizing again for missing the annual Ember Island visit. He muses a bit about the various other conflicts he’s gotten word about from all over the Earth Kingdom and the various battles fought, before finally getting to the status of the Siege of Ba Sing Se. They were getting close. Despite the heavy casualties on both sides, the Fire Nation was getting closer to breaching the wall, and the men and women defending the outer wall were getting more desperate. He says this because he’s noted that, as the weeks pass, he’s caught more and more soldiers entering the fray naked, thus taking advantage of the strange buff nudity grants benders. Still, it wasn’t enough, and the massive wall was breached after only a few months, if not weeks, from falling. Now all they had to do was cross the agrarian zone and break the inner wall, and once they were past it into the lower ring, they’d have the city itself.

“If the city is as magnificent as its wall, Ba Sing Se must be something to behold. I hope you all may see it someday, if we don't burn it to the ground first!” Ursa reads out loud, to which she and her kids start to laugh at the old man's joke. After calming down, she continues. “Until then, enjoy these gifts.”

Two servants in white robes walk into the room, each holding a box. The naked prince and princess rush up to them

“For Zuko,” she says as the prince takes and examines his gift, “a pearl dagger from the general who surrendered when we broke through the Outer Wall. Note the inscription and the superior craftsmanship.”

Zuko unsheathes the dagger, then reads the inscription out loud. “Never give up without a fight.”

“And for Azula,” Ursa says as the princess takes and examines her gift, a doll in a green dress. “A new friend. She wears the latest fashion for Earth Kingdom girls.”

Azula is visibly disgusted by this gift, turning her head away and sticking her tongue out. In Iroh’s defense, it has been two years, and two years ago, she’d probably at least liked the gift and appreciated her uncle for getting it. Now she just sees him as an old fool.

“If Uncle doesn’t make it back from the war, then Dad will be the next in line for Fire Lord, wouldn’t he?” she asks, facing away from her mother partially to hide the smile on her face.

“Azula,” Ursa says sternly, “we don’t speak that way. It would be awful if Uncle Iroh didn’t return. And besides, Fire Lord Azulon is a picture of health.”

Zuko, who until now was practicing swinging with his new weapon, stops and walks closer to his sister. “How would you like it if Cousin Lu Ten wanted Dad to die?” he asks.

“I still think our dad would make a much better Fire Lord than His Royal Tea-Loving Kookiness,” the nude girl says, clutching the doll tightly, setting the thing ablaze.

----

Memories like these flood Zuko’s head throughout the day and night, them being the things keeping him from sleeping. So he just lays there, eyes shut, pretending to sleep, while the old memories go by in a flash. The times where his mother was around, when his father actually cared about him, where Azula was nothing more than his slightly annoying little sister, where his uncle still had respect, when his cousin was still alive, when he still had his honor, and when he wasn’t so traumatized by that fateful Agni Kai he can’t stand being naked outside bathing or desperate times.

His thoughts and reminiscing is put to a stop when he hears the barn door open. He keeps his eyes closed, pretending to still be asleep on the hay pile. He hears footsteps approaching him and another presence in the room. It comes right up to him and starts to take something lying beside him. Based on the light sounds it’s making, it’s probably the sheath holding the two Dao swords. When he hears the barn door close, he opens his eyes and turns his head, confirming what was taken.

He waits a few seconds, before standing up and heading out the barn door. The farm is naturally fairly dark at night, the only light coming from the single candle from within the main house. Hearing the sounds of metal swinging, Zuko walks in the direction they’re coming from, a decently sized sunflower field. High on the hill, awkwardly swinging the swords, is Lee. He haphazardly swings the weapons, slicing the heads off the sunflowers around him, before turning to start stabbing into a nearby dead tree trunk.

Walking silently behind the naked boy, Zuko says, “You’re holding them wrong.”

Lee, startled by the sudden noise, falls backwards into the flowers. He shamefully rises back up and holds out the swords to him.

Taking them, Zuko says, “Keep in mind, these are dual swords. Two halves of a single weapon. Don’t think of them as separate, ‘cause they’re not. They’re just two different parts of the same whole.” As he says this, he demonstrates the proper form when wielding the dual Dao, slicing off a few sunflower heads much more precisely.

He passes the weapons back to the naked boy, who takes them and, after allowing him a few steps back, begins to swing. Much more precise and careful, Lee practices with the blades, doing much better than he did the first time. After doing a running start and leaping against the stump, he turns back to Zuko, who nods and smirks in approval. This gets a laugh out of the poor boy.

Lee hands Zuko's swords back to him and the two walk down the path towards the farm, walking in the direction of the full moon. “I think you’d really like my brother Sensu,” the nude boy says as the two walk. “He used to show me stuff like this all the time.”

----

Morning came, meaning it was time for Zuko to leave. After waking and being fed a small meal, he heads outside and mounts his ostrich horse. The family follows him, and when they reach him, Sela holds up a package.

“Here,” the naked lady says as Zuko goes to take it. “This ought to get you through a few meals.”

He’s about to grab it, but the sudden sound of galloping halts his hand. He turns and sees dust rising in the distance. Getting closer are a group of soldiers, each riding their own ostrich horse. Leading them is the same man who first accosted him at the town.

“What do you think they want?” Gansu says, stepping forwards slightly.

“Trouble,” Zuko says coldly.

The men ride up to the farm, pigs oinking at them as they approach.

“What do you want, Gow?” the man asks the group's leader disdainfully.

“Just thought to tell you that your son’s battalion got captured,” the leader, Gow, says with a slightly mocking tone, all to the shock of the naked man. Turning to his men, in a more directly mocking tone, he asks them, “You boys hear what the Fire Nation did with their last group of Earth Kingdom prisoners?”

“Dressed ‘em up in Fire Nation uniforms and put ‘em on the front line unarmed, the way I heard it,” one soldier says, before spitting forwards. “Then they just watched.”

“You watch your mouth!” Gansuu shouts, very understandably angry.

Gow, not appreciating being yelled at, rides his ostrich horse closer to him, only to be cut off by Zuko maneuvering his horse to protect the family. The two glare at each other for a good moment or two. “Why bother rooting around in the mud with these pigs?” he says, turning around and beginning to ride off, the other soldiers doing the same.

----

Another typical day at the Fire Nation’s Royal Palace, nothing was out of the ordinary. The mother sits by the pond while her daughter playfully chases her son around the garden area, all as naked as the days each of them were born. Again, the usual sights within the palace walls. A family that, despite some occasional friction, got along and loved each other dearly.

However, today was the day things changed for the worst.

While Ursa was watching the fountain, a messenger in a white robe walked up to her side. He kneels down, presenting her with a scroll. She takes it and uncurls it to read what are probably just updates on the current situation involving the siege of Ba Sing Se.

Well, that was certainly the case, but what was on this scroll was so much, it causes the woman to stand from her seat. She raises her head, tears beginning to flow from her face.

This sudden shift in the mood naturally is noticed by the naked prince and princess, who turn and walk up to their mother.

The words she says will forever alter the family. “Iroh has lost his son. Your cousin Lu Ten did not survive the battle.” Her head drops.

This news knocks the wind out of Zuko. The revelation that the boy who was basically his older brother was now gone. It was too much to bear, and he just stood there, mouth agape.

Azula, meanwhile, just stands there, no visible reaction on her face. When she attempts to resume chasing her brother, she just runs into him. The naked kids begin to argue with each other over what she just did, when their mother tells them both that they were being disrespectful towards their cousin and uncle. Azula just walks off.

Zuko, still comprehending the loss of his cousin, just continues to stand there, even his mother can't snap out of it.

----

This memory, about the loss of a loved one, is what flashes through his mind as he hears the family behind him, also about to lose their loved one.

“What’s going to happen to my brother?” Lee asks as his parents embrace.

“I’m going to the front,” Gansu says after releasing his wife. “I’m going to find Sensu and bring him back.”

The two embrace again, before turning and walking back to their house to look for that old piece of Earth Kingdom armor that they hopefully didn’t already sell. Lee still stands there behind Zuko’s ostrich horse.

Running up to him, the naked boy asks, “When my dad goes … will you stay?”

“No,” he says coldly, “I need to move on.”

Not completely heartless, Zuko reaches into his pocket and pulls out a smaller sheathed blade, which he hands to Lee.

“Here,” he says in a softer tone. “I want you to have this. Read the inscription.”

Lee unsheathes the pearl dagger and reads the inscription. “Made in Earth Kingdom.”

“The other one.”

Lee raises his head and reads the words inscribed onto the blade itself. “Never give up without a fight.”

When he raises his head, he sees Zuko already riding away from the farm. The naked boy gives chase, but the ostrich horse is too fast, and he stops after a few feet.

He watches as Zuko rides away, probably never to see him again, with only the knife as a memento.

----

After receiving his new weapon from Uncle Iroh, Zuko wasted basically no time in trying to master it. Doubly so after learning of Lu Ten’s passing. So whenever he finds himself unoccupied, he’d collect the dagger and begin to swing it, either practicing his form or playing pretend with it.

Usually, he’s alone when he does this, but today he’s observed by his sister, who’s sitting on the chair behind him.

She watches as Zuko swings with his dagger for a few minutes, before he clutches his chest and falls backwards, pretending to be slain. Normally, watching her naked brother making a fool of himself would be amusing for her, but the sight of this specific display only gives Azula secondhand emberassment.

“You waste all your time playing with knives,” the naked girl says, “You’re not even good.”

Getting to his feet, red faced, Zuko points his fist at her and says, “Put an apple on your head and we’ll find out how good I am!”

No one moves for a good moment or two, before Azula leaps off her chair and walks towards Zuko. “By the way,” she says, “Uncle's coming home.”

“Does that mean … we won the war?”

“No,” Azula says, leaning forwards slightly, “it means Uncle’s a quitter and a loser.”

“What are you talking about?” Zuko asks as she begins to walk away from him. “Uncle’s not a quitter!”

“Oh yes he is!” Azula says as she stops and walks around a support pillar to face him. “He found out his son died and he just fell apart!” She turns and leans her back against the poll. “A real general would stay and burn Ba Sing Se to the ground, not lose the battle and come home crying.” she finishes, turning and flashing a slightly smug grin her brother's way.

“How do you know what he should do?” Zuko says, taking a few steps towards her. “He’s probably just sad his only kid is gone. Forever.”

At this moment, Ursa appears in the doorway. In a rarity, the woman’s fully clothed in a red robe. It must be a special occasion. “Your father has requested an audience with Fire Lord Azulon,” she announces to her children. “Clothe yourselves, hurry up!”

Zuko rushes out the door in the general direction of his room. Azula holds back, walking in front of her mother, turning to face her, and says, “Fire Lord Azulon … can’t you just call him Grandfather? He’s not exactly the powerful Fire Lord he used to be.” A light smile forms on her face as she continues. “Someone will probably take his place soon.”

“Young lady!” Ursa scolds, “Not another word!”

Azula streaks past her, running towards the building her room is. Ursa turns and watches as her daughter runs. Quietly, she says, “What is wrong with that child?”

Zuko and Azula clothe themselves in similar red robes before reconvening with their mother, after which they walk towards the throne room together. Waiting just outside is Prince Ozai, and once his wife and kids arrive, he leads them into the throne room. They walk halfway across the room, before sitting down in the designated area in front of the throne surrounded by flames. Sitting on the throne itself is the older man who now serves as Fire Lord, Azulon, who waits to see what exactly his younger son is bothering him with.

Ozai, after lecturing his children about the state of the war, ending with the question, “And how was it Great-Great-Grandfather* Sozin managed to win the Battle of Han Tui?”

“Great-Great-Grandfather won … because …” Zuko stammers, trying to remember his history lessons.

“Because even though his army was outnumbered,” Azula cuts off, “he cleverly calculated his advantages. The enemy was downwind and there was a drought. Their defenses burned to a crisp in minutes.

“Correct, my dear,” Ozai says, proud of his daughter’s intellect. “Now, would you show Grandfather the new moves you demonstrated to me?”

Azula stands up and walks forwards, so her grandfather can see what she’s about to do clearly. While she’s more used to doing her firebending naked, she has been practicing this specific move while fully clothed. She stretches for a moment, before she starts to make several very complicated moves, punctuated with occasional bursts of fire that gets more and more powerful as the moves get more complicated. Even Zuko is amazed at what she’s doing. Ending this display, she leaps up and sends a powerful blast up towards the throne, landing on her feet gracefully.

“She’s a true prodigy!” Ozai says proudly. “Just like her grandfather for whom she’s named.”

Azula turns back and sits back down next to Zuko. Out of the corner of her eye, she looks at her brother and whispers, “You’ll never catch up.”

Angry, he stands up instantly, shouting, “I’d like to demonstrate what I’ve been learning!”

Ozai frowns lightly as his son walks forwards. He begins to do the same circling motions Azula did, to decent success. But when he thrust his fist forwards, the fire blast was fairly weak in comparison to his sister’s.

The Fire Lord, naturally, is unimpressed.

He tries again, but his lack of balance causes him to fall to the floor. After a bit of panting, he gets back up and attempts to do the kick thing Azula did. He tries, but he couldn’t nail the landing and falls hard on his butt, Azula smirking at this. Ursa gets up and approaches her son.

“I failed,” he says.

“No,” Ursa says in a calming tone. “I loved watching you. That’s what you are, Zuko. Someone who keeps fighting even though it’s hard.”

“Prince Ozai,” Azulon shouts above the two towards his son, “why are you wasting my time with this pomp? Just tell me what you want. Everyone else, go!”

Ursa, Zuko, and Azula get up and turn to walk out, mother leading her children. Ursa walks out of the room first, and before Zuko walks out, Azula grabs the back of his robe and pulls him aside. She leads him behind the curtains surrounding the walls of the room.

Zuko asks, “What are you-” but is cut off by Azula shushing. She parts the curtain to allow both of them to watch the talk between their father and grandfather.

“Father,” Ozai says as he bows his head, “you must have realized as I have, that with Lu Ten gone, Iroh's bloodline has ended. After his son's death, my brother abandoned the siege at Ba Sing Se, and who knows when he will return home. But I am here, Father, and my children are alive.”

“Say what it is you want!” Azulon shouts, done with his son’s evidential hesitance to just tell him what’s on his mind.

“Father, revoke Iroh’s birthright,” he says, “I am your humble servant, here to serve you and our nation. Use me.”

Anger increasing, Azulon shouts, “You dare suggest I betray Iroh? My first born? Directly after the demise of his only beloved son? I think Iroh has suffered enough! But you ... your punishment has scarcely begun!”

With the Fire Lord intensifying anger, so do the flames surrounding the room. It’s too much for Zuko, who turns on his heels and runs away out of the throne room. Azula, meanwhile, stands her ground, turning back to the open curtains and looking intently, a very evil grin forming on her face as the talk.

Back with Zuko, he runs all the way to the other end of the palace where his room is. It’s not even a second after passing the door frame when he tosses the red robe aside and crawls into bed, naked, and trying to get what happened out of his head.

How long he lays there is hard to tell, as it both feels like hours and seconds for the boy. What does eventually snap him out of it is the sound of footsteps approaching the open door. He raises his head and sees Azula, also having ditched her robe, leaning against the doorway.

In a sing-song voice, she says, “Dad’s going to kill you!” He doesn’t really react, so she turns her head, flashes a smirk, and much more seriously says, “Really, he is.”

“Ha-ha, Azula,” Zuko says, raising himself up to face her. “Nice try.”

“Fine, don’t believe me,” she says, walking closer towards the bed. “But I heard everything. Grandfather said Dad’s punishment should fit his crime.” Walking across Zuko’s view, she raises her fist and does an imitation of her namesake. “You must know the pain of losing a first-born son. By sacrificing your own!” She holds onto one of the bed poles and rests her leg on the bed frame as she says this.

“Liar!”

“I’m only telling you for your own good,” she says, before standing up and turning around to sit on the bed frame, acting as if she just had an idea. “I know! Maybe you could find a nice Earth Kingdom family to adopt you!”

“Stop it! You’re lying!” Zuko shouts. “Dad would never do that to me!”

“Your father would never do what to you?” the voice of Ursa calls out from the doorway. Their mother, also in her natural state, walks into the room towards her daughter. “What is going on here?”

“I don’t know…” Azula says as Ursa grabs her arm and begins to drag her from the bed.

“It’s time for a talk!” Ursa says as she pulls Azula out of the room, leaving Zuko alone.

Clasping a blanket in his hands, the prince begins to chant, “Azula always lies. Azula always lies.”

----

“Azula always lies,” Zuko says, laying in a grass field, his traveler's hat held to his chest.

He lays there for a good while, until his brooding and flashbacking is interrupted by the sounds of ostrich horse clopping and cart wheels rolling. He raises his head and sees a cart riding along the road right up to him. Sitting with the reins in her hand was a naked lady, specifically Sela, who does not look happy.

“You have to help!” she shouts to him, leaping off the carriage and running to him. “It's Lee – the thugs from town came back as soon as Gansu left. When they ordered us to give them food, Lee pulled a knife on them! I don't even know where he got a knife! Then they took him away.” She then starts to sob at the situation. “They told me if he's old enough to fight, he's old enough to join the army. I know we barely know you, but …”

“I’ll get your son back,” Zuko cuts her off, standing up dramatically.

----

Sun was beginning to set over the poor town. The four soldiers stand guard in front of the watchtower, specifically, the leg of it where a naked boy is tied too. There was some debate between the men as to whether they should dress the kid in some poorly fitting armor or to send him to the front as he is.

Their debate is cut short by the sound of galloping ostrich horse hooves and Lee shouting, “Hey! There he is! I told you he’d come!”

The soldiers rise, three armed with spears and Gow with his hammers, and approach the ostrich horse, which had stopped and Zuko was now dismounting. He takes off his hat and rests it on the critters back, before walking up to the men.

“Let the kid go.”

Gow laughs loudly at this demand, it being that ridiculous. Regaining his composure, he says, “Who do you think you are, telling us what to do?”

“It doesn't matter who I am,” Zuko says coldly. “But I know who you are. You're not soldiers; you're bullies. Freeloaders, abusing your power. Mostly over women and kids. You don't want Lee in your army – you're sick cowards messing with a family who's already lost one son to the war.”

Gow turns to one of his men, saying, “Are you gonna let this stranger stand there and insult you like this?”

The man points his spear towards Zuko and charges. Zuko grabs the hilt of his sword and, without fully unsheathing it, uses the hilt to punch the man in the stomach, pushing him back. He re-sheaths the blade as the man turns and runs away, panting in fear.

Another soldier takes his place and runs up to the boy, spear pointed at him. Zuko blocks the spear with a punch and moves it out of the way. He then grabs the man’s forehead and pushes him to the ground. Upon letting him go, the man gets up and runs away as well.

The last soldier takes his turn and charges, spear drawn. Zuko holds his ground until the man gets close enough, before kicking his foot upwards, snapping the spear in two. The man takes a look at what’s now the stick he’s holding, and promptly turns and books it away from the attacker.

Seeing his captors running in fear by the mysterious stranger, Lee starts to laugh. By now a crowd has gathered to watch the fight as it finally gets good, Sela among them. The worried look on her face is one of many.

Now standing alone, Gow draws his hammers and prepares to fight, Zuko doing the same with his swords. The two stand there for a good moment, sizing each other up. Gow then strikes the ground with his hammer, using the other one to send the rock sent up Zuko’s way. The boy blocks it with his swords, shattering it to pebbles. The soldier sees this and smashes the ground again, bending up more ammo. In rapid succession, he smacks three rocks Zuko’s way with powerful blows with his hammer. The prince deflects the first two, though the third smashes into his stomach, sending him back slightly. He recovers quickly and, after readjusting his grip on his blades, charges the man.

The crowd watches the fight intently. One older man in particular is especially ecstatic.

“Give him a left! A left!” he shouts.

“It’s not a fist fight,” an older woman, evidently his wife, shouts at him.

“He’s got a left sword, don’t he?” he asks as the fight continues in front of him.

Gow, a bit more infuriated at the boy's quick recovery, repeats the move, sending three stones his way. Like last time, Zuko blocks the first two but is smacked in the abdomen with the third. This time it’s a much more devastating blow to him, causing him to fall down and stagger back. Gow smiles as he readies his next barrage of attacks.

“Look out!” the old man shouts.

“Behind you!” Lee shouts.

Gow starts to slam the ground and send stones Zuko’s way much more rapidly and much larger stones to boot. Zuko blocks and destroys each of them. He’s on the backpedal though, as Gow wouldn’t give him a break, the rocks now being basically constant. So constant that Zuko has to remain defending himself and can’t go on the offense. After going at it for a few seconds, Gow finishes it by slamming both hammers into the ground, creating a rockalanch directed at the boy. The force of the suddenly jolting up rock pillars push him to the ground, much to the shock of the crowd.

The force of the impact to the ground knocks him cold for a short while

He doesn’t know how long he’s out, but as he lays there, all he fears is fear. Fear for his own life. Fearing that what wakes him up will be the harsh attack he thinks might come.

What does wake him up, however, was a gentle touch on his shoulder.

He turns his head, eyes fluttering open, as he sees a woman standing over him, a red cloak partially covering her nude form.

“…Mom?” he says groggily as Ursa raises him to a seated position.

“Zuko, please, my love, listen to me,” she says in a hushed tone. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect you.” She pulls her barely conscious son into a hug. “Remember this, Zuko. No matter how things may seem to change, never forget who you are.”

She plants a kiss on his forehead before letting go. Zuko, still barely conscious, just watches as his mother closes the cloak, pulls the hood over her head, and turns away and walks down the dark hallway.

She’s gone before his head hits his pillow.

As he lays there, the sounds of an Earth Kingdom soldier approaching with murderous intent.

“Get up!” Lee whispers in a worried tone.

Gow raises his hammers and he walks up to the prone boy, poised to deliver the killing blow. Just as he’s about to strike, the scarred boy’s eyes open and grabs his swords. As he rises, he starts to spin rapidly, creating a large column of flame that pushes Gow over, disarming him of his hammers. The boy gets to his feet fully, surrounded by the flames he just created, a shocking sight to the young naked boy tied to the tower. He’s so shocked that he doesn’t even notice that, in the distraction, his mother ran up to his side and started to untie him.

Despite what he was just shown, Gow was still willing to fight even without his hammers. He gets to his feet and gets into a fighting stance. Zuko charges him, slashing wildly with his blades. Gow raises some earth to protect him from the first blast, but the second slams through it and pushes him away. He smashes into a wall and slides to the ground, rubble falling all over him.

Raising his head, he demands to know, “Who … who are you?”

The boy walks up to him, blades still smoking, as he begins to monolog. “My name is Zuko. Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation, and heir to the throne.” he finishes as he sheaths his swords.

The crowd stares on in silence as they take in the revelation of who their savior is. Hit especially hard is Lee, who fully realizes that the boy who he allowed into his house was an enemy, and not just any enemy. The son of the man who’s in charge of this war.

The first person to speak after a prolonged silence is the same old man, who shouts at Zuko, “Liar! I heard of you! You're not a prince, you're an outcast! His own father burned and disowned him!”

Turning his head from the crowd to the defeated man, Zuko kneels down to him. Gow flinches, expecting to be attacked further or killed, but instead, the prince just takes the dagger he confiscated from Lee.

Speaking of which, Zuko turns and walks towards the boy, his mother having just finished untying him. He was going to hand the dagger back, but the naked woman rushed between him and her son. “Not a step closer,” Sela says sternly, anger visible on her face.

Zuko stops walking and instead kneels to the ground, holding out the dagger to the boy peeking out from behind his mother's back. “It’s yours,” he says softly, “You should have it.”

“No!” the naked boy shouts. “I hate you!”

He and his mother turn their backs to him and walk off, and Zuko just stands there and watches them.

----

“Mom?”

It was early morning when Zuko woke up, and one thing was on his mind as he leapt from his bed. “Mom? Mom!”

He runs out of his room and down the halls in search of her, but he can’t find her. Hell, he can’t find anybody right now. It’s like everyone in the palace from the servants to the Fire Lord himself can’t hear him. He only encounters someone when he enters a room full of marble pillars, and he doesn’t like that she’s the first person he talks to.

Azula is standing behind the pillar, getting a good look at Zuko’s new knife, when she hears footsteps rushing past her. She sheaths the blade. She then turns and walks around the pillar and, yes indeed, it’s her brother.

“Where’s Mom?” Zuko asks, turning to face her.

“No one knows,” the nude girl says, resting against the pillar, flicking the sheathed knife in her hand. “Oh, and last night, Grandpa passed away.”

“Not funny, Azula!” the nude boy says as he starts to approach her. “You’re sick. And I want my knife back, now.” He goes to snatch it from her grasp, but she quickly darts around him.

Dangling the blade in front of him tauntingly, she says, “Who’s going to make me? Mom?”

Enraged, Zuko snatches the dagger and takes off out of the room. Well Azula obviously wasn’t going to be any help, so he decides to head to the one place he knows he’ll find his missing parents.

Upon entering the courtyard, he finds his parent standing in the usual spot under the tree branch in front of the pond. However, it was the other parent, his father, Ozai, who stands in the spot his wife usually occupies. That’s all he’s doing, just standing and staring straight forwards.

“Where is she?” Zuko asks his father, to which he doesn’t even acknowledge him. The lack of response was what sealed the deal for the prince, who just bowed his head before leaving, still not knowing what happened to his mother, all that she’s gone. He has no clue about what Ozai knows, nor would he.

That of course being, just like the turtle ducks in the pond, when the baby is threatened, the mother bites back.

----

The funeral of Fire Lord Azulon took place a few days after his death, as some final arrangements had to be made in such a short amount of time.

On the top steps of the palace sits an elaborate and ornate coffin laying atop an unlit funeral pyre, the dead ruler resting inside. Standing just next to it in a perfect row are several fire sages all in white robes. Facing the crowd of mourners, who are all in red cloaks and holding red flags, is the leader of the sages, still in red robe, but these are far more ornate. Standing off to the mans right are Ozai, Zuko and Azula, also in white robes.

Addressing the silent crowd, the sage starts his speech.

“Azulon. Fire Lord to our nation for twenty-three years. You were our fearless leader in the Battle of Garsai. Our matchless conqueror of the Hu Xin Provinces. You were father of Iroh, father of Ozai, husband of Ilah, now passed. Grandfather of Lu Ten, now passed. Grandfather of Zuko, and Azula. We lay you to rest.”

With that, the lead sage turns and walks up to the coffin and Ozai walks forwards to the center of the landing. Two of the attending sages use some firebending to light the pyre as the lead sage holds up the crown of the Fire Lord. He turns and walks up behind Ozai, who is now kneeling on the ground.

“As was your dying wish, you are now succeeded by your second son,” he says, placing the crown within Ozai’s topknot. He steps away as the newly crowned Fire Lord rises.

“Hail Fire Lord Ozai!”

The mourners in red all kneel down in honor of their new leader, the fire sages doing as well, as do everyone attending the funeral.

As they kneel, Zuko turns his head to his sister. To his utter horror, she has a very wicked smile on her face.

----

Seeing as he has nothing to gain from staying any longer, Zuko remounts his ostrich horse and sets off. As he passes through town the last time, the people line up either side of the road to watch him leave them. Several hold weapons of varying degrees, others have rocks for throwing or bending, and some are just standing there and watching. All of them have similar nasty expressions on their faces, none more so than Lee, who allowed himself to trust this stranger. It’s so bad that when he passes him, the nude boy just looks away.

Zuko ignores this, as he does with everyone else's look as he rides off into the sunset.

Once again, Zuko is alone.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 7
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

It was just before sunset over the forest, and as such the people within prepared their camp.

In a decently sized clearing lays a massive bison who is a bit tired from the days flying. Both due to the distance traveled and the warm spring sun, he’s beat, and just wants to lay down for a good while. Around and on top of him are four people, two on the ground, one on the saddle the creature wears, and one about to dismount from the tail.

On the ground by its head is a girl. She has tanned skin, blue eyes and brown hair done in a braid down the back and in loops at the sides. She wears a blue dress with white trims that goes down to just above her knee, brown fur boots, blue leather bracers, and a necklace with a unique carving on it.

Closer to the bison's middle is a boy, the oldest of this group. Like the girl, his skin is tanned, eyes blue, and hair brown and tied up into a ponytail. He sports brown knee-high boots, white arm wrapping going up to his shoulders, blue fingerless gloves, a holster for his boomerang, a sheath for his club, and nothing else. This mostly nude boy holds his arms up towards the one atop the bison, who’s tossing him a sleeping bag.

Speaking of which, on the bison's back, is a boy. He has no hair, lighter skin, and gray eyes. His most striking feature are his tattoos. Lining his limbs and back are light blue lines, ending in arrows pointing out of his hands. Feet, and forehead. Every inch of these tattoos are visible, since this boy is completely naked.

Leaping off the bison onto the surprising soft ground is another girl, both the youngest and newest member of this group. Like the bald boy, her skin is on the lighter side, and she sports black hair mostly held up in a large bun by a green and yellow headband, though some bangs slip through. Her most striking feature are her eyes, which are both round and have a milky look to them while they’re supposed to be green. Beyond the headband, she wears green and brown leather wrist and ankle braces and, like both boys, is naked beyond that.

Upon landing on the ground, she immediately notices the feel of it beneath her, it being how she sees. “Hey! You guys picked a great campsite,” Toph says, wriggling her toes into the thick white fur ground beneath her. “The grass is so soft.”

“That’s not grass,” a slightly displeased Sokka says, “Appa’s shedding.”

“Oh, gross!” a very displeased Katara says, raising her foot warily.

“That’s not gross,” Aang says from atop Appa, a blue bird perched on his head and a butterfly fluttering past him. “It’s just a part of spring! You know, rebirth, flowers blooming and Appa gets a new coat,” he finishes as his lemur, Momo, leaps up to catch the flying insect.

“Ah,” Katara says sarcastically as the bison grooms himself, “the beauty of spring.”

Just then, Appa’s nose starts to twitch, and before long, lets out a powerful sneeze that releases a thick cloud of his fur all around the area. Katara, the only clothed person, finds her dress coated in the stuff, and she begins to wave her arms about to get it off her. Unfortunately, the fur is rather sticky. “Stop! Appa, stop! Ugh!” She then begins to cough as some of the hair gets into her mouth.

“It’s not that bad, Katara,” Sokka says as he quickly collects a huge wad of the stuff. He turns around, the fur used to make a beehive shaped wig on his head, as he continues, “It makes a great wig!”

“And a great beard!” Aang says as he leaps to the ground, white fur beard now on his face. The two nude boys shift their gazes to each other, and then start to laugh, pointing at their silly Appa hair.

Katara, exasperated, turns around and starts to brush her clothing of the fur with her hands. “I’m just glad we finally have another girl in the group, because you two are disgusting,” she says in an annoyed tone. In truth, Toph was a bit of a mixed bag for her. On one hand, she’s grateful to not only have an earthbending teacher for Aang, not to mention another girl, but on the other hand, it’s yet another person she has to get used to seeing nude twenty-four seven and her somewhat arrogant attitude. But as far as company goes, there’s a lot worse, and she does seem to be a bit more mature than either of the boys.

“Excuse me,” she says sweetly, walking from behind the boys, arms held behind her back and tightly pressed against her body, “does anyone have a razon? Because I’ve got some hairy pits!” she says, raising her arms up, letting the fur she’s stuffed between her arms poof out.

Katara rolls her eyes as the three bursts into laughter, Aang getting his nose tickled by the fur covering his mouth and nose. This causes him to sneeze, blowing away both his and his friend's fur covering and launching him against the bison’s leg. Upon falling to the ground, he pulls another tuff of the stuff with him, now stuck on his back and butt. The three immediately start laughing again at this.

Katara tries to maintain a stern composure, but even she cracks and giggles at the sight herself.

----

An hour or so later, the sky was darker, and the camp was being properly set up. Aang uses his airbending to set up the tent while Sokka walks back and drops the firewood he collected beside it. Katara, meanwhile, uses her waterbending to stir a pot of water, set to be used for cooking, when her attention shifts away. Specifically, she’s casting her gaze towards the naked girl lazing against a rock, chewing a piece of wheat.

“So Toph,” she says after approaching the girl, “usually when setting up camp, we try to divide up the work.”

With a shrug, Toph says, “Hey, don’t worry about me. I’m good to go.”

“Well, actually what I’m trying to say is,” she says as she starts to gesture towards the others, “some of us might fetch water, while someone else might set up the fire pit, or put up the tent.” Momo then flies past them, dropping several clumps of berries onto her open hands. “Even Momo does his fair share.”

“Katara, I’m fine,” she says breezily. “I can carry my own weight. I don’t need a fire,” she pats her bag, “I’ve already collected my own food and look,” she shifts to a seated position before raising two flat earth slabs into a tent shape. “My tent’s all set up,” she finishes, resting her cheek on her hand.

“Well that’s great for you,” Katara says, slightly irritated, “but we still need to finish-”

“I don’t understand what’s the problem here!” Toph shouts, slightly angered at this convo.

“Never mind,” she says, waving her hand and walking away as Toph slides herself into her tent with some earthbending.

With Toph not helping, the rest of the camp setup takes a bit longer than expected. Granted, still around as long as they usually do, but it feels longer thanks to the extra person. Still, the sky doesn’t change remarkably by the time they’re done with the big stuff. Really, there was only one thing left to do, which the boys would handle.

Sokka stands at Appa’s side, raising his forearms up and down, while Aang stands on top of the bison unlatching the straps of his saddle. Once done with that, he uses some airbending to lift the leather saddle off Appa’s back, accidentally landing on top of Sokka, who grunts loudly on impact.

The bald boy leaps to the ground and begins to assist his friend out from under the saddle, saying, “Sorry.”

Meanwhile Katara, putting down the water jug, had thought about what she said to the new girl, and she felt a bit bad. Both because she was new and the fact that she’s necessary to Aang’s mission. She walks up to Toph, who’s eating some of the food she’s gathered, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly as she says, “Hey Toph, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I think we’re all just a little tired and getting on each others nerves.”

“Yeah,” Toph says casually between bites, “you do seem pretty tired.”

This makes Katara a bit mad. After all, she’s the one trying to apologize. “I mean all of us.”

Toph just tosses what’s left of the food item to the side, before turning around and crawls into her earth tent. She lays down on her stomach, resting her head on her arms, as she says, “Well, good night.”

“Good night,” Katara says, slightly irked, as she turns and walks off.

----

Night had fallen, and as such, the group went to sleep. Aang lays on Appa’s arm, Momo, his head, the Water Tribe siblings share their tent, and Toph sleeps in her earth tent. Despite the fact that the nights were getting shorter by the day, they still had plenty of time to rest, despite the setbacks the day brought.

However, hopes of a calm sleep were dashed the instant Toph’s unseeing eyes jolted open. She promptly raises to her knees, placing her hand onto the solid ground to get a better feel of the vibrations she just felt. There’s a lot of movement and earth being shifted a decent distance away. Far enough for the rest to see but close enough to potentially be a problem. Not making it better is that it feels like it’s getting closer. Then her ears start to twitch as she picks up some distant noise, that’s also getting louder and how it aint right or natural.

The naked girl gets up, turns, and rushes towards the others. “There’s something coming towards us!” Toph shouts.

“What is it?” Aang asks, waking up instantly as Sokka and Katara poke their heads out of their tent.

Toph crouches down, placing her hand on the ground again. “It feels like an avalanche, but also not an avalanche.”

The three gather around the girl, looking down at what she was doing with keen interest, and how little she was giving was a tad frightening, at least for Aang and Katara.

“Your powers of perception are frightening,” Sokka says sarcastically.

“Should we leave?” Katara asks the group, slightly nervous.

Aang shrugs. “Better safe than sorry.”

The group hastily collects their things, reaffix the saddle onto Appa’s back, and climb onto the bison. They’re air bound in a matter of minutes, still very groggy from their hasty awakenings. Once they’re above the tree’s, their attention turns to what lies behind them.

“What is that thing?” Katara asks, confused at what she sees.

In the distant forest is something that’s billowing smoke as it moves. Something mechanical, fast, probably very big and dangerous, and almost certainly Fire Nation.

So they just fly higher, attempting to put up enough distance between them and whatever this was. Everyone hates this, and all they want to do is just get to somewhere safe to sleep. Even Aang, the guy who’s holding the reins, is struggling to keep his eyes open.

Finally, after a good hour or so, Appa finally lands in another smooth, rocky clearing in the trees, this one closer to the mountain range. The moment he lands, Toph leaps off the bison's back and runs a bit away from him. As the others slowly dismount, the naked girl leaps into the air and lands flat on the ground.

“Ah, land sweet land,” she says in a relieved tone. She rises with some earthbending and continues cheerfully, “See you guys in the morning!”

“Actually,” Katara says as she takes a few steps towards the girl, “can you help us unload?”

“Really?” she says sarcastically, partially turning her head to her. “You need me to help unload Sokka’s funky-smelling sleeping bag?”

As this happens, Sokka is passed the aforementioned bag. Lightly offended by her words, he takes a sniff, and he turns his head away instantly, red faced and visibly disgusted, before fainting.

Unfazed by her brother, Katara says curtly, “Well, yeah. That and everything else. You’re a part of our team now, and-”

“Look!” Toph shouts, irritated, as she points at the waterbender. “I didn’t ask you to help unload my stuff!” She turns and begins to walk off. “I’m carrying my own weight.”

“That’s not the point,” an angry Katara says, before stomping towards the nude girl. “Ever since you joined us, you’ve been nothing but selfish and unhelpful!”

This enrages the young girl. “What!” she shouts before making a half turn. “Look here, sugar queen,” she points at her again, “I gave up everything I had so that I could teach Aang earthbending.” As she talks, Katara’s muscles visibly tense up, and at one point she attempts to raise her hand to get a word in, only to be cut off. “So don’t talk to me about being selfish!” Toph sits down harshly, the moment her butt touches the ground, two earth slabs rise up , forming another earth tent.

“Sugar Queen?!” Katara shouts furiously, but before she could get another word in, another earth slab raises, separating the two and causing her to stumble. “D-did you just slam the door in my face?! How can you be so infuriating?!” She then begins to pound her fists against the rock wall, kicking its base as she does.

Watching this whole exchange are the two naked boys, who have stopped doing anything else.

“Should we do something?” Aang asks Sokka, genuinely concerned by this.

Sokka, who’s just amused by this, simply shrugs, “Hey, I’m just enjoying the show.”

Still, Aang felt it best he intervenes and stop this, so he walks up. “Okay, okay, you both need to calm down.

“Both?!” Katara shouts, before turning her head harshly to him, with a crazed expression and bloodshot eyes.

“I’M COMPLETELY CALM!!”

“I…” Aang says awkwardly, slowly walking away, “can see that.”

----

Due to how late it was, there was no real time to set the tent. So the trio just sleep on the ground, the siblings in their bags and Aang on the ground. They’re determined to get some sleep tonight, so the second the bags were set up, they laid down and tried to get some shuteye.

It doesn’t last too long, courtesy of the group's sole clothed person deciding to mock the newbie with the one thing that’ll get under her skin.

“The stars sure are beautiful tonight,” Katara says mockingly, before shifting her gaze towards the rock tent. “Too bad you can’t see them, Toph!” This causes Sokka to angrily cover his head with the sleeping bag.

In an instant, a fissure emerges from beneath Toph’s rock tent and speeds towards Katara’s sleeping bag. It launches her up in the air and causes her to land on top of her brother's bag.

Sokka, very annoyed at his continued sleep interruptions, shoves her bag and her off him. “Hey, how’s a guy supposed to sleep with all this yelling,” he shouts to her, before shifting his gaze to the tent, “and earthbending!”

Not answering the naked boy’s question, Toph reopens her tent and places her palm on the ground. It’s just as she suspected. “That thing is back!” she says, much to the shock of the others.

“Well, how far away is it?” Sokka asks, already laying back down and placing the covers over his head. “Maybe we can close our eyes for a few minutes.”

No one says anything for a moment, before a noise causes Aang and Katara to turn their heads around. They both look up above the tree line, and the billowing gray clouds in the distance.

“I don’t think so, Sokka,” Aang says at this.

The four, along with all of their stuff, was on Appa’s back in under a minute, and he took off just as fast. Last time was bad, this time was even worse, especially considering the growing tensions. Sokka just immediately sprawls himself on the saddle floor, determined to get at least some shut eye. Aang, as always, holds the reins and Katara and Toph sit at the back of the saddle, looking out to the woods behind them.

“Seriously, what is that thing?” Katara asks the group as she watches the cloud of smoke they’re slowly flying away from.

“And how does it keep finding us?” Toph asks.

Aang, turning around and leaning on the saddle, tells the girls, “I don’t know. But this time, I’m going to make sure we lose it.”

Then Appa starts to rise, higher and higher, well beyond the woods and into the rougher mountainous terrain. Despite the bison’s own tiredness, he makes good height. However, even with this, when he does land on a flat mountaintop, he lands on his side, knocking the four onto the ground.

Not like any of them cared at this point.

“Okay, forget about setting up camp,” Sokka says, quickly unrolling his bag and sliding his naked body into it. “I’m finding the softest pile of dirt and going to sleep.”

“That’s good because Toph wasn’t going to help anyway!” Katara shouts as she adjusts her sleeping bag to use as a pillow.

“Oh,” Toph says, resting her head on her bag, “I didn’t realize the baby still needed someone to tuck her in bed.”

Before Katara could shout anything back at the naked girl, Aang cuts her off by saying, “Come on guys, there’s something after us and we don’t even know what or who it is.”

“It could be Zuko,” Katara says as she rolls onto her side towards Aang. “We haven't seen him since the North Pole.”

“Who’s Zuko?” Toph asks.

“Oh,” Sokka says, “just some angry freak with a ponytail who’s tracked us all over the world.”

Katara raises up slightly, shifting her gaze to her brother, who himself is sporting a ponytail. “What’s wrong with ponytails, Ponytail?” she asks mockingly.

“This is a warrior’s wolf tail,” the nude boy says, pointing at his ponytail.

“Well, it certainly tells the other warriors that you’re fun and perky.”

“Anyway,” he says, raising his head, “whoever’s chasing us couldn’t have followed us here, so, now would everyone just shhh?” He lays back down, but the second his back hits the ground, Momo leaps onto his chest and starts chittering. “No Momo, shhh,” he says, holding a finger to the lemur's mouth. “Sleepy time.”

Momo runs over his head, leaps back onto the ground, and rushes towards the ledge of the rock, continuing to chatter all the way. The four turn towards him as his ears raise in alertness.

Sokka buries his face in his hands. “Oh, don’t tell me…”

“That’s impossible,” Aang says. “There’s no way they could have tracked us.”

“I can feel it with my own two feet!” Toph confirms, causing the naked bald boy to run up to the edge of the cliff.

In the distance, he and the others gathering by his sides see what looks like a large, longer metal tank stumbling up a slope onto more level terrain. The original trio have faced Fire Nation before, but this was different. It was bigger, longer (as if it were a multi-carted vehicle), and much more advanced and dangerous looking.

Katara, very nervous at this, suggests, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Maybe we should face them,” Aang says calmly. “Find out who they are. Who knows, maybe they’re friendly.”

“Always the optimist,” Sokka says hopelessly.

Further down the mountain, the tank train slows to a halt. The instant it’s stationary, a side of one of the carts opens up. Inside are three mongoose lizards emerging from the mist. Atop each of them is a rider. On the far-right side (from their perspective) is a pale girl with amber eyes and a long face in a red and black outfit, as well as long dark black hair tied up into two small buns either side of her head and two long strands of hair going over and down her shoulders. To the left is a girl with a round face, gray eyes and chocolate brown hair tied up into a long braid. Besides the dark pink wrist bands and brown sandals, she’s naked. In the middle is a girl with amber eyes and black hair tied up in a topknot besides two strands of bangs either side of her face. Sticking into her topknot is a crown shaped like fire. She’s completely naked.

As they begin to advance towards the four, Katara gets alarmed as she recognizes them. “It’s those three girls from Omashu!” she shouts, to which they all get into fighting stances,

“We can take them,” Toph says with determination. “Three on three.”

“Actually Toph,” Sokka pipes up, “there’s four of us.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says sheepishly, “I didn’t count you. You know, no bending and all.”

“I CAN STILL FIGHT!” he shouts, turning to face her.

“Okay, three on three plus Sokka.”

“Errrgh!” he vocalizes, face going red.

Toph flexes her arms a few times, causing several columns of earth to jut out in the path of these lizards. The lizards leap over them, barely fazed, and continue.

“Well, we wanted to find out who they were, and we found out,” Sokka says, putting his boomerang back into its holster. “Now let's get out of here.”

As he, Aang and Katara turn and run, Toph stomps down, greeting a massive wall of rock to block the trio’s path to them. Unfazed, Azula simply rotates her limbs for a second of two, before thrusting her arm towards it. Lightning emerges from her fingertips, striking the wall and destroying this. Toph, needless to say, was shocked at this. Taking her turn to strike, Mai swings her arm, releasing a flurry of stilettos. Toph launches herself into the air with an earth pillar to avoid them, the arrows embedding into the stone.

As she lands in Appa, Aang shouts, “Appa, yip yip!” and the bison takes off in a hurry.

Azula, not wanting her prey to get away, shoots a powerful, bright blue, fire blast towards them, which Appa narrowly avoids.

----

Needless to say, the bison was beat, as are the people on his back, who are all downright miserable at the lack of sleep and constant motion. Katara still has her mind on something, and it’s not Toph's lack of helpfulness for a change.

“I can’t believe those girls follow us all the way from Omashu,” she says, still shocked.

“I still think we could have taken them,” a grumpy Toph says.

“Are you kidding me?” she asks. “The crazy blue firebending and the flying daggers are bad enough, but last time we saw them, one of those girls did something that took my bending away. That's scary.”

Before they could fully contemplate how to deal with this problem, another emerged. That being the sun slowly creeping above the mountainous horizon.

“Oh no,” Sokka says at this, “the sun is rising. We’ve been up all night with no sleep!”

“Sokka, we’ll be okay,” Aang says in a reassuring tone.

“Are you sure?” he says nervously, “I’ve never not slept before!” He holds his hands to his head as he begins to freak out. “What if I fall asleep now and something happens? And something always happens!”

“Every time we land,” Katara says, “those girls are there. So we’ll just have to keep flying.”

“We can’t keep flying forever,” Aang says

Still, they had to get away from that vehicle and those girls, so they kept flying

----

To say he was glad to finally be on green grass again was an understatement. After Zuko’s, let’s say, mixed encounter with a village for mostly nude people in a hot plain, he had a new mission, at least for now.

He, for the most part, rode his ostrich horse along the paths and flatlands of the uninhabited areas of the Earth Kingdom, searching for something, anything, to get him on the right path.

After a long search, he finds something he’s looking for, and promptly follows it. So now he rides along the scorched indentation marks of a massive vehicle, the smoke it’s creating in the distance being his guide to how close he is to his target.

----

Back on Appa’s back, the group finally begins to nod off. While the two naked boys and clothed girl were used to occasionally sleeping on the bison's back midflight, the nude girl wasn’t and the other three preferred the ground. But if they can catch some shuteye up here, they’re gonna do it.

Aang, hands still tightly around the reins, yawns as he asks, “So what’s our plan?”

“Don’t know…” Toph says, slumped against the edge of the saddle, “too tired to think.”

“I’m sure we’ll come up with something after a short nap,” a drowsy Katara says, she and Sokka lying next to each other at the far end of the saddle.

“Yes,” a relieved Sokka says softly, “Sleep.”

The four rest for a good few moments, before they start to feel themselves rise up. All eyes jots open in an instant as they grab for the saddle's edges or the reins to hold onto the now rapidly descending bison, even Momo has to grab onto Toph’s leg.

“What’s going on?” the young girl asks frantically.

Aang, gripping on the reins with all his might, says, “Appa fell asleep!” As they fall, the three non airbenders cling on for dear life, while Aang slowly clambers down to eye and ear level for the bison. “Wake up, buddy!” he shouts urgently.

Sure enough, the sound of Aang’s voice is enough for Appa to slowly open his eyes. They suddenly widen in realization of their freefall, and he promptly acts. Just above the tree line, he regains flight, but it’s not smooth. He flies, but he doesn’t gain height, he just flies through the tree line, causing branches and leaves to smack into the four. They hold on, but it’s rough, especially for the naked boys and girl, who have nothing to protect their skin from the shattered splinters and leaves. So when Appa crash lands into the ground, Aang, Sokka, and Toph are completely covered in minor scrapes and cuts. So’s Katara, but it’s limited to her head, arms and legs.

Sliding off Appa’s head and landing on the ground, Aang says, “Appa’s exhausted.”

“Okay, we’ve put some distance between us and them.,” Sokka says as he and the others trudge away from the bison across the ground, sleeping bags in hand. “The plan right now is to follow Appa’s lead and get some sleep.”

Katara, despite her burning desire to get some damn sleep, is still irritated by the previous night’s argument that she just can’t help but bring it up again. “Of course. We could’ve gotten some sleep earlier, if Toph didn’t have such issues.”

Toph, who until now was lying face down on the ground fast asleep, wakes up in a start at this comment. Slamming her arms into the ground, the nude girl shouts, “What!?”

Aang, still having enough energy to at least attempt to calm things down, says loudly, “All right, all right, everyone’s exhausted! Let’s just get some rest.”

“No,” Toph says, rising to her feet and facing the other girl, “I want to hear what Katara has to say. You think I have issues?”

“I’m just saying,” Katara says, very irritated. “Maybe if you helped out earlier, we could have set up our camp faster and gotten some sleep and then maybe we wouldn't be in this situation!”

“You’re blaming me for this?” she says, stomping towards the clothed girl.

Katara tosses away her bag and gestures towards the advancing nude girl, which would have said for her to try her, if she could see anyways.

Aang, still wanting to keep the peace between his waterbending and earthbending masters, stands between the girls. “No! No, she’s not blaming you,” he tells Toph.

“No, I’m blaming her!” she says angrily.

“Hey,” Toph says, shoving the bald boy out of the way, “I never asked you for diddly-doo-dah. I carry my own weight. Besides, if there’s anyone to blame, it’s Sheddy over here!”

“What?” Aang says, having landed on the base of Appa’s tail. “You’re blaming Appa?”

“Yeah, you want to know how they keep finding us?” she says, before grabbing a handful of the bison's shedding fur. As it blows away in the wind, she continues. “He’s leaving a trail everywhere we go!”

“How dare you blame Appa!” Aang shouts, leaping onto the ground to face her. “He saved your life three times today! If there's anyone to blame it's you! You're always talking about how you carry your own weight, but you're not. He is! Appa's carrying your weight. He never had a problem flying when it was just the three of us!”

The girl, completely silent, turns and walks towards her bag. With a stomp of her foot, it launches into the air. She catches it and turns to walk away.

“Wait!” Sokka shouts, standing in front of her with his arms outstretched. Without the girl so much as slowing down, he slides out of the way, completely baffled.

All they could do was watch as this naked girl, the girl who was supposed to teach Aang earthbending, just walked off into the distance. They watch until Toph's bare back has completely vanished from view.

Aang stands there in stunned silence for a good while after, before throwing his hands up in the air. “What did I just do?” the nude boy shouts, before slumping down besides Appa. “I can’t believe I yelled at my earthbending teacher. Now she’s gone.”

Katara, also feeling regretful for her petty grudge, says, “I know. We’re all just trying to get used to each other. And I was so mean to her.”

“Yeah,” Sokka says as he takes a drink from a small cup, “you two were pretty much jerks.”

“Thanks, Sokka,” she says sarcastically.

“No problem.”

“We need to find Toph and apologize,” Katara says with urgency.

“Okay, but what are we going to do about the tank full of dangerous naked ladies chasing us?”

Grabbing a handful of Appa’s fur and letting it flow with the wind, something lights up in Aang’s big head. “I have a plan.”

----

Who would’ve thought a bath could solve a problem like this?

When Aang told the siblings of his plan, they both agreed that it was necessary. Rousing Appa, they slowly lead the bison along the forest clearing. After a bit of walking, they come upon a decently sized and fast flowing river. Aang leads the bison into the stream immediately, and Sokka takes a moment to remove his boots before joining. Katara holds back a bit longer, since she’s actually wearing clothes which she does not want to get wet. Thanks to her tiredness, she draws a complete blank on the fact that her dress has a tie at the right hip to undo the whole thing and instead just lifts it over herself. She tosses the discarded dress aside onto the removed saddle, seemingly unaware of the fact that her bandeau came with it, leaving her bottom and boots on, the latter of which comes off just before she heads into the water to help Aang. Thanks to both her sleeplessness and urgency caused by the girls chasing them, she’s completely uncaring at the moment.

Well, as Appa lay in the river, Aang and Katara bends streams of water onto the bison’s back at a constant rate. Sokka watches by the side of his head as the shedded fur flows with the currents, clumps of it getting caught on the jutting rocks. Even Momo gets involved by using the scrub brush on the top of the bison's head. He only gets a few scrubs in before a jet of water forces him off, the same jet drenching Sokka a few seconds later. He backs up a bit, but since he really wasn't doing that much, the process of cleaning Appa was still rather quick.

Once he was confident enough that they did a good job, Aang leads the bison to the shore, Katara and Sokka in tow. As the older boy slides off his holster to ring the water out, the bald boy says, “Toph was right. The fur was leaving a trail right to us. But now that he’s clean, no more trail.”

Katara was still somewhat skeptical about Appa’s prospects. After all, he was still low on sleep like the rest of them. “Are you sure he’s okay to fly?” she asks the bald naked boy.

“He’ll be fine as long as we leave his saddle and all our stuff here,” Aang says, snatching a satchel from the pile of stuff they own. He then crouches down and starts to collect scattered fur on the ground. “I’m going to use Appa’s fur to make a fake trail to lead the tank off-course.”

Without another word, Katara and Sokka climb onto Appa, her taking the reins, saying, “Yip yip” and taking off. Appa, still a bit groggy, manages to get into the air, but he does brush against the treetops, breaking several of them. The girl is so preoccupied with this plan that she completely forgot to dress herself, or even grab the discarded clothing.

Aang watches them fly away until they’re out of sight, before turning around and starts to run, open glider held atop his back. He takes off from the area, leaving the satchel slightly open to allow the fur to spill out onto the trees and grass behind him, creating a decoy trail.

----

Far, but not too far away from this, a small, nude, completely alone girl walks along the path, face almost devoid of expressions. As she walks, all she could think about was how stupid she’s been. She’s basically thrown her old life away to run around naked in the wilderness. But while she’s all for running around naked, especially in the wilderness, she’d rather do it and be appreciated. She fled her doting parents to teach the Avatar earthbending, and he basically tells her to go away before she so much as give him anything to learn. And Katara, just, Katara. She could leave the fact that she seems to have a problem with people being naked (or her in particular, she couldn’t tell) alone, as she couldn’t care less about how she feels about it. It’s the girls constant nagging. She pulls her own weight, and that girl just needs to learn that.

Toph’s reflections stop as she feels another presence through the vibrations against her bare feet. She promptly shifts her stance and unseeing gaze in the direction it came from, something behind a large rock. She holds still for a good few moments, before kicking her foot in the direction of the rock.

The fissure she creates travels the short distance between her and whatever lays behind the rock quickly. A massive dust cloud emerges from behind it, as does a grunt of pain.

Toph rushes towards the rock, leaping on top of it and getting into a fighting stance, shifting her gaze downwards in the general direction of the figure she feels and hears, an older, larger man who’s rubbing his hindquarters in pain.

“Ow,” Iroh says with a grimace, “That really hurt my tailbone.”

----

Saying Mai was unenthused about their current chase would be an understatement. Not only had she been woken up in the dead of night, but she was forced out of the relative comfort of the tank train and had to scour the forest for the three, scratch that she could swear she saw four up there, children throughout the rest of the night and early morning and afternoon. She’s thankful she decided to sleep in her regular clothes, otherwise she would’ve had to head out in her underwear. Since Ty Lee exclusively slept nude, so that's how she was when she left the tank on her mongoose lizard. Azula hasn’t been in anything more than her steel soled sandals since Omashu, so the fact that she was still naked was about as surprising as the sun coming up. It wasn’t all bad, after the Avatar fled, they went back to the tank and got an extra hour or two of sleep, but this would itself get interrupted by the sudden stopping of the train. Mai restocked her weapons and Ty Lee redressed herself in the pink top and pants she got from Omashu as Azula heads out ahead of them to investigate why the trial has gone cold.

So she and Ty Lee now stand either side of Azula as she crouches beside a river, examining some white tuffs caught in the rocks.

“Wads of wet fur,” she says dryly as the princess takes some in her hands. “How delightful.”

“Hmmm … they’re not wads,” Ty Lee says thoughtfully, “they’re more like bundles, or bunches?” The girl starts to scratch her head. “It’s got an uh sound.”

“Clumps?” Mai asks, very unamused.

Clapping her hands together, the girl says brightly, “Clumps! They’re clumps!”

She then rushes to embrace the gloomy girl which, while unexpected, is slightly less unwelcome thanks to the fact that she actually bothered to clothe herself this time. Mai simply shifts her gaze to her side, where her eyebrows raise at the sight of more fur leading away in that direction.

“The trail goes this way,” she says, separating herself from Ty Lee’s grasp and pointing in that direction.

Azula promptly stands up and glances in the direction her old friend is pointing, when something else catches her eye. The naked princess turns heel in the other direction and her gaze rises up to the tree line. She takes note of the broken treetops and puts it together in an instant. “The Avatar’s trying to give us the slip,” she says, pointing at the treetops. “You two head in that direction and keep your eye out for the bison.” She then shifts her gaze towards the fur trail, her eyes narrowing. “I’ll follow this trail.”

With that, the mongoose lizards are let out and the girls mount them. They head off, Mai and Ty Lee heading in the direction the broken treetops lead, and Azula following the fur trail.

----

High in the sky, there’s the now unusual sight of a bald naked person flying through the air on his glider, most people having not even been alive when the last known case of this happened.

As the very sleepy Aang flies through the air, he creates a small path of bison fur. He flies well beyond the forest to a greenscape, and then a desert. After a bit more flying, he finds what he’s searching for, and shifts his glider to fly down to it. His bare feet land at the entrance of a desert town, one that’s completely abandoned and decayed. With a twirl, he closes his glider back into a staff.

The nude boy begins to walk down the middle road of the town, dropping fur from his satchel as he goes. He walks all the way to the other end of the town, before turning around and dumping out the rest of the fur on the ground at his feet.

Sitting down cross legged, Aang stares out at the town and the desert beyond, waiting for the inevitable appearance of his pursuer.

----

Thanks to Katara having Appa fly slowly, he maintains a decent height above the trees, and this allows them to go at a steady pace around the forest to allow the two to search for a very specific naked girl.

“Toph couldn’t have made it too far.” Sokka says as he scans the nearby woods. Suddenly, he hears some aggressive chittering, and he turns to see Momo, who’s looking out behind them. “What is it, Momo?” he asks, turning around to see what the lemur sees, his face dropping. “Ooooh, no! Katara!”

A short distance behind them, chasing them with vigorous intensity, are Mai and Ty Lee on their mongoose lizards. Well that diversion lasted long, didn’t it?

Katara, hearing Sokka’s tone and immediately getting it, turns her head to face him. “How did they find us?” she shouts. She turns back and whips the reins in order to get Appa to move faster.

He doesn’t. In fact, thanks to his own lack of sleep, he’s slowing down, and getting lower, closer to the tree line.

“Appa,” Sokka says urgently as they descend, “come on, we need to go faster!”

“He’s too tired!” Katara shouts back.

“Not good, not good!” the naked boy says frantically, looking back to see the two girls still hot on their trail. Appa growls as he descends, still very groggy. Turning back towards the front of the bison and his sister, Sokka sees exactly where they’re flying towards, and how they could avoid the girls. “We just need to make it across that river!” he shouts.

“Come on Appa,” Katara pleads, “just a little further…”

Still, Appa might not make it, as by now he’s descended enough to start brushing against the treetops, even breaking a few. They’re also low enough for the girl with the projectiles to start attacking. Mai takes this opportunity to swing her arm, sending another barrage of stilettos towards them, to which Sokka just barely dodges.

Also lucky for the sibling, now they’ve reached the river. Appa skids across the surface of the water before crashing into the shore on the other side, knocking the siblings over. After a few seconds they regain their footing and turn back towards the other side of the river.

“We made it!” Sokka shouts. “We’re safe.”

“You did it Appa!” Katara.

The two siblings embrace for a second or so, but Katara, who’s facing the river, sees something that makes her gasp as her eyes widen. Sokka turns around and wears a matching look of horror at what he sees.

The two mongoose lizards, not even slowing down, ran right into the river. Instead of going in the water, they paddle the water rapidly to remain on the surface. These girls were not letting up.

After regaining composure, Katara steps towards the river, spinning her body and arms as she moves. She finally thrusts her arm in the direction of one of the mongoose lizards, specifically the one on which the girl in the pink clothes is riding, and sends a wave towards it.

Unfortunately for Katara, Ty Lee sees this coming and leaps up to avoid it. In an almost airbender-like display, the girl flies through the air and lands on one of the tree branches. She glances down at the girl, eyebrow raising slightly at the girl now only in her underwear, even a light giggle. As Katara opens her waterskin to attack, Ty Lee leaps from trunk to trunk as she gets closer, landing on the ground in a summersault. Katara attempts to use the water to whip the girl, but she gets too close and begins to trust her arms towards her limbs. Katara, remembering what this girl did the last time they fought, how she somehow blocked her bending, forgoes the offensive plan in favor of dodging. The topless waterbender somehow manages to get distance, and she promptly starts to shoot sharp water discs at the acrobat, who dodges with ease.

By then, Mai, still on her mongoose lizard, had reached them and wasted no time. She fires several stilettos from her sleeves towards the waterbender, but the naked boy rushes between them, blocking the projectiles with his machete and boomerang. He then throws the boomerang at the black-haired girl, but she just leaps off the lizard to dodge. She lands and with a kick, sends more of the arrows towards him. He blocks them with the machete, ready to fight this girl. Arms outstretched behind her back, Mai promptly breaks out into a run. Not towards Sokka, but towards Katara, who turns and runs away.

Meanwhile, Ty Lee runs in his direction, doing a flip before leaping into the air. She lands right beside the nude boy, who’s about to give chase to Mai, and quickly prods his right arm with her fingers. The limb goes limb, dropping the boomerang in the process. He promptly turns his head and goes to swing at her with the club. She simply prods the left arm in a similar manner, causing it to go limp and drop the weapon. Sokka glances at both of his incapacitated limbs for a second, before going in with a kick. His leg is likewise rendered limp, and as the girl goes in for another blow, he rears his head back before bending forwards quickly. Ty Lee’s hand smashes right into his forehead, causing her to back away and shake her fist in pain.

“Good try,” Sokka says, who’s very off balance, “but no.”

Ty Lee shoots him a nasty glare, albeit one that quickly shifts into a grin after a split-second glance down.

Meanwhile, Mai chases the two thirds naked waterbender along the river edge. The girl finally stops when she’s cornered by a big tree trunk, at which point, she shifts her stance to the river. She raises her arms to bend the water in the river, but just before she could do anything with it, two shuriken knives pin her wrist bracers to the bark. She gasps in horror as Mai sends a third knife her way, similarly pinning her underwear to the tree.

Not the one to give up, Sokka makes an attempt to help his sister, but since his limbs are paralyzed, he can only hobble towards her. He predictably falls a bit between her and Mai.

“How are you doing?” he asks his sister in his usual sarcastic tone.

“Well,” she says frantically, now fully aware of her almost nakedness, “you know…”

The twos gaze shifts back to the gloomy girl, the acrobat now joining her. In her trademark dry tone, Mai says, “I thought when Ty Lee and I finally caught you guys it would be more exciting.” She shrugs. “Oh well, victory is boring.”

Before the girls could move any closer to their prone adversaries, a sudden gust of wind blow the two several yards away, landing in the river.

Thankfully, a certain bison managed to rest up enough to come to their aid with a powerful swing of his tail. “Thanks Appa,” Sokka says, still prone on the ground. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.” In appreciation for those words, Appa licks the boy, who’s grateful expressions shift to one of irritation.

Meanwhile, Mai and Ty Lee, thoroughly defeated for the time, walk their way towards the shore before collapsing, Ty Lee on her knees and Mai to the ground.

While she wrings her braid out, Ty Lee turns to her friend, saying, “Was it just me, or was that naked guy kind of cute?” She then slides off her soaking top and begins to wring it out as well.

Mai just casts the girl an annoyed glance, before rising to her own knees, eyes down at her dark maroon overdress, now completely sodden. “Great,” she says, raising her voice, “just great. Azula asks me to help her with her mission and now my only dress is wet! If this is ruined, I’m done with this, cause I am not fighting in a sodden dress.”

Ty Lee, who’s now in the process of wringing out her pants, turns her head back to Mai. “Well you still have your underwear,” she suggests, “or you can just go naked like Azula.” Mai shoots her a glare. “What?” she says defensively, “The three of us used to be naked together when we were kids. Why not just do it again now. The Avatar and his friends are going around nude, so why shouldn’t we?”

Instead of saying anything, Mai just gets to her feet and begins to walk off, Ty Lee hastily throwing her pants and top over her shoulders as she goes to follow, yelling, “Wait!” after her.

----

How long Aang sat there he doesn’t know, but the sun was still up when he sees the growing silhouette in the distance.

Azula, with a fairly stoic expression on her face, finally reaches the end of the fur trail and, sure enough, they did split up after all. At the other end of the town the Avatar sits, waiting for her. The mongoose lizard walks a good ways into the town, before it stops a few yards away from the naked bald boy.

The naked princess dismounts her ride, to which Aang says, “All right, you’ve caught up with me. Now, who are you and what do you want?”

In a cool tone, Azula says, “You mean you haven’t guessed. He does dress differently now, but you don’t see the family resemblance?” She pauses for a second to allow the boy to get a good look at her to figure it out. “Here’s a hint.” she says before covering her left eye with her hand. In a deeper voice, she says, “I must find the Avatar to restore my honor!” Aang is still silent, so the girl drops her hand.” It’s okay,” she says in her normal voice, “you can laugh. It’s funny”

“So what now?” he asks.

“Now?” she repeats. “Now, it’s over. You’re tired and you have no place to go. You can run, but I’ll catch you.”

“I’m not running.” Aang says, standing up, ready to fight, naked boy vs naked girl.

At this, Azula smirks.

----

As it turns out, this old man, despite being a firebender, was actually not bad company at all. On the contrary, he was actually pretty cool, immediately forgiving of the assault and sat down to set a fire to make some tea. Once the tea was done, he poured it into two tin cups.

Picking one up and handing it to the nude girl, Iroh says, “Here is your tea.” The girl just sits, her side facing the fire and man, staring out towards the horizon. “You seem a little too young to be traveling alone.”

Taking the teacup from him, not turning her body, Toph says, “You seem a little too old.”

Iroh just laughs at the girl's comment. “Perhaps I am.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says casually, “I look like I can’t handle being by myself.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Iroh says softly.

“You wouldn’t even let me pour my own cup of tea!” she says, taking a drink of the tea.

“I poured your tea because I wanted to and no other reason,” he says calmly.

“People see me and think I’m weak,” Toph rants, “They want to take care of me, but I can take care of myself, by myself.”

Iroh nods, having seen this sort of thing before. “You sound like my nephew, always thinking you need to do things on your own, without anyone's support. There is nothing wrong with letting the people who love you help you.” He pauses, realizing that might have sounded weird. “Not that I love you, I just met you.”

Toph laughs at this. “So where is your nephew?” she asks.

“I’ve been tracking him actually.”

“Is he lost?”

Looking away, with a hint of sadness in his voice, the old man says, “Yes, a little bit. His life has recently changed and he's going through very difficult times. He's trying to figure out who he is and he went away.”

“So now you’re following him?”

“I know he doesn’t want me around him right now,” he says, “but if he needs me, I’ll be there.”

“Your nephew is very lucky,” Toph says, “even if he doesn’t know it.” Finally feeling better, Toph stands up. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Iroh says, “Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life's true delights.”

“No, thank you for what you said,” the naked girl says, before picking up her bag and slinking it over her shoulder. “It helped me.” She starts to walk away, but the man's voice causes her to stop.

“I’m glad.”

Turning around, Toph says, “Oh, and about your nephew, maybe you should tell him that you need him, too.”

Iroh just remains silent, only taking a sip of his tea.

----

On the road in the middle of a long-abandoned town, two people stand ready to fight.

On one end is a boy. Bald, naked, covered in blue tattoos, and is wielding a wooden staff.

On the other end is a girl, also naked, with a fire crown in her dark hair, and seemingly bare handed on top of being bare bodied.

This standoff probably only took a few seconds, but it felt longer.

With a smug grin on her face, Azula says, “Do you really want to fight me?”

Before Aang could respond, a sudden loud noise to the side gets both nudists' attention. Bursting through the debris cluttering an alleyway is an ostrich horse. Leaping off the horse, landing and facing Azula is a slightly older boy with short black hair and a scar around his left eye.

“Yes,” he says boldly, “I really do.”

“Zuko!” Aang says, his tiredness being replaced with alarm at his presence.

Very calmly, Azula simply says, “I was wondering when you’d show up, Zuzu.”

That throws Aang off guard, and he has to cover his mouth to suppress his laughter. “Zuzu?”

“Back off, Azula!” Zuko shouts, arms outstretched either side of him to attack either nude person. “He’s mine!”

Azula gets into a fighting stance to match her brothers. “I’m not going anywhere,” the naked princess says.

There the three stand in triangle formation, Azula and Zuko staring each other down and Aang standing off to the side, not sure what he should do. Then Zuko’s eyes move towards him, to which the nude boy gets into his own fighting stance, glider pointed at the other boy. With a light breeze the three remain there for a good few moments, sizing each other up, Zuko glancing back and forth to the two others.

After switching back and forth a few times, his eyes met Azula’s again. He notices his naked sister's grin widening, and he only has a second to react.

The girl thrusts her arm in her brother's direction, sending a blast of powerful blue flame his way. He deflects with a shield of the cooler orange flames. The force pushes him back onto one of the building's porches, the patio collapsing by the sudden force of his body pushing against it. Seeing this, Aang turns heel and begins to run, twirling his staff into glider form and taking off, hoping he’ll be able to get away without a fight.

Tough luck, as Azula obviously sees him. She raised her fingers to the sky, a steady stream of blue flame shooting out from the tips. She then slices downwards, creating a stream of fire down on the nude boy. Aang promptly turns and begins to spin his staff to deflect the flames, even as he lands on the hard ground. He stops once the fire goes orange and fades, and he notices that this naked girl is no longer on the ground.

Running along one of the rooftops, Azula leaps off towards the prone boy. Before she lands, he rolls out of the way and avoids the sweeping motion she does with her foot, and the flames that result from them. He straightens up and begins to run, but by now Zuko has regained his footing, and is now standing on the other side of him. The prince shots two blasts at the Avatar, as does Azula. Aang dodges them all with ease as he runs past Azula, who turns and fires two more.

This is the part of the fight where Aang starts to fight back, sending a blast of air the nude girl's way, who blocks it with another blast of blue flame. As the naked boy leaps up in the air against the buildings to get closer, the three exchange blows of flame (of varying colors) and air. Azula swings her arms wildly back and forth between the two, sending blast after blast at her enemies. Zuko and Aang shoot back at her with blasts of flame and air of their own, as well as towards each other. Each of them dodge the blasts sent their way with ease.

As the nude girl has her attention on the nude boy, Zuko runs up behind her and leaps above her. With a spin, the boy prepared to land a devastating fire kick towards his sister, but when he strikes, two massive walls of blue and orange flames shoot up in the air, as Azula had shifted around and blocked his kick. In response to his attempted attack, she shoots another blast towards him, to which he ducks. He responds with a blast of his own, only for her to duck backwards as well. Azula lunges forwards, forcing him back slightly, before swinging her arms upwards. Zuko leaps in the air to avoid the stream of blue flame as the nude girl turns and shoots at the Avatar.

Aang leaps up onto a stairwell to avoid the fire. She shoots again, and he runs onto a walkway between two buildings. Azula runs up the stairs in chase, to which the Avatar runs into the second story door of the nearby building. Azula runs after him, and she promptly halts in her tracks and begins to windmill her arms in an attempt to retain balance, as the entire floor of the second floor of this building had collapsed years ago. On the other side perched atop an airball, Aang smiles gleefully at her, giving her a cheeky wave.

She leaps forwards towards the ledge of the wall on her left, catching herself in a split. She leaps back up, spins, and props her bare back and butt against the wall and regains her balance. Just as she does this Zuko, even the observant one, runs straight into the room and falls to the ground floor with a yelp, Aang grimacing in sympathy. Then he notices his ball beginning to shrink. Also seeing this, Azula shifts her position back to the doorway and sends a blast of blue flame at the boy. He leaps off his vanishing air ball onto the ledge. He then starts to run at the speed of wind around it, knocking her off towards the ground floor, where she lands nimbly next to her recovering brother.

Aang runs out the door and down the stairs as the nude girl shoots another blast of fire at him. Back on the street, he only has a second to breathe when the side of the building he just left bursts open in blue fire, the unconscious Zuko flying through it. He looks down at the prone boy for a moment, before turning back and seeing the naked girl charging at him. Aang leaps out of the way onto the wall of an alleyway. Azula shoots a blast of fire at him, and he leaps onto the other wall. He leaps back and forth, higher and higher avoiding blasts, until he hastily props himself onto one of the roofs. Not relenting for a second, Azula slices her arm towards the building, the flame slicing into the very walls itself. A whole portion of the roof Aang’s standing on slides off, and he barely clambers onto an undamaged portion. She slices again, and this time he can’t leap up to avoid it, and he falls into the abandoned house, covered in debris.

When he sits back up, his attention turns towards the doorway, and the naked girl now standing in it. Azula crosses her fists over her chest, before slamming them into the walls either side of her. Blue flames begin to creep along the walls, turning orange just over halfway around the building. Aang looks on in terror as the girl begins to approach him, an evil grin on her face. She raises her hand, two fingers extended, but before she could finish this, something wraps around her wrist and forces it behind her back, as well as getting her hand wet.

Now standing in the doorway is another girl only slightly less naked than the two already within thanks to her bottoms, who’s holding the firebender’s wrist back with a water whip. She promptly shifts her stance, releases the girl from the whip's grasp, and slices it against the wooden beam holding Aang down.

“Katara!” a very thrilled Aang shouts.

Azula, mad at being interrupted, turns and shoots a blast of flame Katara’s way, who turns and runs out of the house. She gives chase after the shirtless girl, but as she reaches another doorway, a nude boy rushes out and slices at her with a Water Tribe machete, which she dodges. Sokka slices again, forcing the girl onto the main street. Aang emerges from the building and Katara turns back towards the girl, the three approaching the cornered nude girl.

Zuko, still out cold from the blast, starts to come too as he feels a familiar presence above him. Slowly coming to, he sees through blurred vision an old man. “Uncle…” he says, still slightly dazed.

“Get up!” Iroh says, helping his nephew to his feet.

Standing in a triangle formation, the trio surround Azula, prepared to strike. Aang charges at her, and he promptly leaps into the air when she shoots a fire blast at him. With the firebender’s bare back to her, Katara sends her water whip towards her, but Azula turns and blocks it with a fire shield. She then shoots a blast at Sokka, who moves closer to his sister to avoid. She goes to strike him again, but turns and shoots the blast at Aang, who’s just landed back behind her. He dodges and the three begin to push forwards. Azula sends a slice of fire towards the three, who duck to avoid, as she backs up towards an alleyway. She stands there, poised to attack, when her face drops. Feeling the ground shifting beneath her feet, Azula falls to the ground, revealing to the others the other naked girl now joining the fight.

“I thought you guys could use a little help,” Toph says, before getting into a fighting stance of her own.

Smile on her face, Katara says, “Thanks.”

Getting to her feet, very angry, Azula runs down the street backwards to shoot a few more fire blasts towards her four enemies. She then turns and runs down an alleyway, leaping over some crates as she goes. She then breaks out into a run to put distance between her and them. She turns back, a smug grin on her face as she makes her escape, when she runs into the sudden large form of her uncle, who stands in the way to block her. She’s knocked to the ground as her brother stands by his side.

Backed up in a corner, Azula glances around at the six people now slowly getting closer. Sokka, Aang, Katara, Toph, Zuko, and Iroh, and seeing them completely surround her. There’s no escape for her now.

“Well, look at this,” she says, still very coolly despite the long odds she’s facing. “Enemies and traitors, all working together. I’m done,” she says, standing up and raising her hands. “I know when I’m beaten. You got me. A princess surrenders with honor.”

Iroh’s gaze shifts towards the young nude girl he encountered earlier, before shifting up to the Avatar and the two Water Tribe siblings, then back to her. He immediately puts together that she was with them.

Catching her uncle’s distraction, Azula takes a step towards him and thrusts her hands in his direction. The resulting fire blast strikes him in the chest, causing him to scream in pain and fall back onto the ground. Watching this, Zuko screams in horror and shock.

Seeing her strike, now it was their turn. Sokka throws his boomerang while the four benders shoot their respective elements at the girl. Air, water, earth, and fire. Azula blocks the boomerang before generating a shield of blue flame to protect herself. The resulting merging of the elements creates a massive explosion, knocking the five back and covering the area in a thick black smoke.

As the four straighten back up, the smoke clears, revealing that the nude girl has completely vanished. They couldn’t so much as even begin to look for her when they hear a sudden angry, “Ugggh!” behind them. They turn and see Zuko, kneeling by the downed Iroh’s side, very visibly upset despite his back being to them.

The four begin to walk up to him, but evidently hearing them, Zuko turns around and shouts, “Get away from us!”

The four stop, Toph shifting her foot slightly to get a feel of the vibrations from a few feet in front of her. She feels two heartbeats, one very fast, evidently belonging to Zuko, and one a bit slower. Sure enough, she could also hear the old man breathing.

Walking slowly up to the boy, Katara says remorsefully, “Zuko, I can help.”

Filled to the brim with emotion, Zuko turns and shouts, “Leave!” shooting an arch of fire at the four, who duck out of the way.

Seeing that they have nothing to gain by staying, Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph turn and run off away from the, leaving Zuko alone, still by his unconscious uncle's side as the city burns around them.

----

With Toph back with them, finding and heading back to the place where they left their stuff was quite easy. Despite everyone still being tired, they reattach the saddle to Appa’s back and reload their stuff onto it. Katara redresses herself and they take off as the sun sets.

Appa flies around for a little while. He’s still tired, since his rest was rather short, but since they all feel like their pursuers are letting them go for the time being, the bison takes his time as they search. He finally reaches a nice high, flat hill, and he falls asleep the instant he lands.

The four on his back were already asleep for a while by now, Katara and Toph laying next to each other between Sokka, Momo, and Aang.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 8
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The hot sun was just rising over the desert canyon, and basically all of the handful of people currently residing within it were still fast asleep.

The specific group of people we’ll be focusing on are the group of youngins resting around or on top of a massive bison, who’s also asleep. Sitting just beside the bison are two kids in sleeping bags, a boy and a girl. A bit away from the bison is a small tent shaped earth structure, evidently housing something or someone inside.

On top of the bison itself lies another boy, who’s now stirring. He’s a skinny boy, completely bald with gray eyes. Most striking are his tattoos, light blue ones that line his limbs and spine, ending in arrows on the backs of his hands, tops of his feet, and base of his forehead. These tattoos are incredibly noticeable, not only because of their bright coloring on his skin, but also because…

“Today’s the day!” the nude boy shouts, leaping into the air. As he lands besides the sleeping back of the other boy, he continues rambling. “Can you believe it? After all that time searching for a teacher, I’m finally starting earthbending! And this place is perfect, don’t you think?” He shifts his gaze to the head of the boy in the sleeping bag. “Sokka?”

The boy, Sokka, who has tanned skin and brown hair tied up in a ponytail, groans and turns his head to glare at the bald boy with his blue, very tired eyes.

“Oh,” he says, “you're still sleeping, huh?” Sokka just grumbles and turns his head back away from the naked boy. “Sorry,” he whispers.

He straightens up, and within that moment, the ground around him starts to shake. Impulsively, he turns his head towards the earth pyramid. Within seconds, the four slabs of rock making up the tent fly away in all four directions. The dust clears, revealing the inhabitant of the earth tent, a small girl. She’s lighter skinned with black hair mostly held up in a big bun with her hairband with some bangs covering the top part of her face, including her milky eyes. Like the bald boy, she’s nude, and stretching her arm in the air.

“Goooood morning,” she says, before putting both hands on her hips, “earthbending student!”

Thanks to the noise this act of earthbending created, the others wake up too. Sokka is still trying to sleep, quietly seething in anger at his continued interruption. Behind him, the other person in her own sleeping bag rouses and rises up. Like him, she has tanned skin, blue eyes and long brown hair that currently hangs loosely around her head. Unlike the two fully awake people, she’s not naked, although she is pretty close while keeping everything covered. Wrapped around her breasts and back is a bandeau that’s visibly loose and (hidden by the bag) covering her waist and neither region were white wrappings to serve as her underwear. The blue dress she normally wears is laying on the bison's saddle, her having discarded it thanks to the intense heat. She sits up and watches as the nude girl walks up to the nude boy.

“Good morning, Sifu Toph,” Aang says with a light bow towards the girl.

“Hey,” the girl in the sleeping bag shouts, “you never called me Sifu Katara.”

Looking back at her, he begins to scratch the back of his head. “Well, if you think I should …”

Suddenly, Sokka shoots up into a seating position, gurgling loudly at Aang and Toph. He glances down at his friend while she just smirks.

“Sorry, Snoozles,” Toph says, “we’ll do our earthbending as,” she starts to whisper with an amused tone, “quietly as we can.”

He lies back down, and the instant his back touches the ground, the naked girl kicks her heel into the ground. A pillar of earth rises up right beneath him, launching him high up into the air, screaming all the way up and down. Upon handing, still in his bag, he hops up to his feet. Grumbling the whole way, he hops up to Aang, then to Toph, shooting them both dirty looks as he does this. He then hops a bit away from the group. Evidently realizing that there was no way to get any more sleep now, he slides out of his bag. Like Aang and Toph, he’s also nude, although he’s wearing boots and gloves, rather than Aang full nudity or Toph just wearing wrist and ankle bands along with the one around her hair.

As she watches the boy make a fool of himself, Aang leaps softly to her side excitedly. “So what move are you going to teach me first?” he asks. “Rock-a-lanche?” as he names each move, he gestures with his hands and arms to match what he’s saying. “The Trembler? Oh, maybe I could learn to make a whirlpool out of land!” he finishes with a spin, arms outstretched to the air.

Stopping his spinning by placing her hand on his bare chest, Toph says, “Let’s start with … move a rock.”

“Sounds good,” Aang says, clapping excitedly. “Sounds good!’

----

“The key to earthbending is your stance,” Toph says, she and Aang now standing in a more secluded area of the canyon that’s suitable for their purposes.

Training in earthbending required a lot of space and a lot of rocks, and this place is providing them both in bulk. Sitting a few feet from the naked boy and girl are two large boulders, although the one in front of Toph is fairly bigger than Aang’s, and they were to be used for their first lesson. Watching from above, occasionally distracted by her ever sliding bandeau, is Katara.

Widening her stance, fists held up to her sides, Toph continues. “You have to be steady and strong. Rock is a stubborn element. If you’re going to move it,” she pushes Aang’s side at his mediocre at best attempt to replicate her stance, “you’ve got to be like a rock yourself.”

“Like a rock,” he says, rubbing his side. “Got it.”

“Good,” she says, turning her side to the rock in front of her. “Now the actual motion of this one is quite simple.” She kicks her foot and punches forwards, and the boulder goes careening towards the canyon wall, and it shatters on impact. “Okay,” she says, turning back to Aang, “you ready to give it a try?”

Shifting into the same stance she was in, the nude boy says, “I’m ready.”

He goes to kick and punch the boulder in front of him, only for the gust of powerful wind to push him away. He’s launched all the way back to Appa, who he smacks into and falls down. Witnessing this is Sokka, who’s sitting off to the side.

“Rock beats airbender!” he says with an amused tone.

----

Running from someone up a small hill with a small tree at the top was a man in a red robe with a spiky beard and sideburns and had his hair done up in a topknot. Despite being chased, this man isn’t distressed at all. In fact, he was smiling and laughing.

Probably because his pursuer isn’t even a threat to him. Who it is is a young, completely naked boy, who’s sporting some messy brown hair tied up in a small topknot. At the top of the hill, the boy stops and thrusts his hands forwards in a display of pretend firebending.

“I got you, Dad!” he says playfully.

The man, in response, overdramatically spins around and clutches his chest before falling over on his back. The boy, his son, then jumps on top of him and the two start to laugh.

They laugh as they start to distort and fade away and into a new image.

It's the same hilltop with the tree, but many years later, as the man’s hair is now gray, and he’s noticeably put on a few pounds. He kneels on the ground as the rain pours around him, in front of what looks like a grave.

“My beloved Lu Ten,” he says, full of sorrow, “I will see you again.”

“Uncle,” a voice calls out, causing this image to fade as well, leaving only darkness for a moment.

Slowly his eyes open, and the blurry image of a boy with short black hair and a scar along his left looking down at him with a look of concern on his face becomes clearer.

“You were unconscious,” Zuko continues. “Azula did this to you. It was a surprise attack.”

Rising up to a seated position, very audibly in pain, Iroh groans. “Somehow, that’s not so surprising.”

The two find themselves in an abandoned, burnt-out house. In the middle of the one room house is a small fire with an old pot sitting above it. The old man finds his old gray clothes hanging on the windowsill, and several white bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulder.

Handing his uncle a small cup of tea, the exiled prince says, “I hope I made it the way you like it.”

The man takes it and goes to take a sip. The second the liquid passes his lips, his eyes widen, and brow begins to twitch. He lets out a groan, but he hopes his nephew takes it as delight. Still, he’s able to mask it. “Good,” he says, grimacing as he makes an attempt to finish the drink. “That was very … uhhh … bracing.” Zuko takes his empty cup and replaces it with a full one. As the boy glances away as he starts to talk, Iroh quickly dumps the stuff out the window behind him.

“So Uncle, I've been thinking. It's only a matter of time before I run into Azula again. I'm going to need to know more advanced firebending if I want to stand a chance against her. I know what you're going to say: she's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her.”

“No,” Iroh says casually, placing the cup to his side, “she’s crazy, and she needs to go down.”

In response, Zuko nods, and Iroh begins to rise, despite him still being in pain.

“It’s time to resume your training.”

----

Despite being able to run as fast as the wind, Aang just walks the whole way back from Appa to the rock and Toph, as well as Katara, who now stands by her side, still trying to keep that damned bandeau up.

“Why do you keep that on if it’s just going to keep sliding off?” Toph asks, causing Katara to shift her head to her, face red.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asks the girl, before realizing something else. “And why do you know I'm adjusting my top?”

“Elbow movement,” the nude girl says as she rapidly moves her elbows up and down, “and the sounds of cloth. You’re not exactly being quiet.”

Katara pouts before continuing. “And what does it matter?”

Toph just shrugs. “I dunno. With the rest of us being naked, I figured you’d be as well. It was kinda weird when I first noticed you being clothed with those two, but hey.” She shrugs again.

“Why would me being clothed be weird?” she asks, slightly offended. “Just because it’s their choice to have their privates out full time, doesn’t mean I make the same choice. Aang’s an airbender, and they don’t wear clothes at all, and Sokka… Well, he’s Sokka. I prefer to maintain some modesty.”

Toph just rolls her eyes. “Modesty is overrated. I had to deal with it being forced on me for twelve years. Living wild and unrestrained is much better.” Katara was about to say something, but Toph interrupts. “We’ll talk later, the currently failing student’s about to come back.”

Sure enough, Aang was just about there. Katara, satisfied with how she’s fixed her bandeau for the time, gestures in Aang’s direction. “I don’t understand what went wrong. He did it exactly the way you did.”

“Maybe there’s another way,” the boy says, shifting his arms into a kung fu pose as he walks past the two girls. “What if I came at the boulder from another angle?”

“No,” Toph says, grabbing the boy's shoulder to stop him. “No. That's the problem. You've got to stop thinking like an airbender. There's no different angle, no clever solution, no trickety-trick that's going to move that rock. You've got to face it head on. And when I say head on, I mean like this…” She leaps into the air and smashes the rock to bits with her head in a single blow.

“Whoa!”

Toph begins to walk away, but Katara runs up to her to stop her. “I’ve been training Aang for a while now,” she says as she fixes her top, it having slid down to her navel from her running. “He really responds well to a positive teaching experience. Lots of encouragement and praise. Kind words. If he's doing something wrong, maybe a gentle nudge in the right direction.”

The naked girl pipes up. “Thanks, Katara,” she says. “A gentle nudge. I’ll try that.”

----

“KEEP YOUR KNEES HIGH, TWINKLE TOES!” Toph shouts at the top of her lungs towards the boy.

Aang, currently carrying a massive boulder on his back, walks along the canyon ground, all the while Toph earthbends the ground around him. Each step he takes results in the girl rising up small pillars of earth beneath his bare feet. That or sliding them along the ground.

He does manage to move a bit, take a few steps, until the ground slides him into a wide stance. One that knocks him off his balance. He trips and falls away, the boulder breaking into pieces at his side.

--

With that idea a bust, Toph moved on to another thing. Now the two stand beside a small shelf of earth in the shade.

The naked girl rubs her hands for a few seconds, before thrusting them into the rock in front of her. Her fingers dig into the solid rock with about the same resistance as butter.

Seeing this, Aang rubs his hands together, before mimicking the motion Toph did. Instead of sinking into the earth, the nude boy's hand just slams into the stone and he grunts in pain.

–

Aang stands this, legs spread in a wide stance and his arms bent forwards and held at his sides. He stands there, eyes wide and beating with sweat in anticipation for what could come next.

Suddenly, Toph shoots out from the ground at his side. Upon landing, she shouts, “Rock-like!” causing him to fall over. The girl promptly stomps her foot, the resulting pillar of earth shooting Aang back to his feet, by her side, after which she pokes him on his giant head.

“C’mon,” she shouts, giving him a smack on the bum for emphasis, “Being naked is supposed to improve one’s connection to the earth, not make it worse!”

–

After a brief scuffle, Toph was able to “forcefully relive” Sokka of his club, much to his chagrin. She then hands the weapon to Aang, who’s currently blindfolded, before walking a bit away.

Now giving her student some space, she begins to earthbend pillars around him. He goes to swing at each of them, relying purely on his hearing and senses to find them. He’s pretty pathetic at this, but he does manage to slice one after five attempts, to which Toph gives a silent nod of approval.

–

The nude boy and girl stand opposite each other in a flat section of canyon. With a raise of her hands, two long walls of earth rise up at their sides. She then points to the ground, sliding it in a straight line towards the ground in front of her, creating a small line in the earth. She then bends her arms up, and several rocks shoot towards her. In a second, her naked form is completely covered in rock armor, besides a small hole by her face to allow her to breathe.

Aang’s eyes widen at this, especially as she begins to charge at him. He holds his arms up as she reaches him, and he’s pushed back a fair bit. Then he starts to push her back. They go back and forth a few times, and after a particularly hard push, he’s finally able to push her past the line.

–

Next thing they tried was quite simple. All Aang had to do was toss a heavy rock weight from hand to hand in a wide stance.

Did I mention that he did this while his feet were placed on two small and high pillars?

Upon being raised and tossed the weight, Aang begins to toss it back and forth, Right hand to left hand, left hand to right hand. He does this for a few minutes, before the girl walks between the pillars.

“Rock-like!” she shouts, slamming her arms into the pillars, causing them to jolt violently. The tremors travel all the way up to the top of the pillars, where the nude boy's feet are placed.

The boy’s stance doesn’t shift even slightly, even as he holds the weight.

Rising up to his level on her own earth pillar, Toph nods in approval, to which he grins widely.

----

In a higher, more forested part of the canyon, happy to be reunited with his club, Sokka stands perched in a tree, looking down at the light grass below, watching intently.

After who knows how long, something finally crawls up to and begins to eat a tuft of grass. It’s a brown, furry animal with a wide, white snout.

“You’re awfully cute,” the nude boy says, “but unfortunately you're made of meat.” He continues to watch the creature, piping up as it turns and walks towards another tuft of grass by a small fissure, which happened to be closer to the tree. “Just a bit closer…”

With a war cry, he leaps from the tree, club raised above his head in preparation to swing, only to fall waist deep into the fissure. He goes to free himself, only to notice the critter looking at him curiously. It then walks right up to him, making Sokka even happier. Raising his club high, he shouts, “Gotcha!”

He then slides deeper into the fissure, leaving only his head and hands out in the air. He struggles to free himself, his naked body held uncomfortably against the tight walls of the fissure. The creature just keeps watching him.

“You are one lucky little meat creature,” he says, pointing at the little thing.

The critter bends backwards and playfully shakes its butt.

----

“Lightning is a pure form of firebending,” Iroh says from the other side of the fire and pot, making his own tea, “without aggression. It is not fueled by rage or emotion the way other firebending is. Some call lightning the cold-blooded fire. It is precise and deadly, like Azula.” He hands Zuko a cup as he finishes. “To perform the technique requires peace of mind.”

“I see,” Zuko says in a tone of clarity rare from this boy. “That’s why we’re drinking tea, to calm the mind.”

“Oh yeah, good point!” Iroh says with a chuckle. “I mean, yes.”

After their tea, the old man, now strong enough to walk, leads Zuko out of the house and towards the edge of the cliff. “There is energy all around us. The energy is both yin and yang. Positive energy and negative energy. Only a select few firebenders can separate these energies. This creates an imbalance. The energy wants to restore balance, and in a moment the positive and negative energy come crashing back together, you provide release and guidance, creating lightning.”

Signaling his nephew to take a step back, Iroh begins to rotate his arms. His two outstretched fingers on both hands were already sparking with electricity. Zuko watches intently as the old, mostly nude man thrusts his arms forwards, a massive bolt of lightning shooting out towards the sky and clouds.

“I’m ready to try it!” he says enthusiastically.

“Remember,” Iroh says cautiously, “once you separate the energy, you do not command it. You are simply its humble guide. Breathe first.”

Zuko takes a deep breath. Then he starts to rotate his arms, finger pointed out, in a replication of his uncle's motions. He does the moves flawlessly, but when he goes to thrust his arms out, all that comes out of his fingertips is an explosion that knocks him back.

Iroh, having watched the whole thing, just shuts his eyes and shakes his head disappointedly.

----

“This time we’re going to try something a little different,” Toph says as she walks up to and passes Aang, “Instead of moving a rock, you’re going to stop a rock. GET IN YOUR HORSE STANCE!” she shouts, turning sharply back towards the boy. He promptly gets into the stance, looking forwards at the canyon wall ahead of them. Specifically, they’re standing at the intersection of two walls that has been shaped into a rough ramp that ends on the ground in front of him. Sitting at the top of it is a massive boulder, at least as tall as Aang. Pointing her thumb at it, she says, “I'm going to roll that boulder down at you. If you have the attitude of an earthbender, you'll stay in your stance and stop the rock. Like this!” She stretches forwards in the horse stance, thrusting her arms forwards in the way she expects Aang to do.

“Sorry Toph,” Katara, who’s standing at Aang’s other side, tells the nude girl, who turns to look at her, “but are you really sure this is the way to teach Aang earthbending?”

Walking up to her side, Toph says, “I’m glad you said something.” She then places her hand on Katara’s upper back. “Actually there is a better way.” Her fingers tighten around the cloth, and before Katara could react, she pulls off her bandeau in a single motion.

“HEY!” Katara shouts, face immediately flushing red. She attempts to snatch it from the nude girl's grip, shouting slightly incoherently as she does

Before she could get it back, though, Toph was already tying it around Aang’s eyes, who’s also starting to blush.

“This way,” she says as she takes a step back, “you'll actually have to sense the vibrations of the boulder to stop it. Thank you, Katara.” She shoots the short girl a dirty look.

“Yeah,” Aang says sarcastically, “thanks, Katara!”

The girl just giggles nervously. Even more nervous is Aang, who already looked scared at the prospect of catching a massive boulder and is made even worse by the fact that he can’t see now.

Toph quickly ascends the cliff wall and walks next to the boulder for a few seconds, before giving it a shove, knocking it off the edge. Aang nervously gets into position as it comes rolling down towards him, all the while Katara and Momo watch on at the side, scared out of their wits. Aang stands there, teeth gritted, hearing the boulder get closer and closer, prepared to stop it.

At the last second, the naked boy leaps high above the rock as it passes underneath him, smashing into the canyon wall behind him. Toph was already almost to him when he got the blindfold/Katara’s bandeau off his face, she was running that fast.

“I guess I just panicked,” he says, her frowning face inches from his. “I don't know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say,” she shouts, “you blew it! You had a perfect stance, and a perfect form. But when it came right down to it, you didn't have the guts!” She finishes with a light punch to his chest, knocking him into a seated position.

With disappointment in his tone, he says, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you are sorry!” the nude girl shouts, leaning forwards to get closer. “If you're not tough enough to stop the rock, then you can at least give it the pleasure of smashing you instead of jumping out of the way like a jelly-boned wimp! Now, do you have what it takes to face that rock like an earthbender?”

Dropping his gaze from her milky, unseeing eyes, Aang says, “No, I don't think I do.”

“Aang, it’s not a big deal,” says Katara, who had just snatched her bandeau from the ground and was in the process of sliding it over her chest. “You’ll take a break and try earthbending again when you’re ready.” Finishing her adjustments, she bends forwards and places her hands gently on his shoulders. “Besides, you still have a lot of waterbending to work on. Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, turning his head to look at her, “that sounds good.”

The two stand up and turn to walk away. Toph, meanwhile, just shoots them a look and says, “Yeah, whatever, go splash around until you feel better.” before turning and walking away.

----

With another explosion, Zuko falls back on his ass yet again, frustration ever increasing.

“Why can’t I do it?” he asks loudly. Turning his head to the burnt-out hunt, where Iroh is sitting, he continues. “Instead of lightning it keeps exploding in my face … like everything always does.” he says that last line extra broodingly.

“I was afraid this might happen,” Iroh says, slowly walking up behind his nephew. “You will not be able to master lightning until you have dealt with the turmoil inside you.”

“What turmoil?” Zuko shouts. *cue laugh track*

“Zuko, you must let go of your feelings of shame if you want your anger to go away.”

“But I don’t feel any shame at all,” the boy says. “I’m as proud as ever.”

“Prince Zuko,” Iroh says as Zuko turns his head back out to the canyon beyond, “pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame.”

“Well,” he says, reminiscing about everything that’s happened since the first time he saw a specific bald, naked boy, “my life has been nothing but humbling lately.”

“I have another idea,” the old man says. “I will teach you a firebending move that even Azula doesn’t know, because I made it up myself.”

This, the prospect of gaining a major advantage over his sister, is enough to actually coax a smile out of the scarred prince.

----

“You probably think I deserve this, don’t you?” Sokka asks the critter now sleeping atop his head.

Naturally, he was still in the same spot he was when he sunk into the fissure. Despite his struggling, he hadn’t so much as moved an inch up and out. The earth around him was just too tightly pressed against his naked body to move it. In pain, uncomfortable, hungry, and annoyed, Sokka basically resigned himself to stay there until his earthbending friend arrives to save him.

Suddenly, the critter wakes up and looks down at him, standing on his forehead.

“Look, I'm sorry I hunted you, but that's just the natural order of things. Big things eat smaller things, nothing personal. But this time it didn't work out that way.”

…

“I admit it ... you're cute.”

…

“Okay, you convinced me, if I get out of this alive, it's a karmically correct, vegetarian existence for me. No meat. Even though meat is so tasty.”

The critter stands up and runs off his head and away from the trapped naked boy. Just then a fly flies up to his head, which he attempts to swat at unsuccessfully. He slumps down, at least as much as he can in his current position.

He pipes up when he sees the critter running back to him, carrying an apple in its mouth.
“Hey, looks like my karma is already paying off!” It drops the fruit and nudges it towards him, but it only goes halfway. Sokka expects it to finish, but it just sits there.

“That's okay, I got it.” With a great struggle, he pulls out the boomerang on his back and tosses it in the direction of the apple. All this does is render him without his weapon, which lies uselessly next to the apple.

“Now, come back boomerang.”

----

As it turns out, a part of this canyon contains a sizable pond. Perfect for practicing waterbending, anyways.

So there, knee deep in water, Aang and Katara rotate a glob of water between them as they talk.

“You know this block you’re having is only temporary, right?” she asks.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You do realize that’s the problem, don’t you?” Katara continues to push. “If you face this issue instead of avoiding it-”

“I know,” Aang cuts her off, frustrated at himself, “I know, I know, I know! I get it, all right?” Both of them losing focus, the water blob falls back into the stream. “I need to face it head on like a rock, but I just can’t do it. I don't know why I can’t, but I can’t.”

“Aang, if fire and water are opposites, then what’s the opposite of air?”

“I guess it’s earth,” the naked boy says.

“That’s why it’s so difficult for you to get this,” she says. “You're working with your natural opposite. But you'll figure it out. I know you will.” She then gets this look in her eye, a small grin forming on her face. Suddenly, she shouts, “Think fast!” tossing a nearby piece of reed at him. Aang sees this and, on instinct, uses waterbending to slice the reed in half. “Excellent,” Katara says, genuinely impressed. “You have the reflexes of a waterbending master.”

“Thanks, Katara. Sifu Katara,” he corrects before bowing.

She returns the gesture.

“Tell you what,” she says, straightening back up. “To show me your progress, I’m going to demonstrate an incredibly advanced move, and you’re going to repeat it. Got that?”

Aang nods enthusiastically, then backs up after she signals him to do so.

With some space, she raises both her arms to head level, two thin and loose columns of water rising up either side of her. Raising her hands a bit higher and wider, she slowly starts to spin, causing the water columns to start to spin around her. She gets faster, as do the columns, wrapping more and more around the air around her. Aang watches in awe as the water forms spirals that get higher and higher, thinner and thinner. She then crosses her hands above her head, finishing the spiral formation, but she keeps going faster.

Suddenly she shrieks and the water collapses into the pond again. Not sure if that was the move, Aang claps awkwardly.

“Stupid thing!” Katara shouts, having just finished sliding up her bandeau from her waist back to her chest, “can never stay on when I want it to!” She then remembers Aang’s there, and looks back up to him, blushing lightly. “Sorry about that. I’ll try it again.”

She raises her arms again, water rising, and she starts to slowly spin again. The columns could barely complete their first spiral before she shouts again, causing the liquid to fall again. She slides her breast back into the cloth before attempting again. She doesn’t even complete a single spin before the top slides down again.

“It’s okay, Katara,” Aang says, “I think I figured out what you’re trying to do.” He repeats her motions, raising his hands, two columns of water, and starts to spin. The water begins to spiral as Aang raises his hands higher, finally crossing them over his head. After a bit more spinning, he shoots his arms down again, creating hundreds of small water projectiles going in all directions.

Katara watches this, initially impressed, before jealousy starts to flood in. “Well, you were able to do it because you don’t have to keep this thing on.”

“I mean, you could just take it off,” Aang says, not noticing the look she’s giving him. “I know I told you I wouldn’t bring it up again, but I think your reluctance is starting to interfere with your bending. Also,” he continues, accidentally cutting her off, “I do have to agree with Toph how it’s kinda weird how, despite how long we’ve been traveling, how many times you’ve been around nudity, and how many times you’ve been naked yourself, you still seem to have, for lack of any better words, a nudity block. Like what you said about my earthbending block. Makes even less sense, since you seemed fine with taking the bandeau off at the cave, the swamp, and just the other day, not to mention willingly going to Kyoshi Island three times in like twenty hours. Why?”

“Why? Because it’s ember-” she stops herself, realizing he is right in that regard, she has been willingly in minimal or no clothing a lot more frequently as of late, and as such she really can’t use being emberassed at being naked in front of others anymore. So why can’t she just shrug it off right now, both figuratively and literally. “I-I-I don’t know.”

“I mean, if it’s starting to become an issue” he says, “I think you should find a way to confront it. If that’s right now or later, I don’t know, but eventually, you’ll need to-”

“I know, I know, I know,” she repeats his earlier words. “I know, I’m a prude who can’t handle nudity or being naked despite being constantly exposed to it. I know, and I don’t know why I can’t just be like you, or Sokka, or Toph.” She walks up to one of the rock ledges of the pond and takes a seat. “Make things a whole lot easier on me if I could,” she mumbles quietly.

“What was that?” Aang asks, still standing a bit away.

“Nothing,” Katara says loudly, although privately wondering why she said that. “Nothing at all.”

----

Zuko sits on the ground as Iroh, stick in hand, begins to use it to draw in the dirt.

“Fire is the element of power,” he says as he draws the familiar insignia of firebending. “The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will, and the energy to drive and achieve what they want.” He finishes by drawing a square around the insignia.

“Earth is the element of substance,” he says as he draws the also familiar insignia of earthbending above the fire one. “The people of the Earth Kingdom are diverse and strong. They are persistent and enduring.” He draws a square around this symbol as well.

“Air is the element of freedom,” he says as he draws the insignia of what has to belong to airbending to the right of the fire one. “The Air Nomads detached themselves from worldly concerns, even forgoing clothes, and found peace and freedom. Also, they apparently had pretty good senses of humor!” He smiles broadly at his comment, but his face drops back to a more serious demeanor when he notices his nephew's nonreaction. He surrounds the insignia with a square.

“Water is the element of change,” he says, drawing the waterbending insignia above the air one and beside the earth one. “The people of the Water Tribe are capable of adapting to many things. They have a deep sense of community and love that holds them together through anything.”

Zuko, although intrigued by what his uncle was saying, was confused as well. “Why are you telling me these things?” he asks.

“It is important to draw wisdom from many different places,” he says. “If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale.” He draws two lines in the spaces between the four insignias, dividing them. “Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations will help you become whole,” he finishes, drawing a circle around all four, thus completing the insignia.

It’s here where the exiled prince picks up a parallel. “All this four elements talk is sounding like Avatar stuff,” Zuko says.

“It is the combination of the four elements in one person that makes the Avatar so powerful,” Iroh says. “But it can make you more powerful, too. You see the technique I'm about to teach you is one I learned by studying the waterbenders.”

----

On a decently short rock platform, the nude bald boy sits in meditation. It’s always been the one thing he could do to clear his mind. It was calming.

Walking up to the incline, with absolutely no intention of being calming, is the nude girl, a long wooden staff in one hand and a small bag in the other. Sitting down on another side of the incline, Toph says, “Aang, I found these nuts in your bag.” She holds up the bag in front of her and begins to shake it tauntingly, making sure the clattering of the nuts inside are very audible. “I figured you wouldn’t mind. And besides, even if you did, you’re too much of a pushover to do anything about it.”

“As a matter of fact,” Aang says, eyes glancing in the general direction of the sounds, “I don’t mind. I’m happy to share anything I have.”

“You know,” she says, “I’m really glad you feel that way. Because,” she raises the staff, Aang’s glider, above her head and starts spinning it loudly, “I also have this great new nutcracker.”

Aang’s eyes widen as he looks over his shoulder, where, with a pained expression, he watches her slam the end of the glider down onto one of the nuts, shattering the shell.

Crack

“Actually, I prefer if you didn’t …”

Crack

“That’s an antique, handcrafted by the monks …”

Crack

“It’s a delicate instrument!”

“It’s not the only delicate instrument around here,” Toph says as she and Momo eat the unshelled nuts. The naked girl then stands up and begins to walk away, Aang watching as she intentionally slams the staff against each rock she passes.

Turning his head back and shutting his eyes, Aang resumes his meditation with a “Ohm.”

He manages for a good few seconds, until the waterbending comes running up to him, saying, “Hey Aang, have you seen-”

“Meditating here!” he cuts her off, very frustrated.

“It’s important,” Katara says, “It’s almost sundown and Sokka isn’t back yet. I think we should search for him.”

Turning to her and getting to his feet, Aang says, “We’ll find him faster if we split up.”

The two promptly do that, rushing off into opposite directions. Aang heads towards the higher areas of the canyon, where there’s far more vegetation, and Katara heads lower, back in the general direction of the pond.

----

“Okay, karma person or thing, whoever’s in charge of this stuff” Sokka says, still stuck in the fissure, the cub pulling on his warrior tail with its teeth. “If I can just get out of this situation alive, I will give up meat and sarcasm. Okay?” It’s here where the tail gets yanked out of his hair, causing it to spike up all around his head. “Ow! That's all I got. It's pretty much my whole identity. Sokka, the meat and sarcasm guy. But I'm willing to be Sokka, the veggies and straight talk fellow. Deal?”

His pleading is cut off when he sees a fully nude bald boy run into view in front of him.

“Aang!” he shouts in glee, getting his friends' attention. “Thank goodness! Have you got any meat?”

“Sokka!” Aang says as he runs up to his friend. “Are you okay?” He then attempts to pull Sokka out, but his cries of pain force him to stop.

“Aggh, stop, stop!” he shouts. “You’re going to pull my fingers off and I don’t think the rest of me is coming.”

Aang stands there pondering for a moment, thinking of a solution, before snapping. “I bet I can airbend you out of here,” he says, before sending a current under the fissure and up under Sokka.

While the fresh air blowing against his nude body does feel nice after spending all this time trapped, it does little to actually help free him. Making it worse is the fact that his club and boomerang were sent flying into the air, the latter of which falling on his head. “Seriously Aang,” he says, “I know you’re new at it, but I could use a little earthbending here. How about it?”

After a little hesitation, Aang says, “I can’t … I can’t do it.” turning his back to his friend.

“Well, if we can’t earthbend me out of here, go get Toph.”

“I can’t do that either.”

“You can’t?” Sokka asks, genuinely baffled and a wee bit annoyed. “Why not?”

“It would be really …” he pauses, looking for the right word, “uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” he asks sarcastically. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable…”

“Thanks, Sokka,” Aang says as he sits down, oblivious to the sarcasm. “This whole earthbending thing really has me confused. There's so much pressure. Everyone expects me to get it right away. It puts me in a really awkward position.”

“Awkward position, I think I know the feeling.”

“If I try, I fail. If I don’t try, I’m never going to get it,” he continues his mini rant. “I feel like I’m caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“Hmmm … how about that,” Sokka says, as the little critter walks back up to the two. “Aang,” he says, directing the boy's attention to the creature, “this is my friend, Foo Foo Cuddlypoops. Foo Foo Cuddlypoops, Aang.”

“Awww,” the boy says as he goes to pick it up, “what a cute name for a baby saber-tooth moose-lion cub.”

“Really?” Sokka says, slightly confused. “He looks nothing like a saber-tooth moose-lion cub.”

“It’s hard to tell before their giant teeth and horns grown in,” he says to his trapped friend, before shifting his focus on the cub. “What are you doing out here little guy? Did you lose your mama?”

Just then, some very harsh and angry breathing gets louder behind the naked boy. He turns and see’s, in the brush, a massive brown creature with long fangs and massive horns.

A fully grown mother saber-toothed moose-lion roars at the naked kid currently holding her baby.

----

Katara doesn’t hear the roar, naturally, since she’s walking in the opposite direction where her brother and friend are.

Instead, she runs deeper and deeper into the canyon, yelling, “Sokka! Where are you, Sokka!” as she goes. Naturally, her running does no favors in keeping her perpetually loose bandeau up, and she has to slow down frequently to slide it back up.

It’s while she’s making one of these adjustments, where her eyes lock on to the stream below. She glances at it, before briefly glancing down at her bandeau, going back and forth between the two a few times.

“Maybe just once,” she says quietly. “No, I need to find Sokka … but on the other hand, it won’t kill him for me to take a few minutes. He probably went the other way where Aang went, meaning I won’t be disturbed.” She flashes back to her very brief attempt at practicing waterbending au naturel for the first time, and how those pirates interrupted her. Aang’s and Toph’s words start to flood into her mind, telling her how it’s no big deal, or that it’s natural to be naked, how inconvenient clothes can be, and how her bandeau struggles are starting to become a problem for her.

“No one will know,” she says, sliding down the cliff wall towards the water below. She slides into the shin deep water before hesitation, hands at her chest. Taking a deep breath, face flushing red, she slides the bandeau off and lays it on the rock ledge next to her, before wading in deeper.

She then raises her hands, two columns of water rising beside her. She then begins to rotate, causing the columns to spiral around her. She gets faster and faster, hands raising higher and higher, until they cross above her head. She shoots them back out to her sides, causing the spirals to break into several decently sized blobs of water that fly a few feet away each.

“Not bad, Katara,” she says to herself, still shaking lightly. “But I can do better.”

She starts to breathe deeply, slowing herself down and calming herself.

“Just relax, Katara.”

After standing there for a good minute or two, she raises her arms and repeats the process. The water spirals around her and she raises her hands higher and higher. When they cross and are shot back out to her sides, the results are much closer to Aang’s first attempt, causing the girl to smile widely.

“Okay, doing it this way isn’t so bad, I’ll admit,” she says to herself, shooting a glance down at her exposed chest. “I can get used to this.”

She raises her hands again, prepared to perfect the move on the third go around.

----

As the sun sets in the distance, Iroh and Zuko stand across from each other, the latter following closely as the former makes fluid motions with his arms and upper torso in a manner that’s suspiciously waterbender-esque.

“Waterbenders deal with the flow of energy,” the old man says, “A waterbender lets their defense become their offense, turning their opponents' energy against them. I learned a way to do this with lightning.”

“You can teach me to redirect lightning?” Zuko asks as he and Iroh stop the motions.

“If you let the energy in your own body flow, the lightning will follow it. You must create a pathway from your fingertips,” he places his hand at the base of his other hand and starts to map out the motions on his own body, “up your arm to your shoulder, then down into your stomach. The stomach is the source of energy in your body. It is called the sea of chi. Only in my case it is more like a vast ocean.” He then laughs at his own joke before continuing. “From the stomach, you direct it up again, and out the other arm. The stomach detour is critical. You must not let the lightning pass through your heart, or the damage could be deadly. You may wish to try a physical motion, to get a feel for the pathways' flow, like this.”

He then shoots one hand up to his side, finger extended. With the other hand, he traces a path down his arm, down into his stomach, before extending the other arm out the other way. Zuko does this as well. They do this a few times, in the midst of it, Iroh asks, “Now, are you focusing your energy? Can you feel your own chi flowing in, down, up, and out?”

“I think so.”

“Come on,” the old man says, waving his arms, “you’ve got to feel the flow.”

They continue this routine for a few minutes, doing the motions dozens of times. As long as it takes for it to become reflective in Zuko’s muscle memory, as it’d need to be when dealing with lightning.

“Excellent!” Iroh says after the two finally stop. “You’ve got it!”

“Great,” Zuko says, actually enthusiastic for a change, “I’m ready to try it with real lightning!”

“What, are you crazy?” the old man asks, genuinely baffled. “Lightning is very dangerous!”

“I thought that was the point!” the boy says back. “You teaching me to protect myself from it!”

“Yeah! But I’m not going to shoot lightning at you!” The man turns his back to his nephews as he continues much more sternly. “If you’re lucky, you will never have to use this technique at all!”

“Well,” Zuko says, turning out towards the canyon in front of him, and the dark cloud above, “if you won’t help me, I’ll find my own lightning.”

Iroh watches in disappointment as he watches the scarred prince mount the ostrich horse and ride away towards the storm clouds.

----

“Hey there,” Aang says nervously, holding the saber-toothed moose-lion cub up towards its ginormous mother, “we found your cub!” The little critter yawns, and the look the mother gives the boy is enough to make him put the thing on the ground, which quickly scampers off behind the behemoth. “See, we have no problem with you! We’re friendly!”

The creature bends her head downwards, pointing its horns directly at the nude boys, a motion Sokka immediately tells as a charge indicator. “Aang, this is bad, you’ve got to get me out of here!”

The saber-toothed moose-lion charges, causing Sokka to scream in terror. Just as she’s about to reach them, Aang airbends the thing above them, her claws just barely grazing the top of Sokka’s hair. The beast lands on her feet, and promptly turns around in preparation to charge again.

“This is really bad!” Sokka shouts in fear. “Please Aang, you have to earthbend me out, there’s no other way!”

Aang hesitates for a moment, before stomping his foot down and raising his fist. Nothing happens. He tries a variety of other earthbending moves he’s seen from Toph or others, but with no change in Sokka’s position.

The two could barely form a thought at this, before the creature stomps her hooves in preparation to charge again.

“Oh no!” Aang says, before leaping onto the high ground. He shouts, “Woo-hoo, look at me!” before rapidly patting his thighs and chest to get the things attention.

The saber-toothed moose-lion does glance at him, but quickly shifts her gaze back to Sokka, before charging again. The nude boy promptly leaps down and deflects the beast's advance with a powerful gust of wind.

Please, don’t leave me again,” Sokka says.

“I won’t,” Aang says, standing his ground as the creature begins to charge again. It gets closer and closer and closer, until it’s horns almost make contact with the naked boy. It’s here when he sends a powerful blast of air towards the beast, pushing her backwards into the shrubbery. Upon getting to her feet, the creature just walks off.

Then the clapping starts.

The two boys turn their heads to the noise, seeing seating on one of the rocks, clapping slowly with her eyes shut, is a naked blind girl.

“What are you doing here?” Sokka shouts at her, slightly annoyed.

“Just enjoying the show,” Toph says, unseeing eyes still closed.

“What?” Aang says, straightening back up. “You were there the whole time?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why didn't you do something?” the bald boy asks, also annoyed. “Sokka was in trouble! I was in trouble! You could have gotten him out and helped us get away!”

“Guess it just didn’t occur to me,” she says with a shrug. She then takes out another nut and tosses it on the ground in front of her. Pulling the staff from behind her bare back, the girl swings it forward to crack the shell, only for it to suddenly stop.

“Enough!” Aang shouts, hand on the upper half of the staff. “I want my staff back!” He pulls the staff out of her hand, to which she just jumps onto the ground right in front of him.

“Do it now!” she shouts.

“What?”

“Earthbend, Twinkle Toes,” the naked girl says, a smile forming on her face. “You just stood your ground against a crazy beast. And even more impressive, you stood your ground against me. You've got stuff.”

“But-”

“Do it!”

The naked boy turns to his side, a decently sized boulder stands there waiting (evidently put there by Toph at some point during the chaos). With no hesitation, the boy stomps his foot and trusts his fist towards it.

As the rock collides into the canyon wall, Toph shouts, “You did it! You’re an earthbender.”

“I can't believe it!” Aang says, genuinely excited at what’s to come. He’s already an air master, and a pretty great waterbender, and now he was getting started on earthbending. And with summer still months away, as long as he progresses as fast as he did with water, he can be ready to defeat the Fire Lord well before Sozin’s comet arrives.

“Awww, this is a really wonderful, touching moment,” Sokka says sarcastically, while he’s still stuck in the fissure. “So could you get me out of here so I can give you both a big, snuggly hug?”

“No problem, Sokka!” Aang says, turning around and starting to walk towards him, only to be stopped by Toph.

“Actually,” the naked girl says, “you should probably let me do that. You're still a little new to this. You might accidentally crush him.”

“Yeah,” Sokka says as she walks up to him, “no crushing, please.”

The girl stomps on the ground, causing him to jut out of the fissure, only his legs remain inside. She then grabs the top of his hair and pulls him out fully, allowing his naked body to once again feel the air around him as he lies there on the ground.

----

How many times has Katara done this by now? Five? Ten times?

Either way, this topless girl was nonstop. She had done the spinning trick so much she’s actually starting to get dizzy, but she wasn’t done.

After her twelfth go around, she’s practically giddy. “How have I missed this?” she asks no one in particular.

It’s after the thirteenth spin that she does need to catch her breath, and she places her hands on her thighs to slow down a bit. After steadying her breathing, she opens her eyes, now finding herself looking down at her legs and waist, specifically, the underwear she still has on. Instinctively, her hands go to her sides, thumbs down her waistband. She starts to push down, but stops herself.

“What am I doing?” she says out loud. She straightens herself, although she keeps her hands where they are. “I’m not going any further than this. I’ve had enough.”

She turns to walk back to the edge but stops.

“But on the other hand, I could try it once, just once.” She glances around, then up at the sky, which is colorful from the sunset. “The moon will be out soon,” she says looking up at the sky, before turning around and looking down. “What’s the harm in getting mine out?”

Before she could think any further, her hands were already pushing down. Her mind changes the instant her butt is uncovered, but by then she was already unknowingly committing to it.

“WhatamIdoing?WhatamIdoing?WhatamIdoing?WhatamIdoing?WhatamIdoing?WhatamIdoing? Eak!” she says, raising her hands up to her face, underwear dangling on the tips of her left-hand fingers.

Now fully nude, the girl quickly tosses the discarded bottom onto the rock edge before attempting to regain her composure. “Just once, just once…” she repeats as she raises her arms to her side.

Pillars rising too, she starts to spin, speeding up quickly as the water begins to spiral around her nude form. She barely shoots her arms out, sending the water droplet shrapnel in all directions, before she turns and runs towards the river's edge. She snatches her bottoms in a single swipe and just keeps moving, not even stopping to put it back on until she’s far enough away from the river to not be tempted to go back.

When she does stop and put them back on, she realizes that in her rush to get away from the pond, she left her bandeau there, basically forgetting it existed. She considers going back for it, but the sun was already close to setting and she wouldn’t be able to get back to Appa, not to mention how unlikely it’d be for her to find it at all.

She books it in the direction she came from, determined to get back to the bison and slide her dress back on before the others arrive.

Luckily for her, the only person with Appa is Momo, who’s continuing to feast on the nuts. She promptly climbs on top of the bison and retrieves her dress, sliding it on and tying it up, shushing Momo when he glances at her.

Once her dress is secure, she just lays back and pretends that whatever happened down there never happened.

But she can’t pretend it never happened, and she knows it. She had basically admitted to herself that she’s perfectly fine being topless after essentially playing coy about it since the cave. And now that she acknowledged it, means that it cannot be ignored.

“It’s not like I’m just going to be walking around with my breasts out or anything,” she says out loud in a suspiciously denying tone. “All I’m saying is that it’s not too bad.”

Before she could further attempt to rationalize away her epiphany, she hears noises in the near distance. She rises back up and sees walking towards her three silhouettes. This is all she needs to see before she leaps off Appa’s back and runs towards them, Momo flying after.

“You found him!” she shouts as she runs up to the nude trio, embracing her older brother.

“The whole time,” Sokka says in a serious, traumatized tone, “I was in that hole, not knowing if I was going to live or die. It makes a man to think about what's really important. I realized–”

“Hey Katara,” Aang shouts, cutting Sokka’s little monolog off, “look what I can do!” The naked boy turns and, with some bending, knocks a massive rock off of an incline onto the ground, where it shatters into pieces.

“You did it!” she says, genuinely excited for her friend's progress. “I knew you would!” She then turns her head lightly to the shorter girl as she whispers, “You tried the positive reinforcement, didn’t you?”

“Yep,” the nude girl says happily, “it worked wonders.”

“Appa, Appa,” the enthusiastic naked boy says as he runs up to his best friend, “I can earthbend now! The key is being completely rooted. Physically and mentally unmovable!”

Appa promptly licks Aang’s back, pushing him forwards a few feet, landing on his face. Seeing this after the day he’s had, Sokka bursts into laughter.

A few seconds after, always the one for a good joke, Aang starts to laugh as well, just in general being in a good mood after this massive leap he took today.

----

The storm was picking up, but Zuko didn’t care. In fact, that’s what he wanted.

Standing at the top of the tallest peak he could find, Zuko shouts to the heavens.

“You've always thrown everything you could at me! Well, I can take it, and now I can give it back!”

Suddenly, there’s a flash of lightning, but against the prince’s wishes, the bolt was too far away.

On the verge of breaking down, the boy just lets it all out.

“Come on, strike me! You've never held back before!”

Nothing comes.

There’s still thunder, but it’s as if lightning was striking everywhere that wasn’t there.

Seeing this, how even when he’s actively looking to get the worst the universe has to throw at him and how it still denies him even this request, the boy breaks, tears mingling with the rain pouring down on his face.

Zuko then screams at the top of his lungs in pure anguish, even though none would hear it.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 9
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun is high and hot. This is especially the case in this barren landscape, where barely anything grows and most things die. In the distance are the mountainous canyons behind and a long, vast desert in front, at least from the perspective of this small group of barely dressed people and their flying bison.

Standing next to each other a bit away from the bison are a pair of siblings, a boy and a girl. Both have tanned skin, brown hair and blue eyes.

The boy has his hair tied up in a ponytail (although he’d call it a warrior tail). He also sports a pair of knee-high boots and shoulder length wrappings and blue gloves. Beyond that and the sheaths holding his club and boomerang, he’s buck naked.

To his left is his sister, both slightly shorter and younger. Her hair is tied into a long braid down the back and into little loops around her sides. She sports blue leather bracers, brown fur boots, and an ornate necklace with a water-esque symbol carved into it. Unlike her brother, she’s only naked from the waist up. Wrapped around her waist is a blue and white dress that, while normally being able to cover the girl from shoulder to knee, had its upper half hanging loose thanks to both the heat and a recent epiphany the girl had. Standing at her other side is a small lemur.

Standing between and a little in front of them is another girl, significantly shorter than either of them. Her skin is lighter and her hair is black and held up in a large bun by a headband, although a decent chunk of her face is covered by her bangs. Not being covered are her eyes, which are almost milky white and it’s evident that somethings off about them. Beyond the head piece, she sports green wrist and ankle bands and is otherwise fully nude.

This trio stares ahead towards the desert, facing towards the fourth member of this party, who’s sitting a bit away in a meditative pose and is holding something. Lighter skinned like the smaller girl, but sporting no hair at all, is another boy. He has a lighter frame but sports a bigger head. Adorning his skinny limbs and body are blue tattoos that line him, stopping at arrow heads at his hands, feet and forehead. This boy is as naked as the day he was born, and he very much intends on staying that way until the day he dies. In his hands is a little wooden flute.

Staring out at the empty terrain in their wake, the nude boy with the ponytail speaks first. “What’s out there?” Sokka asks rhetorically.

“A lot, actually,” the fully nude girl says, crouching down and placing her hand on the ground. “There’s hundreds of little…”

Turning his head to Toph, the bald boy shushes her before saying, “I know you can see underground, but don’t ruin the surprise.” Aang raises the flute to his lips. “Just watch.” He blows a single note into the flute, resulting in a little furry critter emerging from a hole in the ground. It mimics the note before returning to the underground, causing the nude boy to laugh. “Yeah,” he says, before blowing the flute again, a bit longer this time. Another gopher, this one in front of him, emerges and repeats the note. “I’m putting an orchestra together.”

“Orchestra, huh?” Sokka says, audibly annoyed. “Well, la-di-da.”

Just after he does this, three groundhogs emerge from their holes and sing descending notes in the same tone the boy said. The lemur, Momo, seeing these things popping up, runs towards them, following one of them down the hole, although he emerges from another soon after.

Aang starts to play more notes on the flute, causing more groundhogs to pop up, sing their notes, and dip back under the ground before the lemur could get to them. This little display causes the shirtless girl, Katara to start to giggle. Aang continues to play notes, until he feels the air coming out of his lungs stop, pressing against his cheeks. Probably a result of the annoyed naked boy now holding his finger inside the other end of the flute, blocking it.

“This is great and all,” Sokka says, “but don’t we have more important things to worry about? We should be making plans.”

“We did make plans,” Toph corrects him. “We’re all picking mini-vacations.”

“There’s no time for vacations.”

“I’m learning the elements as fast as I can,” Aang says. “I practice hard every day with Toph and Katara. I’ve been training my arrow off.”

“Yeah,” Katara says as she walks up behind the bald boy, “what’s wrong with having a little fun in our down time?”

“Even if you do master all of the elements,” Sokka says, gesturing as he goes, “then what? It's not like we have a map of the Fire Nation. Should we just head west until we reach the Fire Lord's house? Knock, knock. Hello, Fire Lord? Anybody home? I don't think so. We need some intelligence if we're going to win this war.”

Aang plays the flute again, and the groundhog pops up right between Sokka’s feet, startling the nude boy.

“All right,” Katara says between giggles, “we’ll finish our vacations and,” her tone shifts to mocking, “then we’ll look for Sokka’s intelligence.”

Aang laughs at this dig, and once he calms, he retrieves the group's map and holds it up to her. “Your turn, Katara. Where would you like to go on your mini-vacation?”

She scans the map a little bit, before one area catches her eye. A small town with what looks like a huge boulder of ice seated directly in the middle. Pointing to it, she says, “How about the Misty Palms Oasis? That sounds refreshing.”

“Oh, yeah,” Aang says, already feeling nostalgic. “I’ve been there. It’s a pristine natural ice spring. And I usually don’t use the word pristine. It’s one of nature's wonders.”

----

The symbol representing Misty Palms Oasis showed a small village with a massive chunk of ice in the middle that’s taller than the very palm trees.

Impressive.

The modern look of the oasis is, how we say, less impressive. The buildings and walls were still the same. but the tree’s were gone. The impressive ice spring that towered over the city and its walls was now barely half the size of Aang (the second shortest in the group) at its highest point.

“Must’ve changed ownership since I was here,” Aang says to the other three, laughing sheepishly.

The four walk into the two, Katara subtly sliding the upper part of her dress back on. The people here look shifty and having so much skin out around these people makes her nervous, so up the dress goes. The group had barely crossed the opening arch when the wooden sign fell behind them, shattering into splinters behind them. After turning back around, they walk past the steaming ice chunk, heading towards a building. Leaning around the entrance are five guys completely covered in brown robes and wrapping, only their faces are uncovered, though they each wear these weird slit glasses. None of them seem to react to the three naked people approaching them.

Aang passes the cloth door first, followed by Toph, then Katara, but before Sokka could walk in, one of these men spits at his feet, causing him to stumble back. He glares at the man, who only chuckles harshly. Before Sokka could respond, Katara walks out and pulls her brother into the building,

Upon entering, the sight before them is fairly depressing. Mostly just men and women slumped over tables in the midst of drinking. Travelers, most likely. The only remotely lively person in this room was the man standing at the counter.

“One mango, please,” the man, evidently a scholar based on the back he’s carrying on his back, says to the bartender.

The bartender unsheathes his swords and slices to his left, slicing a bowl of ice from a chunk of the stuff, which he carries onto the counter. Slicing again higher to the right, four of the fruits fall on the counter. He slices the mango into a mince, before carrying the stuff and dropping it into the bowl. He finally pours some milk into the bowl before he reseathes his blades. A bamboo straw and a tiny umbrella finish the drink and he passes it to the scholar, who tosses a coin on the counter.

Seeing this, Sokka’s interest peaks. He says, “I don't see anything wrong with having one of those fruity beverages while we plan our strategy.” He then starts to run towards the counter, saying, “Excuse me.”

Aang, Katara, and Toph follow him. Without knowing this, the scholar turns and begins to walk away, and he and Aang collide. The mango drink spills all over then naked boy's body. The scholar has an apologetic look, but the boy just pipes up by saying, “No worries, I clean up easily.” He promptly slams his fists together, creating a current of air that forces the mango drink off his body, leaving him dry as a bone.

Seeing this, the scholar gasps in genuine excitement. “You’re a living relic,” he says.

“Thanks, I try,” Aang says with a shrug.

“An Air Nomad, right in front of me,” the man says, beyond disbelief. “Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University,” he says, before grabbing the boy's arm and pointing to the arrow on his hand. “Tell me, which of the Air Temples do you hail from?”

“The Southern Temple.”

“Oh, splendid!” Professor Zei says, placing some sort of strange measuring device on the boy's head. “Now tell me- what was the primary agricultural product of your people?”

“Uh,” the nude boy says nervously, “are fruit pies an agricultural product?”

“Oh, truly fascinating,” Zei says. “That is one for the journal.”

The man takes out a journal and begins to write in it.

Sokka, who stands by Katara and Toph, all three with drinks in hand, cuts in. “So Professor,” he starts, “you’re obviously a well-traveled guy. Do you have a more current map? Ours seems to be a little dated.”

Looking up from his notes, the professor says, “Certainly.”

The five corral around an empty table. Toph immediately sits down on one chair, propping her legs up on another, as she starts to drink her drink. The others stand at the other side of the table, Zei handing Sokka a map, who promptly unrolls and flattens it on the table.

He leans forwards to examine the parchment closer, and much to his dismay, it only contains a chunk of the Earth Kingdom, one they’re currently in. “What, no Fire Nation?” he says, straightening up. “Doesn’t anybody have a good map?”

Katara, meanwhile, is still interested in the map, and went to get a closer look. As she scans the various dashed lines that all seem to come from the oasis, she says, “You’ve made a lot of trips into the desert.”

“All in vain, I’m afraid,” the professor says. “I've found lost civilizations all over the Earth Kingdom, but I haven't managed to find the crown jewel: Wan Shi Tong's Library.”

“You spent years walking through the desert to find some guy’s library?” Toph asks in disbelief, books not really being her thing.

“This library is more valuable than gold, little lady,” Zei says to the naked girl. “It's said to contain a vast collection of knowledge, and knowledge is priceless.”

“Hmm, sounds like good times,” she says sarcastically.

“Oh, it is,” he says enthusiastically. “According to legend, it was built by the great Knowledge Spirit, Wan Shi Tong, with the help of his foxy knowledge seekers.”

This piques Sokka’s interest. “Oh, so this spirit has attractive assistants, huh?”

Placing her hand on his head to stop him talking, Katara says, “I think he means they look like actual foxes, Sokka.”

“You’re both right,” Zei says, much to the siblings' surprise. “Handsome little creatures.” He then pulls out another rolled up parchment and opens it up for them to see. This one pictures a large, very fancy looking building. “Wan Shi Tong and his knowledge seekers collected books from all over the world, and put them on display for mankind to read, so that we might better ourselves.”

“If this place has books from all over the world,” Sokka says, starting to get a little excited himself, “do you think they’ve got info on the Fire Nation? A map, maybe?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the man says. “But if such a thing exists, it’s in Wan Shi Tong’s library.”

“Then it’s settled,” he says, turning to the other naked boy. “Aang, I do believe it’s my turn. I’d like to spend my vacation,” he dramatically points his finger in the air as he shouts, “at the library!”

Waving her hand up to get the others' attention, Toph says, “Uh, hey, what about me? When do I get to pick?”

“You gotta work here a little longer before you qualify for vacation time,” Sokka says.

“Hmph!” Toph slams her drink on the table and crosses her arms, visibly annoyed.

“Of course,” Zei continues, “there's the matter of finding it. I've made several trips into the Si Wong Desert and almost died each time.” His voice drops. “I'm afraid that desert's impossible to cross.”

“Professor,” Sokka says, “would you like to see our sky bison?”

“A sky bison?! You actually have one?”

----

Yes, in fact, they do have one, but they almost lose it to four of the people covered in wrappings.

They five leave the town and see Appa backing away from these men, and Zei charges towards them immensely.

“Sandbenders,” he shouts as he points at the men, “shoo, away from the bison!”

The men stare at him for a moment, before walking off away, still keeping their eyes on them and the bison. The board their own vessels, two sailors that’d normally go on water, but then the benders create tornados of sand directly under the sails, and the two sailors sail off along the sand.

The gang and the professor stay there until the dust from the sailors dissipates into the distance. It’s only then in which the five board Appa’s back. Katara and Toph sit either side of the saddle while Sokka rests his back against the front of it, and Aang and Zei sit on the bison's head, Aang naturally holding the reins, which he whips, yells, “Yip yip!” and they take off.

They’re barely in the air before a problem reveals itself to one of them. Katara was still hot on the ground, and it was only her continued emberassment that kept her from just leaving the upper part of her dress off, and she intended on shrugging it off the moment they left, especially when they would board Appa, as hot air rises. But now in the air, it remained in place, thanks exclusively to the presence of the professor. The others she was okay with shrugging it off in front of. One was her brother, the other boy was raised in a place without clothes, and both had seen her fully nude enough times that she can’t even count on her fingers, and the girl was blind, so it was easier to get used to having some skin exposed around her as it was compared to the boys. This man, she only just met and thus was not comfortable in exposing her chest with him around. Granted, Zei didn’t react at all when saw Aang, Sokka, and Toph, who were all completely naked, but still she’s not the person to just walk around in the buff full time like they are (at least not yet anyways), so she was torn between beating the heat or preserving her dignity.

It was only like a minute after this when she decided beating the heat was more important. The man was up front with Aang so it’s not like he’d notice. And even if he was right in front of her, staring at her chest, the discomfort the hot air is bringing trumps any discomfort she’d feel at that. With an exhale, she slides her shoulders out of her dress and lets it fall to her waist, the wrapping around it tied tight to keep the rest of the dress in place.

Sokka, meanwhile, does something a bit more surprising. He goes to one of Appa’s pockets to retrieve something. Much to his sister’s surprise, he pulls out one of his shirts, one he hadn’t so much as glanced its way since they left the North Pole. The surprise fades when he doesn’t put it on but wraps it into a hat-like thing and ties it to his head to protect himself from the heat. After that, all he does is retrieve a spyglass and turns back towards the front to look for this library.

Aang, naturally, just holds Appa’s reins between his elbows as he examines the picture of the library, while Professor Zei leans more on the bison's head and is talking with him.

“Tell me, sky bison, are you the last of your breed?” he asks, to which Appa only growls in response. “Delightful!” Zei shouts enthusiastically, as he starts to scratch the top of the bison's head. “I only wish I spoke his tongue. Oh, the stories this beast could tell.” It’s at this moment when Momo scampers up to the man's side and starts to chitter. “Shush, chatty monkey.”

Meanwhile Aang, in the midst of examining the painting, says, “Wow, shouldn’t be too hard to find a place like this out here.”

…

A while passes with no luck. The library won’t show itself.

Professor Zei at some point slides back into the saddle and sits against the back of the saddle, picture of the library in his hands as he sits there.

At some point during this search, Toph, who’s leaning along the edge of the saddle, groans in frustration and says, “Does this place even exist?”

“Some say it doesn’t,” the man says casually, causing the naked girl's eyes to widen.

“Shouldn’t you have mentioned that before?” she asks, before falling backwards to lay down, resting her feet on the saddle’s edge.

…

More time passes, and there’s less luck. It’s nowhere to be found. Zei takes this time to write some stuff into his journal, while everyone else just looks around the area, bored out of their minds.

Toph, who by now has shifted back to her position of leaning her head over the saddle railing, suddenly pipes up, eyes widening, and pointing out to the distance.

“There it is!” she shouts excitedly, causing the professor to pipe up, Sokka and Katara to run to her side of the saddle, and for Aang to turn his head in the direction she’s pointing.

Nothing there.

Aang, Katara, and Sokka shoot annoyed glares towards Toph, who just rests her head on her hands as she says, “That’s what it will sound like when one of you spots it.” She then turns to them, a wide, blank grin on her face, as she waves a hand in front of her eyes to remind them that, in fact, she’s blind, before shifting back to clutching on the saddle.

…

A little while longer, and still nothing.

Katara and Sokka position themselves at the front yet again, to scan the desert below for this library, her with her eyes and him with the spyglass.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to spot a giant, ornate building from the air,” she says.

Sokka, who stopped to listen to his sister, looks back into the spyglass and scans around a little bit, before he sees a tower in the sand. “Down there,” he says, pointing at it, “what’s that?”

This shouting startles Aang, who was dozing off, and wakes up Momo, who was sleeping on the boy's head. Back to his senses, Aang whips the reins and Appa promptly shifts his course towards the tower.

----

Upon landing, the five dismount and approach the tower, Katara holding the portrait of the library. Upon getting close, she compared the tower with the image, and there’s a big difference.

“Forget it,” she says, “it’s obviously not what we’re looking for. The building in this drawing is enormous.”

Before they could so much as turn to head back to Appa, they see a glimmer in the distance. Turning towards the sparkle, they see something getting closer. When it gets close enough, they can see it’s an orange and white critter with what looks like a scroll in its mouth.

“What kind of animal is that?” Sokka asks the professor, who watches the creature intently as it walks up to the tower.

“I think that was one of the Knowledge Seekers,” Zei says as the fox climbs the tower and crawls into an open window at the top. “Oh, we must be close to the library!”

“No,” Sokka says as he, Katara and Aang reexamine the portrait, “this is the library- look!” He points out the top of the library on the drawing, specifically, the tower that rises above the main dome of the structure, which looks suspiciously like the tower in front of them. “It’s completely buried.”

“The library is buried?!” Zei shouts dramatically, before sprinting closer to the tower. “My life’s ambition is full of sand,” he says before collapsing to the ground. He stays there for a second or two, before piping back up again, a tiny shovel in hand. “Well, time to start excavating.”

Then the man starts to dig the sand with the shovel. As this happens, Toph walks up to the tower and places her hand on the brick wall.

“Actually, that won’t be necessary,” the naked girl says. “The inside seems completely intact. And it’s huge.”

“That fox thingy went in through a window,” Sokka says, looking up at said window. “I say we climb up there and give it a look.”

“I say you guys go ahead without me,” Toph says.

“You got something against libraries?” Katara asks.

“I’ve held books before. And I gotta tell you, they don’t exactly do it for me.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” she says sheepishly, this being the second time today she’s needed to be reminded about Toph’s blindness.

“Let me know if they have something you can listen to,”

“Well, then I guess I won’t be needing this,” Zei says as he stuffs the tiny shovel back into his bag, which he quickly slides onto the ground. He then starts to take off his shirt, saying, “or these.”

“Uh, what are you doing?” Katara asks as she watches this man undress himself.

“Oh,” he says, turning back to her, in the process of sliding his pants off. “According to the stories, Wan Shi Tong, like most spirits, tends to prefer humans to be in as natural a state as possible when in his presence. He wouldn’t let anyone inside in anything more than a hat.”

Katara, who normally would make a big fuss about stuff like this, just shrugs and says, “Figures,” before turning and heading to Appa with her brother.

Upon mounting, Sokka digs into one of the pouches for some rope, and Katara opens up another one. She loosens the waist wrapping of her dress and lets it slide off her. Now in just her bottoms, she slides the dress into the pouch. The second later, her underwear was off and stuffed into the pouch as well. She ties it shut and joins Sokka in dismounting, heading back to the tower.

He promptly ties the rope to his boomerang and prepares to throw it up at the window.

“Wait,” Katara says, holding her hand out to stop him. “Give me your boots,” she says as she slides out of hers. He does so and hands them to her, before heading back to aiming his boomerang.

She takes his shoes, along with her own, in her hands and walks up to Toph. “Can you hold on to these?” she asks as she hands them to her. “I want to keep them here since I don’t want to walk that far on this hot sand, and I’m pretty sure Wan Shi Tong doesn’t like shoes as well.”

“You’re correct,” Zei says with a smile, now with only his hat and backpack on his body.

Sokka takes aim with his boomerang and tosses it up. It lands in the window, rope hanging down to the sand. He immediately begins to ascend, Zei and Katara standing right behind him. Toph and Aang stand by Appa, the latter giving him a pat on the head as he walks past.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” he says, “I’m not making you go underground ever again. You can stay out here with Toph.”

The bald boy walks off, staff in hand, leaving Toph and Appa alone.

The bison makes a low, rumbling growl.

“What’s up?” Toph asks awkwardly.

----

“Oh, it’s breathtaking!”

These are the words that come out of Professor Zei’s mouth as he descends the rope into the library, Aang, Sokka and Katara above him.

He was not wrong in the slightest. As they descend, they are privy to all the wonder Wan Shi Tong provides within his library. Row upon row of books, many stories filled to the brim with knowledge, and all eloquently decorated with the peek architecture and design there its.

“The spirit spared no expense in designing this place,” Zei says, before pointing up at something. “Look at those beautiful buttresses!”

Aang and Sokka start to giggle at that word. Even Katara is suppressing the urge to start laughing, all three finding it funny how this man says a word that contains “butt” when all four of them have theirs out.

“What’s funny?” he asks, not getting the irony.

“Nothing,” Aang says. “We just like architecture.”

“As do I,” Zei says with a wide smile.

They dismount the rope one at a time, landing on a bridge overlooking the lower floors of the library, rows upon rows of bookcases creating paths either side of it. As they look around, Zei is beyond himself.

“My word!” he shouts, eyes gazing up at a massive mosaic of an owl above two pillars. “The exquisite mosaic handiwork of this tile-rendered avian symbol…” he stops as the three kids walk up beside him. “Eh, nice owl,” he says awkwardly.

A sudden shuffling gets their attention, and the siblings run right away, hiding behind a pillar. Aang moves quickly too, grabbing the professor's hand to hide behind the other pillar.

Aang peers his head out back towards the bridge and his stomach drops. Emerging from one of the walkways is a massive black owl with a pure white face, and it’s heading towards the rope. Stopping in front of it, the owl examines the rope, before looking around the area.

Turning its head completely backwards, towards Aang, it says, “I know you’re back there.”

Aang ducks back behind the pillar, but Zei does the opposite. He emerges and walks right up to the massive creature, saying, “Hello, I’m Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University.”

“You should leave the way you came,” the owl says, looking down at the nude man. “Unless you want to become a stuffed head of anthropology.”

The owl turns his head towards one of the pillars, which is decorated with the stuffed heads of various animals. The professor clutches his neck with a small moan as the trio emerge from behind their pillars.

Approaching the owl, Sokka asks, “Are you the spirit who brought this library to the physical world?”

“Indeed,” the owl says to the three naked kids, “I am Wan Shi Tong, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things. And you are obviously humans, which, by the way, are no longer permitted in my study.”

“What do you have against humans?” Aang asks.

“Hm!” Wan Shi Tong says, obvious disdain in his tone. “Humans only bother learning things to get the edge on other humans. Like that firebender who came to this place a few years ago, looking to destroy his enemy.” That man was far from pleasant, that’s for sure. All of this knowledge, and all he was searching for was the physical form of the moon spirit. “So…” the owl continues, leaning up to Sokka accusingly, “who are you trying to destroy?”

“What?” he says guiltily, “No-no-no-no destroying. We’re not into that.”

Blinking, evidently not believing him, Wan Shi Tong says, “Then why have you come here?”

“Um… knowledge for knowledge's sake?”

“If you’re going to lie to an all-knowing spirit being, you should at least put some effort into it.”

“I’m not lying,” Sokka lies, “I’m here with the Avatar,” he grabs Aang by the shoulders and shoves him in front of him, “and he’s the bridge between our worlds. He’ll vouch for me.”

He then nudges Aang on the back, causing the boy to say, “Ow.” The bald, naked boy then looks up at the owl. “Uh, yeah, I’ll vouch. We will not abuse the knowledge in your library, good spirit. You have my word.”

The four naked people bow to the owl, and that seems to do the job at convincing him. “Hmm, very well,” he says. “I’ll let you pursue my collection on one condition.” The brief looks of hope they shared shift to concern at this. “To prove your worth as scholars, you have to contribute some worthwhile knowledge.”

Zei walks up immediately, book in hand. “Please accept this tome as a donation to your library.”

The owl examines the book. “First edition, very nice,” he says, before swiping his wing to take the book from the kneeling man.

Katara was next, walking up to the spirit as she unrolls a scroll. “I have an authentic waterbending scroll.”

“Ooh,” he says as he examines the scroll, “these illustrations are quite stylish.” He swipes his wing and takes the scroll.

Aang was next, and he was unsure. “Uh … oh, I know!” he says, before procuring a poster, a wanted poster, a wanted poster that contains a very familiar naked airbender. “Hah!”

“I guess that counts,” Wan Shi Tong says with what can only be a shrug, before taking it as well.

Last is Sokka, and he makes a show of it as he walks up to the owl. “Oh, great spirit,” he says, holding up a piece of string, “check this out.” He quickly ties the string into a butterfly shaped knot, which he presents with a “Ta-da!” The three others look uncertain at this. “It’s a special knot,” he says. “It counts as knowledge!”

“You’re not very bright, are you?” the owl asks the boy, who just grunts as he takes the knot.

“Enjoy the library,” Wan Shi Tong says, before jumping off the bridge and flying down deep into the shadows of the library.

With that done, the four walk into the library's vast collections, ready to get their knowledge on.

As he walks, under his breath and with narrow eyes, Sokka says, “Bright enough to fool you.”

----

Back outside the library, the bison and the naked girl sit beside each other, the latter trying to engage the creature in conversation.

“So … you like flying?” Toph asks awkwardly.

Appa just purrs deeply and scratches his ear in response, but he does look down to her to indicate he’s listening.

“Of course,” she continues, “I'm more comfortable on the ground where I can see. Well, I don't see the way you do. I feel the vibrations in the ground with my feet.”

The blind girl picks up a handful of sand and lets it flow through her fingers as she says, “But the sand is so loose and shifty, it makes everything look fuzzy.”

Standing up, Appa makes a rumbling groan, which gets Toph to backtrack.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with fuzzy,” she says, to which the bison just groans.

----

The hall the four naked people now stand in contains more books and scroll than all of them have ever seen in their lives combined, and this was just a fraction of what this library has to offer.

Zei sits right between two shelves, two piles of books slowly growing either side of him. Katara and Sokka stand in front of the next shelf over, Katara leaning against it and reading something, while Sokka scans the shelf for anything of note. Aang sits against the next shelf, the same one that Knowledge Seeker deposits the scroll in its mouth, as he and Momo look through a book.

The boy flips through a few pages, looking at the illustrations, until one catches his eye. He turns it towards Katara and says, “Hey, look at these weird lion turtle things.”

Pulling out a book and sliding it into his purse, Sokka just says, “Eh, I’ve seen weirder.” He then walks to a shelf on the other side of this hall.

“Aang,” Katara says, walking towards the boy with a paper in her hands, “did you know in a past life, you were left-handed?”

“I always knew I was special,” Aang says as he scratches the back of his head.

Meanwhile, Sokka’s on a mission, he’s looking something, and some dumb owl isn’t going to stop this naked boy. He pulls one scroll from a shelf, opens it up to read, and stuffs it into his bag when he’s satisfied. He’s about to cross to the other side, but something else catches his attention. A podium with a glass case at the top that’s very distinctly lit.

He walks up to the podium and sees that it holds a burnt piece of parchment that has something written on it, which Sokka says out loud, “The darkest day in Fire Nation history.” He scans the paper for more info. “It’s got a date at the top,” he says, “but it doesn’t say anything else.”

He glances around to make sure no one is watching him, before he pulls out his club. Turning it to the machete side, he begins to pry the case open. He retrieves the paper and turns to leave the area as Aang, Katara, and the professor emerge from the right.

“Sokka, where are you going,” Aang asks as his friend runs past him down another section.

“I want to know what happened to the Fire Nation on their darkest day,” Sokka says, stopping and turning back to the three. “This could be promising.” He starts to speed walk, the others following him. He makes several turns, looking around, before catching sight of it and turning to run towards it. “The information on the Fire Nation should be right up there,” he says as they run up to a room with a red banner with the characters for “Fire Nation” plastered above.

They enter, expecting to search this section for the date or whatever the darkest day refers to, only to stop just beyond the door in shock.

Either side of them, high and far, are piles upon piles of pure black ash.

“Firebenders,” Aang says at this sight, already piecing it together.

Also figuring it out is Katara, who says, “They destroyed everything having to do with the Fire Nation.”

“That’s so unfair!” Sokka shouts in despair. “Just when I think I’m one step ahead of the Fire Nation, it turns out they beat us here a long time ago.” The nude boy collapses to his arms and knees. “I need to know what happened on the darkest day.” He then hears a whimpering behind him, and so he turns his head and sees a fox standing on its hind legs behind him. “Hello, little weird fox guy.”

The Seeker gets back on all fours and turns, head and front paw pointing in the opposite direction.

“Seems it’s trying to assist you,” Zei says.

“Um, sure,” the boy says, “I guess I’ll follow you.”

The fox takes off, and Sokka follows, the others close behind.

----

This library must be truly big, as wherever this fox was leading them seems to be on the other side of the building, luckily on the same story or who knows how long this would have taken.

When they do arrive at what the fox was leading them to, it has to be impressive if the entrance is anything to go by. On the wall is a sun shaped texture, here the circle is touching the ground. The fox slinks off as the four naked people approach.

They stare for a moment, when the circle begins to slide away, revealing a path that leads to another room. The fox sits there waiting for them, and they enter.

The room is a semi-sphere, the walls painted like the sky and mountains. The only thing actually in the room is a circular platform with several dials on it, with a lever next to it. The fox promptly walks up to said lever and puts its weight on it. As this happens, something moves up to cover the painted walls. Black with white dots that lightly glow, this is supposed to represent night, and there's a piece of this device with the moon passing by. A wondrous sight, and just as beautiful as the real night sky.

“This room is a true marvel, a mechanical wonder,” Zei says, in utter awe. “It's a planetarium that shows the heavens moving.”

The fox flicks the lever again, causing the room to shift back into daylight, a similar sun piece replacing the moon.

“Uh, this is beautiful,” a confused Sokka says, “but how is this helpful?”

Katara, who looks back down at the circular platform, has another idea. “Maybe these dials represent dates and times,” the nude girl says. “Sokka, try entering that date from that parchment you took.”

“Shhh, Katara, not in front of the fox,” he says in a mock whisper, “he’s with the owl.”

The Knowledge Seeker whimpers at this comment.

Sokka pulls out the parchment carefully, still suspicious about the fox, and reads it quietly. He enters the date listed into the sundial, and he pulls the lever. The ceiling shifts back into its night form again.

“Wow,” Aang says in awe, “I got to hand it to you, Sokka. You picked the best mini-vacation for sure.”

After a few more seconds, the room shifts back into day, but a moment later, the room darkens as if it were night.

“Hey, wait,” Katara says at this. What happened to the sun?”

“Great,” Aang says, narrowing his eyes at Sokka, “you must have broken it.”

“It’s not broken,” he says, walking next to the bald boy. He directs his gaze upwards, where the moon piece is, as well as the supports for the sun piece which shows that the piece is behind the moon one. “The sun is behind the moon. It's a solar eclipse! It's literally the darkest day in Fire Nation history. Now I get it.” he grabs his shoulder and starts to shake him, excitement growing. “Something awful happened on that day. I don't know what, but I do know why. Firebenders lose their bending during a solar eclipse.” Realizing he’s making his friend dizzy, he pushes Aang back lightly, saying, “Sorry.”

“That makes sense,” Katara says. “I mean, think of what the lunar eclipse at the North Pole did to the waterbenders. This is huge.”

A soft moaning from the fox gets their attention. “Fine,” Sokka says, “you earned it.” He tosses a small piece of food towards the critter, who catches it in its jaws. Turning back to his sister and friend, the nude boy says, “We've gotta get this information to the Earth King at Ba Sing Se. We'll wait for the next eclipse, then we'll invade the Fire Nation when they're totally helpless. The Fire Lord is going down!”

“Mortals are so predictable,” the voice that causes Sokka to gulp says, “and such terrible liars.”

He turns and they all face down the massive owl now standing right by the entrance.

“You betrayed my trust,” Wan Shi Tong continues. “From the beginning, you intended to misuse this knowledge for evil purposes.”

“You don't understand,” Sokka objects. “If anyone's evil, it's the Fire Nation. You saw what they did to your library. They're destructive and dangerous. We need this information.”

“You think you're the first person to believe their war was justified?” the owls asks them accusingly. “Countless others before you have come here seeking weapons or weaknesses or battle strategies.”

“We had no choice,” Aang says apologetically. “Please we’re just desperate to protect the people we love.”

“And now I’m going to protect what I love,” Wan Shi Tong says loudly, before beginning to flap his wings.

The building starts to shake immediately, everyone bracing themselves.

“What are you doing?” the Avatar asks.

“I’m taking my knowledge back,” the owl answers. “No one will ever abuse it again.”

A few seconds pass of just the building shaking. Then the sand starts to pour through the cracks in the dome of the chamber,

“He’s sinking the building,” Katara shouts. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Wan Shi Tong says, his neck getting longer. “You already know too much.” He lets out a loud shriek before he pecks his beak at them.

This attack misses, and the four scamper out of the room, the now angered owl spirit in hot pursuit.

----

Back at the surface, the bison and nude girl are just sitting there, relaxing. Appa lays down with his head facing away from the tower while Toph lays against his side. They remain like this for a while, until the bison notices something, and starts to snarl.

“I already told you,” Toph says, eyes still shut, “I don’t wanna snuggle.”

The bison stands up, causing Toph to fall down on her back, as he puts some distance between himself and the tower. She stands up and turns to face the tower. She doesn’t need eyesight to tell what’s going on in front of her, the vibrating ground and audible shaking is enough.

“Library sinking,” the nude girl says, breaking into a run towards the sinking tower. “Library sinking!”

Upon reaching the tower, she slams her fists into the wall, chasing the whole library to stop sinking. However, she’s only able to hold it for a few moments, as her foot slips in the sand, causing her to lose her grip.

She leaps into the air and slams her fist into the ground, creating a nice solid platform for her to stand on. She raises up and turns back to the tower.

“Hi-yah!” she shouts as she slams her fists into the tower again, stopping its descent, although she is struggling against it.

----

The four nude people run along the library’s corridors and pathways as sand slowly falls from the ceiling, the giant owl in hot pursuit, destroying whole shelves as he runs with complete disregard. He’s only focusing on taking care of these intruders.

Upon reaching one of the bridges, the three youths keep moving, but the man stops and turns back towards the fast-approaching spirit.

“Great Knowledge Spirit,” Zei shouts towards Wan Shi Tong, “I beg you, do not destroy your vast collection of priceless tomes!”

Not wanting him hurt, Aang turns around and sends an air gust towards the professor, which catches him and pulls him towards the trio just as the owl goes to strike. He slides along the ground until Sokka catches him. Not stopping, Aang slashes his staff towards the spirit, sending a slice of air at him, knocking out of flight and sending him falling off the side of the bridge.

“We’ve gotta get to the surface!” he shouts when he runs back to his friends and the professor.

Aang, Katara, and Zei break out in a run further away from the bridge. However, Sokka stays put, even looking back at the room they came from.

“Sokka, let’s go,” Katara shouts, the three stopping and looking back at him.

“But we still don’t know when the next eclipse is gonna happen,” he tells them.

“Don’t be stupid!” the nude girl shouts to her brother. “We’ll find out later!”

“No, we won’t,” the nude boy says back. “If we leave this place, we'll never get the information. Aang, come with me to the planetarium.” The other nude boy runs up to him. “I need cover. Katara, take Momo and get out of here!”

“But…!” Katara starts, but is cut off by Wan Shi Tong bursting between the two groups, head turned towards Katara and Zei.

“Go!” Sokka shouts at them.

“Hurry, Sokka!” Katara shouts as she and Zei turn heel and sprint away, Aang and Sokka doing the same in the opposite direction.

The girl and the professor run down the hall, the spirit not far behind. Scared, the professor dives into another, smaller aisle. He gets low to the ground, covering his neck with his hands, as Wan Shi Tong flies past him, still on the girl's bare ass.

His fear fades almost immediately as he eyes a book on one of the shelfs, which he pulls out and looks at its cover.

As he’s doing this, Katara’s still running in fear from the giant owl intent on spilling blood, Momo fearfully holding onto her neck.

----

Despite the library getting ever heavier, this nude girl is able to keep it from fully sinking. However, it is taking all of her strength and even then, she’s struggling to hold it up. Thankfully, the solid patch of earth she made is making this a hell of a lot easier. Still, she needs to focus.

Unfortunately, the audibly nervous growls of the bison behind her calls at her attention.

“What is it now?” she asks, turning her head towards Appa, who’s now looking out at the three plumes of sand in the distance getting closer with each second.

Or should I say the three sand-sailors getting closer with each second?

The sandbenders riding them speed up as their prey gets closer. One of them shoots a sand blast towards the bison to disorient it.

Toph, hearing this and feeling all the pieces of sand fly against her skin, says, “Who’s there?” still struggling to hold up the library.

By the time the sand clears around his face, Appa finds himself being circled by the three sand-sailors, the benders wrapped in white and brown leaping off them to catch their greatest haul yet.

----

The two naked boys run across the bridge as sand falls and pieces of the walls and ceiling collapse around them. They sprint through the aisles and walkways until they’re face to face with the planetarium again.

As they run through the still open door, Aang asks, “Why are we doing this?”

“Because if this calendar can tell us about eclipses in the past,” Sokka says as he reaches the dial, to which he immediately begins to adjust the dates, “then maybe it can project when the next one will be.”

“You can’t possibly check every single date,” Aang points out.

“I don't have to,” Sokka says as he continues to make his adjustment. “We just need to check every date before Sozin's Comet arrives. Because after that- well, try not to think about that.”

He finishes his adjustment and Aang pulls the lever, causing the room to shift around again. It finally stops and…

No eclipse.

Sokka tries the next date, to a similar result. Then again with the next date. Desperation grows as the days turn into weeks, and especially after they reach the first and second month with no eclipse in sight, although there were a few near misses.

“Come on, eclipse,” Aang says as he pushes the lever after who knows how many times, desperation audible in his tone.

The room shifts around yet again to night and back to day. They watch as the sun and moon pieces slide around the sky into their positions. The sun comes to a stop in its usual spot, the moon still moves a bit, before it comes to a stop as well.

The room goes dark as the sun piece is blocked.

“That’s it!” Sokka shouts, full of excitement. “The solar eclipse! It’s just a few months away!” He pulls out a piece of paper and writes down the date on the dial. “Got it,” he says as he stuffs it back into his bag. “Now, let’s get to Ba Sing Se.”

With that taken care of, the two nude boys sprint out of the planetarium to reconvene with their friend.

----

Completely surrounded by men who could bend the whole environment to their will, Appa was in for a tough fight if he were to get away from these sandbenders. Of course, Toph could take them down with relative ease, but unfortunately, she’s a bit preoccupied on keeping her friends alive.

He’s on his own right now. The sandbenders, wielding weighted ropes, surround the bison, before throwing them across his back, the one’s on the other side catching the ones thrown to them.

They begin to pull down on the ropes to constrict the bison's movements, but he’s just too damn strong. So much that they need to solidify the sand near their feet just to keep on the ground.

Toph, hearing this and obviously not wanting this to continue, shouts, “Don’t make me put this down!” She lets go of the tower for a moment, which resumes sinking, to shoot a blast of sand towards the men. Thanks to both her fuzzy vision from the sand and generally shooting without aiming, she misses, and can’t shoot again as she punches her fists into the tower again to stop it sinking.

By then, the sandbenders managed to get Appa to the ground and fully tied up. He’s still putting up a tough fight, but now it is less effective as the men begin to drag him away from the tower and towards their sand-sailors.

“No!” Toph says as she hears Appa’s roars getting more distant. “Stop sinking!” She lets go of the library again and shoots three more blasts of sand, all missing. She slams her palms into the tower again, stopping it from sinking any further.

Appa’s growling gets further and further away, making Toph feel worse and worse. She wants to help him, but she can’t without letting the library sink, condemning her friends inside to certain death.

Dropping her head and shutting her eyes as she hears the growls and sand-riders sailing away, says, “I’m sorry, Appa.”

----

This wasn’t the first time Katara feared she was going to die totally naked, and she’s conflicted as to whether or not she hopes it’s the last.

She, with Momo holding on, runs from the angered knowledge spirit as he chases them through the aisles of books and scrolls, trying to find the one turn to lose him for long enough to get away.

After putting some distance between her and the owl, Katara makes a sharp turn down one aisle, then another. She promptly sits down against the shelf to catch her breath.

Meanwhile, Wan Shi Tong peers his head through one of the aisles, looking around for his prey. He glances along the shelfs, aisles, and pathways, until his eyes land on a lemur's tail.

“At least I’ll have one specimen to add to my collection,” he says as he goes for the tail and, subsequently, Momo. Luckily, Katara manages to get away, breaking into a sprint towards the bridge.

Upon reaching it, she turns around to face the owl head on.

“Your waterbending won’t do you much here,” he says as he rises his head higher and spreads his wings, ready to attack. “I’ve studied Northern water style, Southern water style, even Foggy Swamp style.”

Katara looks up, ready to face what’s coming, when she sees the glider fly above the owl, for a moment two nude boys holding onto it.

I say momentarily because the second he’s above the owl, Sokka lets go and slams a massive tome on his head, knocking the spirit out cold.

“That’s called Sokka style,” he taunts the downed owl. “Learn it.”

Luckily, the spirits prone body makes a nice steppingstone to the dangling rope, to which Sokka and Katara take immediate advantage of. The siblings climb the rope up while Aang uses his glider to ascend and the three begin to rise.

That’s right, three, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Sokka.

Looking back, he sees the professor sitting on the bridge, a pile of books around him and reading a scroll.

“Wait!” he shouts at the man. “Professor, let’s go.”

Looking up with a smile, Professor Zei says, “I'm not leaving. I can't. I've spent too long trying to find this place. There's not another collection of knowledge like this on earth. I could spend an eternity in here.”

Thanks to his wistful look, Katara realizes he’s a lost cause, so she just says, “Just go!”

They barely begin to climb again when Wan Shi Tong reawakens and grabs the rope with his beak and shakes it. Seeing this, Aang flies back down towards his friends as they lose their grips on the rope. He catches them and they fly up.

Pulling the rope loose, Wan Shi Tong then goes into flight to pursue the three nude youths. They barely keep their distance, just a little more, he’s getting closer, and…

The three plus Momo fly out of the tower window, landing on the sand, Aang on his feet, the siblings on their backs. Hearing the sounds of them landing, the down Toph releases the tower from her grip, and it sinks quickly into the sand. The force pushes her a bit back and onto her back as the top spire vanishes beneath the sand.

“We got it,” Sokka says excitedly to his sister, who’s matching his mood. “There’s a solar eclipse coming.” He jumps into the air in excitement before hugging his sister. “The Fire Nation’s in trouble now!”

Not excited about their current prospects of ending the war is Aang, who notices a very major absence in the group. He walks up to Toph, who’s sitting with her back to him, hands against her head.

“Where’s Appa?” he asks.

In response, the girl shakes her head, not even looking at him, causing him to gasp in shock.

Appa, the one constant in his life, the only other living relic of the airbender culture, the only other being born prewar that’s still alive, his closest friend…

He was now gone.

A single tear slides down the boy’s cheek.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 10
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun was high and hot, and the wind was strong and fast across the vast, barren desert. Sand was flying everywhere, making visibility rather limited. This complicates the already difficult circumstances a small group of people within the desert currently find themselves facing.

On a mound of sand besides a freshly created crater, this group consists of four youths, two boys and two girls, as well as a lemur, each standing at different ends of the mound and facing out in different directions. They all seem to be scanning the area around them for something, and they all carry this subdued, slightly downtrodden mood.

Another thing these four shared in common was that fact that, for the most part, they were all naked.

Standing the furthest away is one of the girls. She has tanned skin, blue eyes, and long brown hair done up in a braid down her back and loops around her sides. All she has in terms of clothing are her brown fur boots, blue arm bracers, and a necklace with a unique inscription on it. She also carries a decently sized waterskin. Also among this group, she seems the most uncomfortable about her nudity, using the hand not shielding her eyes from the sand to cover her crotch. The other three aren’t attempting to cover their own nudity in the slightest, her emberassment being unique. Not helping is the constant wind and sand blowing against her body. A bit in front of her sits the lemur, who’s scanning the area as well.

A bit away from her is one of the boys, looking out in another direction. Similar to her, he’s tan, has blue eyes, and sports brown hair tied up in a warrior tail. He’s also noticeably the tallest in this little group, even without the ponytail. His sole items of clothing are the knee-high leather boots, elbow length white wrappings, and the fingerless navy-blue gloves over them. He also sports a holster for his boomerang and a sheath for his club.

On the opposite side of the mound to him is the other girl, the shortest and youngest of the group. She has lighter skin, pale green eyes with a distinctive milky look to them, and black hair mostly held in a bun behind her head with a green and yellow headband, though it doesn’t prevent her bangs from covering parts of her face. Beyond the headband, green wrist and ankle bands make up this girl's wardrobe.

Standing a bit away and behind her to her left is the other boy. He’s bald, has gray eyes, and light skin. Most striking were the boy’s tattoos. Light blue, the ink lines his body from his feet, up his legs, through his butt cheeks, up his spine, splitting off down his arms, and finally up his neck and down to his forehead, ending in a large arrow, smaller ones mark the ends at the back of his hands and top of his feet. Even with the sand reducing visibility, these tattoos still can be seen with ease. He hasn’t got a stitch on his body, and never intends on having any. He holds a long wooden staff that’s at least a head longer than he is tall.

He’s also very angry and sad. Sad because he just lost his best friend, the massive flying bison Appa, and angry because he’s standing right by the person he blames for him being taken. Turning his head sharply towards the short girl, Aang shouts, “How could you let them take Appa?! Why didn’t you stop them?!” There was no hiding how enraged he was at this.

Trying to defend herself, Toph says back, “I couldn’t! The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and-”

“You could’ve come to get us,” he cuts her off, walking towards her. “I could’ve saved him!”

Turning her head slightly towards him, she says, “I can hardly feel any vibrations out here. The sandbenders snuck up on me and there wasn’t time for-”

“You just didn’t care!” the boy snaps harshly at her. “You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone!”

Hearing this spat, Katara walks up between the two. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she tells him, “Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives.”

“Who’s going to save our lives now?” Sokka asks, still staring out at the vast desert in front of him. “We’ll never make it out of here.”

Aang, very irate, turns and walks away from them. “That’s all any of you guys care about, yourselves!” he shouts as he walks to the edge of the mound. “You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!” He kneels down in the sand by the edge.

“We’re all concerned,” Katara says, “but we can’t afford to be fighting now.”

“I’m going after Appa,” the boy says coldly, leaping high into the air, converting his staff into a glider, and flying off.

“Aang, wait!” Katara says, running after him, only stopping once she sees how far he’s gotten already. Still looking out in that direction, the naked girl says, “We'd better start walking. We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se.”

The three begin to walk in the direction Aang went. Katara takes the lead, followed by her brother, and Toph takes the rear.

“You think if we dig out the giant owl, he’ll give us a ride?” Sokka asks jokingly.

Katara just rolls her eyes, not wanting to deal with her brother's jokes and sarcasm in this current predicament. Aang was angry and Appa was gone, made worse for her by the fact that her only clothes were in his saddle pouch when he was taken, meaning she was stuck being nude for the foreseeable future. She’s perfectly fine with her top off, but full nudity still makes her uncomfortable, doubly so as she’s already finding herself having to clean out sand from between her butt cheeks.

Still, she soldiers on, leading her brother and new friend into the vast desert after Aang, resigned to her prolonged state of involuntary nudity

----

A bit far away, in far greener pastures, two people in deep green attire ride an ostrich horse along a beaten path. The guy holding the reins is younger, like sixteen, and sports short dark hair, light skin, amber eyes, and a burn scar around his left eye. Behind him is an older, larger man who’s balding with a gray beard and similarly amber eyes.

This old man grunts and moans with each step the ostrich takes, although there’s something maybe a bit too theatrical about it, especially as he clasps his left arm.

“Maybe we should make camp,” the boy says, not wanting his uncle to be hurt as they travel.

“No please,” the uncle groaned, “don’t stop just for me!”

With that, they keep going, but the man just keeps moaning loudly and fakely, which is starting to annoy his nephew. After a few more seconds, he pulls the reins of the ostrich horse, causing it to stop. He dismounts, followed by his uncle, who limps to a flat rock to sit on.

They’re only off for a few seconds when the horse's head jolts to the side, to which Zuko gets into a fighting stance immediately.

“What now?” Iroh asks, audibly annoyed.

Emerging from the thicket are five armored rhinos, and the five men riding them. Each armed with a different weapon. A man with a thick brown beard wields a Guan Dao, a dark-skinned man with a long black braid and mutton chops wields chains, a man with his face painted white and red is armed with a bow and arrow, a masked man has some sort of bomb in his hand, and a man with a long topknot doesn’t seem to be armed with anything, although he stares the two down directly.

Standing up, Iroh walks towards Zuko. As he places a hand on his nephew's shoulder, he says to the unarmed guy, “Colonel Mongke! What a pleasant surprise!”

“If you’re surprised we’re here,” the man, Mongke, says, “then the Dragon of the West has lost a few steps.”

Surprised at this apparent familiarity, Zuko turns to his uncle and asks, “You know these guys?”

“Sure,” Iroh says casually, “Colonel Mongke and the Rough Rhinos are legendary. Each one is a different kind of weapon specialist. They are also a very capable singing group.”

“We’re not here to give a concert,” Mongke says sternly. “We’re here to apprehend fugitives!”

Rubbing his arm, Iroh asks, “Would you like some tea first? I’d love some. How about you, Kahchi?” He addresses the bearded man with the guan dao. “I make you as a jasmine man. Am I right?”

“Enough stalling!” the colonel shouts to his men. “Round ‘em up!”

The five, weapons drawn and ready, prepare to strike. The ball chain wielding man strikes first, throwing it at the old man. Iroh kicks it away, causing it to wrap around the legs of Kahchi’s rhino. Iroh then ducks and rolls to avoid two fire blasts from Mongke. He rushes up to Kahchi’s rhino’s backside, and promptly smacks it. The beast runs away, pulling the chain wielder off his own rhino. Iroh cheekily waves at the man as he’s dragged away.

Meanwhile, the archer shoots a burning arrow towards Zuko. He deflects the arrow with his arm, and shoots a small fire blast at the man, burning a hole in the man's bow and snapping the bowline, effectively nullifying his abilities.

Mongke, having three of his men taken down with such ease, joins in the fight himself, shooting several blasts towards the old man, who deflects each of them. While he’s distracted, Zuko climbs atop the rhino and, before he could react, fire kicks at the man, sending him flying away.

Iroh quickly runs up to and mounts the ostrich horse. He rides the thing up to Zuko, who jumps onto the back of the creature as it passes as they make their escape.

Still pursuing them is the last member of the Rough Rhinos, the masked man. He tosses a bomb with a lit fuse towards the duo. It lands in front of them and explodes, creating a plumb of smoke in front of them. Not stopping, the ostrich horse emerges from the smoke, Zuko and Iroh basically unscathed.

“It’s nice to see old friends,” Iroh says, looking back at the plumb.

“Too bad you don’t have any old friends that don’t want to attack you,” Zuko says.

Grasping his shoulder again, Iroh racks his brain in thought of anyone who fits this description. “Hmmm … Old friends who don’t want to attack me…”

----

To say the walk was exhausting and miserable for the three would be an understatement.

Walking in the blistering sun with only their sweat to shield their bodies from it, Katara, Sokka, and Toph quickly dehydrate as the sun beats down on their bare bodies. Tired, sweating, thirsty, and all three having their cheeks (both pairs) already sunburned, this was not a pleasant walk.

But they kept on walking.

Sokka does briefly stop to take Momo, who’s resting on his back, and lifts him above his head, wings spread to shade him. It’s while he’s doing this when he feels someone walk into his back and butt, causing him to stumble.

Annoyed, he turns and says, “Can’t you watch where you’re…” but pauses when he sees that Toph was the one who bumped into him.

“No,” the blind girl says.

“Right,” he says, grabbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry.”

Realizing her friends are stalling behind her, Katara turns and offers them some words of encouragement. “Come on guys, we’ve got to stick together.”

As it turns out, sticking together is actually quite easy for these two, owing to the fact that they’re both sweaty, making their skin sticky, meaning that Toph’s side is stuck to Sokka’s chest and abdomen.

Trying to push her off, he shouts, “If I sweat anymore, I don’t think sticking together will be a problem.”

Very irritated, Toph frees her hand and pushes the boy off her, causing him to fall to the ground. Walking a bit closer to the waterbender, she says, “Katara, can I have some more water?”

“Okay,” she says, unscrewing the cap off her waterskin, “but we’ve got to try to conserve it.” She then bends out three small balls of water, sending them towards the open mouths of Sokka, Toph, and Momo.

The nude boy swishes the liquid in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. He points to his mouth and says, “We’re drinking your bending water.” He then smacks his lips a few times to determine how it tastes, eyes widening in disgust. “You used this on the swamp guy!”

“It does taste swampy,” Toph says, after which Momo lets out a sad cry.

“I’m sorry,” Katara says in a sad tone, “it’s all we have.”

“Not anymore!” Sokka says, voice piping up. “Look!”

Katara turns her head to where Sokka’s pointing, which turns out to be a type of cactus. Before she could do anymore, she sees her naked brother run up to the plant and slice a bit of it off. Catching the slice, Sokka then begins to pour the fluid inside into his mouth. Momo crawls up to the cactus and begins to drink directly from the plant itself.

“Sokka, wait!” Katara says worriedly. “You shouldn’t be eating strange plants!” Grabbing Toph by the arm and dragging her, she runs up to Sokka, who’s in the midst of slicing another piece off the cactus.

Offering the slice to his naked sister, Sokka says, “There’s water trapped inside these!”

Skeptical, Katara backs away saying, “I don’t know…”

“Suit yourself,” he says, the water dripping from his chin. “It’s very thirst quenching though.” He smiles like a salesman, before his pupils dilate.
He starts shaking his head in an attempt to shake the weird feeling coming over him. “Drink cactus juice,” he hypes up. “It’ll quench ya! Nothing’s quenchier.” He briefly drops to the ground and crawls like a caterpillar along the sand, before jumping back to his feet, huge smile on his face, as he finishes. “It’s the quenchiest.!”

Throwing her brother a weird look, Katara takes the cactus slice and dumps out the contents onto the sand, saying. “Okay, I think you’ve had enough.”

“Who lit Toph on fire?” he asks, pointing at the short nude girl inquisitively.

Katara was going to say something, but a noise from above gets her attention. She sees Momo flying in circles above her, speeding up as he goes, before shooting towards the ground, knocking him out on impact.

As Katara picks up and cradles him, Toph asks, “Can I get some of that cactus?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says as she wraps her other arm around the girl's shoulders. “Come on, we need to find Aang.”

With that, the two naked girls begin to walk away, Katara leading Toph. They get a few feet away before she realizes that the naked boy is following them. She turns, sees Sokka staring at the sky, and runs up. She grabs him by the arm and runs back to Toph.

In utter awe, Sokka shouts, “How did we get here in the middle of the ocean?”

Katara can only sigh at this.

----

High in the air, with the wind guiding his glider, the naked bald boy searches in determination for his stolen friend. He scans and scans the terrain with no luck. He couldn’t see him.

If he couldn’t see him, maybe he could hear him?

Thinking that, Aang pulls up the bison whistle and blows into it, hoping he gets some sort of response.

“Appa!” Aang shouts as he turns the glider down towards a relatively higher dune. As he lands on top of it, he repeats, “Appa!”

He scans the area, making a full turn as he fruitlessly searches for his friend.

Nothing. He sees nothing but the sand and dead plants.

“No…” Aang says, realizing that it’s basically impossible to find Appa out here, and how he’s probably very far gone. Tears begin to form as he shuts his eyes, sadness festering into anger.

“No!”

Overcome with rage, he slams his staff into the ground, kicking a massive amount of sand and dust into the air.

----

As she leads the two, Katara seriously wonders what she’s done to deserve this.

Bare ass naked, burning up in the sun, dehydrated, and having to lead her out of mind brother and even blinder than usual friend through the middle of a massive desert.

She’s actually impressed with how calm she is right now with all of that. She basically has no urge to cover herself, though that isn’t a surprise to her. Of the two people with her, the girl is blind, and the boy is her brother and very out of it.

“Hey,” he says, “Is it just me or did we all forget to get dressed today, 'cause I swear we’re all naked!”

The only person who she could see staring at her is someone who was raised in a society of naked men and women, not here right now, and in an agitated state.

That mixed with the current situation, the emberassment can wait until they’re back to civilization.

What she’s regretting now is not getting some of that cactus juice. Not to drink, but considering how hot it is, she could have frozen some of it to hold on her body to cool off, or at least dump it over her. However, Sokka’s immediate reaction to drinking it tells her she made the right decision. Who knows what that stuff could have done if it got into her pores?

As these thoughts fill her mind, she hears a loud noise behind her and turns, Sokka doing the same while Toph stays put. Katara has to cover her eyes to protect them from dust kicked up by something in the distance. Dropping her hand when the sand calms around her, and her eyes widen at what’s there.

“What is that?” she asks out loud.

“What?” Toph says, senses still fuzzy. “What is what?”

On a dune far behind them is a massive cloud of sand rising up to the sky, and it’s shaped like…

“It’s a giant mushroom!” Sokka shouts as he raises his arms up, very excited. “Maybe it’s friendly!”

“Let’s just keep moving,” Katara suggests, taking Toph's arm. “I hope Aang’s okay …”

As the two nude girls begin to resume their walk, the nude boy begins to wave his arms up and down, back and forth.

“Friendly mushroom! Mushy giant friend!”

----

Meanwhile, two men walk into an oasis village fairly far away from them.

One of the men is a well-kept, bearded man in white and green robes with gold lining with his hair kept behind the shoulder, and the other man is rougher, clean shaven with more messed up hair and sports a green and tan robe with an open, sleeveless shirt. Neither the kind of man the other would be caught dead associating with, had it not been for the reason they’re here in the middle of a desert.

They’ve been moving nonstop in search of their charge, a certain blind girl who was stolen by the Avatar. Tracking his bison’s movement for these past few weeks were tough, as he hasn’t been spotted in any major cities since they left Gaoling until now, in this oasis town.

Now that they’re here, it was time to start asking questions. They manage to find one man who they were able to get some info out of, and it wasn’t good.

“Yeah,” the villager says, “a little naked blind girl and her friends passed through here a few days ago, and I think they were naked too.”

The bearded man, Yu, lowers his head slightly and says quietly, “So they are forcing her to be naked like them. Poor girl.” He knows this news will not be received positively by Lao and Poppy Beifong when they hear it, how their daughter is being forced to walk around naked with these strangers, no doubt emberassed out of her mind. He hates thinking about it, especially now that his suspicions are confirmed, so he raises his head back up to the man to say, “Did they give you any indication where they were headed?”

The villager gets a sly grin, before saying, “Maybe you could give me a little incentive?” He then starts to rub his index and middle finger and thumb together to signal a payment.

The rougher man, named Xin Fu, just wanting to get the job done, just says threateningly “You suggesting I break your fingers?”

Hiding his hand behind his back, the man says nervously, “They went in the desert! Too bad there’s almost no chance they survived.”

“That’s okay,” Xin Fu says as he crosses his arms, “‘cause she’s wanted dead or alive.”

“No she’s not!” Yu shouts, during which the villager backs away from the two men. “I’m certain her father wants her alive.”

Turning his head away from the earthbending teacher, Xin Fu notices something, and promptly begins to approach it. “Hey look …” he says as he approaches a wall of papers, each containing a drawing of a person. “Fire Nation wanted posters!”

The two men examine the wall and posters. The only person they recognize is the full body drawing of a naked bald boy with blue tattoos on the top left corner. Below him is a blue and white masked face. On the top right is a man with white hair and a scar, and below him is a man with scruffy brown hair and rough facial features. It’s the larger poster in the middle that has Xin Fu’s attention. This features an older, balding man with a spiky gray beard and a boy with a black ponytail and a scar around his left eye.

“So?” Yu says, not getting why his companion is so focused on this poster.

“So,” he says, turning as he watches two people walk past toward the village tavern, a bigger man and a tin boy, one’s that look oddly familiar, “look who’s here.”

----

Twilight was coming and it couldn’t have come sooner.

By now, walking with the sun to their backs for almost a day, their backsides were bright red and stinging. Katara was lucky as she has longer hair, and even undid her braid to cover most of her upper back, so only her waist, butt, and thighs got badly sunburned. Toph and Sokka? They both have shorter hair that’s tied up, had no protection for their backs, and thus they had bad sunburn from their shoulders to their knee pits.

Numbing the pain from these burns was the tiredness and dehydration. They trounce along the dunes at snail pace, and things don’t seem to be improving at all.

As they walk, Katara hears the wind from above, and turns to see another naked boy land right behind them. Running up to him, she says, “I’m sorry Aang. I know it’s hard for you right now but … we need to focus on getting out of here.” She walks up to him and places a hand on his shoulder.

He just pulls away. “What’s the difference?” he asks hopelessly. “We won’t survive without Appa. We all know it.”

“Come on, Aang,” she says encouragingly. “We can do this if we work together. Right Toph?”

She turns her head to the other naked girl, who just kicks her feet into the sand and says, “As far as I can feel, we’re trapped in a giant bowl of sand pudding. I got nothin’.”

“Sokka?” she says hopefully, turning to her brother. “Any ideas how to find Ba Sing Se?”

The naked boy just lies on the ground, limbs spread wide, and looking up at the sky with a smile on his face, Momo lying beside him. “Why don’t we ask the circle birds?” he says, points at the sky.

Katara shifts her gaze to the sky and sees four flying insectoid things circling them. Buzzard wasps. Scared, her gaze shifts down to her friends. Aang still sits where he landed and visibly down, Toph staggers around in the sand as she struggles to get around, and Sokka lays on the ground, sniggering.

All her friends are basically down for the count, at least one of them giving up. It makes her feel so…

Annoyed

Grabbing her head, she lets out a loud, “Ugh!”

Despite the fact that she’s the least experienced in being naked outside bathing and no experience in the desert, she’s the one handling being stranded naked in the desert the best, wanting them to get out of there as soon as possible and not giving up.

“We’re getting out of this desert,” she says loud enough for them all to hear, “and we’re going to do it together! Aang, get up.” She gets Aang to his feet, grabbing onto his staff. “Everybody, hold hands.” She walks up to Toph, and she grabs Aang’s free hand. Katara then gets Sokka to his feet, and he grabs Toph’s free arm, clutching onto Momo’s tail as he attempts to fly the other way. “We can do this,” she says as she begins to lead them away. “We have to.”

They walked a good while, and by then the sun was almost fully down and the sky was mostly dark. By then they had dropped their hands, but the other three still walked.

At the top of a tall dune, Katara finally can’t keep going anymore, and she says, “I think we should stop for the night.”

The “night” barely passes her lips when the three fall to the ground, Aang to his hands and knees, and Toph and Sokka fall backwards to sit down.

Both their hindquarters barely touch the sand before the two leap back up, shouting in pain. Unfortunately for Katara, she was already in the process of sitting down. The instant her butt touches the ground, it starts to sear in pain, and she has to push herself up and onto her shins to avoid the pain. She glances down and sees her bright red cheek, which she starts to lightly rub.

“Ah,” she lets out, before quietly saying, “damn sun.”

She raises her gaze to Toph, who’s shouting in pain as she rubs her own butt, much more vigorously. “Ahh, my butt is killing me! I can’t even sit down!” She then turns around and bends over slightly to show Katara her red buttock, the color shining even brighter on her lighter skin. “How bad is it?” she asks as Katara just stares.

Meanwhile, Sokka’s running around in circles screaming and clutching his own cheeks. “Ahhhh! Who sets a fire in the middle of the desert!? Please tell me my ass isn’t burning!” he says, pointing his own hindquarters towards Katara just a few feet away from Toph.

“I can’t sleep like this!” Toph shouts between panting breaths. “Not only is it my butt, but my whole back is burning up!”

“We’ll just sleep on our stomachs then,” Katara suggests calmly. “And when we get to a water source, I’ll use it to heal our backs.”

“Why can’t you just heal us now?” the blind girl asks.

“Because I’m assuming you don’t want to drink the water that’s touched your, mine, and Sokka’s sweaty butts, do you?”

…

“Fair point,” the girl says before coughing. Turning back to face her, she continues, ”Still, I’m thirsty. Is there any more water?”

Standing up and walking towards the girl and her brother, who scoots up next to her, she unscrews the cork on her waterskin. “This is the last of it,” she says as she bends the small glob of liquid out of it. “Everyone can have a little drink.”

Suddenly, as Sokka crawls towards the glob, Momo leaps off his back towards the water, flying through it and causing it to fall into the sand.

“Momo, no!” Sokka shouts, crawling up to the wet sand and grabbing his head in overdramatic despair. “You’ve killed us all!”

Raising her hand over the wet sand, Katara says, “No, he hasn’t.”

Sokka watches as the water emerges from the sand in a single stream back towards the waterskin. “Oh, right,” he says in a relieved tone. “Bending.”

She hands the skin to Toph, who takes a drink out of it, before kneeling back down beside her brother. “Sokka, let me see the things you got from the library.”

Immediately, the boy jolts back up to his shins and backs away, clutching his bag in his arms. “What?!” he says, genuinely offended. “I didn’t steal anything! Who told you that?” He glances around, before catching the lemur in his gaze. Pointing to him, he shouts, “It was you! You ratted me out!”

“Sokka, I was there,” she says, done with his shit, as she takes the bag from him. She then walks back towards the edge of the dune and sits back down on her shins. It still hurts with the back of her calves touching the burnt backs of her thighs and the heels of her boots pressing into her butt cheeks, but compared to sitting bare assed on the hot sand, this was preferable. She begins to read through the scrolls her brother stole from the library.

“It doesn’t matter,” a sad Aang says. “None of those will tell us where Appa is.”

“No,” she says, “but we can find out which way Ba Sing Se is. We can use the stars to guide us.” She finally pulls out what she’s looking for, a star chart. “That way we can travel at night when it's cool and rest during the day.”

“That’s a relief,” Toph says, laying on her stomach, one hand still rubbing her sore hinnie. “‘Cause I don’t think my buns could use any more steamin’.”

“Mmmmm, steamed buns,” Sokka says, still fairly delirious, causing Toph to smack him on his own steamed buns.

As Sokka lets out a yelp of pain, Katara turns her head back behind her, seeing her friends laying down in complete exhaustion.

“Just try to get some sleep,” she says quietly. “We’ll start again in a few hours.”

----

To say Zuko was confused by their current whereabouts would be an understatement.

After his uncle told him he was going to find an old friend that won't attack them, he was expecting to travel to one of the bigger cities or a settlement under loose Fire Nation control. Not here, in the middle of nowhere at an ice oasis.

His confusion only got worse when he was led by the old man into the tavern, which is filled with weary travelers, and not anyone who’d not only willingly talk to a Fire Nation exile, but assist them.

“No one here is going to help us,” he tells him as the two sit at their table. “These people just look like filthy wanderers.”

“So do we,” Iroh says, before casting a glance at and pointing at something behind the boy. “Ah, this is interesting. I think I found our friend.”

Zuko turns and looks at what his uncle wants him to see. Beside the wall is a table where an old man in standard Earth Kingdom clothes is seated. On the table is a board, specifically, one for Pai Sho.

Because of course that’s what he’s looking at.

Turning back, Zuko says, “You brought us here to gamble on Pai Sho?”

“I don’t think this is a gamble,” Iroh says with a sly grin.

The two get up and approach the table and man. Unknown to them, they are also being watched. Sitting on a bench on the other side of the tavern are two men, who watch the exiled royals with keen interest.

Not wanting to wait, Xin Fu stands and begins to make his way towards the two, intending to grab them and run. Holding him there is Yu’s hand on his shoulder, but he still wants to get this over with.

“Let’s take them now!” he says.

“This place is full of desperate characters,” Yu says quietly. “If they find out we’re collecting a bounty, we might have to fight them all just to keep our prize. Patience.” He gets Xin Fu to sit down as they continue to watch the two.

“May I have this game?” Iroh asks the old man as he walks up to the table.

Gesturing for him to sit, the old man says, “The guest has the first move.”

Iroh takes a set opposite the man and grabs a tile from the pile at his side. He places it at the center of the circular board.

The White Lotus tile

“I see you favor the white lotus gambit,” the man says. “Not many still cling to the ancient ways.”

He then cups his hands and holds them a bit towards Iroh, Doing the same, he says, “Those who do can always find a friend.”

“Then let us play,” the man says, before placing a piece on the board.

Iroh, not even looking at where the tile was placed, simply grabs one and places it. Zuko watches as the two continue to place tiles in a bizarre pattern, as if neither of them were focusing on winning the game. It’s certainly a strategy he’s never seen before, so it must be old. So he just watches intently as these two continue their motion.

After a minute, they were done placing tiles with no apparent winners. What they did do was form a shape along the edge of the board, the shape of a lotus flower.

“Welcome, brother,” the old man says, to Zuko’s continued bafflement. “The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets.”

Finally done with this cryptic shit, Zuko just says, “What are you old gasbags talking about?”

“I always tried to tell you that Pai Sho is more than just a game,” Iroh says, slyly smiling.

Running out of patience, Xin Fu stands, saying, “I’m not waiting all night for these geezers to finish yapping!” He stomps towards them, Yu standing and dusting himself off before following. “It’s over!” the clean-shaven man shouts, causing those at the table to turn towards the two approaching men. “You two fugitives are coming with me!”

Almost immediately, the old man gets up and walks around the table in front of Xin Fu and Yu, stopping both in their tracks. “I knew it!” he shouts as Iroh and Zuko. “You two are criminals with a giant bounty on your heads!”

“I thought you said he would help!” Zuko shouts to his uncle, naturally upset at them having their cover blown on a hunch from the old man.

“He is,” Iroh says, placing a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “Just watch.”

Sure enough, turning back to face the two earthbenders, the old man says, “You think you’re going to capture them for all that gold?”

“Gold?” a male voice repeats, and it’s like dominos.

Most of the crowd was listening in on this confrontation, but talk of gold has their collective attention. Almost everyone in the tavern gets to their feet, weapons at the ready. It seems that the old man has stirred up the crowd to get them all on the two earthbenders, and keep the two preoccupied from going for the man and his nephew.

Uh…” Yu says, having second thoughts about this. It’s not like it’d be hard for him to take them down, but this’d bring a lot of attention, attention that could get back to Gaoling and Lao Beifong. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

But Xin Fu didn’t care, in fact he was grinning. He turns back and takes a step towards the fugitives, only to be blocked by two people armed with swords. A simple sweeping kick knocks the two down, but he’s already being waylaid by several more men and women, these being sandbenders, before he could make a move on the targets.

Yu, after facepalming, gets into a fighting stance as well. One man charges at him, and he sinks to the neck in the ground before he could attack the professor.

Meanwhile, Xin Fu manages to catch two sandbenders by their head, holding one up in the air and the other at a distance. The other two charge at him, only for each of them to be kicked away. He then tosses the two sandbenders either way, the one he throws behind him towards the bar.

Luckily for the bartender, he ducks below just as she reaches him, smacking into the wall, falling to the ground, and letting out a pained moan.

Xin Fu and Yu continue to fight off the patrons. It’s an easy fight for both master earthbenders, but it takes all of their attention, leaving everything else alone. So, when the fight dies down and most of the tavern patrons lay unconscious or injured on the ground, they finally notice.

The Fire Nation fugitives are gone, then having snuck out during the madness.

Enraged, Xin Fu stomps his foot into the ground, creating an earth pillar beneath a downed sandbender, launching him out of the tavern from a window and landing in a palm tree.

----

The sun had set, and the stars and full moon were out, and while this would usually be the time the four would sleep, it was time for them to wake.

Katara’s up first, and she barely slept, though it’s not like she was really trying. She’s been taking the lead in getting them out of here, and as such she’d be the one to wake the others up. Tough to be fair, even if she wanted to get a long sleep, the burning sensation on her back, butt and the backs of her legs wouldn’t allow any longer than a few minutes. She gets up, dusts off her chest and abdomen of the sand, and walks towards the others.

The first one she walks up to is Sokka, who apparently was partially buried in the sand, courtesy of Momo. So much for keeping his back from feeling pain, as only his head, shoulders, and butt cheeks were poking out of the sand. The guilty lemur himself is patting sand on the boys back but scampers off as the nude girl approaches.

Grabbing his shoulders, Katara says, “Come on, get up. We need to go.”

The boy raises himself up with his arms, causing the sand to slide off his back. He promptly starts to rub the sunburn, lightly grunting in pain.

Katara starts to stand back up to do the same to Toph, but the blind girl pushes herself up.

“Yesterday my mouth tasted like mud,” she says after a couple lip smacks. She then turns from her hands and knees to her shins. “Now it just tastes like sand. I never thought I’d miss the taste of mud so much.”

Seeing as two of her companions are up, now's the time to wake the third. She turns and walks towards Aang, who lays in a fetal position a bit away. Despite decent sunburn on his own back, the bald boy doesn’t seem to care about partially laying on them.

Katara goes to wake him, only to be cut off by a “I’m awake. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Well,” she says, “we need to get moving if we want to get out of this sand pit.”

Before anything else could happen, the two notice something passing by the moon. A big, fluffy, roughly ovular shape flying in the air. This is enough to get both of them to rise to their feet, Toph as well, even though she couldn’t see it. Aang perks up, a smile forming on his face.

“Appa!” he shouts at the shape.

“Appa?” Sokka, still on his hands and knees, says in bafflement. “But why would Princess Yue need him? She's the moon!” He then grabs Momo’s tail and starts to rub his cheek. “She flies by herself!”

Ignoring his comment, the two look up at the shape, details getting clearer as their eyes adjust to the darkness, and upon closer inspection, it’s not Appa.

“It’s just a cloud,” Katara says sadly. Her head drops for a moment, before perking back up as she realizes something. “Wait! A cloud!” She grabs her waterskin and holds it up to Aang, face dropping yet again. “Here, fly up and bend the water from that cloud into my pouch.”

Aang shoots her an angry look before snatching the waterskin from her. He unfolds his glider and takes off towards the cloud. She and Sokka look up as Aang slashes through the cloud twice, leaving only a small bit of vapor left. He throws it to her before landing.

Catching it, Katara opens it, and is disappointed by what’s inside. “Wow… there’s hardly any in here.”

“I’m sorry, okay!” Aang lashes out. “It’s a desert cloud; I did all I could! What’s anyone else doing?!” He points the end of his staff at her. “What are you doing?!”

Shocked by what he’s doing, Katara just stands there for a moment, before saying, “Trying to keep everyone together.” Turning and reaching into her bag, she pulls out the start chart and starts to look at it. “Let’s just get moving. We need to head this direction.” She begins to walk in the direction the star chart sells her she should go, the others following her.

The four nude youths walk in the direction leading to Ba Sing Se, protected from the sun by the night. Not only is the sun gone, but the cool wind was picking up, helping the four’s sunburned backsides. The pain was calmed enough for Katara that she almost completely forgets she’s nude like the others, until a major gust of wind reminds her, but now whether she’s nude or not doesn’t matter.

All that did was getting out of this desert alive.

They walk for quite a while in dead silence, until the younger girl lets out a loud, “Ow!”

Toph, having hit something with her bare foot quite hard, falls back onto the ground. Sitting back up and clutching her foot, she says, “Crud! I am so sick of not feeling where I’m going!” She then points at what she tripped on, a wooden thing protruding from the sand. “And what idiot buried a boat in the middle of the desert?”

“A boat?” Katara asks, before crouching down next to and begins to examine the object.

“Believe me,” the short nude girl says, “I kicked it hard enough to feel plenty of vibrations.”

Katara begins to rub sand away from the structure, before she hears someone approaching behind her. She turns and sees Aang holding his staff as if about to strike. She stands up and backs away, allowing the bald boy to swing. The resulting gust causes the whole mound to fly away, revealing a very peculiar boat, one that Katara recognizes almost immediately.

“It’s one of the gliders the sandbenders use!” she shouts as she climbs onto the equivalent of the bridge. “And look! It’s got some kind of compass on it!” She taps the device as she continues. “I bet it can point us out of here! Aang, you can bend a breeze so we can sail it. We're going to make it!”

Suddenly, the sound of laughing gets the group's collective attention. The girls and Aang turn to find Sokka in the midst of a giggle fit, him in the process of burying Momo up to his head in the sand.

Once more, Katara rolls her eyes at her brother's drunken antics.

----

The three travel from the oasis towards the edge of the desert to a small village nearby. Turns out, Iroh was completely right in trusting this man, but there’s definitely more to it, and Zuko wasn’t a fan of all this secrecy.

They walk through the village, before the old man leads the two into a flower shop. Stopping, he says, “It is an honor to welcome such a high-ranking member of the Order of the White Lotus. Being a Grand Master, you must know so many secrets.” He then begins to lead the two along the shop towards a door on the other side of the room, pass the shelfs of plants.

“Now that you played Pai Sho,” an annoyed Zuko says, “are you going to do some flower arranging, or is someone in this club going to offer some real help?”

“You must forgive my nephew,” Iroh tells the old man as they reach the door. “He is not an initiate and has little appreciation for the cryptic arts.”

The Pai Sho player knocks on the door, and a slitted window slides open, and a man's face appears beyond it.

“Who knocks at the garden gate?” the man asks.

“One who has eaten the fruit and tasted its mysteries,” Iroh responds.

The slit closes, and Iroh smiles as the door opens. He and the old man walk into the back room quickly. Zuko goes to follow, but the door shuts in front of him. The slitted window opens, revealing Iroh’s face.

“I’m afraid it’s members only,” he says. “Wait out here.”

The slit closes, and Zuko turns and crosses his arms. He goes to smell the flowers in the room, when something comes to mind.

Was I just seeing things or was the man inside that room naked? he thinks.

----

Now they were picking up speed now that they were using the boat. Atop the sailor, Aang and Toph on either side of the lower level of the sailor, the former standing and blowing air into the sail, while the later lays on her stomach, letting the air blow against her, keeping her and her burned backside cool. On the higher platform, Katara stands by the compass, taking turns glancing at it, the chart, and what’s in front of them.

“The needle on this compass doesn’t seem to be pointing north according to my charts,” she says as she holds the star chart to the compass.

“Take it easy little lady,” Sokka says dreamily, him also on the higher platform. He’s also resting on his stomach, one arm leaning over the back end of the sailor, the other one gripping onto an inflight Momo’s tail. “I'm sure the sand folks who built this baby know how to get around here.”

She shoots an annoyed look at her brother, before turning back in front of the sailor, and she gasps.

Emerging from the horizon was a massive pillar of earth. The closer they got, the bigger the mound got, or would plateau be a better word? Either way, they were getting closer to it, and the needle of the compass was pointing right towards it.

“That’s what the compass is pointing to!” Katara states to the group. “That giant rock! It must be the magnetic center of the desert.”

“A rock!” Toph shouts ecstatically, pushing herself back up. She stands and pumps her fist in the air. “Yes! Let’s go!”

“Maybe we can find some water there!” Katara says hopefully.

Aang, with a dark tone in his voice, says under his breath, “Maybe we can find some sandbenders.”

So they continue to sail off towards the massive rock at remarkable speeds.

----

It was dawn by the time the four climbed to the top of the mound. Thankfully, the sun rose on the other side of it, so at least their poor backs and butts would be spared for the time. So their climb was peaceful and relatively painless.

Aang reaches the top first, followed by Sokka, then Katara, and then Toph. The top is mostly flat, although near the middle were some oddly shaped, circular caves jutting out as a little mound.

The moment her feet touch the flat top of the plateau, the naked, blind, girl says, “Ahhh … Finally!” She then promptly falls flat on her stomach and begins to move her arms up and down, making a rock angel. “Solid ground!” her slightly muffled voice shouts.

She gets up and joins the other three as they approach the caves, then walking into them. The cave was circular, with little ring-like formations lining the whole way. The cave was also covered in this gross looking, brownish yellow slime like substance.

As they walk, Sokka starts to breathe deeply. “I think my head is starting to clear out the cactus juice.” He then eyes a strand of the substance, Momo as well. “And look!” He dips his hand in the stuff and holds it up to their mouths. The boy and lemur then taste it, and promptly spit it out, the boy gagging as well. “Tastes like rotten penguin meat!” he shouts, getting the others' attention. “Awww, I feel woozy.”

Katara, now irritated at her brother’s actions, says, “You've been hallucinating on cactus juice all day and then you just lick something you find stuck to the wall of a cave?!”

“I have a natural curiosity,” he says slightly defensively.

“I don’t think this is a normal cave,” Toph says, taking a few steps deeper into the channel, feeling the floor and walls through the vibrations. “This was carved by something.”

“Yeah…” Aang says, scanning the walls, “look at the shape.”

The girl shifts her feet a bit to get a better view, when she feels it. “There’s something buzzing in here.” Her eyes widen as she realizes. “Something that’s coming for us!”

The four naked youths turn heel and sprint out of the cave, Momo zooming out in the air. Following them is a buzzard wasp, and it goes to snap at Toph. Luckily, Aang manages to pull her down to the ground to avoid its maw. More and more of the bugs emerge from the cave, flying above them, circling the four. They all get into fighting positions, ready to take them on.

One flies towards Aang, who slashes with his staff, sending an air blast that knocks it far away. Another lands on a rock near Toph, who feels it immediately. She turns and launches the rock upwards, sending the beast flying. Another flies between her and Sokka. Hearing the noise, she raises another rock and sends it up in the air towards the general direction of the wasp. When it falls, it lands next to the boy.

“What are you doing?” the surprised Sokka shouts at her. “That rock almost crushed me!”

“Sorry,” the girl says with a shrug, “I can’t tell where they are in the air!”

Another buzzard wasp flies above him, and he promptly withdrawals his machete. “I got this one,” he says, chasing after it. He then starts to swing rapidly around the air, trying to kill the thing. He goes at it for a few seconds, until his sister glances his way.

“Sokka, there’s nothing there!”

He promptly stops and glances around his general area. Sure enough, all the bugs were anywhere but the spot he’s standing.

“I guess my head’s not as clear as I thought,” he says, slightly emberassed.

Meanwhile, Aang and Katara stand a bit away from each other with their backs facing the other, both in fighting stances.

Taking a few backwards steps towards him, Katara says, “We have to get out of here! I’m completely out of water to bend!”

Before either could move, though, a sound of screeching causes their heads to turn. They see the lemur, who was crouching on the ground, being snatched from the ground with the talons of one of the buzzard wasps, it now flying away from the group towards the rising sun.

“Momo!” Aang shouts, shocked, before anger starts to flood. “I’m not losing anyone else out here.” Glider out, he charges towards the edge. He jumps off and flies after the beast.

After watching him fly away, Katara turns her head to the others. “Come on, we’re going down.”

She takes Toph by the hand and leads her and Sokka down a ledge. They make a good way down at first, but it narrows, slowing them down. Still, they move basically nonstop, until Katara notices something. She shifts Toph’s body to face it and shouts, “Toph, shoot a rock right there. Fire!”

The girl kicks the ground, sending up a few decently sized rocks. She then shoots them forwards, hitting the buzzard wasp that was charging at them.

“Yeah! You got it!” Sokka cheers, swinging his machete in the air. Turning to Katara, he asks, “She got it, right?”

“Yes,” she says. “Now let's move.”

Without another word, the three continue their descent down the plateau.

Meanwhile Aang, with a grave expression on his face, continues to pursue the wasp holding Momo. However, after the initial approach, he isn’t catching up. He promptly dives down, the act itself speeding him up considerably. He manages to get under the thing, and promptly sends a powerful gust of wind up towards it. This forces the bug to release the lemur, and he falls for a little bit, Aang rising up to catch him. Luckily, he’s able to stabilize himself, and flies beside the naked boy.

Still, he wasn’t done. He shifts his eyes from Momo to the bug, still after him. He dives down yet again, this time all the way. Upon reaching the ground, he slams the staff onto the ground, creating a massive wall of air and sand that shoots towards the buzzard wasp. It hits the distant beast, and it promptly falls to the ground.

Aang stares at the downed bug for a second or two, before turning back towards the rock.

By now, Katara, Toph, and Sokka had descended almost to the sand, the sailor just a sprint away. Katara still has her hands on Toph’s bare shoulder, acting as her eyes to allow her to accurately shoot at the descending buzzard wasps.

“On your left!” she says, to which the blind girl shoots a massive rock in that direction, nailing the bug there in the chest.

However, the process is slow, and there are still a good few dozen in the air.

Luckily for them, something shoots up from the ground directly below them. Massive pillars of sand and stone rise up, and the three quickly crouch down and cover their heads. It’s only when they hear the pillars sink back into the ground when they rise again, seeing this event scared the buzzard wasps back to their caves at the top.

It's then when their gazes shift down to the ground, where they see them.

A good dozen or so men and women surround the area, decked in light brown wrapping and robes, leaving really only their eyes or faces uncovered. The sailors sitting behind these people, being similar to what the four currently possess, give away who they are.

Sandbenders.

The three nude youths and the dozens of sandbenders stare each other off for a few seconds, neither sure what to do now.

Then, suddenly, the fourth nude person, a boy, lands between the two groups, staring the sandbenders down with an angry look, one that said he was ready to fight.

----

Zuko by now has fallen asleep leaning against the wall, so he only has himself to blame when the opening door startles him awake and into a fighting stance.

“What’s going on?” he shouts, before calming himself and turning his head to his uncle, who seems to be readjusting the lapel of his robe. “Is the club meeting over?”

“Everything is taken care of,” he says calmly. “We’re heading to Ba Sing Se.” He and the old Pai Sho player then bow to each other.

“Ba Sing Se?” Zuko repeats, baffled at the thought of heading to the city of their hated enemy, where the man he’s staring at had sieged for almost two years. “Why would we go to the Earth Kingdom capital?”

“The city is filled with refugees,” the Pai Sho player says calmly. “No one will notice two more.”

“We can hide in plain sight there,” Iroh continues. “And it’s the safest place in the world from the Fire Nation. Even I couldn’t break through to the city.” He shrugs his shoulders, but still looks happy.

Suddenly a bell rings, and the three turn to see a young woman entering the building with some papers in her hands.

“I have the passports for our guests,” she says quietly, “but there are two men out on the street looking for them.”

She motions for the two to look through the slitted window at the door. Beyond it, they could see the two men from the night before standing on the street, a flier with their faces in the hands of the clean-shaven man.

“You seen these guys?” Xin Fu asks a man passing by him and Yu, holding the flier up to his face.

Taking a step back from the door, Zuko and Iroh shoot each other worried looks, since leaving the town just became a lot more difficult.

----

Katara, Sokka, and Toph reach the bottom of the plateau and run up to Aang’s side, who’s still staring down the folk in front of them, now all unmasked.

Of all the potential trespassers they’d catch, a majority of the sandbenders weren’t expecting them to be four completely nude youths. Hey, if you have to beat the heat. Anyways, regardless of their current state of dress, they were still on their land, and so the leader of this group of sandbenders steps forward.

“What are you doing in our land with a sandbender sailor?” the man demands. “From the looks of it, you stole it from the Hami tribe.”

Stepping forwards, Katara clears the air. “We found the sailor abandoned in the desert. We're traveling with the Avatar.” She gestures to Aang, causing the leader's eyes to widen as she continues. “Our bison was stolen and we have to get to Ba Sing Se.”

Evidently, someone takes issue with that last statement.

Stepping towards the girl aggressively, a younger man shouts, “You dare accuse our people of theft while you ride in on a stolen sand sailor?”

Toph’s eyes narrow as she hears this but doesn’t say a word. She just needs to be sure before saying anything.

“Quiet, Ghashiun,” the leader shouts at the younger man. “No one accused our people of anything. If what they say is true, we must give them hospitality.”

“Sorry, father,” Ghashiun says, causing Toph’s eyes to widen in realization.

“I recognize the son’s voice,” she says. “He’s the one that stole Appa.”

“Are you sure?” Katara asks.

“I never forget a voice.”

That statement from the blind girl was enough to send the airbender into a fury again. As the wind picks up around him, he walks towards the sandbenders, staff brandished towards the man.

“You stole Appa!” he shouts angrily. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”

Ghanshiun reacts as naturally as anyone who’s just angered a bald naked boy who you just learned was basically a demigod, by cowering back in fear. “They’re lying!” he shouts to his father. “They’re the thieves!”

With an angry frown and growl of fury, the boy slams his staff into the sand, sending a blade of air that completely annihilates one of their sand sailors.

“Where is my bison?” he asks again, completely enraged and staring daggers at the man.

----

After being pointed towards it by a helpful and totally willing villager, Xin Fu and Yu head for the flower shop. They walk past a woman rolling out a wagon with two large flowerpots on it out of the shop as they approach. The wrestling announcer slams the door open forcefully. Makes eye contact with the florist and holds out a paper with the two fugitives on it.

“Hey you,” he shouts, “where are these men? I got a tip that they’re in your shop.”

With a very calm tone, the florist says, “As you can see, no one is here but us.”

But Yu wasn’t buying it. “We know all about your secret back room,” he says to the man, before turning to Xin Fu. “Kick it down.”

The man charges past the florist towards the door.

“Hey! That room is for flowers only!” the florist says as Xin Fu delivers a powerful kick at the door, knocking both it and a bit of the surrounding wall down to the floor.

As the dust clears, it’s evident that the room was empty, save for one thing that Yu notices as he walks in. A small lotus tile sits at the center of the room, which the earthbending master picks up.

“Some unlucky soul has an incomplete Pai Sho set,” he says, showing the tile to Xin Fu.

Smacking the tile out of Yu’s hand, he just says, “Let’s go back to finding the girl.”

With that, the two men make their way out of the shop, their prey having eluded them for the final time.

Of course, unknown to them, by now the woman and her wagon with the two giant flowerpots have been out of the village for as long as they’ve been inside, now trekking through the desert.

They also wouldn’t know that a certain exiled Fire Nation prince and disgraced general were hiding inside them.

----

“You tell me where he is now!” Aang shouts at the poor sandbender who’s naturally fearing for his life.

Rightfully so, and the boy emphasizes his demand by sending a powerful blast of air towards another sand sailor, destroying it, to the shock of the sandbenders.

Turning to his son, the leader says, “What did you do?”

Ghadhiun hesitates. “I-It wasn’t me!”

“You said to put a muzzle on him!” Toph shouts, further enraging Aang.

“You muzzled Appa?”

Then the boy’s eyes and tattoos start to glow a bright white.

He spins around, swinging his staff towards the sandbenders. They fortunately dodge, but the act destroys the last sailor.

“I’m sorry!” Ghashiun shouts, genuinely remorseful at what he’s done. “I didn’t know that it belonged to the Avatar!”
Aang, standing right in front of the man and pointing his staff at him, speaks again, only it’s not just his voice, but hundreds of men and women speaking at once.

“Tell me where Appa is!”

“I traded him!” he shouts in fear. “To some merchants! He's probably in Ba Sing Se by now! They were going to sell him there!”

The boy’s wide eyed, blank, stare shifts to that of an angry glare, causing the sandbenders to raise their arms in defense.

“Please!” Ghashiun begs. “We'll escort you out of the desert! We'll help however we can!”

Anger peeking, the wind begins to pick up around Aang, kicking up sand as it intensifies with his fury.

Seeing this, Sokka grabs Toph by the shoulders and the two begin to run past Aang and towards the sandbenders. “Just out of here!” he shouts towards them. “Run!”

Not needing to be told twice by the two naked kids, the sandbenders turn heel and run away from the Avatar, a sphere of air forming around him. This in turn creates a massive sandstorm around him as everyone gets safely away.

Everyone except for Katara anyways. She just stands there and looks down at the ground, a sad expression in her eyes.

Then the naked boy begins to rise up, and this is what causes her to start moving. She runs up to him and grabs his shin, causing him to shoot her his rage filled glare. She just stares back up at him, letting him see her sad but sincere face.

Taking his other arm, she pulls him down and into a tight embrace.

Immediately, Sokka and Toph feel the wind start to subdue, and they drop their hands and look back up at the two. Sure enough, the sphere of air is getting less violent and starting to subside. Tears start to stream down the boy's eyes, still glowing from being in the Avatar State, having difficulty maintaining it. Katara likewise is holding in her own tears as she holds the boy close to her chest.

Finally, after a few seconds, the wind stops and the glowing fades completely, leaving Aang outside the Avatar state, anger fading just as well.

Now all he was left with is the sadness.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 11
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun was high, and the air was nice and warm. It would be nice air for most people, but since there are people who’ve spent days in a hot desert with no way to cool themselves, it was not. Fortunately for any hypothetical groups of people, there was a pond almost completely surrounded by a canyon, a waterfall feeding the pond and filling the air with cool mist. That mist, along with it being mostly trapped within the canyon's walls, allowed for much cooler air than the desert outside the rock walls.

As fate would have it, four youths, two boys and two girls, who were stuck in the desert would stumble upon this very pond, and they look just relieved at the sight of it. After a second looking at it, all four break out in a run towards the pond to finally cool off.

Now, most people would at least take some time to take their overclothes off before jumping in the water, and while two do run out of their boots, getting clothes wet wouldn’t be an issue.

Probably because all four were naked before they even arrived at the pond, which they all dive into. Beyond that, the only other thing they all shared in common were the sunburnt backs, butts, and legs.

“Ahh, what a relief!” one of the boys, tanned with brown hair in a ponytail, shouts.

“Tell me about it!” a girl, lighter skin with a big black hair bun and bangs, shouts back. “My back needed this!”

“Speaking of which,” the other girl, tanned skin and letting her long brown hair loose, says, before lying down in the water, stomach up, “it’s time we deal with that.”

She then dips her hands into the water under her back, and they start to glow a nice cyan almost immediately. She then starts to move them up and down her backside, letting out a huge sigh of relief as she moves. She does this for a minute or so, before standing back up, showing her formerly bright red back and butt to be the same tan as the rest of her skin. As she repeats the process on her legs, she turns her head back to her companions and asks, “Did I miss anywhere, because it certainly doesn’t feel like I did.”

“Nope, you got it all,” the fourth member, a bald boy with blue tattoos lining his limbs and spine, says before giving her a thumbs up. “Looks good, Katara!” His eyes widen at what he just said, and the look she gives him causes him to turn his head.

“Thanks Aang,” she says, completely deadpan, as she finishes healing the back of her legs.

“Well now that you’re done,” the tan boy says, walking closer to Katara, “do me next.”

“No me!” the shorter black haired girl says. “My butt is killing me!”

“Relax,” Katara says to the two as they walk up to her. “I have two hands. Both of you lie down.”

The boy and girl lie down, Katara standing between them. She sits down and sticks her hands under the two’s backs, each glowing. She moves her hands from their shoulders to their calves, healing the sunburns as she moves back and forth.

After two minutes, she stands up and says, “Well Sokka. Toph. How do you feel?” as the two stand up.

“Smooth as a baby's bottom,” the boy, Sokka, says as he rubs his own. “And no pain at all!”

“You’re telling me!” the girl, Toph, shouts as she does the same. “I can finally sit down again!”

She then turns, eyes a decently sized rock a bit onto the shore of the pond, and starts running towards it. Well, she did not eye the rock, since her eyes were unseeing as shown by the milky look they have. A more appropriate word would be senses the rock. Still, she charges in the general direction of the boulder. Upon leaving the water, she leaps in the air, makes a half turn, and slams her glutes into the rock, causing it to shatter and, once she stands up, leaves an impressive butt outline on the ground below it.

The other three laugh at this, before Katara turns to the bald boy, Aang, who still has his back to her.

“Okay, Aang,” she says as she starts to walk towards him, “your turn.” But he doesn’t lie down. He doesn’t even turn to her. A quick glance at his face shows her that his face is still flushing red at what he said. Seeing him standing still, she just raises her arms, causing a small wall of water to rise up and cover his back. She then sticks her hands into the water, glowing, and begins to heal the boy's sunburn.

Feeling the relief of the pain, Aang lets out a gasp, before saying, “Sorry about saying that. I forgot how uncomfortable you are with being naked against your will.”

“It’s fine,” she says casually, moving her arms up and down to get every bit of sunburn.

“I gotta say,” he says, piping up slightly, “I do admire your courage in letting yourself be seen like this these last few days.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Truth be told, I’m not AS uncomfortable with being naked, even in front of others, as I used to when we first met.” The boy turns his head slightly towards her, causing her to backpedal. “Don’t get any ideas! I’m not going to be naked full time like you, Sokka, and Toph. I’m just a bit more comfortable in my own skin, and I don’t think I’m as adverse to it as I was back at the temple, or even at the North Pole at first.” Seeing Aang’s formerly red back and butt now his lighter skin tone, she drops her hands and the water. “Well,” she says, shifting her gaze to the waterfall, “that’s all.”

“Thanks Katara,” Aang says as she starts to walk towards the shore, before falling on his back and paddling deeper into the pond.

Meanwhile, Katara reaches the shore, where Toph and Sokka now stand and sit at. She watches as Toph kicks the ground, jolting up a pillar of earth behind her, which she then bumps with her hindquarters, sending the thing crashing into the canyon wall.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Katara says as she walks behind the blind girl.

Turning her head, she places one hand on her hip and the other holds up to give the waterbender a thumbs up. Cheeky grin on her face, Toph says, “Never better.”

“Hey, Katara!” Sokka shouts from atop a boulder seated by the pond, his bag laying beside him. “Can you dry me quickly? I want to find out where we should head next and don’t want to get anything wet.”

As she walks past, she makes a pushing gesture in Sokka’s direction. Immediately, the water droplets fly off his naked body and back into the pond behind him. That taken care of, he turns back and sits down beside his bag and starts to dig into it.

After reveling in her healed backside, Toph walks up and takes a seat beside Sokka’s rock, dropping her feet into the water and kicking them as the boy pulls out a map and starts to examine it. Meanwhile, Aang lazes atop the water on his back closer to the waterfall. For his own amusement, he dives below the water and spins, surrounding everything but his head in a cube of ice, which rises to the surface.

Meanwhile, Katara has found a thin ledge that goes up to the top of the canyon like stairs, and now stands at the ledge beside the waterfall overlooking the pond. Taking a step back, the naked girl does a running start before leaping off the edge shouting, “Waterbending bomb! Yeah!” She brings her knees to her chest and holds them there with her arms, spinning in the air a few times before impacting the water.

She creates a huge wave on impact, launching Aang to the shore where the ice around him shatters and douses the three in water.

Aang and Toph laugh at this, but Sokka was less amused, holding out the wet parchment. “Sure, five thousand year old maps from the spirit library,” he says, shaking it towards his sister. “Just splash some water on ‘em.”

“Sorry,” she says as she wrings her hair dry. After doing that, she raises her hands towards the map and bends the water right out of it, leaving the parchment dry as a bone.

“So,” Aang says as they gather around Sokka, who’s laying the map on the ground, “did you figure out what route we’re going to take?”

“Okay,” he says as he points to various spots on the map, “we just got out of the desert, so we must be around here. And we need to go to Ba Sing Se, which is here. It looks like the only passage connecting the south to the north is this sliver of land called the Serpent's Pass.” He points to a small sliver of land connecting the southern part of the Earth Kingdom with the northern part, where Ba Sing Se is located.

Not the perfect plan, and there are some objections.

“You sure that’s the best way to go?” Toph asks.

“It’s the only way,” Sokka responds, and despite the skepticism, he is right in that regard. “I mean, it's not like we have Appa to fly us there.”

“Shush up about Appa,” Katara tells her brother quietly. “Can’t you at least try to be sensitive?”

“Katara,” the bald boy says, “it’s okay. I know I was upset about losing Appa before, but I just want to focus on getting to Ba Sing Se and telling the Earth King about the solar eclipse.”

“Oh …” she says, genuinely surprised by how well he’s taking the loss of his closest friend, “well, okay. I’m glad you’re doing better.”

“Then to Ba Sing Se we go,” Sokka says in a demanding tone. “No more distractions.”

“Hello there, fellow refugees!” a male voice calls out from behind them.

The four turn and see a group of three, one man and two women, standing a bit away from them and slowly walking up. The man has black hair with a beard and a small bun. He’s carrying a backpack and is wearing a green robe. One of the women, around the same age as the man, has longer, also black hair with a big green hat on. Like the man, she’s only donned in a robe of similar color, only hers is wide open, revealing a very swollen belly. The other woman is younger, around her mid twenties, around the same height as Katara, and has her hair in two braids down the front. She wears a dress with a light green top and a yellow bottom. She’s also carrying a backpack.

They also seem to not care at all about the fact that the four youths in front of them are all butt naked.

“So,” Aang addresses the three, “you guys are headed to Ba Sing Se, too?”

“Sure are,” the man says. “We’re trying to get there before my wife Ying has her baby.” he continues as he pats and rubs the woman's belly.

“Great!” Katara says. “We can travel through the Serpent’s Pass together.”

All three of the newcomers' eyes widen at this. “The Serpent’s Pass?” the pregnant woman, Ying says. “Only the truly desperate take that deadly route!”

“Deadly route,” Toph says, before punching Sokka on the shoulder. “Great pick, Sokka!”

“Well, we are desperate,” he says in an attempt to defend himself.

“You should come with us to Full Moon Bay,” the man suggests. “Ferries take refugees across the lake. It’s the fastest way to Ba Sing Se.”

“And it’s hidden,” Ying jumps in, “so the Fire Nation can’t find it.”

“Hmm,” Katara says out loud, much to her brothers, chagrin, “peaceful ferry ride or deadly pass?”

----

When the earthbenders slid down the slab blocking the tunnel, the sights the four nude youths was quite a shock.

“I can’t believe how many people’s lives have been uprooted by the Fire Nation,” Katara comments.

And she’s quite right to say that. Throughout the Full Moon Bay docks, hundreds upon hundreds of people mill about the area in families, traveling groups, or even solo. Many have very little of their possessions on them. Hell, most don’t even look prepared for a one day camping trip, they were that undersupplied. Most of these people were forced out of their homes on short notice, so it wasn’t a surprising sight, but still it was a shocking one. It was also evident that these folk were all from different parts of the conquered territories of the Earth Kingdom, based on their mixed clothing style, skin and hair color, local, among others. Speaking of clothing styles, it was a mix of people being overdressed and underdressed. Some were fully clothed, others were wearing more layers than what had to be comfortable in spring heat. Meanwhile, there were people in their sleepwear, underwear, topfree, bottomfree, and a decent chunk were fully nude, and for the latter it was a bit hard to tell how many of them were willingly bare. The large clusters of nude people dotting the crowd were probably intentional, but the folk mixed in with the rest probably either had their stuff stolen, had to leave quickly without even clothing themselves, or maybe for them it was a choice after all.

Either way, these folk were all desperate, which meant the gang fit right in.

“We’re all looking for a better life,” the man says, “safe behind the walls of Ba Sing Se.”

----

Meanwhile, at the harbor itself, a ferry departs, carrying refugees from all over the Earth Kingdom. Among them are a boy with short black hair with a scar around his left eye and a larger, older man with balding gray hair and a pointy beard.

They aren’t Earth Kingdom, they’re a part of the people they’re fleeing from, and pretty high up among them to boot.

“Who would have thought after all these years,” the old man, Iroh, says dowerly, “I’d return to the scene of my greatest military disgrace,” he turns towards the younger boy, floral hat on his head and wide smile as he continues, “as a tourist!”

“Look around,” the scarred boy, Zuko, says coldly. “We’re not tourists, we’re refugees.” In his hands, he holds a bowl of what can only be described as gruel, the finest food this boat can offer him. He takes a sip of the stuff, and spits it out into the water below immediately. “Ugh! I’m sick of eating rotten food, sleeping in the dirt. I’m tired of living like this!”

“Aren’t we all?” a voice calls out from behind Zuko. The boy turns and sees three people standing behind him.

One was a tanned boy chewing on a piece of straw. He has messy brown hair and is dressed in a blue shift, orange tunic over it, and mismatched shoulder pads. Standing by his sides were a taller, lighter boy with a long nose and big ears, almost fully shaven black hair covered by a rice hat, attire similar to that of both the tanned boy and that of the Water Tribes, and is wielding a bow and quiver of arrows, and an androgynous youth with a round face, bowl shaped brown hair held up by a blue headband, and two red cheek chevrons on both cheeks. Based on both their shirtlessness and flat chest, many would assume they are a boy, but her figure and the tight black pants she’s wearing give it away to most people. Zuko stares at these three as the tanned boy continues.

“My name's Jet and these are my Freedom Fighters, Smellerbee,” he gestures towards the bowl cut girl, “and Longshot,” he addresses the long nosed archer.

“Hey,” Smellerbee says in her rough voice. Longshot just nods.

“Hello,” Zuko says back.

“Here’s the deal,” Jet says. “ I hear the captain's eating like a king while the refugees have to feed off his scraps. Doesn't seem fair, does it?”

“What sort of king is he eating like?” Iroh asks.

“The fat, happy kind,” Jet answers, causing the old man to salivate at the thought. Turning back to Zuko, he asks, “You want to help ‘liberate’ some food?”

Zuko takes one look at the bowl before tossing it overboard. “I’m in,” he says, causing Jet to smile smugly.

----

Meanwhile, back at the bay, more and more people were getting tickets to board their own ferries to Ba Sing Se, all from a single older lady who looks like she hates her job and everyone around the place.

“I told you already,” she tells one very unfortunate cabbage merchant, “no vegetables on the ferry! One cabbage slug could destroy the entire ecosystem of Ba Sing Se! Security!” She points in the direction of the man's cabbage cart, as a massive platypus bear shatters the cart and destroys the cabbages.

“Ahhh! My cabbages!” the merchant shouts, falling to his knees.

Two men grab him by the arms and carry him away, past four naked youths, to which the woman at the desk shouts, “Next!” at.

Aang walks up to the desk, saying, “Um, four ticked for the ferry to Ba Sing Se, please.”

“Passports?” she asks.

“Uh …” the boy says awkwardly, “no one told us we had to have passports.”

“Don’t you know who this is?” Sokka asks, walking up to the desk. “He’s the Avatar!”

The lady just scoffs. “Ah, I see fifty Avatars a day and, by the way, not a very impressive costume.” She points to her side, and when Aang turns, he sees a good dozen people, mostly boys but there were a few girls, with shaved heads, most wielding wooden staffs, and all had blue line tattoos over their bodies in various shades and only a few actually looking like Aang’s own tattoos. At least most of them are fully nude, though only two of the guys and a single girl were as unashamed as Aang was, the rest were visibly red and nervous, a few even using their hands or staffs to cover themselves. “Besides,” the lady continues, Aang shifting his gaze back to her, “no animals aloud.” She gestures towards Momo, who’s perched on his shoulder. “Do I need to call security?”

Aang and Momo shift their gaze in the other direction, and see the platypus bear chomping down harshly on a cabbage. The lemur hides behind Aang’s head in fear.

“That won't be necessary,” he says nervously.

“Next!” the lady shouts, to which Toph begins to approach.

“I’ll handle this.”

As she passes Aang, she tosses him her traveling bag, but there was something still in her hands, which she slams onto the counter. Whatever it was, it caused the lady’s eyes to widen in surprise and awe.

“My name is Toph Beifong, and I’ll need four tickets,” she says as she pushes her passport towards the lady.

“Ah, the golden seal of the flying boar!” she shouts, immediately recognizing the insignia. “It is my honor to help anyone of the Beifong family.”

“It is your pleasure,” Toph tells the lady with a slight smug attitude, before shifting to one of a helpless girl. “As you can see, I am blind and these three imbeciles are my valets.” She swipes her arm behind her to present her three friends, who stand there slightly awkwardly.

“But, the animal-” the lady says, before Toph cuts her off.

“-is my seeing-eye lemur,” she says as Momo climbs on her shoulder.

Still not entirely convinced, the lady's eyes shift downwards, first to Toph, then the other three. While nudity hasn’t been an uncommon sight at these parts for quite a while now, something felt off about these folk, especially the girl, since the Beifong clan wasn’t one of those noble families who’d bare all anywhere outside the bath or bedroom. “And I assume you and your entourage are parading around naked for a reason.”

“Yes, it’s therapeutic for me,” Toph says without skipping a beat. “Feeling the air around my skin almost makes up for the lack of vision. Major stress reliever as well.”

Aang, not one to waste an opportunity to spread some of his culture, walks beside her and says, “Yes, most don’t know what nudity does to help a person's stress. You should try it sometime, you look pretty stressed.”

Baffled by this, the lady's shifts the talk back to the tickets. “Well, normally it’s only one ticket per passport,” she says, “but this document is so official … I guess it’s worth four tickets.” She stamps an approval seal on four tickets and hands them and the passport to Toph.

“Thank you very much,” the girl says as she takes the tickets. The four promptly turn and begin to walk away.

Once far enough away and deep enough into the crowd to not be heard by the lady, Sokka celebrates. “All right, we scammed that lady good!”

“Why didn’t you just say we were robbed?” Katara asks Toph. “Say we were waylaid by bandits and they stole everything, even the clothes off our backs. Makes more sense and easier to explain without being asked questions. It wouldn’t even technically be a lie, since the clothes off our backs is a quarter true.”

“Simple,” the girl says. “I still have my passport, Sokka his weapons, you your necklace, and all the other stuff we have on us that wasn’t taken wi-'' she stops herself, realizing what she’s about to say. “Anyways, she’d know we weren’t robbed to the skin and probably ask more questions. Better to weird her out so she’ll get us away from her sooner. Speaking of, thanks for making that suggestion, Aang. Good way to make her get the exchange over with sooner.

Aang, who was being completely genuine in his suggestion, simply says awkwardly, “Yeah, no problem.”

Meanwhile Sokka, who’s walking behind the others, suddenly feels the strap of his bag pulled. He is forcefully turned around and is face to face with a soldier in green and white armor and her brown hair tied back.

Aggressively, she says, “Tickets and passports please.”

Confused, the boy asks, “Is there a problem?

“Yeah, I got a problem with you!” the soldier says, pointing her finger against his bare chest. Staring him straight down, she says, “I’ve seen your type before. Probably sarcastic, think you’re hilarious and let me guess, you’re traveling with the Avatar.”

Sokka does a double take at this strange girl somehow having gotten his person down to the t. “Do I know you?” he asks.

“You mean you don’t remember?” she says, grabbing the boy's shoulder and pulling it and him closer aggressively, her other arm bent at the elbow and looking like she’s ready to throw a punch. “Maybe you’ll remember this!”

And instead of punching him, the girl leans up and kisses him on the cheek.

As she pulls away, Sokka stands there baffled for a few seconds. So what’ll make him remember is a kiss? Well, of the people that would make something like that jog his memory, his options were limited, so he landed on the answer almost instantly. Yue was his first real love and subsequent first full lipped kiss (twice in the face), but he saw her die and become the moon spirit, so it’s not her. Then there’s that one girl at the great divide, Fen, he thinks her name was, but she’s both taller and had a bonier face, not to mention the fact that she wouldn’t be caught dead in anything more than that buff and leather bracers she wore, so she’s out.

That only leaves…

“Suki!” he shouts excitedly, before embracing the Kyoshi Warrior, now make-up-less and far more traditionally armored than her usual “attire”, and she hugs him back.

Pulling away from him, she says, “Sokka, it’s so good to see you!”

----

So this is where Suki was while they were trying to clear Aang and Kyoshi’s name.

Now, atop the wall separating the gathered crowd and the water, the group talks within a room open to the air. Suki and Aang lean against the stone railings, her on the one facing the crowd and him to the side, and Sokka, Katara, and Toph sit on provided seating as they talk and catch up.

“You look so different without your makeup!” Katara says to the girl. “And the new outfit.”

Suki glances down at the garb she’s been stuffed into, visibly distasteful of it. Her being from Kyoshi Island, an island made by an Avatar, she naturally wasn’t particularly fond of most clothing, the most she’s ever been in was the Kyoshi Warrior armor, and that barely covered anything.

“That crabby lady makes all the security guards wear them,” she says in an annoyed tone, before shifting her attention to Sokka, a small grin on her face. “And look at you, naked guy. Been working out?”

“Ahhh,” he says, stretching his arms with a satisfied look on his face, “I’ll grab a tree branch and do a few chin touches every now and then. Nothing major.”

As Sokka boasts, the other nude boy has a question for Suki, and he doesn’t waste time in asking. “Are the other Kyoshi Warriors around?” Aang asks.

“Yeah,” Suki says. “After you left Kyoshi, we wanted to find a way to help people. We ended up escorting some refugees and we've been here ever since.” She shrugs and drops lightly. “Not a big fan of the outfits, bit too restrictive, but I’ll bear it if it means helping others.” She pauses as the lemur hops onto the wall beside her. “Hi, Momo! Good to see you too!” she says as she scratches his head. “So why are you guys getting tickets for the ferry? Wouldn't you just fly across on Appa?”

“Appa is missing,” Katara says after a bit of hesitation. “We hope to find him in Ba Sing Se.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she says sympathetically. She then turns to Aang. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m doing fine,” Aang says, slightly annoyed at the constant pestering, especially since she and the siblings are looking at him. “Would everybody stop worrying about me?”

“Avatar Aang,” a voice from below back at the station calls out, “you have to help us!” He and the others turn and see the three they came there with, all much worse for wear. The pregnant lady who called out to him, Ying, evidently had her robe taken, as the one she’s now adorning is the one her husband was wearing, he now standing there totally nude with just his backpack, which itself is wide open and visibly empty. His must’ve been a bit smaller than hers as her entire front is hanging out, rather than just her swollen stomach and a bit of her breasts in her own robe. The other girl is still in her green and yellow dress and big hat, although much more disheveled, and her heart shaped bag is partially torn open. “Someone took all of our belongings; our tickets, our passports, everything’s gone!”

Already ready to go back down, Aang yells to them, “I’ll talk to the lady for you.”

----

“No passports, no tickets!” the ticket lady shouts at Aang, before stamping his forehead with a “denied”, right on the tattoo.

“But she’s pregnant and all of her stuff was stolen!” the naked boy protests. “You have to make an exception!”

“No exceptions!” the lady shouts at him. “If I just gave away tickets willy-nilly to anyone, there would be no more order! You know what that means, no more civilization!”

“What if we gave them our tickets?” he asks.

“No!”

“But-”

“Next!” the lady shouts, pointing Aang away from her.

Turning away and wiping the spit off, he turns to the couple and says, “Don't worry, you’ll get to the city safely.” They’re taken aback by what he says next. “I’ll lead you through the Serpent’s Pass.”

The three were surprised and shocked by this suggestion, thanks to the pass’s less than stellar reputation, but none of them spoke. Sokka was the one who spoke next, saying, “Are you serious? I thought we agreed we weren't going that way.”

“I can’t just do nothing,” Aang says.

“We know,” Katara says, “and I’m coming too.”

“So am I,” Toph joins in. “Though what are we going to do with our tickets?”

Sokka was about to say something to object to this, but is cut off by someone blowing a horn from atop the wall, signaling that their assigned ferry was due to leave soon and for the last few stragglers to board. Looking back at the others, he says, “Last chance.”

But Aang was resolute in helping these people. So with his ticket in hand, he glances to the side and sees one of his impersonators with her parents and younger sibling by their set up tent, all obviously very impoverished, a cloth wrapped around her shoulders and looking visibly dejected. Also seeing this and catching on to what he was doing, Katara passes her ticket to him, and Toph passes hers as well. Aang shifts his gaze to Sokka, who looks back and forth between the ferry and his ticket. Letting out a long sigh, he reluctantly hands his ticket to Aang.

Turning on his heels, the airbender sprints in the direction of the impersonator, his movements obviously causing her to look up at him, and her spirits start to lift when she sees what’s in his hands. Holding them up to her, he says, “Take them and go! The ferry’s leaving soon and they should let you in.”

Along with her family, the impostor stares at them in shock for a moment, before a smile forms on her face. Looking up at him, she says, “Thank you so much!” before hugging the Avatar, “you’ve saved us!” Taking the tickets excitedly, she turns to her family, parents already in the process of taking down their admittedly poor excuse for a tent, shouting, “Mama! Papa! C’mon!”

Aang watches as the naked girl and her family run towards the wall and up the stairs, noting in his mind that she has by far the most accurate fake tattoo placement compared to the other impostors, when the others walk up to him. He then begins to lead them through the camp away from the bay, Katara by his side, the couple and girl behind them, followed by Toph and Sokka taking the rear, the latter complaining as they walk.

“I can't believe we gave up our tickets and now we're going through the Serpent's Pass.” he says, finishing up a good few minutes of going on and on about how stupid they’re being, despite the act of kindness.

“I can’t believe you’re still complaining about it,” Toph bites back, annoyed at Sokka’s annoyance.

“I’m coming too!” the voice of Suki calls from behind the group.

Sokka turns and sees her in a more familiar look. White face makeup with red eye chevrons and lipstick, she’s adorned with a small golden crown, a chainmail top with nothing underneath to hide her breasts from sight, a brown waist wrapping serving as a belt that holds up two green pieces of cloth that go down her thighs to her knees, them being connected on both sides with more chainmail, again with nothing underneath to cover her crotch or buttock, and some sturdy brown boots and some green and brown elbow high gloves. The traditional Kyoshi Warrior armor that both protects and leaves the body exposed.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Sokka asks, light concern audible in his voice.

“Sokka, I thought you’d want me to come,” she says to him as she walks up.

“I do, it’s just-”

“Just what?” Suki cuts him off.

“Nothing,” he says, trying to sound casual. “I’m glad you’re coming.”

Without another word, the now eight people leave the Full Moon Bay and head for their new destination.

----

After a bit of walking along the coastline, the group finally come upon what they’re looking for.

The only bit of land connecting the northern and southern islands of the Earth Kingdom is a thin mountain range protruding from the water stretching out all the entire rivers width, which is quite wide. Despite its steep pathways and rough terrain, the range seems silent, almost inviting them inside to whatever hidden dangers it contains. A single gate separates the coastline from the pass, the writing adoring it serving as a warning to any poor souls who find themselves here.

“This is the Serpent's Pass?” Sokka asks as they approach the gate. “I thought it would be a little more wind-y, you know, like a serpent. Huh, I guess they misnamed it.”

Meanwhile, Ying walks up to one of the large wooden poles and sees something carved into it. She reads it and reacts accordingly. “Look at this writing!” she shouts in despair. “How awful!”

“What does it say?” Toph asks.

Katara walks up beside the pregnant woman and bends forward to read the carving. “It says, “abandon hope”.”

“How can we abandon hope? Ying asks, before turning and walking into her husband's outstretched arms. “It’s all we have!”

“I don’t know,” Aang says before turning out to face the water. “The monks used to say that hope was just a distraction, so maybe we do need to abandon it.”

“What are you talking about?” Katara asks, taking a few steps towards him.

“Hope is not going to get us into Ba Sing Se,” he says before turning his head to her, “and it's not going to help find Appa.” He turns fully and crosses the group and walks beyond the gateway. “We need to focus on what we're doing right now and that's getting across this path.”

Lowering her head, Katara says, “Okay, if you say so.”

With that, the group pass the gate and begin walking along the Serpent’s Pass.

A relatively smooth walk at first, it being a straight up trail. The first really high mountain is still wide enough for the group to walk comfortably, as is the gap between it and the next mountain. The next one is where things start to get treacherous. The mountain thins considerably as it gets higher, so much that the path veers off along the side. Then the elevations start to vary between the branching pathways. Among these, the least treacherous is the one on the side, directly above the water below. Still the path was wide enough to allow a person to somewhat walk comfortably, although only one at a time.

It’s here where they start to feel the winds. Unlike the desert winds, which were dry, warm and sandy, these winds were cool, lightly misty, and much heavier, thanks to both the steep mountains and cool water. Aang was completely unaffected by the sudden cool air, as his breathing helped keep him warm, him being able to be as naked as he is now at both the north and south poles without even shivering. Sokka and Toph by now were used to the cooler wind blowing against their nude bodies, them having both ridden atop Appa’s back as he flies enough times to allow it. Ying and her husband, named Than seem to be handling it well, him being completely nude and her with a wide-open robe and nothing underneath, though he is noticeably actively trying to hold the robe closed, though that’s probably more so to protect the baby than keep her warm. The other woman is covered from shoulder to knee so she’s fine. This means the only person uncomfortable with this wind was, of course, Katara.

She wasn’t uncomfortable because of the cold. She had sat bare assed on solid ice enough times that lightly chilly air was not a problem for her anymore. What was making her uncomfortable was the wind itself, blowing against her, as it again reminds her of just how naked she is. With light or no wind, its easier for her to forget that fact and function as she usually does, but with the wind she’s now beet red and her hands drop to cover her lower body. Of course now she remembers that she was ass naked in front of all those people back at the bay and she starts to shake.

This doesn’t go completely unnoticed by everyone. Aang and Suki lead so neither of them can see her reaction, Toph despite being directly behind her obviously doesn’t see her and despite feeling vibrations coming from her feet, doesn’t seem to care, Ying and Than are preoccupied with their walking, and Sokka’s too far behind.

Who does notice is the young woman with the couple, who’s naturally a bit baffled that this girl, who until now seemed perfectly fine with her nudity, is now visibly shaking and covering her butt with her hand. “Are you okay?” she asks quietly, causing Katara’s head to jolt and turn towards her. “You look like you’re panicking.”

“No, no, no, no, no…” Katara repeats, forcing herself to hold her arms stiffly down her sides. “I’m perfectly fine. Nothings wrong. Everything's fine.”

Slightly unnerved but still sympathetic, the woman slowly backs away saying, “Okay, okay, I can see that.” She glances down at her own dress, considering something. “You know,” she says as she looks back up at the girl, “if you’re not comfortable like that I could always-”

“I said I’m fine,” Katara says rapidly.

Hearing that, the lady just slows her pace to allow her two companions to catch up to her.

It’s also here where the travelers discover their next concern, the familiar sight of a Fire Navy ship sailing quite a distance away. Close enough for them to see it but far enough that it can see them.

“The Fire Nation controls the western lake,” Suki tells the group as they walk. “Rumor has it they're working on something big on the other side of it and don't want anyone to find out what it is.”

They continue walking a bit more, but all stop when they hear the sounds of a rock dislodging from the pass and a man starting to scream.

Than only has the time to let out that scream before he begins to fall over the edge of the path. He only falls a few feet when a sudden rock platform juts out from the side to catch him. Toph stomps her foot and the platform launches the man back up to his wife and the other woman, who hug him in relief.

“I’m okay!” he tells both of them as they all collectively calm down…

For about a few seconds, until they hear the sound of splashing as the dislodged rock falls into the water. This sudden splash gets the attention of somebody onboard the Fire Nation warship, which promptly fires in their direction.

“They've spotted us!” Sokka shouts at this. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Aang promptly leaps off the wall and slices his staff at the approaching fireball, deflecting it back towards the ship. It impacts the bridge, causing the whole stern to explode and catch fire, effectively disabling it, though it still is able to get another shot off at them.

This one impacts the Serpent’s Pass a bit above them, specifically Suki. She looks up and sees a good dozen or so stones of varying sizes falling towards her.

She barely has time to react before Sokka pushes her out of the way, leaving him in the rocks path. Sensing the twos movement with her feet and hearing where the falling rocks are, Toph promptly shifts her stance and thrusts her palm towards the ground, creating a ramp above Sokka. The rocks slide harmlessly above him and fall into the ocean as he stops crouching in fear..

“Suki are you okay!” Sokka shouts as he rushes up to the girl, still on her hands and knees trying to stand back up. He turns her towards him as he helps her up. Genuinely concerned, he continues, “You have to be more careful! Come on!”

He grabs onto Suki’s arm and the two run past Toph, who’s annoyed. “‘Thanks for saving my life, Toph,’” she says in an imitation of Sokka’s voice. “Hey, no problem, Sokka.”

She then breaks out in a run to follow the others, Aang flying overhead with his glider.

----

They travel for a good while longer, until they find a big enough flat surface to allow them to make camp. The sun was already setting, so the timing was perfect. So upon arriving, they immediately start to make camp.

While the others lay down their bags, Than and the young woman lay down a tarp for Ying to lay on something comfortable. With the almost fully developed baby, and the rough terrain and frequent inclines and declines, her legs and feet were killing her, so the laydown was a necessity.

Meanwhile, most of the group lay their sleeping bags close to the couple. The sole exception was Suki, who laid hers a bit away, closer to the side of the pathway.

As she goes to remove her armor, Sokka rushes up and grabs her sleeping bag. “Suki, you shouldn’t sleep there,” he says as he takes it and carries it a bit further away from the edge and closer to the site. “Who knows how stable this ledge is, it could give away at any moment!”

As he lays down the bag and flattens it, Suki places her fists on her hips and says, “Sokka, I’m fine, stop worrying!”

Patting the bag to flatten it and clear the dust, Sokka says, “You're right, you're right, you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself!” He backs up to allow her access to her bag. She takes a step, and Sokka suddenly runs towards her, shouting, “Wait!” as he pulls her a bit away, arms wrapped around her torso. He looks down and calms down again. “Oh, never mind, I thought I saw a spider, but, you're fine. You're right, you're right, you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself! Wait! Oh, never mind, I thought I saw a spider, but, you're fine.”

Suki’s shoulders drop, annoyed at his overprotectiveness. She watches him walk away back to his bag (a whole four feet away) before taking off her headdress, boots and gloves, and sliding out of her Kyoshi armor to lay down and sleep, the rest of the group also laying down to sleep.

----

Night had fallen over the Earth Kingdom, and most of the refugees on the ferry had fallen asleep. What few who were still awake were the soldiers patrolling the boat. One walks his route along the uppermost deck, circling the area, until he walks past the stairs leading to the deck below.

After he’s a bit away, Zuko emerges from the stair, followed by Jet, Smellerbee trailing. The three keep close to the wall and walk along the opposite direction as the guard. After sneaking along the wall for a bit, they pass the windows of the kitchen, and see all the prepared food within. The three, with their backs against the wall, slide over to the corner. Jet and Zuko quickly make the turns and rush up towards the door, Smellerbee keeping her position to keep watch.

Upon reaching the door, Zuko unsheathes his broadswords and Jet his hook swords. They find the door locked, so Jet sticks one of his blades between the crack. He forces open the door and the two boys charge in.

Jet immediately slices the ropes of two big cooked birds, catching them in his sac, as Zuko stacks eight plates of prepared food with his own swords. Upon stacking them, he ties a ribbon around them to keep them steady and to make sure nothing spills out; this stack is also stuffed into Zuko’s own sack.

This was a good enough haul as it was, and while they could’ve gotten more, Smellerbee called out, “Guard’s coming!” cut the operation short. The two boys run out and are joined by the girl as they run towards the railing overlooking the lower decks.

Standing there waiting on the lowest outer deck is Longshot, an arrow already in the notch of his bow. He aims and fires the arrow, with a rope tied to it, into the railing. The three tie the sacks of food to the rope and slides them down, the three following right after Longshot unloads them.

And just like that, they’re home free, and just in time, as the guard passes the spot they just were moments later.

----

It’s a bit into the night when Katara wakes up. She raises and looks around, noticing that both Aang and Sokka are not in their bags either side of her. She also catches the naked backside of a woman or girl walking away. She’s out of view before her eyes could adjust to the darkness, but it’s not hard for her to reason who it is. She’s way too tall to be Toph, her abdomen isn’t bloated with pregnancy, so Ying’s out, and she’s fully nude, and the other woman hasn’t given any indication of being comfortable being naked around others, so it has to be Suki.

Her head then turns and catches one of the missing boys, and she promptly stands from her bag and begins to walk in his direction.

Standing by the edge of an outcropping ledge, staring out at the water, is Aang, his head lowered and eyes shut.

“You know, it’s okay to miss Appa,” Katara says as she walks up behind the bald boy. He says nothing, and she starts to walk up beside him. “What's going on with you? In the desert, all you cared about was finding Appa and now it's like you don't care about him at all.”

“You saw what I did out there,” he says. He raises his head and opens his eyes as he continues. “I was so angry about losing Appa that I couldn't control myself. I hated feeling like that.”

“But now you're not letting yourself feel anything,” she says. “I know sometimes it hurts more to hope and it hurts more to care. But you have to promise me that you won't stop caring.” She turns towards him and raises her arms. “Come on, you need a hug.”

He doesn’t return the hug. Instead, the boy just bows. “Thank you for your concern, Katara,” he says before turning back and walking away.

Katara drops her arms and watches Aang walk, a look of concern still on her face.

Meanwhile, in another part of the pass, the other nude boy sits on a rock and looks up at the full moon in the sky, his time at the Northern Water Tribe flashing in his mind, both the positive and negative, though mostly negative.

He snaps out of it as he hears someone approaching. He turns and sees Suki walking up towards him, now armor less. Despite seeing almost everything she has to offer thanks to how little the Kyoshi Warriors armor covered, seeing her body not blocked by chainmail and completely nude and open to the air was different. He doesn’t say anything, he just watches her as she walks up and turns her head to the sky.

“It’s a beautiful moon,” she says.

“Yeah,” Sokka says, his words meaning more, “it really is.”

Taking a seat beside him, Suki says, “Look, I know you’re just trying to help, but I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can.”

“Then why are you being so overprotective?” she asks.

“It's so hard to lose someone you care about,” he says, before dropping his head and glancing away. “Something happened at the North Pole and I couldn't protect someone. I don't want anything like that to ever happen again.”

Suki listens quietly, looking away and back at the sky when he stops. “I lost someone I care about,” she says. “He didn't die, he just went away. I only had a few days to get to know him, but he was smart and brave and funny …”

Suddenly jealous of this mystery guy, he stands up, turns back to her and says, “Who is this guy? Is he taller than me?”

“No,” she says with a shrug, amused by him not getting it, “he’s about your height.”

“Is he better-looking?”

Standing up, Suki says with a light giggle, “It is you, stupid!”

“Oh!” he says, awkwardly.

The two stare at each other for a good moment, both obvious in their want. Under the full moon, the two shut their eyes and pucker their lips. They begin to lean towards each other, but at the last second, Sokka turns his head away, causing Suki to stop and open her eyes.

“I can’t,” he says.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you shouldn't be.”

Not stopping him Suki just watches as Sokka lets go of her hands, turns, and walks off.

----

Back at the ferry, the Freedom Fighters divvy up their spoils. As Jet passes plates around the lower deck to give the actually well made food to the starving refugees, Zuko, Iroh, Smellerbee and Longshot sit in a circle, their own portion of the food laying between them.

While Jet passes the plates, the group engages in small talk.

“So, Smellerbee,” Iroh says to the youth with the bowl cut. “That’s an unusual name for a young man.”

Offended, Smellerbee says back, “Maybe it’s because I’m not a man… I’m a girl!” She stands and walks off.

Calling after her, Iroh backpedals, “Oh, now I see. It’s a beautiful name for a lovely girl!”

Watching her storming off, Longshot gets to his feet and rushes towards her, grabbing onto her shoulder to stop her. Turning her to face him, the long nosed boy shoots a glance at her that says more than words.

Dropping her head, she says, “I know, you’re right.” Crossing one arm over her chest, she continues. “As long as I'm confident with who I am, it doesn't matter what other people think. Thanks, Longshot,” she finishes as she drops her arms and raises her gaze back up to her friend.

Longshot just nods twice, and turns to begin to walk back towards the others.

Smellerbee eyes then glance down to her pants, considering something. Like many others, when she first joined the Freedom Fighters, she was a lot more reserved and had the confidence most young village girls had. The longer she was with them, the more her confidence increased and inhibitions dropped, eventually to the point where one day around a year or so ago, she stopped wearing a shirt and hasn’t since, again like other girls who were with them in the trees, hell several went full nude almost immediately after joining them. Unlike them, her confidence would take the occasional hit, mostly whenever someone confused her for a boy, as this was far from the first time this happened. Mostly either a new recruit who hasn’t heard her speak or one of the more developed girls mocking her for her smaller chest. Not anymore, she was done caring. Let them say what they want, and make themselves look stupid by saying something that can be easily disproven by just looking at her.

“Yeah,” she says quietly, sliding her thumbs under the waistband of her pants, “I don’t care.”

Hearing her speak, Longshot turns back to Smellerbee, unintentionally catching the sight of two full moons as she slides out of her tight black pants. Upon straightening up, the now naked Smellerbee hurls the discarded pants overboard.

Splash

Upon hearing that noise, she dusts off her hands, saying, “Won’t be needing those anymore!” before turning and flashing Longshot a smirk.

Meanwhile, Jet finishes passing around the food and joins Zuko and Iroh, who are eating their food, sitting across from them.

“From what I heard,” he says, “people eat like this every night in Ba Sing Se. I can’t wait to set my eyes on that giant wall.”

“It is a magnificent sight,” Iroh says, slightly subdued.

“So you’ve been there before?”

“Once,” the old man says after a pause. “When I was a … different man.”

Jet could relate to the man's sentiment. “I’ve done some things in my past that I’m not proud of,” he says, remembering a few instances of him going too far in his goal of liberating the Earth Kingdom, culminating in his defeat at the hands of the Avatar and his waterbending companion, “but that’s why I’m going to Ba Sing Se: for a new beginning. A second chance.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Iroh says as Zuko takes a sip of tea. “I believe people can change their lives if they want to. I believe in second chances.”

He finishes that statement by turning his head to his nephew, who lowers his cup and looks back at his uncle.

----

Sun had risen, as did the travelers. They rise, pack up their stuff, Suki re-armors herself, and they head off.

They travel further along the Serpent's Pass, now heading downhill on the current mountain, Aang leading, followed by Toph (with Momo on her head, Katara, Sokka and Suki, the lady in green and yellow, and Than and Ying take the rear. With last night's rest, and the reassurance that they’re at least going to make it to Ba Sing Se, they travel much further, up and down more of the thin mountains making up the pass.

However, things abruptly shift to a halt when they’re descending one of the more stable paths. As they descend, they naturally get closer to the waterline. The path in their immediate front is blocked from view so they just assume as they walk that it dips close to the waterline. As they get closer to the waterline, however, that quickly becomes more and more unlikely. Upon reaching the waterline, to their dismay, the path dips under the water. No real biggie, as long as it doesn’t go for too long or too deep they should be fine, right?

Well, as they look up, and everyone’s spirits drop at the distant sight of the pass reemerging from the water, a good whole mountain slice between the two. None of them, especially the pregnant lady, could swim that far. All of their heads drop at this impossible cross, knowing they’d have to turn back and face the ferries and that nasty woman again. It was disheartening for all of them.

Well, accept one, the one who can actually do something about it, who steps forwards.

“Everyone single file!” Katara orders, to which everyone follows suit. With great focus, the naked girl raises her arms and spreads them wide. In front of them, the water starts to separate, clearing a path. She starts to walk through it, the others following her, dipping deeper under the waterline. “Aang,” she says to the boy, who’s trailing, as she walks deeper along the path, “I need help!”

Handing Toph his staff, Aang then starts to bend the air and water around them, creating a nice air bubble that surrounds the eight and allows them to comfortably walk as they dip deeper underwater along the pass.

A bit unnerving for the group, especially as they get deeper under it, especially seeing the fish swimming alongside them. Momo, who’s constant hunger is only rivaled by Sokka, decides to go for one and dives into the water. He swims a little bit after it, the others even watching him, until something swims by him, and he leaps back into the bubble and onto Toph’s shoulder, shivering.

They’re naturally confused by Momo’s reaction, until they see a massive shadow looming over them.

“What is that thing?” Katara says, both confused and slightly concerned at this sudden appearance.

Everyone, tensing up, nervously glances around the water surrounding them, anticipating what’s coming.

Finally, whatever the shadow thing is, some light green/cyan serpent, breaks through the divide, causing the bubble to start to collapse. Instinctively, Toph stomps on the ground and pushes her arms up, causing a platform of earth to speed up out of the water. They surface right in the middle of the water between the two halves of the pass.

Than, Ying and their friend sigh in relief as the others compose themselves and begin to glance around the area in anticipation, Toph handing Aang his staff back just in case.

After a second, a light green fin emerges and begins to circle the platform, the gang quickly ready themselves for a fight.

Finally, the serpent emerges, with shiny green scales with purple skin beneath, and a long red, spikey tongue that hisses harshly at the group.

“I think I just figured out why they call it the Serpent’s Pass!” Sokka shouts as the beast hisses loudly. Turning to the Kyoshi warrior, he shouts, “Suki, you know about giant sea monsters, make it go away!”

“Just because I live near the unagi doesn’t mean I’m an expert!” Suki shout’s back

And if the unagi was big, it pales in comparison to the size and horrifying look of this beast.

Feeling the fear, Sokka snatches Momo from Toph’s shoulder and holds it up to the beast. “ Oh great and powerful sea serpent, please accept this humble and tasty offering. Thank you.”

“Sokka!” Katara shouts, annoyed that her brother was really attempting to sacrifice their lemur to this massive serpent.

The serpent opens its jaw wide and charges towards the group, intent on consuming them. As it approaches, Aang slashes his staff towards it, the slice of air knocking it back a bit.

“I’ll distract it,” he says, opening his glider. “Katara, get everyone across!” He takes off, causing the beast to chase after him.

Not waiting a second, Katara leaps forwards and creates a long path of ice that goes a few yards forward. She sprints up to the edge of the ice and slams her fists down, extending the bridge a good bit. A single swing of her arms and the bridge connects with the other side of the Pass. She then turns and signals for the others to cross, and they all seem to do so.

Once Sokka, who’s taking the rear, passes her, she leaps off the ice bridge and into the water, ice encasing her boots. She sails towards the serpent, still chasing a flying Aang. Seeing this, Aang turns and flies straight away, the beast following suit.

Katara speeds towards the beast, and upon catching up to it, she starts to surround its torso with water, before freezing it. It struggles for a few seconds, before shattering the ice and promptly turns its attention back towards the pass and their travelers.

Meanwhile, Sokka basically pushes everyone across the ice bridge towards the solid earth of the pass. It’s only when he gets there when he realizes they’re one short. Turning Back, he sees Toph still standing on the stone platform on the other side of the bridge.

“Toph, come on,” he shouts to the girl, “it’s just ice!”

The naked girl reluctantly takes a step on the ice bridge, but pulls back almost instantly, both due to the unusual cold and almost complete cut off of her method of sight. “Actually, I’m going to stay on my little island, where I can see!” She stands there for a few moments, but the serpent slides past the island behind her, slicing up most of it and forcing her onto the ice anyways. “Okay, I’m coming!” she says as she slowly starts to slide her feet along the ice, slowly crossing the bridge.

Despite her slow, cautious pace, she manages to make a good third of the way across in a minute.

“You’re doing great!” Sokka shouts in encouragement. “Just follow the sound of my voice!”

“It’s hard to ignore!” she shouts back, annoyed.

“You’re almost there!”

Of course, with these words coming from Sokka, who the universe seems to always be actively trying to prove him wrong, things go wrong. Just as she’s about to reach the halfway point, the serpent's tail slams down onto the ice bridge between her and the pass, shattering the whole thing, dropping a screaming Toph into the water.

Naturally, due to both being blind and heavily sheltered for most of her life, she has trouble keeping her head above the water, to say it lightly. “Help!” Toph shouts, saying it far less lightly. “I can’t swim!”

“I’m coming, Toph!” Sokka shouts, already in the process of taking his boots off. However, without even taking her armor off, Suki dives into the water, speeding towards the helpless girl.

“Help!” Toph shouts, before finally sinking below the waves, Suki reaches the spot she vanished and promptly dives down after her. Toph shuts her eyes as she sinks deeper into the depths, only to feel someone's arms wrap under her pits and a force pulls her to the surface.

Upon breaching the surface, she takes a deep breath, before saying dreamily, “Oh Sokka, you saved me!” She then plants a kiss on her savior's cheek.

“Actually,” Suki’s voice, right beside her, says, “it’s me.”

Toph’s eyes widen the moment the Kyoshi Warrior starts talking. Awkwardly, she says, “Oh … well …” She then chuckles before dropping her arms and head, “you can go ahead and let me drown now.”

Meanwhile, the serpent was led away from the others towards one of the deeper areas of the river, where Aang and Katara intend to enact their plan.

Aang drops to the surface of the water and starts running in circles around the monster, Katara sailing with her ice block on the other side of it. The two circle the serpent quickly, using their waterbending to create a whirlpool that starts to pull down on and keep it in place. They go faster and faster, further catching the serpent in its current, its head spinning around along with the current. Eventually, the creature's head slams into the Serpent's Pass, causing it to go limp and sink into the water.

With that done, Aang flies over to and picks up Katara, flying back towards their cheering companions.

----

With the Pass’s titular serpent defeated, the rest of the walk was pretty smooth, all things considered, and they’re at the other end within the hour. As they walk off the pass and back onto the mainland, they see a massive wall in the near distance.

“There’s the wall!” Sokka shouts excitedly. “Now it’s nothing but smooth sailing to Ba Sing Se.”

Naturally, his optimism is cut off by the sounds of a groaning woman. “Oh no!” Ying shouts, her husband and the other woman clutching her arms as she collapses.

Turning, Sokka says, “What’s wrong?”

“The baby’s coming!” Ying shouts as the two sit her down, Than helping her slide out of the robe.

This causes Sokka to start panicking. “What? Now?” he says. “Can’t you hold it in or something?”

“Sokka,” Katara says, placing herself between him and the three, “calm down. I helped Gran-Gran deliver lots of babies back home.”

“This isn’t the same as delivering an arctic seal!” he shouts. “This is a real … human … thing!”

Annoyed, Katara says, “It’s called a baby and I helped her deliver plenty of those, too.” She then snaps into her serious mode, ready to give orders. “Aang, get some rags. Sokka, water.” The two run away from the group as Katara shifts her gaze to the blind girl. “Toph, I need you to make an earth tent, a big one.”

The girl walks up in front of the three, turns to face them, and raises her arms, causing several slabs of earth to rise up around them, sheltering them from the elements.

Signaling her, Katara says, “Suki, come with me.”

The two girls walk into the tent, ready to assist Ying in this messy process.

----

The ferry sails towards the northern island of the Earth Kingdom in a light fog, it being little under half an hour away from reaching the port.

Standing on the bow is Zuko, who just stares at the quickly growing land mass, wanting to be alone for a bit.

“You know,” the voice of Jet says from behind him, the Freedom Fighter walking up beside him, “as soon as I saw your scar, I knew exactly who you were. You're an outcast, like me. And us outcasts have to stick together. We have to watch each other's backs. Because no one else will.”

Not shifting his gaze, the scarred boy says, “I’ve realized lately being on your own isn’t always the best path.”

In front of them, emerging from the fog is the massive outer wall of the city of Ba Sing Se.

----

Ying breathes heavily, drenched in sweat, in pain as the delivery progresses. Than and the other woman stand either side of her, holding up her shoulders, bracing her. Katara, meanwhile, kneels between her legs, the waterbender and trained healer being the most helpful for this situation.

“You’re doing great, Ying,” she says encouragingly, before turning her head towards the entrance of the tent. “Sokka, where’s that water?” She turns back to Ying, saying, “Now get ready to push. One … two …” at this moment, Sokka enters holding Katara’s now full waterskin, “three, push!”

Ying groans loudly as Sokka raises his gaze, seeing everything from behind his sister. He falls to the ground, having fainted. Suki walks over to him, carries him out of the tent, and takes the waterskin back in.

Outside the tent, Aang and Toph sit either side of the entrance, her standing and leaning against the slab of earth, and him sitting against it. Upon regaining consciousness, Sokka walks beside Toph and sits down against the tent, hand covering his eyes after what he saw.

Despite having a good few months getting used to the natural state of nudity, both from women and men, he was very uncomfortable, to say it lightly, with the also natural process of childbirth. His discomfort, especially with how much he boasts about being a brave young man, doesn't go unnoticed by Toph, who starts to chuckle lightly.

The three stay out there for a few more minutes, until the groaning stops and Katara calls out, “It’s a girl!” from within the tent.

“So,” Toph says teasingly to Sokka, “you want to go see the baby, or are you going to faint like an old lady again?”

“No, no,” he says, rising to his feet. “I’m good this time.”

The two walk into the tent to see the new baby, Aang staying where he sits, chin still on his arms.

After a few seconds, Katara walks up to the entrance of the tent and looks at him. “Aang, you have to come see this,” she says, stirring the boy to rise and follow her inside.

Walking in, he sees the new parents looking absolutely joyful, Ying holding her new baby girl, who sports some short, messy, brown hair. Everyone else stands around the two, in awe of the new life in front of them.

“She sounds healthy,” Toph comments.

“She’s beautiful,” Katara says.

“It’s so …” Sokka starts, “squishy looking.”

Getting a good look at the sleeping girl, Aang actually starts smiling.

“What should we name her?” Than asks his wife.

“I want our daughter's name to be unique,” she says to him. “I want it to mean something.”

Aang takes a few steps into the tent, though not before whipping away some tears forming in his eyes. “I’ve been going through a really hard time lately,” he says. “But you’ve made me … hopeful again.”

Ying pipes up at his words. “I know what to name our baby now,” she tells her husband. “Hope.”

“That’s a perfect name,” Than says. “Hope.”

With that, everyone but the two leave the tent, to allow them some time alone with their new baby. Sokka, Toph, and Suki stand by the side, the woman with the couple walks off to the other side of the tent, hiding herself from the view of the others. Aang and Katara walk away from the tent, looking out at the distant wall.

It’s here where Aang confesses to Katara. “I thought I was trying to be strong. But really I was just running away from my feelings. Seeing this family together, so full of happiness and love, it reminded me how I feel about Appa …” he shifts his gaze up to the waterbender, “and how I feel about you.”

Katara starts to tear up. Then the two naked youths embrace as the three approach them.

“I promise,” the boy says as Toph hands him his staff, “I’ll find Appa as fast as I can. I just really need to do this.”

“See you in the big city,” Sokka says, placing his hand on Aang’s shoulder.

“Say hi to the big fuzzball for me,” Toph says, punching Aang on his arm.

“You’ll find him, Aang,” Katara says reassuringly, placing her hand on his shoulder.

Looking back at her, the bald boy says, “I know. Thank you, Katara.” Converting the staff into its glider form, he says to the lemur, “You ready, Momo?”

He chitters, and the two take off for the walled city of Ba Sing Se, the others waving them off.

With them leaving, Sokka goes to gather his few belongings and stuff them back into his bag. As he’s doing that, he hears someone walking up behind him.

“Sokka,” Suki says, causing the boy to turn and face her, “it’s been really great to see you again.”

However, the way she’s saying this causes Sokka to rise up. “Whoa, hold on. Why does it sound like you’re saying goodbye?”

“I came along because I wanted to make sure you got through the Serpent’s Pass safely,” she admits, “But now I need to get back to the Kyoshi Warriors.”

“So you came along to protect me?”

“Listen,” she says apologetically, “I'm really sorry about last night. We were talking ... and saying things ... and I just got carried away and before I knew it-”

Cutting her off were Sokka’s lips pressed against her own.

Separating, he says, “You talk too much,” before the two resume making out.

Watching this with a light smirk, Katara rolls her eyes at her brother, before taking a few steps away, turning to look back at the wall and the quickly shrinking shapes of Aang and Momo. She’s only there for a few seconds before a voice from behind calls to her.

“You and your friends have been a real help to us these past few days, especially to my brother and his wife. Because of that, I want to give you this as a token of our appreciation.”

Turning, Katara is taken aback by what she sees. The woman formerly in the green and yellow dress stands behind her. I say formerly because now she’s naked, and holding up the folded dress towards the girl.

Not sure what to say, Katara stammers out, “Well … uh … thanks I gu … Are you sure you’re-”

“I’ll be fine,” the lady says, albeit with a light blush on her face. “Besides, you looked very emberassed yesterday and I get the feeling you’re not very comfortable with nudity.” She glances towards Sokka, still mid make out with Suki, and Toph, who’s drowsily scratching her butt. “At least not to the extent of your companions. Take them.”

She shoves the dress into Katara’s arms, who’s still processing this. Just stared down at the gifted clothes. It is true that she’s spent these past several days unwittingly in her birthday suit, and that she intending on getting new clothes the moment she could, the excitement and action she’s experienced throughout these few days have done a lot to push her discomfort from her mind (at least as long as she wasn’t in large crowds or being directly reminded of the fact). It was so pushed from her mind that with this being presented to her, her brain temporarily short circuits, not entirely sure what to do.

After regaining focus and taking a deep breath, she looks up to the woman and says, “Thank you.” She then unfolds the dress and holds it up to her chest. For the most part, it seems to fit, but the hem goes down to her ankles while it only went part way down to the woman’s shins.

Still, to her it’s better than continuing into Ba Sing Se completely bare assed.

Speaking of which, while she’s busy sliding the new dress over her head, Aang and Momo were flying ever closer to the giant wall surrounding Ba Sing Se.

With a determined look on his face, the naked boy and his lemur fly along up the wall. Upon reaching the top, he does a loop in the air before landing on the walkway.

He glances around, determined to find Appa, when something much bigger catches his attention, forcing him to turn to face it.

In the distance is a massive cylindrical vehicle that’s steaming towards the wall, at least a mile or two long. If the pure metal structure of the thing didn’t give away it’s origin, then the large Fire Nation insignia on the top of it did.

What concerned Aang the most was what was attached to the front of the vehicle, which gave away it’s purpose.

A massive drill.

This, it seems, was that big thing the Fire Nation was working on.

“Sorry Momo,” Aang says, fully realizing the gravity of the situation, “Appa’s going to have to wait.”

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 12
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

In the middle of the day, the sun is high and scorching hot down below on the desert sands lining the edge of the massive wall. It’s here where a good dozen or so metal tanks driving towards the wall, split in two groups.

Between those groups is the single largest vehicle known to man, a mechanical wonder and terror. At a minimum a mile long, this cylindrical device slowly drives closer and closer to the walls of Ba Sing Se. Affixed to the front of the vehicle was a drill bit, as wide and almost as long as the vehicle itself.

This drill inches itself closer and closer to the wall, steam blasting out of the device and sections extending out, pushing the drill bit even closer to the wall. Spikes dig into the ground as the distance slowly closes. Near the rear of the vehicle, something rises high above the main body, a kind of command module, that overlooks the drill.

Inside the module is a whole crew and command for the drill, though only four within are important to note.

At the back of the command center is a large throne built into the wall, two smaller chairs attached either side of the throne.

On the throne, seated with her legs crossed was a girl with a youthful stature, amber eyes, lips painted bright red, and black hair mostly tied up in a topknot held up by a fire shaped crown, although two bang strands hang out either side of her face. Beyond the crown and the sandals with steel soles she’s sporting, she’s completely naked. Sitting to her left with her legs criss crossed is another girl with a roundish face, gray eyes, and long brown hair tied in a long braid. Similar to the girl on the throne, she’s basically naked, although she’s sporting an almost completely see through pink silk dress that has a sparkly quality. On the right side of the throne was another girl, sitting with her back facing towards the two other girls, swinging a knife around her finger. She has an angular face, amber eyes, and almost pure black hair held up in two buns either side of her head and flow down in two strands that go just past her chest. Unlike both of her companions, she’s actually clothed in a red dress with a leather maroon dress covering all but the sleeves and lower dress, as well as black pointed boots and fingerless gloves.

In front of them, standing near the middle of the room is an older man with a topknot and gray hair and beard. He sports a red robe with a shoulder plate in a brighter red, obviously important to the operations of this vehicle, especially as he addresses the workers and nobles in the room in his speech.

“This drill is a feat of scientific ingenuity and raw destructive power. Once it tunnels through the wall, our troops will storm their city.” He turns and addresses the girl seated on the main throne. “The Earth Kingdom will finally fall, and you can claim Ba Sing Se in the name of your father. Nothing can stop us.”

Meanwhile, the girl with brown hair peers into a periscope, observing the outside right in front of the drill, and she’s not fully convinced. “Hmmm,” Ty Lee says, “what about those muscle-y folk down there?”

Sure enough, gathering in small rectangular trenches right in front of the wall are dozens of muscular men and women, all naked and all obviously sporting the look of earthbenders.

Not taking this all that seriously, the man says, “Please,” smacking the periscope and lightly startling Ty Lee. “This drill’s metal shell is impervious to any earthbending attack.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is, War Minister Qin,” Azula, the girl sitting on the throne, says,” but to be on the safe side …” she glances towards Ty Lee and the other girl holding the knife. “Mai and Ty Lee, take the earthbenders out!”

With immense relief, the actually clothed girl, Mai, says with a sigh, “Finally, something to do.” She rises and walks away to be deployed.

Seeing this, Ty Lee raises, throws off the silk dress, and scoops up a pink shirt and pants laying beside the armrest of her seat. “Mai, wait for me!” she shouts, hopping on one foot as she slides her other foot into one of her brown leather shoes.

----

Meanwhile, a short distance away from the wall, a group of six people walk towards the wall, the three youths leading and the three adults trailing.

Leading the group overall is a girl with tanned skin, blue eyes, and brown hair tied in a braid down her back and loops at her sides. She’s sporting a dress with a green top and a yellow skirt, with a lighter green hem, along with brown fur boots, blue leather bracers, and a necklace with a unique carving on it.

To her side is another girl, shorter with lighter skin and black hair tied up in a large bun, though with some heavy bangs escaping and covering her face. It doesn’t cover her eyes, which were emerald green but with a distinctive milky look to them. She’s naked beyond a green and yellow headband and green wrist and ankle bands.

Right behind the two girls is a boy who’s also tanned with blue eyes and brown hair, his tied up in a ponytail. He’s wearing knee high leather boots, white wrappings up to the elbow, which were covered by navy blue fingerless gloves, and nothing else. He does sport a bag as well as a sheath for his club/machete and a holster for his boomerang.

Trailing the three are the adults, a brother and sister and his wife, all with darker hair, him sporting a beard. and lighter skin. They’re all lightly dressed, the siblings naked beyond their shoes and hats, and the wife sporting a robe that’s wide open and blows back with the wind. They’re trailing considerably mostly because the wife is holding her newborn baby.

Their walk comes to an abrupt stop when another bare youth lands right in front of him. This boy is bald, has lighter skin, and a round face with gray eyes. His most defining features, however, are the tattoos lining his limbs and back, which consist of light blue lines that end at his hands, feet, and forehead in arrows. He’s completely nude, not even wearing shoes.

His appearance, unsurprisingly, surprises the group.

“Aang,” the girl in the green and yellow dress says, “what are you doing here? I thought you were looking for Appa.”

“I was,” the boy, Aang, responds, “but something stopped me. Something big.”

Without another word, they sprint towards the wall. It takes a little while, but the moment they reach it, Aang and the milky eyed girl, Toph, stand either side of the other three. The two point their arms to the wall, before harshly moving them down, launching a platform of rock up along the wall, lifting the seven up.

As they rise up, the ponytail boy has a question, and so far Aang hasn’t said a word.

“Now what’s so big that Appa has to wait?” Sokka asks.

They reach the top of the wall and they all dismount on the walkway. After he and Toph let the rock platform fall back to the ground, Aang turns and points at the distant drill.

“That,” he says.

In utter despair, the mother of the baby, Ying, says, “We made it to Ba Sing Se and we’re still not safe. No one is!” Her husband and sister-in-law embrace her as the four just look on in awe of what’s in front of them.

“What are you people doing here?” a voice calls out to them. Turning, they see an Earth Kingdom soldier, him being among a group of patrolmen, addressing the barely dressed group. “Civilians aren’t allowed on the wall!”

Aang steps forward, saying, “I’m the Avatar. Take me to whoever is in charge.”

----

As it turns out, the man in charge of defending the outer wall, Sung, was more than willing to see such prestigious people. He’s middle aged with black hair cut short and a thin pointed mustache and beard and decked in the light green armor and deep green cape of an Earth Kingdom general.

With great enthusiasm, the general greets the four youths standing in front of his desk. “It is an honor to welcome you to the Outer Wall, young Avatar, but your help is not needed.”

Confused, Aang asks, “Not needed?”

“Not needed,” Sung repeats calmly. “I have the situation under control.” He rises and walks near the edge of the wall. “I assure you the Fire Nation cannot penetrate this wall. Many have tried to break through it, but none have succeeded.”

“What about the Dragon of the West?” Toph asks, having overheard the stories from her parents. “He got in.”

“Well … uh,” the general says, slightly taken aback by this pint sized naked girl’s comment, “technically yes, but he quickly expunged.” The confidence in his tone returns as he continues, “Nevertheless, that is why the city is named Ba Sing Se. It’s the ‘impenetrable city’. They don’t call it Na Sing Se.” He laughs at his own joke, but stops when he realizes no one else finds it funny. “That means ‘penetrable city’.”

“Yeah, thanks for the tour,” the blind girl says as Sung walks past her, “but we still got the drill problem.”

“Not for long,” he says with confidence. “To stop it, I’ve sent an elite platoon of earthbenders called the Terra Team.”

Impressed, Sokka says, “That’s a good group name. Very catchy.”

----

Well they certainly had a good name, but can this squadron of naked earthbenders fight off such a massive and advanced machine?

They’re off to a good start when, in synchronized motions, they manage to take out several of the support tanks before speeding towards the superstructure of the drill. On each side they drive up three large mounds of rock, poised to strike.

“Ready … attack!”

In sync, the groups of benders on each mound jump and slam down on the stones, each sending a large spike right against the drill. For a moment it’s successful.

However, the drill’s segments simply separate, shattering each spike in an instant. They barely have time to react when their victory is further sullied by the emergence of two girls.

All they could do was raise earth shields to protect themselves from Mai’s knives as she slid down the side of the drill. She stops herself by tightening her grip on the rope, but the other girl keeps going.

Sporting a pink top and pink poofy pants, Ty Lee swings on her rope, before letting go and landing quite a distance away.

The Terra Team commander stomps his foot, creating a fissure that races towards the girl, but she leaps in the air right up to the man. Upon landing, she dodges his punches as she jabs various points on his body. He goes completely prone once she’s done.

She leaps in the air again to avoid three rocks thrown at her, before repeating the same routine, jabbing each man and woman’s bare body at various points, causing each to go prone as well. Within a minute, all of the Terra Team members on this side of the drill lay on the ground, unmoving and seemingly unharmed in a circle around the girl.

“We still have the other side,” Mai calls out, already climbing back up the rope, causing Ty Lee to glance up at her. “I’ll distract them, hurry up!”

Ty Lee nods and begins to sprint around the drill and Mai climbs over the top. She slides down the other side, landing a bit away from the still confused Terra Team members. She starts to throw her knives at them, them shooting stones back at her. She dodges the rocks with ease, and throws her knives in a way that could be easily dodged. If she aimed to kill, these nude earthbenders would be dead. But she’s not going to kill them, she was just distracting them.

By the time Ty Lee reaches the other side and starts to prod at the soldiers, Mai had run out of knives and continued her role of distracting by just dodging each rock and keeping all eyes on her. The thrown rocks she’d dodge naturally kicked up a lot of dust, and a lot of it found itself on her clothes and skin. The dust kicked up by the spinning drill certainly didn’t help matters.

So by the time the last of the soldiers were on the ground, both Mai and Ty Lee were covered in the stuff. Mai attempts to pat herself clean of the dust as Ty Lee stretches.

“Well,” the peppy girl says, “that was fun!”

Rolling her eyes, Mai says, “Well I need to get this cleaned, so thanks a lot for that.”

She then starts to collect her discarded knives.

“Oooh, I’ll help!” Ty Lee says, bending forwards to help her friend recollect her knives.

----

“We’re doomed!” General Sung shouts at the sight of the Terra Team’s easy defeat. He starts to flail his arms around in utter panic.

Sokka grabs a hold of the man and, annoyed at his panicking, slaps him across the face. “Get a hold of yourself, man!”

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing his cheek.

“Maybe you’d like the Avatar’s help now?” Toph asks with an air of superiority.

Walking up humbly towards the bald boy, he says, “Yes, please.”

----

“ALERT! WATER WILL BE CUT OFF IN AN HOUR! IF YOU INTEND TO BATHE OR COLLECT DRINKING WATER, DO IT NOW OR YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE WALL IS BREACHED!”

This announcement rings out around the interior of the drill. Since water is a necessity for the drilling process, and a lot is needed for the amount of rock that needs to be drilled, all of the drill's water supply is needed. So when the time comes, all of the drill's water systems will need to be shut off, meaning all the showers and water fountains and other water sources.

Luckily for most of the crew and soldiers on board, the work wasn’t so demanding that they needed constant hydration, or sweat inducing or dirty enough to require a shower. It’s mainly the engineers and stokers who need the last minute showers.

So a decent chunk of the sweat, soot, and coal dust covered men and women converge at the various communal showers, might as well clean off while you can.

Already walking towards one of the showers, Ty Lee and Mai hear this, the former already naked and her clothes slung over her shoulders.

Grabbing the gloomy girl's hand, Ty Lee says,” Better hurry up then!”

“Hey, wai-!” but Mai was cut off as her friend breaks out into a sprint down the halls.

Upon reaching the entrance of the closest shower, the girl passes her clothes to one of the attendants, saying, “Can you send my clothes to be cleaned?” She wraps her arm around Mai’s shoulder, pulling on the cloth of her top. “And Mai’s as well?”

The attendant nods, before saying, “It will have to wait until after we breach the wall. I can provide robes, should you wish.”

“I’ll be good,” Ty Lee says.

“I’ll take one,” Mai says after a brief pause.

Nodding, he stands to the side to allow the two girls into the changing room. Inside were a naked man and woman mid conversation, another woman in the process of undressing, a young man toweling himself, and another man dressing himself. The toweled man looks up at the two nobles entering, and the young man and woman drop their conversation and glance at the two.

Ty Lee gives them a cheeky wave as she walks past them into the showers, undoing her braid as she walks.

Mai just slinks away into the corner of the changing room to undress. She peels off the dirty dress and lays it off to the side. She then slides out of her boots, slides off the wrist and leg harnesses that hold her stilettos, and undoes her waist holster that contains her other knives, laying them neatly on the provided seating. She glances down at her undergarments and sighs. It seems that, not only were they drenched in sweat, but evidently a decent chunk of dirt and dust seeped through her clothes. She quickly slinks them off and lays them atop her dress, folding it over them.

Scooping them up, she speed walks back to the attendant and passes her dirty clothes to him. She then heads for the shower room, untying her hair in the process.

The shower’s around two thirds full, mixed fairly evenly between men and women. Most are washing themselves and having conversations with each other, though quite a few are passing glances to Ty Lee, since the sight of a completely nude noble was a rarity. Mai even notices that a handful of the men suspiciously have their backs to her and are blushing severely. Ty Lee seems to pay no mind to the staring. In fact, based on how she’s positioned and how she uses her hands to wash her body, she seems to be doing it on purpose. She’s even giggling at them and their reactions, especially from an awkward guy she’s standing next too.

She’s definitely reveling in the attention, Mai thinks. She walks past the group, pretending not to notice the glances sent her way as she heads to the shower next to Ty Lee.

“Hey, Mai,” the girl says enthusiastically, washing her torso, “you’ve got to listen to these guys. They’re really f-”

“I just want to clean myself and head back up,” Mai cuts her off, already cleaning the dust from her black hair. “Azula’s probably wondering where we are, anyways, and you know we probably shouldn't keep her waiting for us.”

Ty Lee pouts. “You’re no fun.” She then smirks. “You need to loosen up!” she shouts, rushing up and hugging her from behind.

“What are you-” she shouts, struggling against her friend's grip, “-let me go! This isn’t funny!”

She breaks free and turns to shoot her friend an angry glare.

“Relax,” Ty Lee says, giggling. “It’s all in good fun.”

Mai huffs and turns back around, determined to clear her body of the dust and dirt as quickly as possible. Ty Lee was basically already clean by then, so it only took a few minutes to clean herself.

The two naked, now sparkly clean nobles leave the shower and dry themselves with the provided towels, Ty Lee still having small talk with some of the engineers.

Once dry, they “reclothe” themselves, Ty Lee just sliding on her sandals while Mai sliding on her knife holsters before stepping into her boots as well. The two girls walk to the exit, the attendant standing there holding a single crimson robe, which Mai takes and slides on, tying it up as the girls leave.

They walk along the hall, Mai stroking her hair and Ty Lee bouncing along her side. They turn down one hall and find themselves face to face with another butt naked girl, a wide smirk on her face.

“Enjoyed that shower, didn't you?” Azula says, to which Ty Lee nods.

Mai, still unamused by Ty Lee’s little tease back there, takes one glance down before saying, “Shouldn’t you be wearing something in case you’re seen? I mean, isn’t your whole nudity thing supposed to be a secret?”

Azula just shrugs before casually saying, “Anyone who says anything about my nakedness will find themselves short one head. Besides,” she continues with a sinister look on her face, “I have my ways of getting around unseen.”

“Whatever.”

Azula wraps her arms around her friends shoulders as they walk, leading them through a more secluded walkway. “This way is quicker anyway. Let’s watch that wall get breached.”

----

Speaking of which, back on the top of the wall, Sokka, Aang, Katara, and Toph glance down at the approaching drill, it now fully sinking in just how much of a problem this is.

“The question is,” Aang says, “how are we going to stop that thing?”

Aang and Katara turn their heads to Sokka, who glances back at them.

“Why are you all looking at me?”

“You’re the idea guy,” Aang says.

“So I’m the only one who can ever come up with a plan?” he complains. “That’s a lot of pressure.”

Katara, annoyed at her brother’s by now expected statement, says, “And also the complaining guy.”

She and Aang smirk at her jab, but Sokka just says, “That part I don’t mind.”

----

Meanwhile, inside a section of the outer wall near the coast and connected to a port is a terminal. Hundreds of refugees stand in lines by booths to get onto the monorails.

Standing at the front of one line, in the process of getting their tickets examined are an older, wider man with gray hair and beard and a boy with short black hair and a scar around his left eye.

“So,” the ticket lady says, inspecting the two tickets, “Mr. Lee and Mr. ummm… Mushy, is it?”

“It’s pronounced Mushi,” the older man says.

Annoyed, the lady glares at him. “You telling me how to do my job?”

“Uh, no, no,” Mushi says, walking up to the booth and leaning against it. “But may I just say you’re like a flower in bloom. Your beauty is intoxicating.”

Flattered by the man's smooth talking, the lady flirts back, “You’re pretty easy on the eyes yourself, handsome.” She seductively rawrs at him before continuing, “Welcome to Ba Sing Se.” She stamps the tickets and slides them towards the two.

Visibly disgusted, the scarred boy apparently named Lee grabs his ticket and says, “I’m going to forget I ever saw that,” before walking away.

Further down the line, watching the boy and the old man walk past the terminal gate are three youths, two boys and a girl. First there's a boy with tanned skin and spiky brown hair. He’s wearing a blue jumpsuit with an orange vest and mismatched shoulder pads. He’s chewing on a piece of straw. The other boy has a long, angular face with a big nose and ears, as well as short black hair. He’s also porting a blue jumpsuit, but with a brown fur cloak wrapped around his shoulder. He’s also sporting a rice hat and a quiver of arrows. Standing between them is an androgynous girl standing with her arms crossed and sporting a brown bowl cut, roundish face with two red cheek chevrons on each cheek. Contrary to the boys, beyond the blue headband and rough boots, she’s completely naked, far from a rare sight among the refugees.

“I think Lee would make a good Freedom Fighter,” the spiky haired boy comments to his companions. “He’s just trying to find his way in the world, like us.”

Turning her head to him, the girl says, “You don’t know anything about him, Jet.”

“I know he didn’t get that scar from a waterbender,” the boy, Jet, says.

“Besides,” the girl continues, “I thought we were going straight now.”

“We are,” Jet tells her, “and the new Freedom Fighters could use a guy like Lee.” He shifts his gaze to the boy with the rice hat. “What do you think, Longshot?”

The boy with the quiver, Longshot, doesn’t say a word. He just stares at Jet for a few seconds, before blinking.

Apparently this is enough for Jet, who just says, “I can respect that.”

----

Back atop the wall, the four discuss any and all potential plans for how they could stop the approaching drill, all ranging from bad to horrible.

“Maybe we can crush it with a giant boulder?”

“Toph, do you see how big that is, we’d need at least a thousand earthbenders, and it’s not even guaranteed to work.”

“We could freeze the ground in front of it.”

“Unless either of us are willing to run back and forth to collect water from the ocean, we won’t have enough, and which of us can run at the speed of the winds, again?”

“We could sick the whole army on it.”

“That’d be a waste of men, and how can you expect to call all the fighters at the fronts in the time we have?”

“I got it! When they approach … we run … away.”

Needless to say, they were getting desperate.

However, their planning is cut short by the arrival of the Terra Team, most of them completely paralyzed from the neck down, and those that aren’t have difficulties moving a limb or two.

“We need the healers!” the sole Terra Team member with both legs functioning, a young woman with short, dark hair, shouts as they arrive

Each member of the force is laid down on a slab of earth face up to be examined and healed.

Stepping forwards, Katara says, “I’ll help.” Sighing, she then slides her arms out of the shoulder holes of her green and yellow dress, letting it fall to her ankles. Stepping out of it, the now naked waterbender picks it up and hands it to her brother, saying, “Hold this, will you?”

As her time in the Northern Water Tribe taught her, clothes are an inconvenience when healing, especially in the ways she was taught while up there. Besides, she’s been sleeveless for so long she doubts she’ll be able to do much with them and in her brief time in this new dress, they’ve proved to be strangely more restrictive, despite cutting off above the elbow.

So she uncorks her waterskin, walks up to the slab carrying a man, and engulfs his arm in water, using her healing to attempt to fix the paralyzation.

Nothing.

“What’s wrong with him?” Sung asks, both concerned and confused. “He doesn’t look injured.”

Katara’s baffled at first too, but she then recalls back to a certain healing lesson, about two or three days before the siege, that detailed a way to paralyze a limb without physically damaging them.

“His chi is blocked,” she says as she stops healing, him now barely being able to bend his elbow. Looking down at the man, she asks, “Who did this to you?”

“Two girls ambushed us,” he says in a strained voice. “One of them hit me with a bunch of quick jabs and suddenly I couldn't earthbend anymore and I could barely move. Then she cartwheeled away.”

The jabbing was already making her nervous, but the mention of the girl cartwheeling makes her eyes widen. “Ty Lee,” she says, her friends also becoming weary. “She doesn't look dangerous, but she knows the human body and its weak points. It's like she takes you down from the inside.”

Those last words get Sokka excited. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh! Ooh!”

“Yes?” she asks.

“What you just said!” he says, almost giddy. “That's how we're going to take down the drill! The same way Ty Lee took down all those big earthbenders!”

“By hitting its pressure points!” Toph says, perking up.

Aang turns his head and looks out at the drill with a determined look on his face.

“We’ll take it down from the inside.”

----

Considering how cramped the old train was, the freedom of the drills interior pathways were practically a godsend to the three girls, who now walk within the corridors.

Two of them completely naked, the third in just a red robe and boots (at least from what’s visible), the girls walk in the midst of a conversation.

“And each one just fell over like nothing!” Ty Lee boasts. “At least two dozen men and women, and they fell just like that.” In excitement, the nude brunette runs a bit ahead of the two others, before doing a few front flips, a leap into the air, and landing flat on her feet, arms stretched to the ceiling. “Woah!” Bending her elbows out slightly, she then begins to shake her hindquarters back and forth in a victory dance causing Azula to snicker and Mai to roll her eyes, but with a small amused grin on her face.

“Well, it seems like you two had fun,” the naked princess says as she and Mai catch back up to Ty Lee, who’s slowing down on the butt shaking. “So what happened after that, hmm?” she asks as she stops beside her.

“Oh,” Ty Lee says, turning back around to face Azula, “after that we just went back inside, had our shower, and ran into you. Right Mai?” She then starts to tug on the bottom of her robe, pulling her closer to them.

“Yes we did,” Mai says, lightly swatting Ty Lee’s hand away. As she readjusts the bottom left of her robe, she continues, “The fight left both of us completely filthy, and since I very much doubt we’ll get into action again before the wall is breached, I suggested we clean ourselves off. So we went to the showers, cleaned ourselves up, and you know the rest.”

Leaning closer to Azula, Ty Lee says, “She was practically rushing for us to get out of there. She was probably emberassed at all those people seeing her nude.” The two start to giggle, causing Mai to get angry.

“I was not emberassed!” she shouts, before calming down back to her usual monotone. “First of all, I wanted to get it done quickly so we'd have time to get back up to command to watch the wall get breached and, considering how much you were talking to those people, we would have been there until they shut the water off.”

“They were interesting people,” the girl says defensively. “I don’t have many opportunities to speak with those people.”

“Anyways,” Mai says, “beyond that, while I don’t care if the entire Fire Nation saw me naked, I’m not the kind of person to just flaunt my body around, Ty Lee, not like you do.” The acrobat starts to open her mouth to respond, but Mai holds her hand up to her, cutting her off. “Don’t deny it, that was exactly what you were doing in there.” She then started to walk again

“I can’t help it,” Ty Lee says in a slightly amused tone, her and Azula watching Mai walk ahead as they stand there. “The reactions, especially from the guys, are funny. Besides,” she says as her eyes lower to Mai’s waist, “it’s not like you don’t have things you can show off.” She powerwalks right behind her and crouches down beside her.

“What are you-” Mai starts, but cuts herself off as Ty Lee places her hands on either side of her waist, causing her to freeze still.

“I mean, when you have hips as wide as you do, you might as well show them off.” Turning her head back, she continues. “Wouldn’t you agree, Azula?” The princess, amused by her friend's actions, nods her head as she laughs quietly.

This emboldens Ty Lee to be a bit bolder in her teasing. Grabbing the bottom of Mai’s robe, she pulls it up, fully exposing the girl's pale cheeks and a decent amount of her lower back. Mai goes red in an instant, especially as Ty Lee says, “You have a pretty great butt too, while I’m at it.”

That was enough.

Turning around harshly, Mai shoots a wicked glare at her friend. If looks could kill, Ty lee wouldn’t just be dead, but her spirit completely evaporated. One of the black haired girl's hands is held up in a fist towards her, the other flattening the back of her robe against her rear.

“Relax,” Azula says, walking past the two, “besides, all this talk of flaunting one’s body is pointless.”

“Easy for you to say,” Mai says under her breath, managing to once again regain composure.

“Aaaaanyways,” Ty Lee awkwardly says, walking after Azula and away from Mai, “there’s nothing wrong with a little flaunting now and then, so you might as well have some fun.”

Grumbling, Mai resumes walking as well, making sure to keep the girls in front of her.

Just then they cross a corner, and halfway down the hall stands a lone soldier. Seeing this, Azula raises her hands to stop her friends in their tracks. With a mischievous grin on her face, she turns her head to Mai and says, “Want to see why I can get away with being like this?”

Dropping her arms, she calls out, “Excuse me sir!” before starting to walk towards the guard, a younger man. She’s noticeably walking with a bit of a bounce in her step, as well as some hip swaying as she approaches.

Upon being called, the soldier turns towards the noise, but upon seeing the completely bare princess walking towards him, he turns his head harshly in the other direction and shuts his eyes. “W-what is it, your Highness?”

With a small laugh, she says in a fake sweet voice, “Now come on, sir. It’s very rude to not look at someone when being talked to,” her voice then gets more sinister as she continues, “especially if she’s royalty.”

Very nervously, the already drenched in sweat soldier slowly turns his head to her, making damn sure he maintains eye contact, almost certainly thankful he stands at eye level to her. “Y-y-y-yes, m-m-m-my lady?”

The girl stretches her arms in the air, before saying, “Me and my friends took a wrong turn and would like to return to the command module as quickly as possible.” Azula then leans forward, pulling her arms closer to her torso to emphasize her chest, while flashing an innocent look on her face. “Would you please point us in the right direction,” she says in an equally exaggerated innocent voice.

Still maintaining eye contact, the guard points in to his left and stammers out a, “T-th-th-there.”

Azula then turns around, takes a few steps back towards Mai and Ty Lee, and waves at them, bending forwards slightly and intentionally pointing her butt at the guard. “Guys, did you hear that? He says he knows the way.”

Ty Lee giggles and Mai rolls her eyes as the two start walking towards Azula, who starts shaking her hips back and forth, not even attempting to be subtle anymore. She passes a few glances back at the guard, and is amused when she sees him seemingly very enraptured by the hall's ceiling.

Once her friends reach her, she turns back around and says, “Thank you for the help, soldier.”

The beet red soldier just shuts his eyes and starts to nod rapidly as the three girls walk past him, Azula continuing to walk with her hips swaying.

“I think you’ve proved your point,” Mai says quietly once he’s out of ear shot, “but that’s taking it a bit too far.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Azula says, passing one last glance back at the guard, who she could see harshly turning his head in the opposite direction of her.

“...but I agree with Ty Lee. This is fun.” She walks behind Mai and grabs her shoulders and starts to pull on the robe lightly. “Maybe you should try it next time.”

Quickening her pace to free herself of her grip, Mai says, “Forget it! We’re almost at the command module anyways.”

“Of course,” the princess says, “let’s watch that wall break.”

----

Back outside and in front of the drill, the four crouch in one of Terra Teams abandoned trenches.

Aang, Sokka, and Toph, of course, were in their preferred states of nudity, but in the time it took them to head down the wall and rush into the trench, Katara had slid the dress back on, albeit with the green top half hanging down her waist along with the yellow skirt, leaving everything above bare. Afterall, if she’s going to be getting into some fights, she needs full control of her arms, and those damned sleeves will certainly get in the way.

So the four stand crouched in a trench as the drill slowly gets closer, Toph placing her hand against the wall of earth next to her.

“Once I whip up some cover,” she says, gesturing in the direction of the drill, “you’re not going to be able to see. So, stay close to me.”

Without waiting for a response, she leaps out of the trench and faces the drill. She raises her hands, gaining control of a good chunk of the ground between her and the vehicle. She then stops down, breaking the ground in front of her into the fissures, kicking up a massive plomb of dust that goes all the way to the back end of the drill bit, and going almost as high as the device is wide.

“Run!”

The blind girl breaks out in a sprint, the other three emerging from the trench and following her, Momo flying beside them.

Inside the drill’s command module, Azula stands beside Commander Qin, both looking out the window, a look of superiority on her face as she watches them get closer to breaching the wall. Mai kneels on her seat, the hand closer to Azula’s throne stabbing a knife into the handrest, and the other one against her backside, still holding down the back of her robe (in case either of her friends get any more funny ideas). Even with both of them distracted, one can never be too cautious, especially with the possibility of one rushing behind you and either pull up the back of your robe or pull it off completely.

Ty Lee, meanwhile, again peers through the periscope, looking down at the drill bit, when she sees something. “Hey, look at that dust cloud,” she says, getting everyone in the room’s attention. “It’s so … poofy.” She pulls away from the periscope and holds her fists beside her head with a spaced out expression on her face. “Poof,” she says, opening her hands.

Azula’s immediately suspicious of this sudden dust cloud, since they haven’t even made contact with the wall yet and hasn’t kicked up this much dust before. Qin misinterprets her shift in expression as fear and says, “Don’t worry, Princess. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

She shoots him a doubtful look, but doesn’t say anything.

Meanwhile, outside the drill in the dust, four mostly nude youths prove the old man wrong as they approach the drill.

Toph raises her hand and starts to rotate it above a patch of the ground, loosening the stones, before shooting it down and creating a decently sized pit.

“Everyone into the hole!” she shouts, before leaping down into the hole, the others following suit.

She closes the hole, causing Sokka to freak out.

“It’s so dark down here, I can’t see a thing!:

“Oh no, what a nightmare!”

“Sorry.”

They travel underground for a little bit, before Toph breaches the surface again, the others climbing out of the hole under the drill.

“There!” Sokka shouts, pointing up to an opening that’s big enough for them to fit into.

Momo flies into it as Aang leaps up to a pipe stretching across the opening. Hanging upside down from his legs, he holds his hands down. Katara runs up and grabs them, and he pulls her into the drill, followed shortly by Sokka. He stays there, waiting for Toph to join them, but the naked girl just stands there.

Also noticing she’s taking a while, Sokka peaks his head back down the opening, shouting, “Toph, come on!”

“No way am I going in that metal monster,” she shouts back to him. “I can’t bend in there. I’ll try to slow it down out here.”

“Okay, good luck!” Sokka says as he and Aang disappear from view (well, view from anyone else besides Toph who could be standing outside down there).

The girl then stomps her foot, sending a massive wedge of earth into the bottom of the drill, and starts to push it in an attempt to hold it in place, or even slow it down.

No luck, as even with her unmatched abilities, the drill still pushes her and the wedge back.

Inside the drill, the trio walk into a room filled with various valves and pipes, no doubt an important room.

Walking up to one pipe, Sokka says, “I need a plan of this machine. Some schematics that show what the inside looks like. Then we can find its weak points.”

“Where are we going to get something like that?” Aang asks. Instead of answering, Sokka pulls out his machete and cuts off one of the valves on the pipe, causing it to shoot out steam and let out a loud noise. “What are you doing?” he asks. “Someone’s going to hear us!”

“That’s the point,” Sokka says confidently. “I figure a machine this big needs engineers to run it. And when something breaks…”

“They come to fix it!” Katara finishes, her and Aang flashing grins to each other.

The three hide within the steam as the sounds of footsteps start to get closer.

Entering the room is a buff man, an engineer, wearing a dark gray mask with green eyes. He walks up to the broken pipe, wrench in one hand and scroll in the other. He goes to reattach and tighten the valve, when he hears a noise behind him. He turns and is promptly frozen in place by a tanned, topfree girl.

Sokka runs up to the man and snatches the partially frozen scroll. “This’ll work. Thanks!” he shouts as he turns away from the frozen man, who drops the wrench.

The three run up a nearby set of stairs and Sokka opens the scroll against a pipe. As he suspected, this scroll contains the schematics of the drill.

“It looks like the drill is made up of two main structures,” he says as he looks over the plans. “There's the inner mechanism where we are now and the outer shell. The inner part and the outer part are connected by these braces. If we cut through them, the entire thing will collapse.”

Aang and Katara nod, before all three take off for the outer shell.

----

“Welcome to Ba Sing Se!” the ticket lady says, stamping three tickets and passing them back to the three youths in front of her, who take them and walk through the terminal gate.

Upon passing into the station, the group falls into the gaze of a man standing by a table covered in folded cloths. Specifically, his eyes find the girl in this group, who’s completely nude. He grabs a folded poncho of the girl's size and walks up to the group.

“Take this,” he says, holding it out to Smellerbee, “if you wish to cover yourself when you enter the city.”

Slightly awkwardly, Smellerbee grabs it and says, “Thanks, I guess.” but the man had already returned to his table, looking out as the next group entered. She glances around the terminal, and the people gathered around it, specifically one’s who weren’t in regular clothes. Many were wearing similar ponchos, and side glances reveal nothing underneath. Just as many seem to have their own poncho’s slinked over their shoulders, probably in consideration on if to put them on or not. There were a decent handful of the crowd still nude, but it’s noticeably diminished from the other side of the gate and back at the port.

She then glances back down at the fouled poncho for a few moments, drawing a complete blank, until she feels a pair of familiar eyes looking at her. She turns and sees Longshot giving her a quizzical look.

“I’m fine” she responds to his wordless comment. “I just wanted to give this whole naked thing a try, see how The Duke and that Fen girl lived like.”

The boy cranes his head slightly.

“I don’t know…” she Smellerbee says, “maybe. The feeling of taking those pants off and chucking them into the sea felt so liberating, and the cool river air felt so great on my freed body. But now we’re here, no cool wind, and all of these people…”

Longshot blinks twice, causing the girl to raise her tone slightly.

“I’m not emberassed if that’s what you’re thinking!” she shouts, before lowering her tone as a few heads turn her way. “It’s just that being here now, with everything so…” she looks down at her nude body, “exposed. It’s a weird feeling. Not necessarily bad, just weird. Not making things better is the fact that all these people we don’t know can see me, this scrawny girl with her ass out, and I don’t know what they’re thinking. About me?”

Longshot glances away for a second, before refocusing his eyes back on Smellerbee, causing her eyes to widen and cheeks to lightly blush.

“Oh,” she says, starting to rub her forearm, “Thanks.” Awkwardly turning her head away, she notices a particular absence. “Where’s Jet?”

As it turns out, Jet had separated himself from the two, in search of something, or someone.

After a bit of walking amongst the diversely dressed folk, he finds his targets sitting beside a pillar.

Sitting on the seat next to the scarred boy, he asks, “So, you guys got plans once you’re inside the city?”

Zuko turns his head to Jet, but before he could respond, a voice in front of them calls out, “Get your hot tea here!” They, plus the old man sitting next to them, glance up, seeing a tea seller rolling his cart past them. “Finest tea in Ba Sing Se!”

The old man enthusiastically raises his hand, shouting, “Ohh! Jasmine please.”

The seller parks his cart in front of Iroh and passes him a leaf cup. He grabs a tea pot and pours the liquid into the cup, before walking away.

Iroh then takes a sip of the tea, but grimaces at the taste almost immediately. “Blaugh! Ugh, coldest tea in Ba Sing Se is more like it! What a disgrace!”

Leaning a bit closer to Zuko, Jet says, “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”

He then stands up and starts to walk away. Zuko takes a deep breath and rises to follow.

After walking a few feet away from the old man, the tanned boy gives his proposition. “You and I have a much better chance of making it in the city if we stick together. You want to join the Freedom Fighters?”

“Thanks,” Zuko says coldly, “but I don’t think you want me in your gang.”

“Come on,” Jet says, “we made a great team looting that captain's food. Think of all the good we could do for these refugees.”

Already turning and walking away, he just says, “I said no.”

“Have it your way,” Jet says. He starts to turn to leave and reunite with the others, but something catches his eye and holds him in place.

The old man Lee was with now seems to be sipping his tea again, much more happily. Probably due to the nice stream of steam coming from his cup, meaning the cold tea is now a nice hot. This is what caught Jet’s attention, and he racks his brain for any reason for why the tea got warm so fast. Then his eyes widen as it hits him.

A firebender.

He continues to watch as Lee walks up to the old man, who smiles widely at the boy, which is when Jet has another realization.

Lee’s a firebender too.

His eyes narrow, a look of betrayal and anger on his face as he finally turns and walks away, determined to let his companions know exactly what he’s discovered about their new “friend”.

Also taking note of the now steamy cup is Lee, aka Zuko, who angrily smacks the cup from Iroh’s grasp.

“Hey!” he shouts as his perfectly warm tea spills all over the floor around him.

Gritting his teeth, Zuko harshly whispers, “What are you doing firebending your tea? For a wise, old man, that was a pretty stupid move!”

But Iroh just looks sad. “I know you're not supposed to cry over spilled tea, but …” he pauses to sniff, “it's just so sad!”

----

It took a little bit of time, but after a bit of navigating Sokka leads Aang and Katara onto a steel spoke that served as one of the braces.

“Wow,” Sokka says as he walks up, “it looks a lot thicker in person than it does in the plans. We're going to have to work pretty hard to cut through that.”

Immediately annoyed, Katara crosses her arms as she says, “What’s this “we” stuff? Aang and I are going to have to do all the work.”

Turning, the boy gestures to himself as he says, “Look, I’m the plan guy. You two are the cut stuff up with waterbending guys. Together, we’re team Avatar!”

He strikes a heroic looking pose, causing the other two to shoot each other awkward looks.

Still, they had work to do, so Aang leaps across the beam onto the other side, the beam leading to the ceiling now separating the pair. Katara unscrews the cork on her waterskin and slices a stream of water along the edge of the brace, Aang immediately sending it right back. It only takes a few slices to create discoloring, and another few dozen there’s a noticeable groove in the metal.

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

After a good while, they manage to slice halfway through the brace, and the two are exhausted, keeling over the brace in order to catch their breaths.

Sokka, meanwhile, pumps his arms in the air to encourage them to continue. “C’mon team. Don’t quit now.” This comment causes his sister to grind her teeth, seething in rage, “We…”

Katara explodes in anger and frustration, turns over and shoots her brother a menacing glare, pulling out the water and very obviously, though without words, threatening him with the whip.

He freezes in place at the threat. “I mean,” he says before recovering, “you’re almost there.”

Katara sighs, then slides down the bottom of her dress. Still annoyed at her brother, the now naked waterbender chucks the discarded clothes to him, smacking him in the face. “Hold these then! If you actually want to contribute!”

The two waterbenders catch their breath, and resume slicing the brace.

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

Each slice goes deeper into the brace, and each slice causes Sokka to grow more eager, until finally the last slice cuts clean through the last sliver of metal, dividing the brace in two and is free to fall.

Unfortunately, it only shifts a few inches, and the structure otherwise remains intact.

The realization sets in for all three, who’s moods drop considerably.

In between pants, Katara says, “At this rate, we won’t do enough damage before the drill reaches the wall.”

Also exhausted, Aang says, “I don’t know how many more of those I have left in me.”

Before they could do anything else, the whole drill suddenly starts to shake, a very loud creaking noise is heard throughout. This get’s the group excited.

“Did you hear that?” Sokka says. “We took it down! We better get out of here fast!”

Aang and Katara rise, Sokka tossing her the dress back, and the three run for the door they entered. They’re just past the frame when the open tubes above them start to make noise, that of a man’s voice.

“Congratulations, crew. The drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Start the countdown to victory!”

Cheers erupt all over the drill, everyone very loudly celebrating their soon to be victory over the Earth Kingdom, putting an end to this long war. The sole person who’s not making noise is a certain naked princess, who stares out the command module window, a threatening look of determination plastered on her face.

Not celebrating are Aang, Katara, and Sokka, who all bear looks of horror as the creaking reveals itself not to be the drill shutting down, but the drill fulfilling its purpose.

The drill bit starts to dig into the thick outer wall, boulders of stone dislodging everywhere, including into the drill itself. Luckily for them, the designers thought of everything, and it’s the reason the water needed to be shut off a bit before they started breaking the wall. The rocks that fall into the drill fall into various conveyer belts and pipes, being sprayed and mixed with water into a slurry, which flows along the entire length of the drill, being dumped out the back end.

Back at the cut bracer, Sokka runs up to it and feebly attempts to push it just a little bit more. It’s no use, but he’s desperate. “C’mon brace … budge!” the naked boy shouts as he strains to move it even a centimeter.

“This is bad,” Katara says nervously, “really bad.”

“We’re putting everything we’ve got into busting these braces, but it’s taking too long!” Sokka shouts, still making his attempts at taking this thing down.

His words do more to help the situation, in fact, as Aang realizes something.

“Maybe we don't need to cut all the way through,” he says. “Toph has been teaching me that you shouldn't give one hundred percent of your energy into any one strike.” He then gets to his feet and turns to the other boy. “Sokka, take a fighting stance. You've got to be quick and accurate” Starting to hit him at several points, Aang continues, “Hit a series of points and break your opponent's stance. And when he's reeling back, you deliver the final blow.” Finishing his mild assault, he sits Sokka softly on the head. “His own weight becomes his downfall, literally.”

Sure enough, Sokka falls on his ass.

“So we just need to weaken the braces, instead of cutting all the way through,” Katara asks, frankly thankful at the sudden reduced workload.

“Then I’ll go to the top of this thing and deliver the final blow,” the bald boy says.

“And boom!” Sokka says, rising back to his feet. “It all comes crashing down!”

“Everyone inside that wall,” Aang says, looking towards the front end of the drill. “The whole world is counting on us.”

“The whole world minus the Fire Nation that is,” Sokka says with a wide grin, that causes his sister and friend to share another glance, this one in exasperation.

----

Back outside, Toph can feel the wall being breached as she holds onto the spike stabbed into the drill, which pushes against it and her earthbending with little trouble. Even the earthbenders chucking rocks at the drill from atop the wall aren’t doing anything to slow it.

Strained, she says, “C’mon, Twinkle Toes, hurry up!”

Luckily for her, the time spent has been progressive for the trio inside. The two naked waterbenders make quick work (well, relatively) at slicing halfway through the braces. All that’s needed is a few more and then Aang can deliver that final blow.

Unfortunately for them, their activity within the drill is no longer unnoticed.

At the command module, two engineers, a man and a woman, whose voices emerge from the piping front of war minister Qin, bowing at the head.

“War Minister,” the man says, “an engineer was ambushed! His schematics were stolen!”

Qin’s eyes widen in surprise, but Azula’s narrow in suspicion.

“War Minister,” the woman says, “a brace on the starboard side has been cut clean through! It’s sabotage sir!”

Not missing a beat, Azula turns to Ty Lee and Mai and says sharply, “Let’s go, ladies!”

The naked acrobat and the robed knife thrower rise and follow the naked princess as they rush out of the module and down to the main body of the drill, taking the various passageways Azula knows. They even pass the same guard who she messed with before, who instinctively drops his head the moment he sees her until the moment she passes.

Back at the braces, the last few of them were sliced, and Aang and Katara are working on the last one. After getting two thirds of the way through, they both stop and collapse to their knees, exhausted.

“Good work, Team Avatar!” Sokka shouts, tossing Katara’s dress back, who catches it and slowly starts to slide it back on. “Now Aang just needs to …” he stops as he glances up, expression shifting to one of horror, “Duck!”

He narrowly dodges a blast of blue flame, courtesy of a certain naked princess standing atop another brace above them, shortly flanked by her friends.

Another blast of fire is shot at Aang, who barely dodges with a, “Whoa!”

“Wow, Azula, you were right!” Ty Lee calls out. “It is the Avatar!” Her gaze then shifts to Sokka, a flirty smile forming on her face. “...and friends.”

Briefly forgetting the current danger, Sokka smiles and waves back with a, “Hey.”

Katara, annoyed, walks up behind her brother and grabs him by the hand and pulls him away to the door. Atop their brace, Azula and Mai rush down their own hall while Ty Lee drops behind the brace, swinging along the bottom of it, towards Aang, who readies his staff.

Despite the girl's airbender like movement, she’s still no match for proper airbending as the boy slices with his staff, sending a gust of air that shoots the naked girl back. She catches herself against the brace as the boy runs after his friends.

The trio run through the hall quickly, though not as quickly as they’d hope. This is mostly due to Katara, who’s struggling against her dress. After getting used to running around in the shorter dress she got from Buti, suddenly finding herself in a longer dress again has its difficulties, especially when it comes to running.

Nonetheless, they aren’t delayed by much and they find themselves at the end of a hall at an intersection quickly.

“Guys,” Aang says urgently, “get out of here. I know what I need to do.” He begins to turn down the right path, but is stopped by Katara’s words.

“Wait,” she says, sliding off her waterskin and tossing it to him. “You need this water more than I do!”

He catches it and turns to run down the right hall, Momo flying after him. The siblings turn heel and run down the left hall, but despite the distance, they’re not out of view by the time the trio of girls reach the intersection.

Pointing down the left hall, Azula orders, “Follow them!” She turns, gaze focused on the back of the boy with blue tattoos. “The Avatar’s mine!” She sprints after him, Ty Lee and Mai heading down the other hall.

Katara and Sokka soon find themselves at a dead end, but luckily for them, there’s a closed hatch on the floor with a sign above that she quickly reads out loud.

“Slurry pipeline?” she says, “What does that mean?”

Already opening the hatch, Sokka says, “It’s rock and water mixed together. It means our way out!”

The two begin to climb into the pipe, Katara going first, already halfway down, and Sokka just getting into it. Then they hear the sounds of footsteps getting louder, and they turn to see Mai and Ty Lee running up to them. Katara lets go and falls into the pipe, Sokka jumping in after her, and they both splash into the brown, rock filled fluid and flow with the current, narrowly avoiding Mai’s knives

The two girls reach the pipe, Mai peering down into it.

“Ugh, disgusting!” she shouts, holding her hands up as she jitters.

“C’mon!” Ty Lee says as she walks up to the pipe. Gesturing into it, she says, “You heard Azula. We have to follow them!”

“She can shoot all the lighting she wants at me,” Mai says defiantly. “I am not going in that wall sludge juice,” she pauses to shiver in disgust, “especially not after I just showered.”

Ty Lee just shrugs and leaps into the pipe. Mai’s eyes widen at the splash of the sludge coming up, so she backs up to avoid getting herself covered in the stuff, shuddering again.

Once the liquid falls, she reaches over and pulls the hatch door shut, mumbling, “Consider that payback for exposing my ass.”

She then turns and walks away without a care in the world.

----

At the other end of the drill, Aang streaks past dozens of workers and engineers so quickly they barely look up by the time he passes them. Their only confirmation of the naked bald boy running past them (besides the strange gust of wind) is the equally nude princess in hot pursuit of him as he attempts to reach the surface of the drill.

Meanwhile, the drill continues to penetrate the wall, digging deeper into the stone barrier. The rock it kicks up goes into the drill, mixed with water, and droves of it are being expelled in a massive stream at the end.

It’s in this slurry stream that two youths, a naked boy and a topfree girl, fall out with the outflow onto the now soft and wet ground. The two start to wipe themselves clean of the gross fluid, Sokka more violently as some of the stuff got into his mouth, but their attentions are drawn back up to the outflow, and the naked girl now emerging from it.

Determined grin on her face, Ty Lee slides down with the slurry outflow, ready to disable the two again with her chi blocking. Not wasting time, Katara gets to her feet and raises her hands.

Just before Ty Lee’s feet touch the ground, the slurry rises back up, pulling her with it as the outflow flows back into the drill. She finds herself with only her head, neck, chest, shoulders, and forearms sticking out of the now condensing slurry, held up by Katara’s bending. Gritting her teeth, she struggles against it, but both the still moving current and waterbending keep her still.

Smirk forming on her face, Katara taunts, “Why don’t you try blocking my chi now, circus freak?”

“Katara, keep that up,” Sokka shouts encouragingly. “The pressure will build up in the drill. Then when Aang delivers the final blow, it'll be ready to pop!”

As Katara holds Ty Lee in place, Aang and Momo manage to reach the top of the drill, and promptly run towards the front of it as quickly as possible. By now, the entire drill bit was within the wall, and the metal superstructure of the vehicle is slowly edging in as well.

Running right up to the wall, Aang halts and says, “This looks like a good spot, Momo.”

However, before he could do anything, he looks up and jumps out of the way of a falling boulder. Despite the ineffectiveness of the defense, Sung’s men still seem to be hurling boulders down at the drill, which now seem to be an inconvenience to the Avatar.

“General Sung,” Aang shouts up at the man, “tell your soldiers to stop shooting rocks down here!”

“Soldiers,” Sung shouts frantically from atop the wall, men and women at both his flanks, “whatever you do, don’t stop shooting rocks down there!”

The soldiers raise their massive boulders and throw them over the edge, down at the drill. Aang leaps out of the way to avoid them again, and upon landing, he slides the water out of the waterskin and begins to slice into the metal.

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

Back and forth

He completely ignores the rocks falling around him.

Meanwhile, back at the stern of the drill, Katara continues to hold the slurry and Ty Lee in place at the end of the outflow pipe, getting more and more annoyed by her brother's encouragement.

“Good technique, little sister!” he shouts. “Don’t forget to breathe!”

“You know,” she says, audibly irritated, “I'm just about sick and tired of you telling me what to do all day! You're like a chattering hog-monkey!”

“Just bend the slurry, woman!”

Frustration increasing, she raises her free arm and sends a wave of the slurry towards Sokka, knocking him backwards and causing him to fall flat on his ass again.

However, her taking focus off the outflow weakens her hold slightly, and she’s struggling to regain it.

Fortunately for her, she has some help in the form of a pint sized, butt naked blind girl walking towards her from beneath the drill.

“You guys need some help?” Toph asks.

“Toph, help me plug up this drain.”

The girl shifts her stance, the slurry rising up and surrounding her legs, before she thrusts her arms towards the rear of the drill.

The combined power of the strong waterbender and earthbender pushes the slurry and the nude girl trapped in it back fully into the drill, no doubt putting tremendous pressure on the pipes inside.

Sure enough, within the drill, pipes begin to expand under the extreme pressure.

On a walkway besides one of these pipes is Mai, who’s in the midst of straightening her loose hair with the hilt of one of her knives calmly.

Calmly, until she hears a groaning sound from the piping beside her. She stops and turns her head to the pipe, and her eyes widen as it begins to bloat, thin, strong streams of the brown slurry shooting out between the joints and seams of the pipes.

Her eyes follow the expansion of the pipes, and she promptly turns and runs as far from them as she can.

----

Back atop the drill, Aang had sliced a fair way into the metal, creating a nice x shape into it. Problem was that he was already worn out by slicing the braces inside, so by now the bald nudist was almost completely spent.

Spent, he bends forwards, panting, as he says, “What I’d give to be a metal bender.”

Just then, the lemur on his shoulder shrieks, allowing Aang to turn and deflect the blue flames with an air shield. The force pushes him back slightly, and he gets into a fighting stance, facing down the nudist princess slowly walking towards him.

“Momo, get out of here!” the boy shouts, to which the lemur flies away, leaving the nude youths in a standoff.

Azula walks a bit closer before coming to a stop, getting into a stance of her own.

The two stand there for a moment, wind blowing against their bodies, before Azula rotates her arms and thrusts her fingers towards Aang. He slices with his foot, creating a sliver of air that blocks the flames and heads straight towards Azula. She leaps over the slice, kicking and punching several more blasts of flame towards the Avatar, each one blocked by his water whip, a few of them even striking her hands.

Fed up with this, Azula charges closer and sends two powerful kicks his way, the resulting fire blasts just as powerful. Aang raises his water to defend himself, and the blast vaporizes it and pushes him further back.

Azula continues charging towards him, only to be stopped when another wave of boulders fall above them. The two dodge several, when the boy gets an idea.

Raising his hands up towards a rock falling above him, catching it with air. He hurls it at the nude girl, who does the splits to avoid. Upon rising again, she shoots another powerful blast towards the boy, who raises some of the stone debris around him as a shield.

He then starts to punch the barrier, sending several of the stones towards Azula. She in turn kicks them out of the way or dodges them. She in turn, starts spinning on one leg, kicking the other one towards him, shooting several blasts of blue flame at him. The Avatar dodges, before resuming shooting rocks towards her.

Leaping above one rock, Azula spins mid air, before kicking both her feet towards him, an immensely powerful fire blast shooting out of her steel soled shoes.

This blast destroys the barrier and shoots Aang all the way back, landing hard against the wall, knocking him unconscious. Azula watches the boy fall flat on his face. She goes to walk towards him, but stumbles a bit as the drill makes a sudden movement.

Steam emerges from one of the seams as two panels are pushed away from each other, pushing the drill bit deeper into the way, now beginning to emerge from the other side and destroy the housing’s conveniently right against the wall at that spot.

Unphased, the princess continues her walk towards the boy, the expanding drill pushing him closer to the wall. By the time she reaches him, his entire lower body is under the hole. She slides him out and raises his prone body against the wall.

As he starts stirring, she raises her right fist and he sees the blue flame in her hand, and he could see it in her face that she wasn’t planning to take him to the Fire Nation.

Thinking fast, he presses his hand against the wall and surrounds it with stone. As Azula moves to strike, he catches her burning hand with his earth gauntlet, before pushing her back with such a tremendous force, sparks emerge from under her feet and she slides back.

She doesn’t fall over, though, the two get back into fighting stances. The two stand there for a moment, before Azula starts to charge again, both arms straight behind her, streaks of blue flame jetting out of her hands as she goes.

Aang readies himself to defend, but he hears a rumbling from behind him, followed by a chunky liquid pushing against his back and butt with tremendous force.

From the cracks in the wall surrounding the drill, slurry shoots out in massive quantities, covering the nearby patch of the wall and shooting out in all directions.

Azula pays no mind to this as she charges, at least until the stuff actually starts to splash on her and cause her to slide involuntarily, then she starts noticing.

As Aang attempts to regain his footing, slipping a few times, he raises his head to find the naked, slurry covered girl sliding right towards him. She crashes into him, and both nude youths collide with the wall, falling back in opposite directions and beginning to slide off the edges either side of the drill.

Azula manages to drag her steel soles against the side, creating enough friction for her to catch herself about halfway down. She then starts making the slow, arduous climb back up.

Aang meanwhile is knocked prone and is sliding on his back against the drill. It’s only the arrival of a particular lemur, grabbing his head and pulling him upright, that wakes him back up. With Momo’s help and some airbending to propel him as he runs, Aang manages to reach the top in a few seconds.

“Thanks, Momo. I owe you one,” he says before running back to the thankfully still exposed x grove he cut into the drill surface. “Now all I need …” he says, being cut off by another boulder falling in front of him. Getting an idea, he says, “Actually, that is what I need for once.”

Using some of those fancy earthbending skills Toph taught him, he positions the boulder above the grove, before slicing it several times until the stone is a nice cone shape, the spike sticking right into the groove.

He charges towards the wall, creating an air scooter to speed him up as he speeds along the wall, raising higher and higher. Once it dissipates at a high enough altitude, he runs up a bit more, before turning and starts charging down, building momentum.

Climbing back onto the top of the drill now is Azula, who turns her head and sees the Avatar charging down the wall for some strange reason. She readies herself, watching as the boy leaps off the wall, fists raised.

She then goes to fire, but barely misses her blast as Aang zooms past it, slamming onto the spike, digging it deep into the groove and creating a powerful enough shockwave to knock her off the drill entirely.

Then the entire drill starts to violently shake.

----

The damage done to the drill was catastrophic.

Upon impact, the braces buckle and break, the pipes burst, shooting slurry inside and out of the whole vehicle.

All along the drill, massive bursts of slurry shoot out from between panels, the foremost one splashing all the way to the top of the wall, as the structure begins to collapse from bow to stern.

Speaking of rears, at the rear of the drill, two girls with their rears out use water and earthbending to hold slurry and another girl with her rear out within the outflow pipe, all the while a boy with his rear out cheers on as they watch and hear the drill be disabled.

“Woohoo!”

“Here it comes!” Toph shouts, before releasing her hold on the slurry, raising her hands up, sending up a large platform of earth for the three to stand in safely.

The now releases slurry slams into the pillar, the flow being bisected with tremendous force. Also slamming into the pillar is Ty Lee, the force of the fluid pushing her so hard she remains pressed against it. She stays there for a little while, until the forces on one side of her wins out, and she’s sent flying with the slurry stream on the right of the pillar.

Atop the pillar, Katara and Sokka embrace as Toph lowered her hands, reveling in the work she did (even if she can’t see it).

Completely exhausted, Katara bends forwards, resting her hands on her thighs, and pants. “Whooo, that was something,” she says between breaths, “We are never doing that again.” She continues to stand there, panting for a moment, before she realizes something.

Besides the slurry, what she could feel with her hands was her skin, not cloth. It seems that at some point, either after she fell out of the outflow pipe or during her bending the slurry, the bottom of her dress fell off, and she was naked again. She didn’t even bother trying to look for it.

A new dress and it didn’t even last a day. With her recent luck, this shouldn't be, and wasn’t, a surprise for the girl.

Meanwhile, steam shoots out of the seams as whole sections of the drill collapses and the drill bit stops spinning.

Still standing atop the drill was Aang, now covered in slurry like everything else in the vicinity of the wreck. Wiping the stuff from his face, he smiles widely, proud of his work, as Momo lands on his shoulder and starts to lick the gunk.

Meanwhile, inside the remarkably intact command module, Minister Qin watches the slurry slide off the windows, revealing the wrecked machine in front of him, a shocked look on his face.

Atop the wall itself, slurry starts to fall from the completely covered General Sung’s face, revealing an equally shocked expression.

After a while the slurry stops pouring from the drill and everything calms down. Landing among the gunk, Ty Lee raises, spits out a bunch of slurry, and wipes the stuff covering her face. She looks up at the sound of metal scraping.

Azula, also covered in slurry, slides down from the back of the drill and jumps down, splashing as she lands and covering the poor girl in more of the stuff. Ty Lee doesn’t even have the chance to wipe any off before another sound get’s the two's attention.

Right at the ground, a hatch opens up and, stepping from it, is a slurry covered humanoid, vaguely feminine figure that seems to be holding some sort of cloth or whip. It wipes slurry from its face with its free hand, revealing the disgusted scowl of Mai.

“We lost,” she says dryly, letting go of the slurry covered cloth.

She steps away from the drill wreck and walks towards them, not even stopping as she takes Azula’s hand and grabs Ty Lee’s arm, getting her to her feet and pulling the two with her as she walks away from the wreckage.

Despite the inherent improbability of defeat, the lakeside where they built the drill was to be their selected retreat point, which was where Mai was heading towards.

Not only because they’d lost and need to retreat, but also because it offers a place for the three naked, slurry covered girls to clean themselves.

----

“Last call for Ba Sing Se!” an announcer announces to the crowd of people in the train station.

As people begin to board the various cards, three people rush towards one, the leading boy with messy hair much more intently than the boy with the rice hat and naked girl with the bowl cut flanking him.

“Jet, relax,” Smellerbee tells her enraged friend as he storms towards the car. “So the old guy had some hot tea. Big deal.”

Jet, fuming with rage and betrayal, shouts back, “He heated it himself! Those guys are firebenders!”

Speaking of which, Zuko and Iroh board one of the train cars, Jet, Smellerbee and Longshot entering one a bit further back, being discrete as they do.

The uncle and nephew take their seats beside a nude woman in an open robe holding a baby, a naked man seated next to her and another naked woman across from the two, a specific family who had something in common with the two sitting beside them, even though neither party knew.

Regardless, Iroh took note of the woman’s child, and leaned a little closer. “What a handsome baby,” he says as he lightly strokes the sleeping infant.

“Thank you,” Ying says with a smile.

Just then, at the rear of the train, two earthbenders kick the ground one foot each and push the train, sending it along the tracks, out of the terminal, and into the open air as they travel within the walls of Ba Sing Se.

----

Meanwhile, atop the wall, four naked youths and one lemur watch the sun set in the distance.

“I just want to say,” Sokka says, air of victory in his tone and stature, “good effort out there today, Team Avatar!”

Unamused, Katara says “Enough with the Team Avatar stuff. No matter how many times you say it, it's not going to catch on.”

Still determined to give them a nickname, Sokka ponders for a bit, before saying, “How about…” he quickly pulls out his boomerang, “the Boomerang Squad!” No one gets it, so he pulls the bald boy closer and explains, “See it’s good because it’s got Aang in it. Boomeraang.”

Aang, awkwardly grinning, says, “I kind of like that one.”

“Let’s talk about this on our way to the city,” Katara says as she, Aang, and Toph turn away from him and begin to walk away.

“The Aang Gang?”

“Sokka…”

“The Fearsome Foursome?”

“You’re crazy,” Toph says.

“Why?” Sokka asks. “We’re fearsome!”

Seeing them leaving him behind, Sokka charges after his friends as they finally make their way to Ba Sing Se, the walled city.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 13
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun rises above the city of Ba Sing Se, the walled city, and the millions of people within the walls wake up and begin their days.

Similarly, within the walls of the outermost ring, thousands and thousands of refugees wake within the terminals and on the docks and resume the process of immigrating into the city.

So within the terminal, as people are getting processed and approved for entrance, a soldier leads four youths, two boys and two girls, from the upper levels of the walls.

“Because of your importance, you won’t need to go through those ticket booths,” the man says as he leads them past the lines and up to the gate.

In the both to their right, the lady within begins to object, but the soldier just raises his arm to silence her as he and the kids pass.

“This is as far as I can take you,” he says to the four, “I need to return to my duties atop the wall. While the drill was destroyed and the Fire Nation retreated, we still need to be ready for their next assault. Take the first train at your convenience.”

He bows before turning and walking off, leaving the four nude youths standing in the station.

“Well now we’re here,” the shorter of the two girls says, crossing her arms. She has lighter skin, black hair done up in a bun with a gold and green headband, and has jade eyes that have a very distinctive milky look to them. Her sole items of clothing are the green wrist and ankle bands. “Let’s just get this intel to the king and get it over with.”

“Could have been a bit easier, I’ll admit,” the taller of the boys says with a shrug. He has tanned skin, blue eyes, and brown hair tied up in a ponytail. He’s wearing brown knee high boots, white arm wrappings with navy fingerless gloves and a white necklace. He also sports a sheath holding his club/machete and a holster holding his boomerang. “I mean, we did have tickets for the ferry, that someone traded away.”

“I'm glad I did,” says the smaller of the two boys with a wide smile, “I hope that girl and her family made it.” This boy has gray eyes, a round face, and beyond his eye lashes and brows, is completely hairless. While eye catching on its own, it takes a backseat to another feature, that being the boy's tattoos. Light blue lines travel along his limbs, back and neck, ending at the top of his feet, back of his hands, and middle of his forehead with arrow shapes. This boy is completely nude, wields a wooden staff that’s taller than him, and has a lemur on his shoulder.

“Yeah, can we maybe have this talk later,” says the taller of the girls, visibly nervous and glancing around the area very jittery. “There’s way too many people here.” Like the taller boy, she’s dark skinned, has blue eyes, and brown hair, hers done in a braid that goes down her back and in loops by her sides. She’s sporting brown fur boots, blue leather bracers, and a blue necklace with a unique carving on it. Unlike the other three in her group, she seems to be the only one to be conscious about her nudity, constantly moving her hands to cover her breasts, crotch, and butt, constantly shifting her position to make up for the limited coverage, all the while blushing furiously.

“Are you okay, Katara?” the bald boy asks, genuinely concerned. “You were fine just a minute ago.”

“I know,” the girl, named Katara, responds, “it’s just that there’s so many people here. With you guys I’m fine, in smaller crowds I can tolerate, but this is too much. Let’s just go.”

With that, the four begin to walk deeper into the terminal, when a man’s voice calls to them. “Excuse me, kids! I couldn’t help but notice your clothing situation!” The four turn to see a man standing by a decently sized set up containing piles of clothes separated into several sections divided by age and body type. “Or in your case, lack of one. If you wish, you can pick some clothes out completely free of charge.”

The four glance at each other, before turning back to the man.

“I’m good,” the bald boy, Aang, says with a wave, “I’m an Air Nomad. Air Nomads and clothes don’t really mix.”

“I really don’t want any either,” the other boy, Sokka, says while shrugging his shoulders. “I prefer to stay like this, but thanks for the offer.”

Shaking her head, the small girl, Toph, simply says, “Nah!”

However, Katara starts to step forwards, saying, “I wouldn’t mind looking around.”

The man moves out of the way to allow her access to the stockpile, her heading for what looks like what would fit someone of her age and body shape.

The first thing she tried on was a brown dress that covered her from neck to ankles that just seems to be a few sacks tied together in key areas, which was quickly discarded.

Then she tried a more fancy looking green and light brown robe, but found the long hem to be a pain to step in, as well as the sleeves being too restrictive on her arms.

After that was a more modest light green dress, and while the skirt length was shorter (just to her knees) and easier to manage sleeve wise, the top hugged her breasts a little too tightly for her liking, so that was out.

After struggling to remove that outfit, she found a much looser greenish yellow dress, but upon putting it on, it feel more like a top, due to it’s hem going just down to her waist, which she has to pull down in order to cover her crotch, with essentially no hope of covering her butt. She could look for a pair of pants to compensate, but drops that idea after realizing just how long she’s been without them, and how uncomfortable she might be in them now.

She’s just about to give up, when she notices a top and skirt that might work for her. Both were a light yellow in color, with dark green outlining both of them as well as in some swirls on the front left of the skirt. Upon sliding it on, she finds the skirt to only go to about halfway down her thighs, a bit shorter than she’d like, but the elastic it’s made of gives her a lot of maneuverability with her legs, so it’ll work just fine. She debates just leaving it as is and going out with just the skirt, but she still feels the desire to cover up, so she takes it as well. The top is sleeveless, and the bottom of it only goes down to the bottom of her ribs, fully exposing her stomach, but it’s fine. Well, it’s a bit uncomfortable since she’s suddenly feeling her chest being covered again after so long keeping it open, but she figures she’ll just get used to it.

Raising back up, she turns to the man and says “Thanks for your generosity.”

“It’s no big deal,” the man says with a shrug, “though you did surprise me a bit there. I mean, most naked people who accept my offer tend to get underwear first before anything else.” He then points towards the far side of his floorspace, showing two piles of underwear for men and women, boys and girls, and Katara’s face drops as she realizes something.

“Oh, right,” she says quietly, looking down, “I haven’t been wearing underwear.” She takes a few steps closer to the pile to get a look at them, but to her dismay, almost all of them were either visibly too big or small for her, as well as less utilitarian than her old swimwear, and the few that do seem to be her size are to degraded to wear.

“I’m good, thanks,” she says, turning and walking back to her friends.

“Hey, Katara,” Aang says as she walks up to him and the others, “nice outfit.” He awkwardly rubs his head, blushing lightly, before continuing. “Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping you’d stay naked with us now that we're here. Still, cute outfit”

“Eh,” Sokka says as he examines the new clothes, “not really your style. Blue works much better than green or yellow on you, and you’ll still look out of place with us.

“I’m not wearing this to please you,” she says, shooting her brother a nasty glare, causing him to turn away. “There’s just too many eyes here in Ba Sing Se and I don’t want them all directed at me. I don’t care if this doesn’t look good on me, I just got them to be a bit more comfortable.”

“Well I think it looks good on her,” Toph says as she starts to walk away from the group.

“Thank you!” Katara shouts. “See, Sokka, Toph thinks it looks nice, even thou-'' Her eyes widen as she realizes, before shooting a glare at Toph’s backside. “You know, you really are annoying sometimes!”

Stopping in her tracks, Toph mockingly points her butt towards Katara, shaking it with each word. “Kiss. My. Ass.” She then straightens up and waves the three over. “C’mon guys, hurry up if we want to catch the next train!”

With haste, the three catch up to the blind girl and they make their way to the monorails.

----

High above the fields of the agrarian zone, dozens of stone monorail tracks spaced out around the place deliver people from outside the wall into the main city. Each train contains around a half dozen carts, and many vary from being fully stuffed to only lightly filled. At the rear of each train are a duo of earthbenders who push them with their bending.

In one of the latter carts is where the four take their seats, Aang and Katara on one side and Sokka and Toph on the other. The four slouch down, the activity over these past few days having left them exhausted, so while they ride they’ll just relax.

Speaking of relaxing, Katara finds herself feeling a little uncomfortable, mostly as a result of the constriction of her chest. Being topfree for as long as she was, she had gotten too used to it, and her discomfort at being seen nude in the station has by now been replaced by the sudden discomfort of her top. Taking a quick glance around the cart, she finds most people either asleep or not paying any attention to her or the three fully naked youths. Rather than keeping the top on or taking it fully off, she decides to just open it. The instant her chest is freed, she feels a lot better, and lays back down against the wall of the cart.

With that taken care of, she and the other’s have a fairly relaxing journey

After a while, Katara turns out the window, where she notices the train quickly approaching another wall.

Tapping Aang’s shoulder to get him up, she says, “Look, the Inner Wall!” The boy pipes up and turns his head out, also seeing the fast approaching wall. “I can’t believe we finally made it to Ba Sing Se in one piece.”

“Hey, don't jinx it!” Sokka shouts with skepticism in his tone. “We can still be attacked by some giant exploding Fire Nation spoon. Or find out the city's been submerged in an ocean full of killer shrimp!”

“You been hitting the cactus juice again?” Toph asks, stroking the fur of a sleeping Momo, who’s resting on her lap

“I’m just sayin’,” he says back to her, “weird stuff happens to us.”

Sure enough, an odd looking, large man in the midst of sucking an ear of corn sits down in the space between the two.

As they deal with that, Aang and Katara still look out the window, the former shutting his eyes in sadness.

“Don’t worry Aang,” Katara says sympathetically, “we’ll find Appa.”

“It’s such a big city,” the bald boy says, filled with doubt.

“He’s a giant bison!” Sokka jumps in, crossing towards the two and peering out the window.. “Where could someone possibly hide him?”

He, Aang and Katara watch the train pass through the inner wall, and are all taken aback by just the sheer scale of Ba Sing Se. Like, they all knew it was the largest city in the world, but seeing it for themselves, was another story. They couldn’t even see the whole thing, it stretches far beyond their view.

“Oh.”

A short while later, the monorail pulls up to the station raised high above the other buildings, and the passengers start to disembark the second it stops.

Aang leads, heading straight towards the edge, staring out at the large expanse in front of him.

Katara follows him, and walks into the city itself, and sees all the buildings and people within. It causes her to completely freak out. Walking out with my breasts exposed like this, she thinks as her face flushes red, What was I thinking. She forcefully shuts the front of her top shut, head darting around in all directions. “Why did I do that?” she says quietly, breathing heavily. “Stupid.”

As she calms down, Toph and Sokka trail behind in leaving the train, the blind girl a little moody.

“Back in the city,” she says after a sigh. “Great.”

“What’s the problem?” an overexcited Sokka asks. “It’s amazing!”

“It’s just a bunch of walls and rules,” she says. “Running around naked is a lot less fun when people constantly criticize you for it. You wait, you’ll get sick of it in a couple of days.”

Meanwhile, Aang continues to look out at the city, something small in his hands. He holds up the white thing to his lips and blows into it, making no noise.

“I’m comin’ for ya, buddy,” he says, before feeling a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Having calmed significantly at the sight of him, her instinctual need to help this boy having overrode any sense of emberassment or panic, she walked up to him to wordlessly reassure him.

“He’s here; I can feel it.”

Meanwhile, the now empty monorail starts moving again, causing Sokka and Toph to turn towards it. Once it’s gone, he sees and she feels the person standing at the opposite side of the building, staring at them with a wide smile on her face.

It’s a young woman, early to mid twenties with lightly tanned skin, gray eyes and shoulder length, completely smooth and flawless black hair, with a small topknot tied up with a small golden headdress, which holds a long, dark green rod behind the knot. She has a nice, green, silk scarf wrapped around her neck, with the Earth Kingdom insignia emblazoned on it.

Otherwise, she’s nude.

Holding her hands behind her back, she trots up to them with strangely uniform steps, all the while still smiling. Naturally, this oddly acting naked woman weirds the group out a bit, not helping was her introduction to them

“Hello, my name is Joo Dee!” she says excitedly, looking at the bald boy. “I have been given the great honor of showing the Avatar around Ba Sing Se.” Well that explains her nudity, which was a shared thought amongst the four. After all, if you need someone to show a group of mostly nudists around, might as well pick someone already fairly comfortable walking around in just their own skin. Turning to the others, this Joo Dee lady says, “And you must be Sokka, Katara, and Toph! Welcome to our wonderful city. Shall we get started?”

“Yes,” Sokka says, clutching his bag close to him. “We have information about the Fire Nation army that we need to deliver to the Earth King, immediately.”

“Great!” Joo Dee says, seemingly not listening at all. “Let's begin our tour. And then I'll show you to your new home here. I think you'll like it!” She then turns and begins to walk away towards the stairwell at the other end of the station.

“Ugh!” an annoyed Sokka lets out as he spasms, before turning and heading after the strange woman. Walking up behind her, he says, “Maybe you missed what I said. We need to talk to the King about the war, it’s important.”

As he was talking, Joo Dee slowly turned to face him, still wearing that wide and for some reason unnatural looking smile. Once it was her turn to speak, the words she said were just vague enough to confuse and even slightly unnerve the four.

“You’re in Ba Sing se now. Everyone is safe here.”

----

“This is the Lower Ring.”

Densely populated, with buildings built on top of each other high into the air, this part of the city seemed very run down and overstuffed with people. Many of them seem impoverished or at most making very little income. Not helping this look is just how mixed their clothing state is. Of the crowd visible in this area, only like a third of them are fully clothed, half are only partially dressed, and the rest are in varying states of nudity, though considering their location and status, it’s hard to tell how many are willingly nude and how many have to be due to how little they make.

It’s through one of these streets near the wall that an ostrich horse drawn carriage containing Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, and this Joo Dee lady drive through. Not the wall separating it from the agrarian zone, one that’s deeper in the city.

“What’s that wall for?” Katara asks the strangely enthusiastic nude woman.

“Oh, Ba Sing Se has many walls!” Joo Dee answers. “There are the ones outside protecting us, and the ones inside, that help maintain order. This is where our newest arrivals live, as well as our craftsmen and artisans, people that work with their hands. It's so quaint and lively!”

They drive past an alleyway, and Katara turns her head towards it. She sees two suspicious looking men in the midst of conversation, one of them holding a large, shiny sword. They both shoot glares at the passing carriage, causing Katara’s eyes to widen, her to jolt back against her seat, and (despite her top being closed) instinctively covering her breasts with her hands.

“You do want to watch your step, though,” Joo Dee says, slight nervousness in her tone.

Also looking nervous, Katara turns her head back to the woman, arms still crossed over her chest, and asks, “Why do they have all these poor people blocked off in one part of the city?”

“This is why I never came here before,” Aang says in a downbeat tone. “I always heard it was so different from the way the monks taught us to live.”

With that, he glances back out the window, watching the Lower Ringers and new refugees milling about their business as they pass through the streets.

----

Speaking of refugees, a lone man, no, boy, walks along the road in another part of the Lower Ring, wearing dark green and brown commoner clothes.

He has light skin, short black hair, a scar around his left eye, and a perpetually broadening mood.

He’s walking alone for a little bit, when he’s joined by another man holding a flowerpot. He’s older, wider, and is balding with a big, bushy gray beard.

“I just want our place to look nice,” the old man says, a sly grin forming on his face, “in case someone brings home a lady friend!” He starts to nudge the annoyed boy.

In a bleak tone, the boy, Zuko, just says, “This city is a prison. I don’t want to make a life here.”

“Life happens wherever you are, whether you like it or not,” the old man, Iroh, says wisely. “Now come on, I found us some new jobs, and we start this afternoon!”

So the two continue their walk along this road, completely unaware of the person stepping out of an alleyway and watching them intently.

This boy has tanned skin, dark eyes, and spiky brown hair. He’s sporting a blue jumpsuit, an orange jacket above, and mismatched shoulder pads/ He’s chewing on the end of a wheat stock as he spies on the two walking away.

“Look at them, firebenders living right under everyone’s nose,” he says to himself and to the two youths, a boy and a girl, emerging from the same alleyway.

The boy is a bit taller and lankier with lighter skin to the other boy. He has short black hair covered by a rice hat, and sports a big nose and ears. He’s also sporting a blue jumpsuit, his opened at the chest, as well as a brown fur cape draped over one shoulder. He’s sporting a quiver of arrows and a bow slung over his shoulders.

The girl is shorter and scrawnier than both. Her skin is lightly tanned and she sports a brown bowl cut hairdo, held out of her face by a blue headband. She has a round face and has two red chevrons painted on both cheeks. This girl’s naked, and she’s the one to respond to the boy’s words.

“Jet, you saw a man with a hot cup of tea,” she says. “It doesn't prove he's a firebender. And what if he is, are we supposed to attack them? I thought we were starting over here,” she and the archer, Longshot, exchange glances, “changing our ways.”

“We are,” the boy, Jet, says back to the girl, Smellerbee. “When I get the evidence I need, I'll report them to the police and let them handle it.” He takes a few steps forward and glances back at the two. “Okay?”

The two exchange another glance as Jet walks away, after the two suspected firebenders at a distance as to not be spotted.

----

“This is the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se,” Joo Dee announces as they pass the wall into the next section of the city.

The buildings are not only better looking than those in the previous area, but a bit more spacious as well. Still pretty densely populated, though noticeably less so than the Lower Ring, and much more, how you say, friendly looking. Few, if any shady figures. Inviting.

So inviting that Katara, growing too uncomfortable at her constricted chest, loosens her top and lets it hang open, and she starts to be comfortable again, but only for a moment.

The people belonging here are evidently richer than those in the Lower Ring, based on their clothing. There’s more nice greens and yellows and far fewer browns in their fabrics. Not only that, but there’s a lot more clothes. In fact, from the view of the carriage, there doesn’t seem to be a single naked person there. Not only that, but far more of the people they pass seem to turn their heads and look into the carriage and, to her horror, a few of the younger guys seem to be looking at her chest.

She crosses her arms over her breasts and presses herself flat against her seat to avoid being seen.

As she recloses her top, Joo Dee continues her description. “...home to the financial district, shops and restaurants, and the university.”

Sokka, who until then was looking out the window, bored out of his mind like Aang, suddenly pipes up and turns to the woman. “Yeah,” he says, “we met a professor from the Ba Sing Se University. He took us to an ancient underground library where we discovered information about the war that is,” he leans closer to the woman and raises his voice, “absolutely crucial for the Earth King to hear!”

Shutting her eyes, still with the creepy wide smile, Joo Dee says, “Isn’t history fascinating? Look,” she turns her head away from him and points out the window towards the nearby building, “here’s one of the oldest buildings in the Middle Ring, Town Hall.”

The carriage stops and the nude woman stands up and walks out of it, leaving the four alone within.

“Is that woman deaf?” Sokka asks the three sitting across from him. “She only seems to hear every other word I say.”

“It’s called being handled,” Toph says, crossing her arms. “Get used to it.”

She, Katara and Aang shoot sad glares, when the voice of Joo Dee calls out to them to follow.

----

Back down in the Lower Ring, Jet was, against Smellerbee’s protests, continuing his stalking of the two suspected firebenders, to him Lee and Mr. Mushi. To their residence, keeping a bit behind them as they walk, not letting either out of his view for very long.

He now finds himself leaning against the wall of a tea shop, peering in through the window at the two, now sporting aprons, the old man struggling to tie it behind his back, as they talk with the shop’s owner.

“Well, you certainly look like official tea servers,” the owner says. “How do you feel?”

Annoyed both at his predicament and the emberassing apron, Zuko says, “Ridiculous.”

“Uh,” Iroh says as he struggles to get the ropes close enough around his wide frame to tie together, “does this possibly come in a larger size?”

“I have extra strings in the back,” the tea shop owner says. “Have some tea while you wait!”

He grabs a pot and two cups and pours the two men two steamy cups of tea and hands them to them.

As he walks away, Iroh takes a sip of tea, and is visibly disgusted, holding the cup away from him.

“Blech!” he shouts, before looking into the cup in disgust. “This tea is nothing more than hot leaf juice!”

“Uncle,” Zuko says, annoyed, “that’s what all tea is.”

“How could a member of my own family say something so horrible?!” Iroh shouts angrily. “We’ll have to make some major changes around here.”

The old man takes the pot and heads to the window, specifically, the one Jet is peering through. The Freedom Fighter lets out a gasp and moves out of the way as he dumps the pot out the window.

Fearing he might be discovered by his enemies if he stays for longer, Jet slinks around the corner and walks away.

----

When the cart passed the final wall, what the group saw was breathtaking.

Beautiful buildings, gorgeous scenery, pretty people finely dressed. A lot of money is condensed up here, and it’s obvious on sight.

Despite the beauty of the place, the four were still mostly bored, with some added discomfort for Katara. Despite her emberassment at being seen, the constricting top was still difficult to deal with, not making it better was the fact that, like the Middle Ring, the vast majority of the folk here were fully clothed. There is one visible exception, that being a young woman in a very thin, white, gem embedded, and very see-through dress (and no, she’s not wearing anything underneath). But she’s the only one Katara see’s, and it doesn’t help her nerves.

“The Upper Ring is home to our most important citizens,” Joo Dee says as they drive through the roads of the ring. “Your house is not far from here!”

The carriage rides through the Upper Ring, the four (well, three) getting a good look at the buildings and people who live up there. They do spot a few more people that have, how you say, similar fashion senses to the woman in the see-through dress, even some with similar attitudes to them, but compared to the clothed to nude ratio in the Lower Ring, it’s far less.

After a bit of driving, they cross a building surrounded by large, orange walls emblazoned with the Earth Kingdom insignia, the circle with a square cut into the middle. Several rounded gates are cut into the wall, but from where they are they can’t see in, even in the one’s not blocked by people. Whatever it is, it must be important.

“What’s inside that wall?” Katara asks as they pass it.

She, Sokka and Aang focus their attention on the middle gate, and the three people standing there. Two men and one woman, all with brown hair mostly tied behind their heads. They all sport dark green robe like attire with yellow or gold lining the ends, and each has a black and dark green rice hat. One of the men has his back to the carriage, and the other man and the woman stand in front of him in conversation, angled in a way that the group can see their sides.

As it turns out, those robes are basically poncho’s, similar to the ones Aang and Sokka used to sport whenever they went to heavily populated towns, and like those old things, these poncho’s served the same purpose. Despite covering their fronts and backs, their sides were fully visible to them, and there’s nothing but skin from top to their feet, which sport sturdy black boots.

Evidently these folk hear the carriage passing, as the two facing them shift their gaze to them and the man partially turns to face them. All three sport seemingly very disdainful glares as they watch them.

“And who’re the mean-looking people in robes?” Sokka asks.

Answering both questions, Joo Dee says, “Inside is the Royal Palace. Those folk are agents of the Dai Li, the cultural authority of Ba Sing Se. They are the guardians of all our traditions!”

“Can we see the king now?” Aang asks, very bored and annoyed.

“Oh no,” the nude woman says with a laugh, “one doesn’t just pop in on the Earth King!”

At least now she’s acknowledging their intent, but she’s still a brick wall in getting it done.

Seeing that they’ll have to wait until the tour is done, they just look out the windows in silence as the carriage travels around the ring.

----

Most of the housing provided within the Lower Ring was cramped to say the least. However, the trio of Freedom Fighters managed to get a decently sized living space that contained one main room and a single bedroom with two beds.

As to which of the three gets them, well the answer was simple; process of elimination.

“If Jet’s never gonna be here with us, we’ll take the beds,” Smellerbee says, before face planting into one of the beds, Longshot already sitting on the other, cleaning his arrows with a small cloth.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” she says, turning her head to face her friend, “or worse, get us all kicked out of the city.”

Longshot shifts his eyes to her for a second, before turning back to his arrows.

“I know,” the nude girl says, crossing her arms under her chest and starting to kick her feet back and forth, “I’m just scared for him. I saw enough of that Lee on the ferry, how he wields those swords, and I don’t know if Jet could take him down if things come to it.”

Longshot turns his head fully to her.

“I’m not saying I want things to go that far,” she says defensively, pushing herself up. “He shouldn’t be pursuing this at all. Those two obviously aren’t firebenders, and him harassing them won’t bring anything good to him.” She drops back down on the bed and looks at the wall. “Besides, even if they were firebenders, what does that mean, they’re probably fugitives to the Fire Nation anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” She turns her head back to Longshot. “Right?”

He shuts his eyes and nods.

Smellerbee rises up, turns around, and slinks her feet over the bed, facing the boy. “So, until Jet gets his head out of his ass, what should we do?”

Longshot just rolls his eyes.

“Hey,” she says, picking up a little, “maybe we can find Bai and Ji.” Longshot looks at her. “You know, those naked twins, brother and sister, that Fen was friends with before she left with us. They did say both their tribes were heading for Ba Sing Se.”

Longshot just nods and turns his head back to his weaponry.

“Yeah, you're right,” she says, leaning back a little, “we’ll never find them here. Just throwing it out there.”

She looks back to him, and the room is silent for a minute. The naked girl then starts to tap her feet, blushing lightly.

“Soooooooo,” she starts awkwardly, rubbing her arm. “About what you said at the station.”

This gets the archer's attention, who stops what he’s doing and turns to face her.

“That was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I really appreciate that.”

She stands from the bed, causing him to rise as well.

“I know I’m not exactly the most feminine girl out there,” she says, before slowly spinning, stopping with her back to Longshot, face almost fully red now, “but I’m glad you see something there.”

Longshot walks up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. Smellerbee raises her left arm up, laying her hand atop his hand on her left shoulder, before shutting her eyes and nuzzling it.

After holding this position for a few seconds, she starts raising her right hand up to his face.

A sudden opening noise cuts this off, and the two turn to the door in the midst of being opened by a young woman.

“-let’s just go in and, uh-” the woman stops once she lays her eyes on the two. “Oh, I guess we have the wrong place.”

The two hold their positions as the lady looks down at a piece of parchment.

“Yeah, wrong place. Sorry,” she says, looking back up at the two, now properly seeing the to be a fully nude girl and a boy with his shirt open. “Oh, sorry for interrupting… uh… whatever you were doing. I’ll just go.”

The woman slams the door and the sounds of footsteps are heard and slowly start to fade. Smellerbee holds her position, still frozen in emberassment, while Longshot straightens the top half of his jumpsuit before returning to his bed to reload his quiver.

After a few seconds, the girl’s arms drop to her side and she slouches forwards, letting out a long and loud sigh. She stomps towards her own bed and leaps back onto it, landing face down.

For a few seconds, muffled screaming is audible, causing Longshot to turn his head back to the girl.

Stopping her screams, she simply raises her hand towards him, and he turns back to his quiver.

----

“Here we are! Your new home,” Joo Dee announces as they step off the carriage in front of a house. Small in comparison to some of the other estates up here, but just as fancy.

The group looks at their new living space, before turning back to the nude woman, seeing a messenger rushing up to her and handing her a scroll.

As he leaves, she opens the scroll and reads it.

“More good news!” she says enthusiastically. “Your request for an audience with the Earth King is being processed, and should be put through in about a month. Much more quickly than usual!”

Naturally, everyone’s surprised at this.

“A month?” Sokka shouts.

“Six to eight weeks, actually,” Joo Dee says, still smiling widely, shutting her eyes.

She then walks between the four, leading them into the house. It is a fancy place. Simple entrance/living room, with a small stairwell leading up to their sleeping area. To the side is a wall with a door leading to a washroom. It’s also well furnished with all the luxuries the Upper Ring can offer.

Speaking of, Katara walks over to the wardrobe and opens it. To her dismay, all that’s within are a pair of dresses and a pair of robes, each a very light shade of green and way too fancy for everyday use, especially for her.

“Apologies for the lack of other coverings,” Joo Dee says from behind her. Upon turning to face the woman, she continues, still with that creepy smile, “Of all the luxuries we’ve provided for you, extra clothing beyond formal wear was not one of them. We at Ba Sing Se are well aware of the Avatar and their companions' preferred state of dress.” Somehow possible, she widens her smile and shuts her eyes. “It is also why I was chosen to be your host, as anyone else could make you uncomfortable.”

The four trade glances with each other, already slightly uncomfortable by this woman’s bizarre way of being.

“Right,” Katara says with sarcasm, walking next to a seated Toph and sitting down right next to her “and this place is so comfy.”

“Isn’t it nice?” she asks. “I think you’ll really enjoy it here.”

“I think we would enjoy it more if we weren’t staying for so long,” Sokka says to the lady. “Can’t we see the Earth King any sooner?”

“The Earth King is very busy running the finest city in the world,” Joo Dee says to an increasingly annoyed Sokka. “But he will see you as soon as time permits.”

Looking out the window with a determined look, Aang says, “If we're going to be here for a month, we should spend our time looking for Appa.”

Momo pipes up at the sound of the bison's name.

Bowing, Joo Dee says, “I’d like to escort you anywhere you’d like to go.”

The two girls get just as annoyed as Sokka at this suggestion of continued exposure to this strange woman.

“We don’t need a babysitter,” Toph says angrily, standing up and walking towards the door.

“Oh, I won’t get in the way,” Joo Dee says, shuffling to the side and getting in Toph’s way. “And to leave you alone would make me a bad host! Where shall we start?”

Annoyed, the naked girl turns her back to her. Still, since the alternative was to just sit in that house and wait for the king to see them, they just all silently get up and head back out, Joo Dee keeping close.

----

There were a lot of places within the city to cover, naturally, so in order to make things easier, they go to the places that’d make sense for him to be, as well as places to get information about the sandbenders and their trading practices.

First was a pet shop.

So while Momo eats some of the food of and is being harassed by the cat owl, the group talk with the owner of the shop, Aang and Sokka standing in front of him, Katara and Toph by the side, and Joo Dee behind the boys.

“I’m sorry,” the owner says in response to being asked about Appa, “but I haven't heard anything about a flying bison. I didn't even know there were any.”

Still determined to get some answers, Aang says, “If someone wanted to sell a stolen animal without anyone knowing, where would they go?”

Frustrated and being a lot less subtle, Sokka says, “Where’s the black market? Who runs it? Come on,” he points directly at the man, “you know!”

“Uh…” the man nervously says, sweat starting to pour down his head. Looking between the two naked boys, the wide smiling naked woman shakes her head, unnoticed by the four youths. “That would be illegal,” he says much more sternly. “You’ll have to leave now; your lemur is harassing my sparrowkeets.”

Over on the other side of the room, Momo lays on another food bowl, the sparrowkeets flying around him and prodding at him, the lemur defending himself with swipes of his paws.

--

With learning the direct location of Appa out of the picture for the time being, the group decided then to search for intel on the sandbenders. How they operate, where they go, and who they trade with. Since they had nowhere else in mind, the university was next.

Most of the students and teachers wouldn’t talk to them. With no other reason why, the only thing they can assume is they’re avoiding them because of the nudity, bringing Katara back to those days of being emberassed being seen with her naked brother and friend. Sokka does, however, notice that most of them only take a glance at Joo Dee before turning away.

They do find one student willing to talk, a boy with a round head, long braided hair, and glasses.

“Hmm… I’ve never seen any sandbenders or nomads around here,” he says. “You should ask Professor Zei, he teaches the class on desert cultures.”

“Right,” an annoyed Sokka says, still not even bothering with the subtlety. “And which of your professors could we ask about the war with the Fire Nation?”

“Uh …” the student says nervously, looking at Joo Dee, standing behind Sokka, who again shakes her head. This time, however, Sokka catches it out of the corner of his eye, but before he turns, the woman stops, trying to look as innocent as a baby.

“I don’t know,” the student says, audibly nervous. “I’m not a political science student … I’ve got to get to class.”

He rises quickly and begins to walk away, but trips and drops several of his scrolls. He quickly picks them up and scampers off, Joo Dee giving him a cheeky wave as he goes.

--

They try several more places, but each having more or less the same result, so they just head back to the house, defeated.

The four step off the carriage, but Joo Dee remains.

“Well, I’m sorry no one has seen your bison,” she says, still smiling. “Why don’t you go get some rest?” The carriage starts moving as she finishes, “Someone will be over with dinner, later.”

They watch the carriage ride away and are about to turn and head back to the house, but something catches their eyes (well, all of them besides Toph).

In the building across from theirs, a man’s head is partially visible in the window, obviously looking at them, but quickly recedes when he sees they noticed him.

“Hey, come with me,” Sokka says, gesturing to the others to follow him as he walks up to the door.

He knocks, and the man opens it partially and slides his head out, smiling.

“You’re the Avatar!” he says, looking directly at the bald naked boy. “I heard you were in town. I’m Pong.”

“Nice to meet you, Pong,” the boy says with a smile.

“So, Pong,” Sokka says, “what’s goin’ on with this city? Why is everyone here so scared to talk about the war?”

“War?” Pong says, obviously shifting his eyes side to side. “Scared? What do you mean?”

Annoyed, Toph pipes in, “I can feel you shaking.”

“Look,” the old man says, “I’m just a minor government official.” He then glances either side of him, as if checking to see if they’re being watched. Evidently satisfied, he says, “I’ve waited three years to get this house. I don’t want to get into trouble.”

“Get in trouble with who?!” Katara asks, the gang tightening around the door.

Putting his finger to his mouth and shushing, he whispers, “Listen, you can't mention the War here. And whatever you do, stay away from the Dai Li.”

Before they could ask anything else, Pong slams the door shut, leaving them more confused than ever.

----

The sun had set, meaning most businesses were closed and workers went home, especially in the lower ring, and among the refugees, like two newly hired tea shop workers.

These two in particular return to their home, modest in size and luxury, especially when compared to the homes in even the Middle Ring, but it’s more than enough.

So the two wind down after their first proper day of being Ba Sing Se civilians, Iroh asking Zuko, “Would you like a pot of tea?”

“We’ve been working in a tea shop all day!” Zuko shouts to his uncle and anyone near their open window. Throwing himself on his bed, he continues, “I’m sick of tea!”

“Sick of tea?” Iroh repeats, genuinely offended. “That’s like sick of breathing!” He starts to rummage through a cupboard beneath a counter, teapot all ready on the counter, just needing a flame to heat. “Have you seen the spark rocks to heat up the water?” the old man shouts.

Unbeknownst to either inside the house, someone was watching them right outside their window. Someone determined to prove that these two were firebenders, and someone who would resort to questionable at best methods to achieve that goal.

“They’re not there,” Jet whispers, opening up his fist, looking down at the small, green rocks he stole from the house a little while before. “You’ll have to firebend, old man.”

He watches in glee from behind the clothesline of some neighbor, now finally able to see some explicit firebending from these two.

The Iroh walks out of view from the window.

“Where’re you going?” Jet says quietly.

A few minutes later, the old man walks back into view, back towards the counter with the teapot, something in his hands.

“I borrowed our neighbors’” he says to Zuko, who's still uncaring and moody about this whole thing. “Such kind people.”

He strikes the rocks together, creating a spark that engulfs the wood piled under the pot to catch immediately.

Seeing his plan going to shit, a frustrated Jet, lets go of the clothes line and walks away and heads to the new home he hadn’t so much as stepped foot in since he arrived.

----

The sun rises over Ba Sing Se, meaning most of its citizens were either waking up or getting ready for the day.

That was true for the four, who were all in varying states of waking up.

Katara was up first, standing up and walking out the door.

Truth was, she had difficulty sleeping all night. Her seeming relapse into emberassment with nudity was still present when she and the others went to sleep that night, and it’s still somewhat present now.

The problem was that by now, both with her increasing comfort in being less dressed and her long term exposure prior to reaching the city, she was having difficulties getting to sleep. The top just pressed against her chest way too tightly, and making things worse, the top seemed to be much more difficult to slide off than the dress she got from the girl from the Northern Water Tribe, making sleep difficult.

So she was still pretty drowsy when she was up and walking out the door, yawning and stretching as she went.

She approaches the mail slot, collecting the rolled up papers from it. Opening them, she reads it, and her eyes widen.

Full of excitement, she rushes back inside to the others, all lounging around, barely awake.

“I got it!” she shouts, much to the confusion of the three. “I know how we’re going to see the Earth King!”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Toph asks, before straightening up and widening her eyes and smiling broadly in a mimic of Joo Dee. “One doesn’t just pop in on the Earth King!” she says in a fairly accurate imitation.

Reading the papers, the clothed girl says, “The king is having a party at the palace tonight for his pet bear.”

This confuses the other three.

“You mean, platypus bear?” Aang asks.

“No, it just says bear.”

Laying upside down against the wall, Sokka says, “Certainly you mean his pet skunk bear.”

“Gopher bear?” Toph suggests.

“Just … bear.”

Everyone is silent for a moment.

“This place,” Toph says, followed by a pause, “is weird.”

Stepping back into focus, Katara says, “The palace will be packed. We can sneak in with the crowd!”

“Won’t work,” Toph says, laying down.

“Why not?”

“Well, no offense to you simple country folk,” the naked girl says, “but a real society crowd will spot you a mile away. You’ve got no manners!” As she says this, she grabs a pastry from a nearby dish and starts to eat it.

“Excuse me?” Katara says, slightly offended. “I’ve got no manners. You’re not exactly lady fancy fingers!”

Proving the waterbender’s point, Toph lets out a loud burp.

“I learned proper society behavior and chose to leave it,” she says, tossing the half eaten pastry aside. “You never learned anything. And frankly,” as she talks she starts to pick her nose with her pinky, “it’s a little too late.”

“Aha,” Sokka says, getting excited, turning around and pointing at Toph, “but you learned it! You could teach us!”

“Yeah,” Aang says, rising up and sliding off the railing he was laying on, “I’m mastering every element. How hard could manners be?”

He grabs and pulls off one of the curtains and wraps it around his shoulders, actually hiding his nudity for once as he mimics a noble robe.

In an exaggerated voice, he says, “Good evening, Mr. Sokka Water Tribe, Ms. Katara Water Tribe, Lord Momo of the Momo Dynasty. Your Momo-ness,” bowing at each of them.

Hearing his name, Momo peaks his head out from the carpet, nodding his head as if bowing too.

“Avatar Aang,” Sokka says in an equally exaggerated voice, sporting the other curtain in mimicking a noble robe as well (albeit him only holding it closed around his shoulders), “how do you do? Go on.”

Aang then does an exaggerated bow towards Sokka, who returns one. They go back and forth a few times, before accidentally both going for a bow and smacking into each other's heads, causing them to fall back on their asses.

Standing up, Toph walks up to the other girl, saying, “Katara might be able to pull it off, but you two would be lucky to pass as busboys!”

“But I feel so fancy!” Sokka says, rising up and wrapping the curtain around his shoulders again. “I feel like I could pull this look off as a noble.”

Shaking her head, Toph says, “No, which brings me to my next point.” She gestures in the general direction of the two boys. “The fact you two are ass naked will make any attempt at passing off as one of them moot.”

The two start raising objections, Aang saying, “Toph, you’re naked t-” but are cut off.

“I’ve only been naked full time for a short while now, and before then going nude whenever I was left alone in our garden, so it wouldn’t be a problem for me to clothe up for just a few hours. But neither of you have been in anything more than a poncho since we met. You’ll both look too uncomfortable in any formal wear for any deception to work. I can make it work, and unless Katara’s still jittery about her top problems, she’ll be able to pull it off too.”

“Uh, how di-”Katara starts, before getting awkward and changing the subject. “Anyways, we’re all pretty filthy and covered in sweat. We haven’t bathed since we left the desert, so it’ll also be a good idea to do that now.”

She walks away, towards the washroom in a little bit of a huff, already taking the excuse to remove her top. Upon entering, she’s a bit surprised by what she sees.

Since no one had entered the washroom since arriving, none of them had seen the luxurious bathroom and large tub. It was by far the fanciest thing she’s seen so far.

“Wow!” she says, top dropping to the floor beside her, now feeling fully comfortable enough to do so. “This tub is huge! You guys gotta check this out!”

As she walks up to the tub, bending some water out of the pump on top of it, the boys poke their heads into the room, and are also wowed at how impressive the tub is. Not only that, but the two noticed that Katara was seemingly comfortable without her top again.

“Well, since everyone else is here,” Toph says, bumping into the two boys as she walks past them, before leaping into the now full tub, splashing everyone.

Katara, who was originally planning on bathing alone, just shrugs, slides out of her bottoms, and slides into the tub as well, Aang joining beside her.

“This is nice,” the boy says as Sokka, now without his shoes and gloves, slides into the tub as well. “Also see it’s nice you’ve gotten comfortable again, Katara.”

Awkwardly giggling, Katara says, “Well, with you all it doesn’t matter what I wear. None of you care about what I’m wearing, so why should I care when around you all?”

“You seemed fine back outside the wall,” Sokka says, “and with that family, and back in the desert with the sandbenders. You were perfectly fine being naked then.”

“She did feel a little nervous,” Toph says as her head emerges from the water after a dunk, “it was just when those people showed up, and it would fade shortly after they left.”

“Yeah,” Katara says, blushing slightly at the memory.

“Don’t really see a difference,” Aang says, before dipping under the water fully. Upon emerging, he continues, “Everyone who I’ve ever met sees me naked.”

“You don’t wear clothes, Aang,” Katara says. “I, Sokka and Toph all have, at some point, spent most of our lives like this.” Her eyes quickly dart to the blind girl. “Well, at least myself and Sokka. But my point is it’s different for people like us, raised this way.” She lets out a deep sigh. “I guess there’s just too many people here for me to be properly comfortable. Despite what you guys have seen, being naked isn’t what I prefer. I don’t mind it now, but still I’m not all that big on being seen, at least by anyone that’s not you. You’re an airbender, he’s my brother, and she’s blind, not to mention how many times I’ve been naked in front of you. Complete strangers, especially on such a large scale, is a different thing entirely.”

Nodding, Aang says, “I understand.”

With that, they spend the next minute cleaning themselves in silence.

After that, they sit and relax in the tub for who knows how long, at least half an hour, maybe a little more or less. Upon getting out of the tub, Toph turns to the boys and says, “Me and Katara will need a bit of time to prepare, so you two can wait in the main room.”

She gestures the boys out and they just take a seat in the middle of the room.

“So, what should we do while they wait?” Aang asks.

“Nothing too time consuming,” Sokka says, “since it won’t be long.” Within a few seconds, Katara scampers out of the washroom. “See,” the boy says, gesturing to his sister.

“Oh, we’re not done,” Katara says, heading for the wardrobe to take the two fancy dresses from it. “I’m just getting these now,” she says as she rushes back into the room.

Aang looks back at Sokka, who just shrugs. “Still won’t be very long I recon.”

----

As it turns out, it would be a very long time before they’d be ready.

The first thing Toph helped Katara learn was the posture.

“Stand straight up,” she starts, demonstrating it herself, “legs close together, hips slightly pushed back. It’s easy once you get the hang of it.”

“Uh,” Katara says awkwardly, attempting to mimic what the blind girl is doing, “can’t I at least put on the dress now. Nudity doesn’t seem necessary here.”

“I need to hear you clearly to tell if you’re doing it right,” Toph says, walking behind the waterbenders. “Plus,” she says, before swatting her on the hindquarters, “it’ll make my encouragement easier. Besides, you don’t want your dress dirtied from all that makeup before we go, right?”

Groaning, Katara continues practicing this posture, standing with it, gesturing with it, walking with it. Uncomfortable, yes, but she manages to make it feel a bit more natural in a bit more than an hour and a half.

After that was fan etiquette. The two silk dresses were provided with small, green and yellow fans, and they had their own rules of how to use them properly.

“You have to hold them just by your mouth,” she says, visually demonstrating the best place to hold the fan, hers covering her mouth.

“It feels awkward to hold it so close and so up here,” the girl says, holding hers lower and with a lot less lower face coverage.

“You’re only supposed to do that when gesturing,” Toph says, swatting her hand with her own fan.

“How do you even know what I’m doing? Aren’t you supposed to be blind?”

“The vibrations in your voice,” Toph says smugly. “The fact I can see you so clearly means you're doing it wrong. Again!”

After dedicating another hour on that, then was the smaller stuff like conversations, tone of voice, eating, and other general manners. All of these are simple to master, and all are finished in no time.

Then came the makeup.

As it turns out, Toph is really good with applying makeup. Helping the fact was that most of the products have earth within the ingredients which she’s able to bend with ease. Despite her ease at manipulating it, it still took a long while to get it all applied. Well, it was easy to apply onto herself, less so for Katara.

Taking up most of the time was the full body covering of shine and lightener. Toph got hers on in only around twenty minutes, but well over eighty to get it evenly onto Katara.

“Why do we even need to do this?” Katara says, squirming slightly at the girl’s bending pressing the miniature stones against her skin awkwardly, not to mention the fact that her move requires her hands to make skin contact, including some of her more sensitive areas. “I mean, most of our bodies should be covered anyways, so why bother going through this?”

“I’m not a fan of doing this either,” Toph says, hands firmly on cheeks, “but fashion, especially for women, requires that one must look their best both when fully clothed and fully nude.”

“Sounds familiar,” Katara says under her breath.

“Now hold still! This’ll be over sooner if you hold still.”

After that mess was dealt with, the two nude girls were now lighter and shinier, something Katara was quick to notice as she examined her body in the mirror.

“Wow,” she says, shifting her body to get every angle she could, “I’m positively glowing.” Back to the mirror, she starts to rub her backside lightly. “Shiny.”

“Well now that that’s out of the way,” Toph says, pulling her away from the mirror, “let’s get to the easy stuff.”

Since she’d have a harder time getting her face, Toph had to describe the standard makeup look for a party like this for girls like them. Blue and white eyeshadow, bright red cheek blush, and red lipstick.

Since the idea was simple, it was easy for the first timer Katara to apply to both of them, and it took around a half an hour for both of them to be made up.

With makeup done, it was time to do their hair. Since the corresponding hairpieces for their outfits made it pretty obvious what to do, it only took a few minutes to tie it up and slide the piece on.

Now, finally, were the dresses.

After spending all that time readying themselves in their birthday suits, now they could actually clothe up in these fancy clothes and get going.

Katara was immediately impressed by the feeling of the dress against her skin as she slid it on. “This is silk, right?” she asks Toph. who nods.

“Feels like it,” she says, having a bit of difficulty trying to figure out how to put the thing on.. “Probably the only cloth I actually like feeling pressed against my skin. Yeah, it’s restrictive like the rest, but it’s so smooth and silky.”

Upon fully sliding the light green dress on, she finds that, based on how it’s designed, it leaves one of her breasts open to the air.

“Oh,” she says upon realizing. She starts to relapse back again into her state of discomfort, but snaps out of it quickly when she realizes that she’s almost certainly not going to be the only girl dressed like this.

Turning to Toph, she says, “I think I know why you’re having difficulties. Let me help you.”

With that, Katara helps the blind girl slide her dress on properly, her being smaller, lighter, and leaving almost the whole chest exposed.

Upon noticing that, the blind girl chuckles lightly. “So the fashion sense among the elite up here is far more “revealing” than back at Gaoling. There we keep our chests covered.”

“And that’s why you hated it there?”

“Yeah,” she says with a shrug, “as well as being forced to cover everything else.”

“Figures,” Katara says, glancing out the washroom door. “It’s starting to get a bit late. Let's greet the boys before we head out.”

With that, the two girls leave the washroom and back into the main room, where the boys are in the midst of playing some bender game, Aang beating Sokka’s fire with earth.

By then night had fallen, and Aang was in the midst of celebrating his twelfth victory in a row by flicking Sokka on the forehead when he hears the washroom curtains move. Turning his head, he lays his eyes on Katara and Toph (though mostly Katara) and is stunned.

The girls stand there for a moment, looking prim and proper, when the visage drops and the two start giggling.

“Wow, you look beautiful,” the bald boy tells the waterbender, before her brother flicks him back in revenge.

Katara opens her mouth to say something, but is blocked by Toph's fan.

“Don’t talk to commoners, Katara,” she says as the two begin to walk past the boys. “First rule of society.”

The girls walk past and leave the house, Katara turning back to the boys saying, “We'll get in the party, and then find a way to let you in through the side gate.”

With that, the two watch the girls leave in silence, until a small shuffling gets their attention.

Walking past them on the floor was Momo, with a curtain wrapped around his neck like a cape.

----

Far away from the high society, back down in the Lower Ring a humble tea shop stands open late into the night, a handful of customers checking the place out after word of incredibly improved tea.

Not wanting to try the new tea is a boy with a wheat stock in his mouth, standing in the alley way across from the shop, looking in with suspicion.

“Jet,” a rough female voice calls from behind him, “we need to talk.”

“What?” Jet says, turning around and seeing Smellerbee and Longshot behind him. “Oh great, it's you guys. Where have you been? I could use some help with surveillance here!”

“We’ve been talking,” the naked girl says, “and we think you’re becoming obsessed with this.” She gestures towards the tea shop as she talks. “It’s not healthy.”

“Oh, really?” the boy says, genuinely surprised. Turning his head to Longshot, he continues, “You both think this?”

The archer, still unspoken, places his arm on the girl's shoulder, which serves as his answer.

“We came here to make a fresh start,” Smellerbee continues, “But you won’t let this go. Even though there is no real proof!”

“Well, maybe if you’d help me!”

“Jet, you gotta stop this!” she shouts, audibly concerned.

But Jet wasn’t having it. “Maybe you've forgotten why we need to start over,” he says, causing the two to turn their gazes away from him. “Maybe you've forgotten about how the Fire Nation left us all homeless. How they wiped out all the people we loved. If you don't want to help me, I'll get the evidence on my own.”

He turns and walks towards the entrance of the tea shop, determined look in his face, uncaring of the fact that neither Smellerbee nor Longshot were following him.

Inside the shop, an older man pours some steamy tea into his customers cup.

“This is the best tea in the city!” the customer says with a wide smile.

Also smiling, Iroh says, “The secret ingredient is love,” waving his hand through the steam before turning away, walking towards the shop's owner, leaving Zuko there with a disgusted face.

“I think you’re due for a raise,” the shop owner tells Iroh, impressed by how much business he’s bringing in.

Of course, this is the moment the door slams open, an angry Jet standing there and staring in.

“I’m tired of waiting!” he shouts, pointing accusingly at the uncle and nephew. “These two men are firebenders!”

The shop goes silent as Jet unsheathes his hook swords.

Zuko and Iroh exchange a look, unsure how to deal with this.

Evidently expecting the crowd to immediately jump on the two, Jet shouts, “I know they’re firebenders, I saw the old man heating his tea!”

One man sitting at a table speaks up at this. “He works at a tea shop,” he says bleakly.

“”He’s a firebender!” Jet shouts with some desperation. “I’m telling you!”

The man who spoke up, along with the man across from him, rise from their seats. “Drop your swords boy. Nice and easy.”

Undeterred, starts to slowly approach the two suspected firebenders. “You’ll have to defend yourself,” he says as if he’s already won some major victory. “Then everyone will know. Go ahead, show them what you can do.”

Another customer goes for his sword in an attempt to stop it, but the scarred boy walks past him, taking the broadswords right from his sheath.

“You want a show?” Zuko says, getting into a fighting stance. “I’ll give you a show!”

The two stand in silence for a moment, Jet getting into his own fighting stance.

Suddenly, Zuko pulls an unoccupied table in front of him with his foot, kicking it towards Jet, who slices it in half with his own blades.

He leaps forwards, swinging at Zuko, who dodges and leaps onto another empty table. Jet swings down at him, slicing the table in half. Fortunately for Zuko, he’s able to balance on one half, but the Freedom Fighter just slices the two legs, forcing him onto the other half of the table, whose legs are also cut in quick succession, forcing the prince to leap into the air to avoid falling.

Upon landing, he swings his blades at Jet’s feet, who dodges by somersaulting back. Jet simply raises back up from the crouch and charges again, Zuko swinging his broadswords towards him.

Jet does the same, and the two sets of blades clash

----

As the two girls walk towards the palace, Katara’s relapse fades quicker and quicker.

Despite the slight emberassment she still feels about having a breast out, she follows all that Toph had taught her, maintaining composure and (with help of the makeup) keeping the blushing at bay, as well as resisting the urge to cover herself.

Helping tremendously was the fact that each passerby that spoke up to them didn’t comment on the exposed boob, instead focusing on her attire.

“Beautiful dresses, ladies.”

“I appreciate a woman with such exquisite attire.”

“I must say you are truly breathtaking tonight, lass.”

So when the two were approaching the gate and get in line, all feelings of emberassment and desire to cover up had faded, thanks not only to that, but that a decent chunk of the other high class women (and a fair few men) were wearing attire with similar or greater skin exposure.

“Invitation please,” the palace guard says as the girls reach the front of the line.

In a formal tone, Toph says, “I think this will do,” before pulling out and presenting the seal of the Beifong family, no doubt something that would (and has) get them into anything else.

Despite knowing who she comes from, the guard says, “No entry without an invitation. Step out of line, please.”

Getting irritated, the blind girl shouts, “Look, the Pangs and the Yum Soon Hans are waiting in there for us! I'm going to have to tell them who didn't let me in.”

“Step out of line please,” the unyielding guard says.

The two are directed out of line and, seeing as they have no other choice, walk away. However, they only go a few feet when Katara notices something in front of them.

Sitting in the road is a carriage, with a man emerging from it. He’s tall with long black hair tied back in a tail down his back, and sports a small goatee and mustache. His clothes, however, are a bit more eye catching. He sports a green under robe with a darker one with golden edges over it. Also noticeable is that the two Dai Li standing there as he emerges bows to him, meaning he must be important.

Then she forms a plan

Taking Toph’s hand, she walks up to the man and says, “Sir, I'm sorry to bother you, but my cousin lost our invitations.” She hold her hand up to seemingly block Toph from her words as she whispers, “She's blind.” Dropping her hand, she continues, “Do you think you could help us? Our family's inside and I'm sure they're very worried.”

The man looks down at the girls for a second, a small smile forming on his face. Bowing, he says, “I am honored, please come with me.”

The man walks towards the gate, the girls following behind. The guard, upon seeing this man, bows and allows the three in. As they pass, Katara and Toph mockingly stick out their tongues at him behind his back as they enter the palace.

Upon entering, they find a large dining/party hall filled with the cream of the crop of the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se, mostly standing around the massive dining table in the midst of conversations with each other or eating from the fancy feast prepared.

At the far end of the table sits a large bear, yes, just a bear, dressed in fancy clothes and devouring the feast in front of him.

“He’s taking all the good stuff,” says an old man on one side of the bear to a younger man opposite him.

“Quiet!” the younger man shouts. “You don’t know what I had to do to get seats this near the bear!’

The bear, Bosco, promptly swipes the plate of food he’s eating, smacking the younger man in the head with his paw, before climbing onto the table and digging into the large plate of meat.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the man asks at the whole grand display. Turning to the girls, he says, “I’m Long Feng. I’m a cultural minister to the king.”

“I’m Kwa Mai,” Katara says, before gesturing to Toph, “and this is … Dum.”

Frowning at this fake name, Toph grabs and pulls on one of the tassels of Katara’s headdress, the girl letting out a small cry of pain.

Seemingly not hearing this, Long Feng says, “Now where is your family? I’d love to meet them.”

Feigning looking around the hall for someone, Katara says, “Uh … I don’t see them right now, but I’m sure we’ll find them soon.” Smiling, she and Toph begin to walk away. “Thanks for all your help.”

They walk into the main hall for a few feet, Katara glancing around, continuing to pretend to search for people who aren’t there and don’t exist. She stops when she looks in front of her, seeing the man walking in front of them.

“Don’t worry,” Long Feng says, “as your escort it would be dishonorable to abandon you ladies without finding your family first. We'll keep looking.”

He turns and gestures for the girls to follow.

As they walk, Katara shoots Toph a nervous look, the chances of this plan blowing up in their faces increasing the longer they are with this man.

----

Back outside the palace, from behind a pedestal holding a statue of a lion, two fully naked boys poke their heads out from behind it, looking at the entrance.

Audibly nervous and slightly worried, Aang says, “Where are they?”

Katara and Toph, naturally, were nowhere to be found, them already being inside, which wasn’t part of their plan for infiltration.

Thinking fast, Sokka ducks back behind the pedestal, Aang following, as he explains.

“Look, I came up with a back-up plan,” he says, picking up Momo. “We dress Momo like a ghost, okay? He flies by the guards, creating a distraction. Then, we blast a hole in the wall-”

As Sokka speaks, Aang rises up and peers over the pedestal at the gate, seeing a carriage being unloaded by two men in dark green robes and hats.

“Or we could go in as these guys,” the boy says, slightly enthusiastically as Sokka rises as well. “Toph said we might pass as busboys!”

Sokka grimaces lightly, tugging on his necklace. “Uhhhh-”

“I know,” Aang says with a sigh, “I’m not big on the prospect of clothing myself either, but we both saw that none of the guests were naked, and we’d stick out like a sore thumb, even if I didn’t have these tattoos. But if we’re lucky, it won’t be long.”

“Okay …” Sokka says with an eye roll. “But remember that Momo ghost plan. I think it’s a winner.”

With that, the two duck back behind the pillar, preparing themselves to acquire some uniforms.

----

Bursting out the door, Zuko tumbles backwards onto the street. He’s barely back on his feet when Jet comes charging out, hook swords swinging at him.

He raises his own swords to defend himself, and the pairs of blades lock.

Sinister grin on his face, Jet says, “You must be getting tired of using those swords. Why don’t you go ahead and firebend at me?”

Zuko, annoyed, simply kept his hands on the broadswords as the blades separate. The two resume swinging at each other, moving further away from the tea shop, the old man peering out and calling out to them, the aggressor in particular.

“Please, son, you’re confused! You don’t know what you're doing!”

Zuko takes a swing, but Jet catches the blade with the ends of his swords, before spinning around to deflect the blow. Zuko tries to attack again, but the Freedom Fighter just steps back to avoid.

“Bet you wish he’d help you out with a little fire blast right now,” Jet taunts, before moving in for the attack.

He swings at the scarred boy, but Zuko slams his blades downwards, catching one of Jet’s swords through the hilt, pinning it to the ground. He looks down at his trapped hook sword in annoyance, before shooting an annoyed glare at his opponent.

“You’re the one who needs help,” Zuko taunts coldly.

With one sword pinning or being pinned respectively, Zuko and Jet let go of their occupied blades and continued their fight with one sword each.

Zuko takes a swing, and Jet manages to duck backwards out of the way, though the slice cuts the wheat stock in his mouth clean in half.

Recovering his balance, the tanned boy leaps backwards, up onto a well, before beginning to address the gathering crowd.

“You see that?! The Fire Nation is trying to silence me.” He shoots his gaze back at his opponent, both shooting each other nasty looks.

“It’ll never happen,” Jet says, hooking his sword to the well’s top and sending a flying kick towards Zuko.

----

Back inside the palace, the guests mingle and the servants and busboys serve food. Perfectly normal.

Well, there were two busboys who seemed off. Their movements were less refined than the others, both seemed visibly uncomfortable in their uniforms, and is it just me, or does the shorter, lighter of the two, who’s pouring a guest a drink, seem to have a tail sticking out of their hat?

“Where are Toph and Katara?” he asks the other boy, who’s holding a tray of food which he’s serving a few guests.

“Forget about them!” Sokka shouts, though the noise is fortunately drowned out by the others surrounding it. “Just keep an eye out for the king.”

Nervous, Aang says, “I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“You know, royal flowing robes, fancy jewelry.”

…

…

…

“That could be anyone!” Aang shouts, before shifting his attention to a short girl in a fancy dress walking up beside the two.

Standing a bit to Aang’s side, the girl says in an obviously faked fancy voice, “Another crab puff, please.”

Sokka, his eyes closed and back to her, turns and lowers the plate for her to reach it. Aang, meanwhile, naturally, sees through Toph’s disguise right away.

“You found us!”

Taking a puff, Toph drops the act as she says, “I’d know your little footsteps anywhere, Twinkle Toes.”

Katara rushes up to join them from behind Toph, causing Aang to start blushing at the sight of her yet again.

Sokka opens his eyes in realization of the voice, before dropping into a slightly moody tone as he says, “Thanks for letting us in!” in a sarcastic tone.

“Sorry,” Katara says nervously, “but the guy who escorted us in won’t let us out of his sight!”

Confused, Sokka pans around the party, not seeing anyone following her. “What guy?”

The group start to scan the room for this mystery man (at least from the boys' perspective), and while they can’t find him, they do notice a woman rushing towards them, though subtly as if to avoid being spotted.

As it turns out, Aang and Sokka did miss one person who’s at this party in her birthday suit.

Visibly anxious and having trouble maintaining that trademark smile, Joo Dee approaches the four, saying, “What are you doing here? You have to leave immediately, or we will be in terrible trouble!”

She heads for Sokka, attempting to push him towards the main door, but he blocks her with his tray.

“Not until we see the king,” he tells the nude woman firmly.

“You don’t understand,” she says, almost desperately. “You must go.”

Joo Dee then gives Sokka a firm shove towards the entrance, accidentally knocking him into Aang. This causes the boy to accidentally spill the liquid in the pitcher he’s holding over a nearby woman, who lets out a loud shout at her dress being stained.

“Sorry,” Aang says. “No, don’t shout.”

He then thrusts his hand and kicks his foot into the woman's direction, sending a gust of air towards her, blowing off the hat, and Momo within, off his head. This also blows off all the drink, but messes up her hair, makeup and dress, making her look even more disheveled. All Aang could do now was smile sheepishly.

The woman is briefly stunned by this act, but an amazed smile forms on her face. “The Avatar!” she shouts, catching the crowd's attention. “I didn’t know the Avatar would be here.”

Everyone in the room turns their heads to Aang. This causes Joo Dee’s barely maintained smile into a frown, dread obvious in her eyes. Also not liking the attention now being fully on him, Aang just blushed and waves at the rich people with a nervous laugh.

Sokka, having just formulated another plan, leans up to the boy and whispers, “You keep their attention while I look for the king.”

Aang acts immediately, shifting into an excited expression as he shouts, “Watch this, everybody!”

Without skipping a beat, Aang leaps into the air, out of the busboy clothes, and lands on the dining table. Now properly dressed to his standards, he swings his arms over all the cups and goblets on the table, bending the liquid out of them and into the air.

Leaping up, he lands on a pitcher, balancing on top of it, as he begins to shift the streams of drinks together, forming a massive, swirling, multicolored ball.

The crowd is in aw, and lets out some cheers as they clap at the display.

Even the king's bear grows in delight at what he sees.

----

Clash

The sound of swords connecting fills the air in this particular area of the Lower Ring. The two boys were still going at it, Jet determined to get his opponent to expose himself as a firebender, and Zuko defending himself and Iroh. They exchange blows, missing or getting their strikes blocked by the other's swords.

Their commotion has drawn in quite a crowd, now gathering around the street where they were fighting, though obviously keeping a safe distance from the swinging swords.

Among the gathered crowd, walking past them towards the boys, are two Dai Li agents, a man and a woman.

“Drop your weapons,” the woman says in a commanding voice.

Upon hearing the voice, the boys separate and stare each other down, not attacking each other but still looking like anything could make them resume.

Zuko lowers his blades, but Jet points one of his at Zuko and Iroh, who’s rushing up behind his nephew. “Arrest them!” he shouts. “They’re firebenders!”

“This poor boy is confused,” Iroh says loudly towards the two. “We’re just simple refugees.”

“This young man wrecked my shop,” the tea shop owner shouts, pointing at Jet, “and assaulted my employees!”

“It’s true, sir,” one of the customers says as he approaches the male Dai Li agent. “We saw the whole thing. This crazy kid attacked the finest tea maker in the city.”

Blushing, the old man says, “Oh, ho, ho. That’s very sweet.”

Hearing enough, the duo approach the spiky haired boy. “Come with us, son,” the man says, equally as stern as his partner.

Infuriated, Jet takes a swing at the man, who catches the blade of his hook sword in his rock gloved hand. He wrenches the weapon from his grasp as the other Dai Li agent grabs Jet’s other arm. Forcing them behind his back, they bind the boy's arms together with rocks from their gloves. Now restrained, they begin to drag him towards an open cart that seems to be reinforced to prevent escape.

“You don’t understand!” Jet shouts as he’s dragged away. “They’re Fire Nation! You have to believe me!”

As the crowd begins to disperse, Jet’s forced on his knees as he’s pushed into the wagon. He looks up one last time as the doors shut, blocking his view of the outside.

Those remaining from the crowd watch as the cart starts to ride away. Among them are two people, a lanky boy and a naked girl, who watch as he’s taken away, both knowing and fearing that this was exactly what was going to happen if Jet continued with his vendetta, and now it’s happening.

Dropping their gazes slightly, Smellerbee and Longshot simply turn and walk away from the crowd.

----

Back at the palace, attention shifts by the still performing Avatar as a presession of servants carry a palanquin into the far end of the room. Inside, obscured by a sheet, is the silhouet of the Earth King.

The crowd looks on at his presence, for the man in charge of it all has bestowed them with his presence. Among them, Sokka peers through to get a better view as the guards set the palanquin down.

Slipping back into the crowd, he turns back to Aang, in the process of entertaining the bear with bubbles of water, shouting, “Aang! The Earth King!”

The naked boy turns, stops his waterbending trick, and leaps up onto a freshly formed air scooter. He rushes along the table, guests having to pull their food and drinks out of the way to avoid being ran over.

“Greeting, Your Majesty,” Aang says as he gets closer to the King.

Acting quickly, the guards raise up the palanquin and begin to carry it away, four splitting off and walking towards the end of the table to intercept Aang.

Separating himself from the crowd, Sokka rushes in the direction they’re taking the King. However, before he could get close, two Dai Li agents grab onto his arms and hold them behind his back, beginning to drag him away.

“Hey, let me go!” he shouts as they move him away from the crowd.

Emerging from behind a pillar, another Dai Li agent launches her rock gloves in the direction of the two girls, them clasping around Toph’s mouth and grabbing her torso, quickly pulling her away from the partygoers without making a sound.

Katara notices and turns to see her being dragged away quickly, but quickly finds her mouth covered and a pressure against her torso, as another agent does the same to her, pulling her wordlessly away from the crowd.

As another Dai Li quickly apprehends Momo (who’s scooting around under Aang’s discarded hat), Aang reaches the end of the table and disperses the air scooter, raising his arms up high in triumph.

However, with the King being taken away, another man walks up to the boy between the four guards, the same man who escorted Katara and Toph inside.

“Avatar, it is a great honor to meet you,” the man says with a bow. “I am Long Feng, Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se and head of the Dai Li. I'd like to talk to you. Your friends will be waiting for us in the library.”

He gestures for the nude boy to follow him, which he reluctantly does, hopping off the table and trailing this man.

He’s brought past the large doors into a library lit only by a large green fireplace. Sokka (who was relieved of his stolen busboy uniform), Toph, and Katara stand in a line, which Long Feng gestures for Aang to join, which he does.

The large doors shut as the man takes a seat in front of the hearth, upon which Sokka immediately begins to ask questions.

“Why won’t you let us talk to the King? We have information that could defeat the Fire Nation!”

With a calm voice, Long Feng says, “The Earth King has no time to get involved with political squabbles and the day to day minutia of military activities.”

Stepping forward, Aang says, “This could be the most important thing he’s ever heard.”

“What's most important to his royal majesty is maintaining the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Se,” Long Feng says. “All his duties relate to issuing decrees on such matters. It's my job to oversee the rest of the city's resources, including the military.”

“So the king is just a figurehead,” Katara says, slightly surprised.

More angry than surprised, Toph says, “He’s your puppet!”

“Oh, no, no,” the man says dismissively. “His Majesty is an icon, a god to his people. He can't sully his hands with the hourly change of an endless war.”

Still determined to get the intel to the person in charge, evidently no longer the king, Sokka says, “But we found out about a solar eclipse that will leave the Fire Nation defenseless. You could lead an invasion …”

Standing up and cutting him off, an annoyed Long Feng says, “Enough! I don't want to hear your ridiculous plan. It is the strict policy of Ba Sing Se that the War not be mentioned within the walls. Constant news of an escalating war will throw the citizens of Ba Sing Se into a state of panic.”

…

Sure enough, the Dai Li were intent on keeping the peace, not telling a soul about the ongoing war, and they were going to fulfill it by any mean necessary.

In a dark room, Jet is forced onto a stone chair. Glancing back and forth between the two agents, he pleads, “You have to believe me, they're firebenders! They won't stop until they win the war.”

Raising her hand, a few pieces of rock from the Dai Li agent’s rock glove detach and circle around the boys head. As the clamp down on his skull, holding his head in place, the woman says, “Calm down, you’re safe now.”

As Jet’s eyes begin to adjust to the dark room, he sees the Dai Li man standing in front of him, inside what appears to be a circular track.

Moving along the track in a clockwise manner was what appeared to be a small, orange lantern, that circles right in front of the boy’s eyes, causing a bright flash of white light as it moves in and out of his sight in an instant.

…

“Our economy would be ruined, our peaceful way of life – our traditions – would disappear.”

…

As the small lamp circles the Dai Li, he says, “There is no war in Ba Sing Se.”

“What are you talking about?” Jet shouts, attempting to struggle against the rocks holding him in place. “Where do you think all the refugees come from? You can’t hide it!”

The lamp passes by his face again, flashing white as it quickly passes through his vision.

…

“In silencing talk of conflict, Ba Sing Se remains a peaceful, orderly utopia: the last one on Earth.”

…

As the light passes around the Dai Li agent, Jet continues to feebly struggle against the rocks that now block his mouth, preventing his protests.

“There is no war within the walls. Here we are safe. Here, we are free.”

As the lamp passes his face again, white flash and all, his eyes widen and his struggling starts to subside.

…

The four stand there, in utter shock and even slight horror at this revelation. All the effort it took to get this intel to the Earth King, to maybe put a stop to this war.

It was all moot.

No, they weren’t having it, the least of which being the girl who was forced into wandering the desert and Serpent's Pass in her birthday suit.

Making it even worse was the fact that on her travels she had met people who felt abandoned by the earth kingdom, which she chalked up to them being spread out along the large and numerous front lines, far too thin to help out in each little town. But now, listening to the person in charge, hearing him actively resisting in fighting for anything other than his own power and delusions of safety, it enraged her.

“You can’t keep the truth from all these people. They have to know.”

“I’ll tell them!” Aang shouts, stepping forwards and pointing accusingly at the man. “I’ll make sure everyone knows!”

Despite his seeming anger, Long Feng seems to calm down as he speaks, which only makes the tension worse. “Until now, you've been treated as our honored guest,” he says coldly. He bends down to look Aang in the eyes, who only shoots an angry look back. “But from now on, you will be watched every moment by Dai Li agents. If you mention the War to anyone, you will be expelled from the city.” he pauses and turns to walk back up to the green fire, “I understand you've been looking for your bison.” He turns slightly to shoot the Avatar a look. “It would be quite a shame if you were not able to complete your quest.” This, naturally, gets a reaction out of the boy, first fear, then anger. As he steams, Long Feng sits back down and gestures towards the now opening door. “Now, Joo Dee will show you to your home.”

The three turn towards the door, and the woman walking up isn’t Joo Dee. She has shorter brown hair rather than longer black hair, as an older look, early to mid thirties, rather than the younger woman in her twenties, and is wearing a light green robe with dark hemmings and edges, obviously not naked like Joo Dee.

Still, this woman is sporting the same hair decoration, same green scarf, and same wide smile.

“Come with me, please,” the woman says in the same chipper but uncanny tone.

Katara, surprised, asks, “What happened to Joo Dee?”

“I’m Joo Dee,” the woman says with a bow. “I’ll be your host as long as you’re in our wonderful city.”

The woman flashes a smile towards the four. It was the same one the previous Joo Dee showed, but was far more uncanny to the group, given what they now know about the city, and the secrets held within its walls.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 14
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

Tonight we take a break from the constant adventuring and action and instead focus on the more simpler things in life.

Friends, family, love, loss, mediocrity and excellence, just people going about their daily lives, without the weight of the world on their shoulders for a change.

With that introduction out of the way, I bring you the tales of Ba Sing Se

Most you already know, one or two might be new.

Regardless, just sit back and relax.

—
The Tale of Toph and Katara
—

Morning comes and the sun rises over the massive city of Ba Sing Se. As such, its inhabitants, from the richest of the Upper Ring and the poorest of the Lower Ring, get ready for their day.

The people living in a small house in the Upper Ring were no exception, as three of them stood in the washroom in front of the mirror, preparing for their days.

First was a small, thin, fully naked boy with light skin, a round face, and gray eyes with shaving cream covering the top of his head. Most defining about him were his tattoos. Light blue, they start as arrows at the tops of his feet and backs of his hands, the latter circling his arms to his pits and the former circling up his legs, stopping at the tops of his inner thighs. At his tailbone, another blue line goes up his spine and the back of his neck and up around his head. As he uses a sharp object to shave off the cream, it reveals that this line too, ends in an arrow at the center of his forehead. He smiles at his reflection upon clearing his head, now hairless besides his eye lashes and brows,

Next to him is another boy, also naked, though he’s wearing brown knee high boots and a white stone necklace. He’s taller than the bald boy and has darker skin, blue eyes, and brown hair, which currently hangs loose at his shoulders. He examines his face in the mirror, finding some hairs growing above his upper lip. Taking the machete/club in his hand, he raises it up and cuts the hair off, leaving his face smooth. Appreciating it, he points to his reflection and clicks his tongue.

Next to him is a girl. Like him, she has dark skin, blue eyes, and brown hair that’s mostly tied down her back in a braid, though she’s currently in the midst of fixing two hair loops either side of her head with assistance from the mirror. Unlike the two boys, she’s not naked, although she’s pretty close to it. She’s sporting brown fur boots, navy blue leather bracers, a light yellow skirt outlined in green, with some swirls on the front left of it, that goes halfway down her thighs, and a blue necklace with an ornate carving on it.

As this trio readies themselves, the other being in the room, a white lemur, grooms himself by the door.

Despite the stereotype of girls taking longer to ready themselves, it’s her to leave the washroom first. Opening the doors to their sleeping chambers, she gasps at the state the person already in the room is in.

The fourth inhabitant of the house, another girl with lighter skin, black hair and a short stature, is laying on her stomach fast asleep, a yellow blanket barely covering her nude body.

“Toph!” the brown haired girl shouts. “Aren’t you going to get ready for the day?”

The now formerly asleep girl, Toph, raises in a haste, causing her hair to poof up and fly around, eyes barely open, showing them to be a green color with a milky look over them. Reeling back, the barely awake naked girl spits into a nearby vessel, which spins on impact, further shocking the girl.

Getting to her feet, Toph brushes a huge amount of gathered dust off her body. “I’m ready,” she says groggily.

“You’re not gonna wash up?” the older girl, named Katara, asks. “You’ve got a little dirt on your…” she gestures her fingers towards the girl's body, which is covered in brown and gray splotches from head to toe, “everywhere, actually.”

“You call it dirt,” Toph says casually, “I call it a healthy coating of earth.”

“Hmmm,” Katara says, thinking, before getting an ingenious idea. “You know what we need? A girl’s day out!”

Not liking the sound of that, Toph asks, “Do I have to?!”

“It’ll be fun.”

Toph lets out a sigh, dreading what’s now to come.

----

The walk was slightly tense, since one didn’t want to go and the other wasn’t fond of being seen.

Katara wouldn’t tell Toph where they were going, and this naturally annoyed the girl, who already hated her prospects, especially as she was rushed out the door, only given time to slide on her green wrist and ankle bands and green and gold hairband, successfully containing that mess into a large bun, with some escaping bangs.

“I already hate this,” she says as they walk

“You’ll be fine,” the waterbender says, slightly nervously. “I’m sure you’ll love it.”

Katara, meanwhile, while not angry, was still a bit bashful. She’s been trying to get back into that mindset from before they passed the wall, but she was still slightly emberassed by her toplessness. Here in the Upper Ring, everyone was fancily dressed, and even with some skin showing, it was still far more than her dainty little skirt.

“Still fidgety,” Toph asks out of the blue.

“What?”

“About your top. Are you still in your relapse, or are you coming out of it?”

“I’m fine,” Katara lies as naturally as she breathes. “It’s just that there’s millions of eyes here, and they can see almo-”

“And the only person with you can’t see you at all?” Toph says. “So I don’t see why you can’t just shake it off.”

“Hey!” Katara shouts, offended by her callousness. “The fact I’m going out like this is a huge improvement over when we first arrived!”

“Whatever,” the blind girl says as she folds her hands behind her head. “People are coming from over there anyways so you maybe shouldn’t shout.”

Walking into view are a group of four girls around their age, if slightly older, in the midst of a light hearted conversation. They’re all well made up with sparkly clean hair and faces, as well as the rest of their bodies. A bit more surprising, considering how the people up here dressed, was that all four were completely nude.

As these four get closer, there’s something else Katara notices about one in particular, specifically that she looks somehow familiar. Maybe it was the shape of her face, or maybe it was that she’s seen that hairstyle before, or maybe it was the daisy stuck beside the girl's ear.

She’s on the verge of piecing it together when this girl turns her head towards the duo and her eyes widen in surprise. Smiling sweetly, she waves towards her, saying, “Oh hello, Katara,” in a familiar voice.

Pausing for a second, it snaps in her head and Katara says, “Ji?”

“You know this girl?” one of the other girls asks the familiar one, Ji.

Waving them off, she says, “Go on ahead without me, I’ll catch up.” The other three shrug and continue their walk. Turning back to Katara, Ji asks,” So, Katara, how have you been, and who’s this little one?” She bends down to Toph’s level.

“Things have been … uh … okay,” the waterbender says awkwardly, before gesturing to the blind girl. “And this is Toph, Aang’s earthbending teacher. Toph, meet Ji, a friend I made during our travels before meeting you.”

“Hey,” Toph says dryly, causing the Gan Jin girl to giggle.

“I’m surprised to see you up here,” Ji says, raising back up to Katara’s level.

“Same for me. I mean, we were told that refugees were left to the Lower Ring.”

“Yeah,” the girl says, “but mom and dad were able to use an ancient connection to get us to a comfortable living situation up here.”

“Really?” Katara asks, to which Ji nods. She then glances down at Ji’s state of dress, the same state she last saw her in. “So … I see you’re still living with the Zhang’s fashion sense.”

Ji does a little awkward laugh, before letting out a sigh. “That’s what I was expecting, same with Bai. But when we reached here, mom and dad wanted us to go back to our old “civilized” ways, especially since we were going up here. A few other Gan Jin families did the same, but me and Bai have grown to prefer living like this, and I’m out of the house frequently. Those girls I was with are like minded in this regard, so they’re good company, and we have girls days a lot.”

Oh,” Katara says, a bit surprised by what she heard, “well me and Toph are having a little girls day ourselves.”

Ji giggles again. “I see that, although,” she pauses, looking down at Katara’s waist, “if you’re going where I think you’re going, you might be a little overdressed for it.”

Katara raises her eyebrow, but before she could say anything, Ji starts walking again.

“Gotta catch the others, we can talk more another time. Hope Aang and Sokka are alright.”

“She’s weird,” Toph says once Ji’s out of earshot, before resuming her walk.

“She means well,” Katara says, the two heading in the direction the four girls came from. “Besides, we’re almost there.”

Coming into view is a fancy looking building, much fancier than most public places. It’s also pretty big, so whatever’s in there is important, at least for Katara’s purpose.

“There it is,” she announces to Toph, “The Fancy Lady Day Spa!”

“The Fancy Lady Day Spa?” Toph repeats sarcastically. “Sounds like my kinda place.” She then turns and begins to walk away, only to be stopped by Katara

“C’mon, give it a try. You’ll enjoy it,” she says as she pulls the blind girl back. “Besides, how bad can it be?”

“You’ll see,” Toph says, sensing something and pointing towards the spa building. Walking out of the spa are two women in their mid twenties. Like the four girls, they’re completely spotless, pampered with light makeup, hair tied up and sparkly, and are both completely nude.

Katara barely has time to process this sight when she hears an, “Excuse me,” from behind her. She moves and allows the middle aged woman to pass, and she’s taken aback further. Unlike the others, she’s not made up nor has her hair done, but she’s still nude as she walks towards the spa, at which point Katara pieces it together.

Seeing the opportunity, Toph attempts to slip away, but Katara grabs her shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t want to,” she says as she resists. She stops when she realizes she has a trump card over Katara, and a smile creeps onto her face. “Tell you what,” Toph says, turning back to Katara, “if you go in nude, I’ll stop fighting back?” She folds her arms proudly as if she won.

“Okay,” Katara says, before sliding down her bottoms. Throwing them over her shoulder, the now nude girl says, “Are you ready for some serious pampering?”

Resigned, Toph sighs and says, “Sure, Katara, whatever you say.” She turns and starts to walk towards the entrance with her. “As long as they don’t touch my feet.”

----

SCRAPE

At least that’s what it was in Toph’s mind

While Katara and a few other women were sitting nice and relaxed on those luxurious wooden chairs getting their feet scrubbed calmly, the blind girl was a lot less relaxed as the attendant cleans up the frankly ridiculous amount of dirt and earth on Toph’s soles.

It's so much that the lady has to be a bit rough with the scrubbing, and the girl’s putting up so much of a fight that two other attendants have to hold down her shoulders.

It’s unfortunately not enough, as even lightly relieving her feet of the coat of earth makes her mad, and when Toph’s mad, people get hurt, as the attendant soon finds out as she’s flung out of the room, impacting the hallway wall at high speeds, knocking the wind out of her.

Luckily for everyone involved, once the two were done in there, everything else was peachy.

When they were escorted into another room while having their hair wrapped in towels, Katara immediately took note of the two stone bathtubs filled with mud.

“Oh you’re going to love this one, Toph,” she tells Toph, who’s still skeptical and now with sore feet.

That skepticism melts away the moment her nude body slips into the nice warm mud, and she lets out a huge sigh of relief, Katara doing the same when she slides into her tub.

The attendants smear some of the mud on their faces, place cucumber slices over their eyes, and let them alone relax.

“This is nice,” Toph says, before letting out a yawn.

“Yeah,” Katara says, followed by an awkward silence. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. I got my revenge already, and the fun’s not done.”

“Huh?”

“Just wait.”

So they do that, lay there and relax, waiting for their time in the mud to run out.

When the time does come, a sole attendant enters the room holding towels on her arm. As she walks up to the seemingly asleep girls, Toph inhales, then breathes out, bending the edges of the mud around her mouth and eyes far away from her face, the resulting image freaking out the attendant to the point of running away.

As she flees, the not sleeping girls laugh.

After a hearty chuckle, the two rise from their tubs and water/earthbend the mud off their nude bodies and towel dry themselves, swapping the ones on their heads with the new ones.

With that done, the two are directed towards the saunas, heading into the one prepared for their use. They lay on benches opposite each other, a small fire covered by decently sized round, black rocks, which creates a thin layer of steam in the room.

When the door is shut, Toph kicks the ground, kicking another rock from the extra pile onto the fire. Katara, in turn, bends some water from the nearby pail and splashes it onto the rocks, creating a large gust of steam.

The two girls let out loud sighs of relief.

----

Despite the rocky start, the trip to the spa was overall good.

Once the relaxation was done, they were made up, had their hair done, bodies shined, and were sent on their way. As they were heading out, Katara asks where her skirt was, and upon being told it was sent back to the house, simply shrugs and walks out with Toph.

“You sure have made a complete turn around,” she says as the two walk out.

“What do you mean?” Katara asks.

“Spazzing out at the mere idea of heading out in this big city, in this fancy place, in anything less than those things you got at the wall,” Toph says, “And now you’re walking beside me, buck ass nude with little more than a shrug.”

“Guess I’m too relaxed to care,” she says with a sigh. “Wasn’t it a good idea for us to go there?”

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Toph says, a light smile on her face. “I’m not usually into that stuff but I actually feel … girly.”

“I’m glad,” Katara says as they approach a bridge over a creek. “It’s about time we did something fun together.”

As they begin walking across the bridge, three girls walk the other way, obviously taking notice of the two nude girls in makeup walking past them.

“Wow, great make-up,” one of the girls, holding a parasol, says as they cross.

“Thanks,” Toph says.

“For a clown,” the parasol girl says, to which all three start laughing.

Toph’s smile drops, and Katara wraps her arm around her shoulder in an attempt to console her. “Don’t listen to them, let’s just keep walking.”

“I think she looks cute,” the middle of the three girls says, all turned and facing the two. “Like that time we put a sweater on your pet poodle monkey,” she says, gesturing to the parasol girl, and all three start laughing again.

“Good one, Star,” the third girl says between the laughter.

Angrily, Katara says, “Let’s go, Toph,” before trying to pull her away, only for the girl to resist.

“No, no,” Toph says dryly, “that was a good one.” She turns to face the three girls. “Like a poodle monkey,” she says before a hearty and very fake laugh. “You know what else is a good one?”

She then stomps her foot, and a circular section of bridge is cut free, one where all three of the girls are standing. They fall into the creek below, Katara looking down from the new hole.

“Now that was funny,” she says, before swinging her arms, creating a large wave that pushes the screaming girls downstream and away from them.

Once done with that, she turns and sees Toph already walking away, back to frowning. Jogging back up to her, she says, “Those girls don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“It’s okay,” Toph says, downcast. “One of the good things about being blind, is I don't have to waste my time worrying about appearance. I don't care what I look like. I'm not looking for anyone's approval. I know who I am.”

Despite her words, Toph stops and lets out a quiet sob, tears forming at the edges of her closed eyes.

“That's what I really admire about you, Toph,” Katara says. “You're so strong, and confident, and self-assured.” The girl lets out a sniffle. “And I know it doesn't matter, but ... You're really pretty.”

Turning to her, smiling, Toph asks, “I am?”

“Yeah, you are.”

The two resume their walk, Toph now back in a good enough mood to make a joke.

“I’d return the compliment, but I have no idea what you look like,” she says, making Katara laugh. “I do know roughly your body shape, and I can feel vibrations off it to tell that you have a nice butt, though.” She gives her friend a cheeky pat on the hindquarters with a light giggle, causing Katara to jump and give a little squeak, going a bit red. “But still,” she continues, much less jokingly, “thank you, Katara.”

She then gives the girl an affectionate punch on the shoulder.

“Ow!” Katara shouts, pushed a bit back by the punch.

—
The Tale of Iroh
—

It was a nice day over the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, making it a good day for shopping.

One man, an older, bigger man with long gray hair (with a bald spot covered by a rice hat) and beard, is among these folk, heading to one shop selling baskets and other containers.

As he examines one basket, the owner walks up and says, “If this is for a romantic picnic, may I suggest this lavender one?” pointing to another basket.

“No,” Iroh says, “it’s not a romantic picnic, but it is a special occasion.” He hands a coin to the shopkeeper, taking the basket.

He begins to walk away, stopping when he notices a yellow, wilting flower in a white vase, sitting in the sun. Upon walking up to it, he slides it under the canopy of the shop, and the wilting bud almost immediately blooms into a truly beautiful flower.

“The moonflower likes partial shade,” he says to the shopkeeper with a light bow, before walking away.

He walks up to another shop, one that’s selling instruments. As he’s examining one, he hears the sounds of sobbing behind him. Turning, he sees a young boy in the midst of a sobbing fit, with his mother by his side trying to calm him.

“Shhh. It’s okay. Shhh.”

Taking the instrument, Iroh starts to play it as he slowly walks up to the boy. As he reaches him, he kneels down and starts to sing.

“ Leaves from the vine, falling so slow. Like fragile, tiny shells, drifting in the foam. Little soldier boy, come marching home. Brave soldier boy, comes marching home.”
This causes the boy to brighten up, his frown turning around into a smile. He reaches up and starts tugging on Iroh’s beard, laughing at the old man’s groaning.

Despite this, as he rises back up, Iroh smiles as he pats his beard, watching the woman grab her son’s hand and walk away.

----

After finishing his shopping, Iroh takes a bit of a walk around the area, glancing at all the people going about their lives like regular people like he’s pretending to be.

The noise of laughter catches his attention and he heads down an alleyway. Upon entering a courtyard, he sees four boys, two on each side, with a small white ball beside one of them, and a goal behind each duo.

That boy stomps his foot on the ground and shoots the ball up with some bending. He kicks the ball forward with his foot, before sliding up a ramp of earth to guide it around the two guys on the other team and towards the other goal. The other boys attempt to block it, the one closer manages to launch it away, unfortunately speeding right towards the old man’s face.

Iroh ducks out of the way, but the ball just goes through the window.

“Hey!” a voice inside shouts.

Iroh turns towards and starts walking in the direction of the boys, who all rush behind the man.

“It is usually best to admit mistakes when they occur, and seek to restore honor,” he tells the four softly, before a loud noise startles all of them.

Turning around, they all see a huge, round, angry face staring daggers at them.

“When I'm through with you kids,” he shouts, “the window won't be the only thing that's broken.”

…

“But not this time,” Iroh says, “run!”

The four boys and Iroh all speed out of the courtyard split off, taking off in different directions.

----

Iroh had long since got far away from the angry round man when he came to a stop within an alleyway. Placing the basket down, he peers back around the wall to check to see if he’s being pursued.

He sees no sign of the man, so he breathes a sigh of relief, when he hears a, “You, give me all your money!”

Iroh turns and sees a scrawny man holding a knife to him, all the while holding a very shoddy stance with his knees and shins all wrong.

“What are you doing?” a confused Iroh asks.

“I’m mugging you!” the man shouts.

“With that stance?”

“Huh?” the man says, looking down at his stance, confused. “What are you talking about? Just give me your money, old man!”

Iroh just shakes his head. “With a poor stance, you are unbalanced, and you can be easily knocked over.”

Demonstrating this, Iroh grabs the man's arm and disarms him, then pushing him back and knocking him to the ground. Smiling, the old man spins the blade in his hand.

Then he offers his other one, helping the man to his feet.

“With a solid stance, you are a much more serious threat,” Iroh says as he hands the curvy knife back, before demonstrating a much better stance. The man attempts to replicate, to not so good results. Iroh, seeing this, walks over and gives him a light kick to readjust. “Much better!” he says, before changing the subject. “But to tell you the truth, you do not look like the criminal type.”

“I know. I’m…” he says, before letting out a sigh. “I’m confused.”

Thanks to his experience, Iroh knows exactly what to do. Fortunately, Iroh would never be caught dead without a tea set and the materials needed. He has his setup ready in a minute.

As he’s setting up and making the tea, he gets the man, named Tycho, talking about his life, making sure to give him some encouraging words as he lets it out.

As his third cup is poured, Tycho says, “So you really think I could be a good masseur!”

“Of course!” Iroh says with encouragement.

“This is so great!” he says, smiling widely. “No one has ever believed in me.”

Also smiling, Iroh says, “While it is always best to believe in oneself, a little help from others can be a great blessing.”

----

At sunset, the old man walks up a hill to a tree. Leaves fall as he approaches.

He lays down the basket and takes off his hat. Turning to face the tree, he gets down on his knees and piles two large, wide stones at the base.

Moving on to the basket, he pulls out several things and lays them next to the stones. A tarp to wrap over it, a few fruits, and a small, full sac. Then he takes out a piece of scroll paper, looking at it for a few seconds, before shutting his eyes and laying it on the stone.

Then he takes out two sticks of incense, lighting them with his fingers and some firebending, before placing them in the preset holder for them.

And now the shrine to the departed Lu Ten was complete.

“Happy birthday, my son,” Iroh says, as tears start to flow down his face. “If only I could have helped you.”

He then starts to sing the same song from earlier, but much more cracked thanks to the crying.

“Leaves from the vine, falling so slow. Like fragile, tiny shells, drifting in the foam. Little soldier boy, come marching home. Brave soldier boy, comes marching home.”

—
The Tale of Aang
—

It was a calm day in the Lower Ring. People did their jobs, shopped, raised their children. Just people trying to get by with how littles down there. Peaceful.

Less so when a completely nude bald boy comes flying past them on his glider.

Passing a clothing line, Aang flies up and lands on the ground, twirling his glider back into its staff form. Upon landing, the nudist boy starts to walk down the street, looking around for his vision, since he heard through the grapevine that this area could be a good lead.

Walking into an open alleyway,he sees lining the walls and hanging up from the ceiling cages of animals of all different kinds and mixes, sizes and shapes, colors and feel.

He walks up to a cage containing a tigerdillo gnawing at his cage's bars, though it stops and looks at the nude boy approaching.

“Hey there, fellow,” he says, kneeling beside the cage. “You look hungry.”

The tigerdillo roars, causing the boy to jump back. The creature then curls into a ball and rolls deeper into the cage as a man approaches the boy, sweeping a broom.

Evidentially, this man is in charge of this place, as he wordlessly offers Aang a walk around..

“They are hungry,” he says as the two walk. “The Dai Li won't give me any money because the kids stopped coming. And the kids won't come because my zoo's nasty and broke.”

The boy turns towards one of the cages, a dower looking critter sitting within. “What kinda animal is that?”

“Oh, that’s a rabaroo,” the man says, before his face drops. “I wish I could get her a big open prairie like she likes. I'd let her hop away to happiness.”

Aang then smiles. “Let’s do it!” he says suddenly, as if the man would know what he;s talking about.

“Say again?”

“There’s a big open space right outside the walls of the city,” Aang says, gesturing in the general direction of the closest part of the wall.

“But how’re you gonna transport all these wild critters?” the man asks.

“Don’t worry, I’m great with animals.”

----

Easier said than done, as Aang would soon learn.

The now free hog monkeys tear a nearby pottery shop to shreds, breaking many vessels, pots, and other trinkets, as well as the furnishings of the shop. All this while shrieking loudly, to the annoyance and fear of the inhabitants of nearby houses.

Luckily, the shop owner comes out with a broom and swats them away, even sending one flying with a single hit, but it barely mattered when everything was destroyed.

As they flee, a group of people run past the shops for their lives, being chased by a stampeding elephant mandrill. Another group runs from the dragon flies, covering their heads as they fly around them.

In another part of the street, a platypus bear walks into the area on its hind legs as it swings at fleeing people, growling loudly as it chases another group of people down an alley, the tigerdillo rolling onto the street from above to take its place.

As this chaos goes on, a rabaroo gorges herself on cabbages, all the while a very specific merchant attempts to save his product, pulling bunches of the vegetables from the cart onto the ground and into his green robes.

“My cabba-” he starts, before the creature turns to him, crushing the cabbage in her mouth, before heading back to feasting on the pile. “Oh, forget it,” he says, dropping the cabbage in his hands and walking away to sulk.

Running along the rooftops around the alleyway where the dragon flies are harassing people is the bald naked boy, who leaps down directly into the madness, staff in hand.

Swinging his staff towards them, the resulting gusts of air send the hordes of flying lizards away, giving the people peace, at least from them.

Scratching the back of his head, Aang says, “This was so much easier in my head.”

Suddenly, he gets an idea, and pulls out something he had on him just in case. The bison whistle.

Tossing it in the air, he takes a very deep inhale. Upon catching the whistle, he gives a powerful blow to the instrument, sending a wave of sound that, while can’t be heard by humans, can be heard by all the creatures wreaking havoc all over the lower ring.

The hog monkeys stop messing up a full laundry line and head towards the sound. Same with the dragon flies who were in the midst of harassing another group of people, the rabaroo who stops eating the cabbages, and all the others around the city.

Already seeing and hearing his plan working, Aang conjures up and leaps onto an air ball and begins to ride it down the streets, blowing on the whistle to get the free animals to follow him. Passerbys duck into alleyways to avoid both the ass naked boy speeding past them, but the litany of probably dangerous animals trailing him.

----

As this was going on, by the closest entry point of the wall, the zookeeper, Kenji, argued with two guards.

“But you have to open this gate,” he says.

“Or what?” one of the guards asks skeptically.

Turning around, Kenji points down the road and the gathering cloud of dust. “Or that!”

Emerging into view is a bald, tattooed, completely naked boy riding on a ball of air, being followed by a stampede of animals, most of them dangerous.

“Open the gate!” the other guard yells, the two running away either side, leaving Kenji alone as the two sides of the massive gate begin to slide open.

Aang charges towards the opening gate, glancing either side of him, the animals catching up either side of him. He stops blowing the whistle and leaps off the air scooter, opening his glider and flying above the wall as the animals continue their charge through the gate.

Upon passing, they begin to spread out, which is what Aang wants.

Aang lands back onto a new air scooter and punches the ground, creating a circular wall of earth to stop the animals in their tracks. Once he’s done with that, he leaps off the scooter and begins to earth bend up plateaus and smaller walls, pits and other natural features.

Kenji and the guards reemerge from their hiding places, amazed by the sight of a fully functional, much nicer, completely natural zoo, befitting since its creator is a completely natural boy. Also seeing this new zoo are a bunch of the Lower Ring children, who run into the park with their parents close behind.

Beside one of the pens, the zookeeper and the Avatar have a talk.

“Well, Mr. Zookeeper,” Aang asks, “how do you like your new facilities?”

“Excellent job, Avatar,” Kenji says, genuinely impressed by this job. “You should think about working with animals for a living.”

Aang briefly considers this option, but his thought process is cut off by a young boy saying, “Mommy, Miss Snowflake got out of the house again.”

Aang turns and sees one of the smaller pens containing several smaller house pets like cats and dogs, one of them hissing loudly at the jeering guests.

“Fluffykins?” another guest, a teenaged girl this time, calls out into another pen, to a light brown cat hissing at an elephant mandrill. “What are you doing in there?”

“On second thought,” Kenji says, “you should probably stick to saving people.”

Aang laughs at the man's statement, agreeing fully.

—
The Tale of the Freedom Fighters
—

Despite it being a beautiful day over Ba Sing Se, the atmosphere in this part of the Lower Ring certainly didn’t jell with it.

Poorly maintained, seedy, and full of suspicious characters, this place just was far from pleasant even when compared to the other areas of the Lower Ring.

As such, the refugees who found themselves relocated over there had trouble landing a job, especially for a young archer boy and young knife nut girl.

“Well that was a total bust,” a short, scrawny naked girl with a brown bowl cut says as she and her friend exit one of a blacksmith's shop, visibly dejected. “It’s because I’m naked, isn’t it? It was a stupid idea.”

The other one, a taller boy with short hair covered by a rice hat, a big nose and ears and wearing a dark blue jumpsuit open at the chest, simply gives the girl a look.

Glancing back, she realizes what he means immediately. “I don’t know, he WAS wearing only an apron, and half the people here are naked too. I guess you're right, Longshot.” She looks down to the ground and lets out a sigh. “It’s because we’re…”

Longshot nods before she could say another word.

Them belonging to a ragtag group of youths actively fighting a war against the Fire Nation, even if they don’t go around boasting about it, gives them a specific look. One that’s a dead giveaway to their less than stellar pasts. Not to mention the fact that they’re refugees, and their chances of getting hired by any respectable workplace, at least in any that’d give them enough money to live even conservatively.

Not helping matters is the fact that their other friend, Jet, was arrested a few weeks back for a public altercation with a tea shop worker they were familiar with, and neither had seen him since. The girl, Smellerbee, had attempted to reach out to the tea shop worker, Lee, to apologize and ask to make amends, but never had the opportunity or courage. And since Jet was the trio’s talker, it left them with the abrasive Smellerbee and the silent Longshot.

The girl sighs again. “What are we gonna do?”

The tall boy looks out ahead of the two with a squint. Eyes widening back to normal, he turns to her, and her eyebrows raise.

“Are you sure we can do that?” Smellerbee asks, to which Longshot raises his hand.

Taking it, the two slip away from the main streets and begin to travel to the inner wall of the Lower Ring.

----

It’s a notoriously difficult process to head from the Lower to the Middle Ring without permission or tremendous wealth, especially outside the railway system, so slipping between the wall took a bit of effort.

Fortunately for the two, they’re pros at moving unseen, and are able to slip by with ease.

Now within the Middle Ring, the two experience another problem emerges.

Compared to the mixed dressings of the Lower Ring, the Middle was significantly more dressed, not a sole person was nude. This naturally, caused a few eyes to be drawn to Smellerbee, who’s completely naked sans the headband, something that she also notices.

The girl starts to go a little red. “People are staring,” she says quietly. “This was a mistake.”

She rushes up and presses her front against Longshot’s back, making sure nobody can see, while using a hand to cover her butt crack, hoping no one else will see.

However, her unnatural positioning only draws more eyes, and more people notice this completely nude girl.

“Can we head back?” she asks her friend. “If anything, they’d be the ones to head down to us.”

Longshot stops and turns around, placing both hands on her shoulders. He gives her a look.

“I guess you’re right,” she says shyly, “When we last spoke, we did say we’d meet there if we ended up here.”

Longshot wraps his arm around the girl's shoulder and pulls her close to him, resuming their walk.

Walking like this was a bit easier for the girl, and despite having everything exposed, felt a lot more comfortable like this than hiding behind his back. It was nice.

After a bit more walking, the two find their way to the river’s edge, where they walk right up to.

“They said it’d be here, right?” Smellerbee asks her friend, who nods. She then looks up at the sky, with the sun almost fully overhead. “They said they’d head here every day at noon, didn’t they?” Longshot nods again. “Then we wait.”

The sun moves slowly in the sky, getting closer to being directly overhead of the two as they stand there.

After a few minutes, Smellerbee walks up to and sits on the edge, shivering a little, thanks both to her feet entering the cold water and bare butt making contact with the cool stone ground. Still, after a few seconds, it starts to feel nice.

She leans back a bit and lets out a sigh. “This is nice,” she says quietly.

Longshot on the other hand, stays standing and waiting for whoever they’re waiting for to arrive, though he does shoot the occasional glance back towards his naked friend.

She sits there for a few more minutes, before deciding to go for it. She slides off her headband, her sole article of clothing, and Longshot turns to see her slide into the water fully.

Silently, he rushes towards the edge of the path and sees Smellerbee’s head emerge from the water, spitting some out as she surfaces. The two painted chevrons on both her cheeks start getting runny as she flashes a smile towards him.

“Don’t give me that look,” she says playfully, “This was a good idea. The water’s nice. You’d definitely enjoy it.”

The boy folds his arms and glares down at her, who just laughs in response.

“Cmon, we came here to not worry about the war anymore, you could afford to lighten up even a little.”

He doesn’t budge, causing the girl to groan.

“Suit yourself,” she says, before turning and starting to swim freestyle upstream, “I’m gonna take this time to swim.”

Despite the light current, she doesn’t move much against the stream, though it’s completely intentional. After all, if her bait were to be successful, she wouldn’t want to be too far to witness her plan bear fruit.

Sure enough, after about a minute, she starts hearing shuffling, but she restrains herself enough to wait until it’s too late.

When she does stop and turn, Longshot is already in the midst of sliding into the water, rice hat, bow and quiver, and jumpsuit laying neatly beside the edge.

“I knew it,” she says as the current pushes her towards him. “I knew the sight of my ass swaying back and forth with each stroke was irresistible.”

He gives her a look, expression unchanged from his usual stoicism.

“Don’t deny it,” Smellerbee says as she reaches him, stopping herself from moving any further. “Too late to turn back now.”

She attempts to get closer, but the faint sounds of people talking stops her movement dead in its tracks. Sure enough, they could see two people in fancy yellowish green robes slowly approaching the river side. The two quickly swim to the side of the river, pressing their backs against it so as not to be seen.

It didn’t work.

“Hey look at this,” a male voice says, after which the two rush up to the river edge, where Smellerbees headband and Longshot’s everything were laying neatly beside. “Looks like someone decided to use the river for some recreation.”

The two laugh, but it’s cut short when the other person notices something.

“Wait,” a female voice says, “look at this headband, and the jumpsuit. Don’t they look familiar?”

“Yeah,” the male says, “and there are very few people who’d walk around the Middle Ring with a bow and arrows.”

The two in the water hear footsteps, and see a girl peering over the edge of the river, scanning around. The two girls then make eye contact, and things become clear.

“Bai, look,” Ji says, pulling her brother to look with her, “it’s Smellerbee and Longshot!”

“Hey Ji, Hey Bai,” Smellerbee says with a wave, swimming up in front of them.

“Hello Smellerbee, Longshot,” Bai says, waving back. “What are you two doing in there?”

“We were waiting for you and decided to have a swim. Care to join us?”

“Would love to,” Ji says, “but we don’t want to get wet, or else mom and dad will know.”

“Besides, I’m pretty sure this is at least the Middle and Upper Ring’s water source,” Bai says sheepishly, “so they’ll probably be drinking your butt water for the next few days.”

“Oh,” Smellerbee says, her and Longshot exchanging a look. Turning back to the two, she continues, “Can you help us out.”

“Before we do,” Bai says, the twins looking at each other, “since we’re in good company, shall we.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Ji asks with a smile.

The brother and sister then untie their robes and throw them to the side, leaving both as naked as the two in the water. They then walk up and offer their hands, helping the two back onto land.

Once all four naked youths were out of the water, the questioning began.

“So I notice it’s just you two,” Bai asks. “Where are the others? Fen, Jet, The Duke, everyone?”

“Well Sneers didn’t come with us after we left that town. Don’t know why. A little while later we had a little schism, half of us wanted to head here and reform, the others wanted to continue the fight. So myself, Longshot, and Jet split off from Fen, The Duke, and Pipsqueak, and they went with some waterbending troup to help the fight with them.”

“Good to know,” Ji says, nodding, “at least we now have something to tell her family.”

“How is life in Ba Sing Se for you?” Smellerbee asks, looking back at the two discarded robes. “When I last saw you guys, you were openly glad about being naked, and now you seem to be hiding it.”

“The thing is,” Bai starts, only to be cut off by his sister.

“Our parents weren’t as receptive to the whole full time nudity thing as we were, and made no secret of hiding their disdain for it the second we arrived.”

“Once we were able to clothe ourselves again, despite me and Ji’s protests, we were forced to clothe ourselves too.”

“Damn,” the skinny girl says at this.

“Yeah,” Ji says with a nod. “It’s not all bad though.”

“The two of us go naked whenever we can, in and out of the house. Upper Ring’s a no go. They may be a bit more lax about nudity, but we risk running into people our parents know and could rat us out.”

“Lower Ring’s no good either,” Ji adds. “Too seedy and dangerous, especially for two obviously wealthy people like us.”

“Despite the Middle Ring being more prudish, it’s less dangerous and no one knows who we are. They all can see our asses and mom and dad will be none the wiser!”

“I also found a group of girls who, like me, prefer skins to shirts, and we hang out frequently.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” Smellerbee says with a smile. “Don’t let them tell you you can’t be naked. Go out there and expose yourselves completely.”

“Speaking of which,” Bai says, “I didn’t see those pants in the pile over there, so-”

“I chucked those into the water on the ferry ride over here. Been going natural ever since,” she starts blushing lightly, “with some ups and downs.”

The twins look at each other, then back at her. “Still a bit shy?” they say in unison.

“A bit,” she admits, before looking up at Longshot, “but I get the feeling it’ll be easier from now on.”

“Well that’s good to hear,” Bai says, placing his hand on her shoulder.

“We’d love to talk longer,” Ji says, “but the folks are expecting us to be gone a short while, so we’d best be off.”

“Well see you later then.”

“Goodbye,” the twins say in unison, before turning around, scooping up their robes, and walking off.

Once the identical pairs of buttocks were out of view, Smellerbee turned to Longshot. “I guess we should probably head back now, too.”

He nods, and the two head back to the edge of the river. Smellerbee slides on the headband and Longshot puts back on his rice hat.

He looks down at his jumpsuit for a second, before turning to Smellerbee, who’s looking a bit more confident than when they arrived. He looks back and forth a few times, before coming to a resolution.

He grabs his quiver and bow, slinking both onto his back, before walking up to her.

Her eyebrows raise at him standing there, still naked, jumpsuit still folded neatly beside the river.

“Sure?” she asks.

He answers her with a nod.

Smellerbee smiles, and the two begin to walk off, away from the river and back towards the wall, now fully embracing the name Freedom Fighters.

—
The Tale of Sokka
—

It was night time, and the air was cool, blowing against the tanned boy’s nude body as he walked through a candle lit street.

Banking on being able to spend most of his time here planning an attack on the Fire Nation, now that Sokka was denied this, he had little to occupy his time, unlike his downtime at the North Pole, where he learned some valuable warrior tactics.

Still, at least he was allowed to go nude here, now if only he could fight his boredom.

He pulls his boomerang from the holster on his back and tosses it into the air, catching it when it returns.

He turns down an alleyway where a group of men struggle with their ostrich horse, when he hears a noise from the open window beside him. “What’s that?” he says quietly as he walks up and peers in to listen.

To his light surprise he sees a young woman, late teens or early twenties, standing on a stage reading from a scroll. Also of note was the fact that this woman was completely nude, as were the half dozen or so girls sitting in front of the stage. Sokka listens to what she’s reading with great intent.

“Through all the long night, winter moon glows with bright love, sleet her silver tears.”

“Ahh,” he says, visibly pleased by what he heard, “poetry.”

However, as he listens, the men lose control of the ostrich horse, and it kicks back, striking Sokka on his bare ass and pushing him forward through the window into the room.

The girls in the room shriek at this startling action, a few of the noticeably shyer girls covering their nudity, blushing like mad.

One girl, after initially being startled, pipes back up and gives a wave. “Hi Sokka,” she says with a cheery smile.

“You know this guy, Ji?” the girl next to her whispers to her.

“Kinda,” Ji whispers back, “he’s that boy who was with the Avatar, and the older brother of that girl I ran into the other day.”

“Ohh,” the girl says with a nod, remembering that encounter.

Still, the other girls lack this familiarity with him, and look on in surprise.

Collecting himself, Sokka pulls himself from the frame, revealing his own nudity to the girls as he falls to the stage, as he says, “I am so sorry. Something struck me in the rear. I just ... wound up ... here.”

The girls start to laugh and even clap at his unintentional haiku. Those shy girls relax enough to uncover themselves.

Surprised at first, Sokka smiles widely at their reaction.

Someone else, an older woman, late twenties or early thirties, also fully nude and evidently their teacher, rises up and turns to him.

“Five, seven, then five, syllables mark a haiku,” she says before bowing to the boy. “Remarkable oaf.”

Genuinely impressing a group of artistic girls, and ones who are nudists like he is, with his accidentally improvised poetry, Sokka wants to keep it up. He thinks for a moment, before saying, “ They call me Sokka, that is in the Water Tribe.” He pauses to count five on his fingers, making sure he gets it right. “I am not an oaf.”

The girls giggle at his haiku.

Narrowing her eyes, the woman says back, “Tittering monkey, in the spring he climbs treetops, and thinks himself tall.”

“Oooooh!” many of the ladies shout in response to this.

“You think you're so smart, with your fancy little words, this is not so hard,” Sokka says back, now getting the hang of this, not needing to even count.

“Oooooh!” a few of the girls say in response, Ji in particular hyping up by getting to her feet and cupping her hands around her mouth.

Unimpressed, the teacher walks onto the stage as she responds, “Whole seasons are spent, mastering the form, the style, none calls it easy.”

“Ooooooh!”

“I calls it easy. Like I paddle my canoe, I'll paddle yours too!” Sokka says, before turning round and paddling his bare hindquarters, to the amusement and laughter of the girls in the room, Ji even mimicking the motion right in front of her still unimpressed friend's face.

Getting mad, the woman retrieves a plum from a nearby fruit bowl and starts, “There's nuts and there's fruits,” she says, dropping the fruit to the ground. “In fall the clinging plum drops, always to be squashed.” She finishes her haiku by squishing the plumb beneath her bare foot.

As he makes arm movements, Sokka responds as such, “Squish, squash, sling that slang. I'm always right back at ya, like my …”

He pauses as he reaches back to retrieve his, “boomerang!”

The girls all laugh and cheer as the woman, annoyed, walks off the stage, as Sokka takes center stage, facing the ladies head on. He had impressed the girls with his poetry skills (among other things), and he was gonna keep it going.

With more arm movements, he says, “That's right, I'm Sokka, it's pronounced with an "okka", young ladies, I rocked ya!”

Silence.

The impressed looks on the girls faces quickly fading into annoyance and even a little anger. Ji, hearing what he said, goes bright red. Turning her back to her friends and Sokka, she sits back down, hand covering her face. The other girls just stare at him, and he returns the look.

He quickly counts the syllables on his fingers, now realizing his last line contained six rather than five.

Before he could do anything else he felt a hand come up behind him and grab his wolf tail. Pulling it upward, he’s forcefully turned to his left, finding himself face to face with a tall, muscular, bearded angry looking man, also naked.

“Uh, that's one too many syllables there, bub,” he says, before turning and tossing the boy headfirst out the front door.

Now with the intruder out of their class, the teacher regains the stage.

Turning to the still emberassed Ji, her friend says, “You knew him?”

“Not really,” she says, turning back to face the stage, “his sister was with us Gan Jin’s at the Great Divide. He was with the Zhangs.”

“Ahhhh,” the girl says with a nod, fully understanding now.

Outside, upon hitting the ground, Sokka sits back up and rests his head on his hand as he sits crisscrossed facing away from the building.

“Poetry …” he says drowsily.

—
The Tale of Zuko
—

As far as fates to befall an exiled prince living in the slums of the largest city in the world, working a tea shop was not that bad.

Consistent pay, even if it’s a far cry from the money he used to have, easy enough job, abundance of hours to keep his mind off things. Overall, Zuko had it pretty good, all things considered.

Well, there was one thing, something he’s been noticing making more and more appearances over these past few weeks.

Holding a tray, he glances at the issue, before walking up to his uncle, who’s stocking some things onto the higher shelves.

“Uncle, we have a problem,” he says as Iroh descends from the stepladder. “One of the customers is onto us. Don't look now but there is a girl over there at the corner table.” He turns and subtly points out a table by the entrance, where a girl is seated, lifting the teacup with one hand, and casually tugging at her collar with the other. She has a sweet, pretty face, long brown hair tied in two braids down the front, and a deep green robe with yellow lining. Also, at least as far as Zuko can tell, passing a few glances his way as she drinks. “She knows we're Fire Nation.” Iroh turns to look at her, but Zuko forcefully turns him away. “Didn't I say don't look?!”

Iroh just smiles. “You're right, Zuko,” he says. “I've seen that girl in here quite a lot. Seems to me she has quite a little crush on you.”

Zuko, who couldn’t catch a hint if it hit him with a twelve pound pole, simply responds with a bewildered, “What?”

Coincidentally (or intentionally on her part), the girl walks up to the counter and says, “Thank you for the tea,” holding out her hand. Zuko turns to her and takes the coins she gives him. As he turns to put them away, she says, “What’s your name?” causing Iroh to get a light smile.

Turning back to her, he says, “My name's Lee. My uncle and I just moved here.”

“Hi Lee, my name’s Jin,” she says. “I just moved here too.”

“Really?” he says, a bit intrigued. He was going to leave it at that, but Iroh nudges him in order to keep the two’s talk going “Where from?” Zuko asks.

“Oh no,” Jin says with a laugh, “I’m from here, I just moved from one of the less “friendly” parts of the Lower Ring.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, I also got a new job. Allows me to live better, but the uniforms are so stifling!” she says, pulling at her collar again to emphasize her point. “I’d take it off, but we’re one of the few places to get business from Middle and Upper Ring folk, and we gotta keep up appearances, even when leaving. You know, gotta maintain a respectable presence in our community.”

Grabbing and looking down with slight disdain at his apron, Zuko says,“I know what you mean.” He turns his back to her as he prepares another tray with the tea cups Iroh just finished making. “But since this is all I do, there’s really no need to change. What else is there that I can do?”

“Well, actually,” she starts, jumping on the opportunity he’s presented her, “I was wondering if you would like to go out sometime. Somewhere to relax and lose these silly duds, nothing formal and purely casual.” She leans closer to him. “How does that sound?”

“He’d love to!” Iroh answers for the shocked and still pondering Zuko.

“Great,” Jin says, a sweet, excited smile on her face. “I’ll meet you in front of the shop at sundown.”

She then turns and makes her exit, hips swaying as she leaves.

Still with a wide grin on his face, Iroh wraps his arm around the boy, who shoots him a glare, grumpy about what his foolish uncle got him into.

----

Still very grumpy, Zuko walks out of the tea shop early, probably looking his best since his exile from the Fire Nation. His hair is slicked back and slightly shinier than usual, and he was dressed in his best, aka his normal clothes sans tea shop apron.

He takes a few steps away from the shop, until he was in the middle of the road, looking around for this Jin girl.

“Hey,” her voice calls out as he hears her emerge from an alleyway behind him. He turns, and his eyes widen at the sight of her, cheeks flushing red.

Jin stands there just at the entrance of the alley, a smile on her face that’s a bit flushed in red, as naked as a newborn.

“Well look at you,” she says, taking a few steps closer to the flustered boy. She looks down and lets out a light laugh. “Wasn’t expecting you to dress up for this, Lee.”

“Wha….” was all he said.

“I mean, why bother switching from one uncomfortable outfit to another, right?” Jin then starts to laugh, however, Zuko’s continued baffled and surprised look causes her to stop after a few seconds. She then starts to visibly get nervous, even emberassed, as her smile fades. “Oh,” she says, audibly disappointed, “I must’ve misunderstood. I thought you were like me, kindred spirits, in this regard. I’m sorry, I guess I’ll just go.”

She then turns around and begins to walk away, making a noise that was possibly sniffling.

Now, despite his reservations, Zuko didn’t want to make this girl sad, both because she does seem like a genuinely nice (and pretty) person, but also because she’s a recurring customer.

“Wait!” he shouts, running up and grabbing her shoulders. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I just, uh…” he pauses, thinking up an excuse. “I just didn’t want to make any assumptions before we went out. I mean, we don’t really know each other and…” he scans the area, now coming to grips with what he now has to do. Eyes on the alleyway beside the tea shop, he begins rushing towards it, saying, “Excuse me.”

He slinks into the alley and rests against the wall, breathing deeply. This would be the first non bathing time he’d get fully nude since his banishment, that didn’t require him to spear coal dust over his body anyway. Despite spending the vast majority of his childhood in the buff, he found himself shaking with nerves. For one thing, it’d be out in public, which he never did outside Ember Island, where everyone was nude all the time, and the fact that he’d be with a girl who seems to be into him.

After a few seconds, his breathing slows as he calms down. After all, he wasn’t the crowned prince anymore, so there’s no need to maintain the ruse of Fire Nation prudishness they’ve held for a century, so there’s no real harm in it anyways.

Jin stands there in the road alone for a minute or two, tapping her foot as she waits, before she hears the sound of footsteps behind her. Walking out of the alleyway was Zuko, now ass naked and extra moody (though he does put greater effort at hiding it).

“Better?” he asks.

“That’s your call,” Jin says, walking up to him. “But I think it’s a better look for you,” she says as she starts to ruffle his hair with her hand.

Stopping her, Zuko says, “It took my uncle ten minutes to do my hair.”

Before he could complain any further, Jin grabs his arm and starts to drag him away from the tea shop.

“It feels so great to finally find someone over here like you,” she says as they walk, “and it feels great to be able to go about like this again.”

“Yeah,” Zuko says with little emotion. “I guess it does feel nice.” And truth be told, he does think it feels a little nice. “Been a while since I was able to do something like this.”

“Oh, same for me, too. I mean I spent my entire childhood going about naked, though that's ‘cause we had basically no money, and what we did have, we needed to spend on food.”

“Oh,” was all Zuko could say as this girl spills her story to him.

“Then I got this new job, and we were able to move over here. While it’s no Middle Ring, it’s far more pleasant. And we could afford more, even more trivial stuff like clothes and other small luxuries. I now had a choice, which I thought was good, cause now I was presentable. But now I’ve been finding myself missing the days where I don’t have to worry about what to wear.” She releases him and spreads her arms out a little. “The breeze is nice, too. But as you could probably tell, I’m a bit nervous about embracing it, publicly at least. Then I met you,” she says, looking at him and realizing she’s been rambling. “You get me, right?”

After a pause, he says, “Yeah, a bit.”

“Well, with someone like you, and some rumors I’ve heard about communities down here that go naked by choice rather than be forced to due to money, I feel a little more bold, tonight.”

She then laughs, causing Zuko to let out a chuckle too. “I guess the same goes for me.”

She giggles, grabbing onto his arm again. “C’mon, then. This place won’t be open all night,” she says, dragging onto him as she starts running.

----

Indeed, this community was everything Jin heard it was. It was by far one of the nicest places in the Lower Ring (second only to the place Iroh’s White Lotus connections got him on Zuko), and the people there definitely had the choice of being clothed or going naked, and quite a fair few chose the latter.

Every child and teen were fully nude and every man and most women were at least shirtless, with most going full nude as well. People looked far healthier as well, even being able to pass as Middle Ringers.

Nice place, nice people, and open to nudity. There’s really not a better place in the city, even among the wealthier areas.

It’s here where Jin leads Zuko, gushing about how she intends on earning enough to permanently move to this area as she guides him to a restaurant. They’re given a table and are served noodles, white meatballs, and a self-serve tea pot.

They eat, Jin attempting to make small talk to a mostly uninterested Zuko, who mostly gives brief responses, often one word.

“Yes.” “No.” “I don’t know.” “Uhhh.” and the like.

So not much was said as they went through their main meal. Jin continues to prod at him to talk, and Zuko offering little to her, both from a mix of annoyance at not wanting to be and the fact that he essentially forced himself into going to this very populated area completely starkers.

Jin, after taking a sip of tea, asks, “So, how do you like the city so far?”

Zuko, in the midst of poking his last meatball, simply answers, “It’s okay.”

Intrigued, the girl takes another sip of tea as she asks, “What do you like to do for fun?”

“Nothing,” he says as a waiter, wearing only an apron, walks up to the table.

“Excuse me, sir,” he says, getting Zuko’s attention. “Would you and your girlfriend care for dessert?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Zuko shouts in an assertive tone, pounding on the table and getting the attention of everyone in the restaurant. He only realizes how all eyes are now on him as the waiter walks away. Lacing his fingers, he turns back to Jin, and is a bit taken aback at her slurping down a decent amount of noodles from her bowl.

“You have…” he says awkwardly, “quite an appetite for a girl.”

“Umm … thanks?” she says, equally as awkward. “So, Lee, where were you and your uncle living before you came here?”

“Umm…” Zuko says, attempting to come up with a story on the fly, “well, we’ve been traveling around for a long time.” There, telling the truth without giving all the details. As long as she doesn’t ask anymore, he should be fine.

“Oh. Why were you traveling so much?” she asks.

Dammit.

“We were … uh,” he says, recalling anything from his memory that could help him, “part of this traveling circus.” Surely his sister's old friend won’t mind him using her old career passion.

“Really?” Jin asks, intrigued. “What did you do? Wait, lemme guess,” she says, pausing to think for a moment. Pointing to him excitedly, she says, “You juggled!”

Annoyed, Zuko folds his arms and says, “Yeah, I juggled.”

“I always wanted to learn how to juggle,” she says, before grabbing a few objects on the table, two round bottles and a hard piece of bread, and holding them to him. “Can you show me something?”

He looks at her, awkward and worried that his lie will be more exposed than he is. But goddammit, the look on her face is enough to convince even the most jaded individual. Speaking of, Zuko takes the object and begins to toss them in the air. He attempts to catch them, but fails at each, the bread breaking atop his head and covering him with crumbs.

“I’m out of practice,” he says coldly, wiping the crumbs from his hair.

“It’s all right,” Jin says, slightly disappointed, though she does perk back up quickly. “Hey, I want to show you one of my favorite places in the city.”

Standing up, she takes his hand and begins to pull on him, in a rush to leave the restaurant. She drags him through the main square of this community, before slinking into an unoccupied and dark alleyway, enthusiasm not wavering at all as she goes.

“I'm so excited for you to see the Firelight Fountain,” she says, absolutely giddy. “The lamps make the water sparkle and reflect in the pool in the most beautiful way.”

After a bit more running, she leads him into an open space, not so much a square, but bigger than the alleyways they were just in. Within the space was a large and beautiful fountain, surrounded by a circle of posts with candles on top. While the water is running, the area is still pitch dark.

“I can’t believe it!” she says, audibly disappointed. “They aren’t lit.”

Zuko turns and looks at her, seeing the sadness in her eyes. He then looks at the fountain, and the unlit candles.

It’s risky, what he’s considering, but she’s the only one here, and even if she knew, she doesn’t seem like the reporting type, despite his earlier suspicions. But then again, to him at least, being here in his birthday suit is a major risk as well, so this is nothing by comparison.

Still, he needs to be safe, so he says, “Close your eyes, and don’t peek.”

Obliging him, Jin covers her eyes with her hands. Zuko walks up between the two nearest posts, him shutting his eyes and putting his hands together. He takes a deep breath, and opens them, thrusting his pointing and middle fingers in every direction.

Fire shoots from the fingers and lights each candle. Once finished, he briefly admires his work, before turning back to her, saying, “Okay, now you can look.”

She uncovers her eyes, seeing the fountain now fully lit, and boy did it live up to it’s rep. “Oh, wow.” she says, utterly amazed. She turns to Zuko and starts to walk towards him. “What happened? How did they light? What did you?” She pauses as she looks at Zuko, smiling at her awe.

They both turn and look at the fountain, Jin brushing her hair and smiling as she takes his hand. He turns to look at her smiling at him. They both turn to face each other, Jin deciding to go for it. She starts to lean in, lips pursed, but finds them making contact with a sudden piece of paper sliding between their faces.

“I've brought you something,” Zuko says, holding the piece of paper, to her surprise. “It’s a coupon for a free cup of tea.”

Taking it, Jin says, “Lee, this is so sweet.”

Taking a few steps back, he says, “Don’t thank me - it was my uncle’s idea. He thinks you’re our most valuable customer.”

“Your uncle is a good teacher,” she says, taking a few steps closer to him, turning his head to face her. “I have something for you too. Now it’s your turn to close your eyes.”

He obliges, and Jin seizes the moment. She leans up and kisses him full on the lips.

She starts to pull back, but Zuko returns the kiss.

They stay like that for a moment, before he pulls back and looks at her for a second, before turning and beginning to walk away.

“What’s wrong?” Jin asks, causing Zuko to stop.

“It’s complicated,” he says, back still to her. “I have to go.” He then walks off, leaving Jin alone and disappointed.

----

Iroh peers out the window of the house, watching for Zuko to return, when the boy himself walks through the front door, still naked, as the old man starts to wipe the frame with a cloth.

“How was your night, Prince Zuko?” he asks as he walks past him.

Zuko doesn’t respond, simply walking past his uncle, towards the other door. He opens and slams it shut. Iroh looks back towards the shut door with a confused look, before resuming the work.

The sound of the door opening again gets his attention, and he turns to see Zuko’s face through the crack in the door.

“It was nice,” he says before closing the door.

Iroh simply smiles at this, before resuming his work

—
The Tale of Momo
—

Above the clouds in the yellow sky stands a tree so tall it pokes out from the top, towering over them.

It’s from the clouds where a giant, six legged bison emerges, rising high and circling as he approaches the tree. He flies up underneath the foliage, where thousands of tiny fruits hang from, allowing the small lemur to climb atop his head and start to pick and eat them.

The lemur flies up to the nearest branch and starts to dig in, gorging himself on the fruits, even tossing a few down for the bison to enjoy.

That’s when the bison leats out a loud, sudden roar.

----

Crash

The sound of thunder wakes Momo up in a start. Rising up from the windowsill, the lemur leaps off and into the Earth Kingdom bag belonging to Sokka, who, like everyone else, was absent, to hide from the storm.

In fear, he pokes his head out and looks out the window, finding a piece of white fur lying on his head. He pulls it down and takes a sniff.

It’s familiar, him having flown beside its owner for months until just a few weeks ago, and whom he was just dreaming about. He lets out a chitter and looks out the window as he hears the roar in his mind again.

Outside, he sees a large oblong shadow floating across the lawn, which peeks his interest. After all, it’s been a while since he’s seen a shape like that. Wrapping the fur around his limb, he takes off out the window and after the shadow.

Landing on a tree in Team Avatar’s yard, he looks up at the source of the shadow.

To his dismay, it’s not Appa, but an ovular shaped cloud. He looks down at the fur wrapped around his front leg, a disappointed expression on his face, before noticing something else in front of him.

Just peeking out from behind another roof is a roughly bison shaped ball of white floof, with what looks like two horns jutting out from the from.

Chittering, Momo flies out of the bushes and towards the roof where the fluff is. Much to his disappointment, it’s still not Appa, but a clump of tree with white leaves and two branches poking out. He lands on one of them, where his ears drop in disappointment.

----

With nothing else to do, Momo flies through the streets of Ba Sing Se, Upper to Middle to Lower Ring and back.

After a while, he lands on an open barrel of water and begins to drink from it, wagging his tail in the process. This small action knocks a broomstick resting behind him over, the sound of it hitting the ground alerting three scavenging pygmy pumas nearby to his presence.

They growl and pounce at the lemur, who dodges their strikes and flees into a small hole in a box. The three felions surround the box and attempt to paw at it, all the while Momo sneaks out through another hole on the other side, flying away.

The pumas five chase by scampering to the rooftops, regaining lost ground quickly. Two climb onto a laundry line to cut the flying critter off, but it’s the one still on the roof that manages to smack him down, bouncing off an awning before landing on the ground.

Before they could pursue, Momo regains his footing and scampers away into a crowd of people, the pumas not following, deciding to circle the crowd.

As he runs, a man picks him up and puts a small green hat on his head, before tossing him into the middle of the circle of people, where two similarly dressed monkeys dance to an organ grinder. He stands there for a moment, before dancing his own way, which endears the crowd to him, them cheering and clapping, all the while the pumas continue stalking the lemur between legs.

The two monkeys jump atop Momo’s head, almost knocking the lemur off balance, and that’s where the puma’s strike. Momo quickly moves out of the way, causing the monkeys to fall as he flies away, pumas in pursuit.

They chase him, one leaping up to grab him. This time it’s successful, slowing the lemur down. The other two join it, and all four critters fall to the ground, the pumas pinning Momo to the ground, prepared to strike.

Suddenly, a net is shot at them, catching all four creatures. The man who shot it, animal control, approaches and cages each animal, stuffing them into his cart and begins to ride away.

Attempting to calm himself, Momo rubs the fur still wrapped to his arm against his face.

----

It’s unclear how long the cart is moving for, but when it stops, Momo looks out the grate to a simple one story building with the window directly in front of him. Inside is a man, evidently a butcher, in the midst of setting up for his next slaughters.

After a few seconds, the animal control guy walks into view and the two have a dialogue.

Momo is quickly distracted by the three pumas growling and scratching at their cage.

Not wanting to meet the business end of the butcher's knife, Momo simply removes the peg holding his cage shut, pushing the door open to make his escape. However, seeing the pygmy pumas' sad look at him, causes him to stop and feel sympathy. He leaps back into the cart and removes their peg as well, freeing them, and all four flee to the rooftops.

On the roof, Momo and the pumas watch the clouds, having made peace. In a sudden motion, however, one of them rips the bunch of fur wrapped around Momo’s arm, before taking off. Momo and the other pumas follow, the former chittering loudly.

The Lemur is led through the streets of Ba Sing Se for quite a while. When the pumas stop, the one with the fur drops it into a strangely shaped hole before all three run off, leaving Momo alone.

He walks up to the clump of fur, grabs it, and lays down in the hole…

Or should I say, massive bison footprint?

—

There you have it, the tales of Ba Sing Se.

But before I let you go, since we saw how our heroes were fairing during their time in Ba Sing Se, we should do a little catchup with our villains.

So lets rewind a few days…

Rewind…

Rewind…

Rewind…

Rewind…

Rewind…

In the days following the destruction of the drill, the surviving Fire Nation forces retreated to the river to regroup and reorganize.

It’s also the spot where, for three of the higher ups, to cleanse themselves of the filth they’ve built up in the midst of the battle where the drill fell.

“Ugh!” Mai says, squeezing clumps of sludge out of her black hair as she sits naked beside the river. “This is never gonna come off!”

“It’s not too bad,” Ty Lee says after rising from a bit deeper in the water, also naked, before turning and beginning to walk towards her. “Beside,” she says enthusiastically, “now you get to be naked full time like me and Azula.”

Mai shoots a glare at her friend as the last bits of greenish brown are squished from her hair. “Great,” she says coldly and through gritted teeth.

“I know!” she shouts as she rushes into a hug, knocking both into the water.

Mai pushes her off and rises to her feet, staring daggers at her. “You’re lucky I’m not wearing my holsters. If I’d have lost any of my knives I swear to-”

“Ladies,” the authoritative voice of Azula calls, getting both girls' attention. They turn and see her standing on the shore, hands on her hips in all her naked glory. “Slow down with the bickering. I have some news for you.”

“We’ve taken the city without the drill?” Ty Lee asks excitedly.

“We get to go home,” Mai says dryly.

Azula just laughs.

“No,” she says, signaling for the two to get closer, which they oblige.

Once the three naked girls are shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, Azula says with a devilish smirk, “I have a new plan, this time involving just the three of us.”

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 15
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

“No!” a short, light skinned, black haired naked girl says as she holds up the top tower of a massive library poking out of the sand. “Stop sinking!”

Several yards behind her, a group of men in tight wrappings covering most of their bodies are in the midst of tying down a massive bison with ropes, the creature growling loudly as he fights off the ropes being thrown around his head. He pulls his head upwards and, with his superior strength, sends the man flying over him. Two more let go of their ropes to dodge his tail swing as the bison gets more annoyed and afraid, pulling harder against them.

“Don’t make me put this down!” the struggling girl shouts, before letting go and sending a sand slice towards the men. It misses completely, and before the girl could send any more, she slams her hands into the rapidly sinking tower's wall, stopping it again.”

“Put a muzzle on him!” one of the people, a younger man, shouts as another throws a rope around the bison's mouth, but he breaks it with his strength immediately. Another throws a rope around his horn as he sends the muzzle man flying.

He attempts to take off in flight, but another throws a rope around his leg,using his sandbending to secure his feet to the ground, as he holds him in place. The others follow suit, and with some effort, get the bison to the ground.

With the bison down and relatively secure, the men tie the free ends of their ropes to their vehicles, essentially boats that sail on the sand. So these people tie the bison to their sand sailers, and with their bending, begin to sail away, dragging him with them.

Hearing this, but unable to help, the girl holding the tower looks down to the ground in deep regret. “I’m sorry, Appa,” she says, before sniffling and closing her eyes.

Likewise, as he’s being dragged away, the bison, Appa, shuts his eyes as well.

----

Appa is dragged for quite a while under the hot sun, grinding against the hot sand and the occasional rock.

After a while, one of the sandbenders, the young man leading this group, pulls down his mask and signals the group to stop, which they do immediately.

After the dust cloud kicked up from them stopping clears, the man points at the bison and says, “Ransack his saddle. Who knows what treasures are stashed in there!” Two men charge towards Appa, but stop in their tracks when he growls. “He’s tied up good,” the leader says, “He can’t hurt you.”

At ease, the two men jump up onto the bison's saddle and begin to search its pockets. These motions kick up some sand, which gets into Appa’s nose, causing him to sneeze. The force of that sneeze sends a blast of air that shoots one of the gliders away, crashing into a dune.

As the two search, the leader and another sandbender converse on the ground.

“What’s your father gonna do when he finds out we lost a sand-sailer?”

“Nothing,” the leader says. “It’s the one we stole from the Hami Tribe.” He then turns up to the two men digging through the saddle. “Did you empty the saddle?”

Turns out they did, and it’s fairly unimpressive. Food and water, sleeping bags, a couple of ponchos, a parasol, some blue boy’s clothes that clearly haven’t been worn in months, a spare club, and a few other baubles, most tossed onto the sand for the moment.

“That’s it?” the leader asks, audibly disappointed. “Nothing but garbage!”

“Doesn’t matter,” one of the men on the saddle says as he dismounts back onto the sand, kicking a box as he goes. “We’ll still make a profit from selling him to those beetle-headed merchants.”

The men search through the stuff for anything, finding nothing of real use, though a few do reload the stuff back onto the saddle from the sand, before they take off again.

This trip is comparatively shorter, since the merchant camp they were going to was fairly close to their stopping point.

They drive right in between the three tents, three men standing beside as they watch this giant creature be dragged to them. Upon the sailors stopping, the three begin to circle the bison's head, examining him.

One of them turns to the leader and asks, “How’s his temper?”

“Uh, pretty good,” he says, just as the bison lets out a loud roar, startling the other two merchants. “Most of the time.”

Impressed, another merchant says, “I bet someone will pay a fortune for him in Ba Sing Se.”

The first merchant turns back to the leader and says, “All right, you have a deal.”

So as the leader is handed a chest containing his payment, the ropes constricting Appa are taken off the sailors and tied to the back of the saddle of a large beetle, who then starts to drag the bison onto a ribbed caged sled that wraps around him.

--

High in the air with the wind guiding his glider, the naked bald boy searches in determination for his stolen friend. He scans and scans the terrain with no luck. He couldn’t see him.

If he couldn’t see him, maybe he could hear him?

Thinking that, Aang pulls up the bison whistle and blows into it, hoping he gets some sort of response

--

Appa’s eyes widen upon hearing the distant sound of the bison whistle that his friend has, and he starts to rock in his sled.

As he and the other sandbenders sail away, the leader shouts to them, “He’s your problem now!” with a hearty laugh.

“What?”the merchant says, before they all turn around to see the commotion behind them.

Appa manages to snap the rope around his tail, and with it he takes off, sled and all, dragging the beatle up as he attempts to make a getaway.

“We need the shirshu spit darts!” one of the merchants shouts urgently.

“Got ‘em!” the other merchant says, pulling them from his robes. “Okay big fella, you’re gonna take a nice little snoozie.”

He then blows three darts into Appa’s foot, causing him to collapse immediately.

--

“Appa!” Aang shouts as he turns the glider down towards a relatively higher dune. As he lands on top of it, he repeats, “Appa!”

He scans the area, making a full turn as he fruitlessly searches for his friend.

Nothing. He sees nothing but the sand and dead plants.

“No…” Aang says, realizing that it’s basically impossible to find Appa out here, and how he’s probably very far gone. Tears begin to form as he shuts his eyes, sadness festering into anger.

“No!”

Overcome with rage, he slams his staff into the ground, kicking a massive amount of sand and dust into the air.

--

Far away, Appa could see a mushroom cloud of sand and dust form atop a dune, to which he lets out a sigh.

“We’ve gotta get rid of this one,” the first merchant says to his colleague. “He’s too much trouble.”

“We could set it for parts,” the other one suggests, to which the first nods.

It’s here where Appa’s vision fades fully, the shirshu venom overcoming him.

----

Sigh

“I understand,” a male voice says as Appa comes too, finding himself within a large cage, a man in a bright red and yellow outfit standing in front of him, “you've had a rather hard time lately. That's too bad. You probably felt you had no choice but to behave outrageously, like a wild animal.” The man then approaches the cage and starts to pat the bison on the head. “But don't worry. You won't anymore.” An evil grin forms on his face. “Because I am going to break you.”

Then the man, evidently a kind of trainer, walks out of the room, no, tent, leaving Appa alone in his cave along with the other large caged animals.

He’s gone for a few minutes, and when he returns, he’s rolling in a cart of cabbages, getting all the critters' attention. He walks up to a cage holding a platypus bear and feeds one to it. He then passes appa, not giving him anything as the bison attempts to bite off his leg chains to no success.

As he feeds another cabbage to the lion vulture, he turns back to Appa, smirk still on his face. “Hungry?” he asks tauntingly. Walking up to the bison, he continues, “Don't worry, I'm going to feed you too.” He holds a cabbage right up to the cage by his mouth. “But not yet,” he says, taking it away from Appa as he attempts to slurp it up, “First, I'm going to show you how you'll earn it.”

He tosses the cabbage to the lion vulture and opens the cage holding it. The creature flies out and begins to circle around the interior of the tent, the trainer generating a whip of flame, so he could control it as it does its tricks.

Appa pays no attention to this, instead eyeing the cart of cabbages. Using air suction, he pulls the cart closer to the cage, before he begins to eat the cabbages one at a time. So as the trainer makes the lion vulture go through two hopes, breaking the third and tossing it at the man, Appa gorges himself while the man has his back turned.

“Of course,” the trainer says, “when you perform, the hoops will be flaming. And if you are careful, you won't get burned.” Then Appa lets out a loud belch, causing the man to turn around. Seeing the cart way closer to the cage and significantly lower on cabbages than he remembers, he becomes enraged. “You're about to be sorry,” he says, whipping the fire whip the ground in front of Appa’s cage, igniting it on fire and causing him to panic and back away. “It's obvious that whoever your previous owner was, he had no idea how to handle you properly.”

----

Night falls over the tent, and the small Fire Nation colony it’s set up beside. A far cry from the circus’s usual customer base, but with the recent loss of a fairly popular performer, they need to make do with what they could get. Significantly poorer, and further away from the more “civilized” main islands of the Fire Nation, these people are fairly disconnected from the culture and propaganda of their western counterparts. Probably explains why many, especially among the children, seem to go naked.

One such child, a young boy, whose eyes are caught by an open flap of the tent as he walks by. Approaching, he peers into the tent, seeing the caged bison looking miserable as he attempts to blow a bale of hay towards him, to no success. The kid looks on with sympathy, when the bison turns to him, licking the bar of his cage.

As the boy smiles back, a larger man walks up behind him. “I'm gonna to go get a bag of sizzle crisps,” the man, evidently the boy's father, says to him, before pointing to the ground. “Stay here,” he says as he then points into the tent, “and stay away from that monster. Behave yourself or you'll regret it,” he finishes, causing the boy to flinch slightly.

The second his father is out of sight, the naked boy rushes into the tent and pushes the hay bale towards the bison's cage. Appa then gives the boy’s face an appreciative lick, before beginning to dig into the hay. He starts to laugh, but the sound of a conversation causes him to spring back out of the tent.

“This had better work!” an old man in red robes shouts as he and the trainer enter the area. “If this thing doesn’t impress the crowd tonight, so help me I’ll!”

“Calm down Shuzumu,” the trainer tells the man, evidently in charge of the circus.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Shuzumu shouts back. “We used to perform for royalty, only the highest classes had the pleasure of seeing our performers. But ever since our finest acrobat was stolen from us, we’ve been performing for country bumpkins, who let their children run around like wild animals! And we don’t even have the luxury of being able to force them to clothe up like we used to!”

“I know, but-”

“So can this thing perform and will it be enough to give us our status back?!”

“I’m sure it can,” the trainer says, quivering slightly, “there’s just one problem.”

“What problem?” Shuzumu asks, crossing his arms.

“ He's a difficult creature, stubborn and willful. I need more time with him. It's too risky right now.”

“Too risky?” the old man says before raising his arms. “What are you talking about? This is the circus, home of fear and danger.” He then points to Appa as he says, “I want the wind buffalo to perform tonight.”

He walks off, leaving the trainer alone. He turns to the bison and says, “If you don’t behave yourself, you’ll regret it.” He then firebends a whip in front of Appa, causing him to reel back in fear.

Still watching this is the boy, peering into the tent, giving a reassuring smile.

Behind him, the father grabs his shoulder, pulls on him, and says, “Let’s go.”

Waving at the bison, the boy says, “See you later, buddy.”

Appa, thoroughly exhausted and sad, just lays his head down on the cage floor and sighs.

----

The circus tent was full and it was time for the show to begin.

Women spin three plates on sticks on each hand. Five men form a complicated human pyramid. Platypus bears balancing on balls. The works.

The crowd loves this display, most giving the performers a round of applause. Among the audience members, right up in front, is a naked boy looking like he doesn’t really want to be there, not helped by the fact that his father’s keeping the sizzle crisps away from him.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Shuzumu announces to the crowd, silencing them, “now for something truly special.” Smile on his face, he generates two small flames in his hands as he hypes it up. “A noble beast, so magnificent and rare, it hasn't been seen by human eyes in generations. I give you ... the wind buffalo!”

He gestures to a curtain as it falls, revealing Appa, fully dressed in costume and makeup, his ridiculous look causing the audience to laugh, with the exception of the boy who gave him hay, who looks on in concern. Of course he should, because (even if he doesn’t know it) if the bison's friend is not a fan of wearing clothes, why would the bison?

As Appa walks to the center of the ring, the trainer walks up in front of him.

“Up,” he orders, to which the bison shakes his head, and instead does a full three sixty turn, causing the audience to laugh and the trainer to get enraged. “Up, you insolent cow!” he shouts, generating a fire whip and begins to whip him, causing him to roar and back up.

Standing up, the boy shouts, “Runaway! Get away from him!” only to get pulled down by his annoyed father.

The whip forces Appa into the air, getting a round of applause from the audience, with one man saying, “Fabulous!”

He flies through one flaming ring, much to the boy's dismay, but when he flies through the second one, it catches the costume on fire. Panicking, Appa turns and smacks the third ring with his tail, extinguishing it, knocking it off the post, and sending it to the ground, smacking into the trainer's head and knocking him down.

Appa lands and looks around at the laughing crowd, before eyeing the naked boy again, now seeing another, similar but much more familiar naked boy in his memory, though with less hair and more blue lines. Shaking, he knocks the stupid hat of his stupid costume off.

“Go,” the boy shouts, “you can do it!”

Appa takes off again, but is halted by a fireblast shot past him.

“Get back here,” the trainer shouts as he generates another fire whip, “you stupid beast!”

He makes an advance towards the bison, but Appa simply whirls his tail and sends the man flying out the tent and far away.

Appa follows suit, flying right out of the tent, the rest of the costume falling off as he rushes away from this circus.

The boy looks up at the bison flying away from the tent, from his enslavement, with a smile on his face.

Appa charges away from the town the circus, flying back into the heart of the desert in search of his friends.

After a while of searching, the exhausted bison comes upon a massive crater in the sand that definitely wasn’t there before. He knew this because he recognized a bunch of features in the nearby landscape, although a few seem to be partially or majorly destroyed by the formation of this crater.

Still, it’s hard to forget the spot where you were kidnapped, or in this case, bisonnapped.

No sign of the library, and no sign of his friends.

Desperately, he begins to dig into the sand with his still chained feet. However, he’s just too exhausted, and collapses to the ground in no time, quickly succumbing to sleep.

----

Morning came, and so did Appa’s hunger. Apparently, those cabbages didn’t do much to fill him. So he took off in search for food.

He flies over the desert, with the expected results, only causing his stomach to grumble more intensely.

After a while, he spots a blot of purple in the yellow sand. Flying towards it, he sees that it’s a decently sized egg. He opens his mouth and tries to eat it, but a gilacorn runs up and snatches it before he could.

The critter runs out of sight before Appa could pursue, so he has to find something else to eat. With no options, he flies up to a cactus and eats it. While there's a possibility that the cactus tasted good, the prickles stabbing into his mouth causes him to spit it out.

Dejected, Appa flies away from this area. After a little while longer, the weary bison finds a large formation atop a massive rock. He flies up and towards it, seeming to be some sort of nest, and heads into one of the entrances to eat.

He’s only there for a few seconds, before being chased out by massive buzzard wasps, his underside covered in a yellow substance. He flies far from the mound, but the insects continue to follow him. Desperate, he swings his tail back at them, the resulting slice of air knocking them all down to the ground. After a moment, they all get back up and scatter away as Appa continues to make his escape.

After a bit, he lands on the ground, panting as he attempts to lick the gross, yellow substance off of his paw, but stops quickly, completely exhausted and in need of a rest.

----

The sun’s close to setting when Appa decided to rise up and resume flying for any sort of sustenance.

He flies out of the desert and into a grassland as the sky goes dark, and he finds a decently sized barn house, one large enough to fit a bison of his size. He promptly flies towards it, where he drinks from the trough and gorges himself on the hay inside. Sated, the bison lies down inside the barn and shuts his eyes.

–

It was a beautiful day over the Eastern Air Temple. No clouds, nice bright sun, and a nice breeze flows through the mountain top temple , cooling the hot summer air.

The airbenders meditate, train themselves or their young, tend to the bisons, and converse among each other. The flying bison, both adult and child, fly around the temple’s intricate architecture, or the youths playing with their mothers.

It’s this day where something important to airbender culture happens.

In a courtyard, a nude woman with blue tattoos lining her limbs and spine who, despite her age, looks to be in her mid forties holds a large bowl of apples to five equally nude youths, saying, “Choose well. A sky bison is a companion for life.”

Behind her, a fully grown mother bison and her five children land on the platform. She tosses one of the apples towards the mother as the children walk up to the circle of five children. Each of the young airbenders approach the bison, each taking their time deciding which of them to bond with.

Not one, a boy with big ears, a big head, and a big smile. He walks up to and holds up his apple towards the bison, offering it to him. The bison walks up and sniffs the fruit, and accepts it when the boy hands it to him. The naked boy then hugs the bison, and he returns the gesture by knocking him down and giving his face a few licks.

Laughing, the boy says, “I guess this means we’ll always be together.”

–

Also dreaming about this over a century later is the boy, who’s unintentionally mimicking the gesture he made all those years ago.

Lying back down on his sleeping bag, he says a single word, “Always.”

----

“Ahhh!” a male voice shouts, waking Appa up in a start.

The first thing he sees is a man pointing a pitchfork at him, obviously very frightened.

“It’s some kind of monster!” he shouts as Appa rises up.

The farmer backs away in fear as his wife enters, a lit torch in hand. She holds it up towards him, the flames scaring Appa and causing him to back up, rising on his hind legs.

This only scares the two more, and they run away screaming as Appa rises up in flight. Breaking through the roof of the barn, he flies away from the farm, as the farmers watch him fly away.

He flies further and further away from the farm, eventually reaching water. Then he flies alongside a thin, mountainous strip of land, unaware of any ships that could catch a glimpse of him.

Speaking of which, on a small ferry traveling across the river towards Ba Sing Se, an old, fat, bearded man looks overboard the vessel at the night sky.

Then he sees the bison flies above, fully within his view, and he lets out a gasp. Not out of shock, but of familiarity.

Sitting up from the deck floor is a teenaged boy with messy black hair and a burn scar around his left eye. “Uncle?” he asks drowsily as he looks at the old man. “What are you looking at? Is there something out there?”

Slightly nervously, the uncle not wanting his nephew to know about him spotting the bison, he says, “Uh, it’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

Too tired to pry and satisfied with that answer, the scarred boy lies back down and goes back to sleep,

Seeing this, the uncle lets out a sigh.

----

After a fair bit of flying, Appa finds himself above a forest, rapidly descending into it. He attempts to land, but he’s just so tired and hungry, it’s more of a crash landing.

Unphased, he just starts to eat the grass around his face for a few moments, before the approaching sound of squealing causes him to rise.

Turning, he sees that he’s landed by an open cave, where a boar-q-pine is charging at him.

He roars at the creature to scare it off, but it just charges into him, knocking the two off the edge of what Appa now knows is a small forested cliff. They roll down the side until they land on a clearing.

They both slowly rise up, Appa’s fur pricked by several quills. They face each other off and roar at each other. And despite the fact that Appa is both bigger and with a louder roar, the boar-q-pine doesn’t back down, the two circling each other.

The boar charges, and Appa is knocked back into a tree, knocking it over. The bison sees this and grabs the trunk with his mouth. He throws it at the boar, who leaps over it as it charges.

Appa stands on his hind legs and grabs the charging boar. He slams it on the ground before tossing it away, sending it sliding along the ground for quite a distance.

Appa remains standing as the beast rises back up, ready to continue the fight. However, the beast just squeals and runs away.

Now safe, he grabs one of the quills in his fur with his jaw, pulling it out.

Letting out a loud roar of pain, he flies back up the small cliff towards the cave the boar came from. He flies in it and lays down, almost immediately falling asleep.

----

It’s morning, a while later, a fair distance away where a bunch of girls pick red berries from the bushes.

What’s unusual about these girls is how they’re dressed, or should I say lack of dress.

They sport brown and white gloves with brown bracers and boots, but that’s the closest to normal when it comes to their “outfits”. They all wear chainmail tops with nothing underneath. A wide brown cloth serves as a belt, holding up two green cloths that go down to their thighs on the outer sides of their legs. Connecting them is more chainmail, likewise with nothing underneath, and the cloths are positioned in a way that leaves both the crotch and butt completely visible from behind the chains. They all sport golden headdresses with tassels, and have their faces painted pure white with deeb black eye shadow, bright red lips, and red lines coming from the tops of their eyes and heading out to the hairline.

These are the Kyoshi Warriors, basing their “outfits” and fighting style on the Avatar of the same name.

So the Kyoshi Warriors pick the red fruits that are plentiful in this area, when one notices something on the bush she’s by.

A clump of white fur.

Picking it up, she says, “Must have been some fight.”

“Wait,” another warrior, evidently their leader, says as she rushes up beside her, “let me see that.” The other warrior hands her the fur, which the leader recognized immediately. “No, it couldn’t be,” she says before moving around the bush, seeing a trail of knocked over trees, crushed bushes, and patches of white fur everywhere, forming a trail.

She runs in the direction the trail leads, cautiously as the terrain is rough, all the while she continuously checks the fur to be sure. After a bit, she begins to climb up a small cliff. Reaching the top, she sees the small cave, and the massive bison laying inside.

“Appa?” she says as she clambers onto the top, seeing him in what looks like distress. “Oh, no.”

She begins to walk towards the cave, causing Appa to back up in fear. Seeing this, as well as the shackles and quills, she stops just at the mouth of the cave and kneels down. Laying down several berries and even an apple, she says “It’s gonna be okay, Appa.” She then rises up and begins to back away. “I have to leave, but I’m gonna be back soon with help.”

She turns and walks back down the cliff. With her gone, Appa walks back out of the cave and looks down at the fruit curiously, his first food in a while he didn’t have to fight for.

As it turns out, the girl really meant she’d be back soon. In a matter of minutes, she and five other Kyoshi Warriors stand at the base of the cliff, her already hanging onto the side.

As they climb, the leader says, “No sudden movements. He's been lost for a while and he looks like he's hurt. He's shy around people and scared. Stay low and stay quiet. He doesn't seem to mind chainmail, but you should still try to keep it quiet.”

“I can’t believe you found the Avatar’s bison,” one of the warriors says. “Didn’t you just see the Avatar a few days ago?”

“Yes,” the leader answers, “so he can't be too far from here.” She then starts to climb the cliff again, gesturing for the others to do the same as she says, “It's our responsibility to get Appa back to him safely. This could be our most important mission yet.” The girls follow her, all peering over the top of the cliff at Appa. Seeing more unfamiliar people, the bison growls and shakes his head at them. “Give him some space!” she says, the others stepping back as she slowly walks up to him. “Appa, it's me, Suki. I'm a friend,” she says as Appa growls at her. Undeterred, Suki approaches him and says, “I want to help you. You're hurt. We can help you feel better.” He growls again. “And we can help you find Aang.”

This gets the bison's attention, He growls again, much more softly, as Suki places her hand on his nose and kneels in front of him, causing him to let his guard down enough to lie down.

----

To say the next half hour was a relief for Appa would be an understatement.

He was being fed, those damn shackles were finally off, all the quills were removed, and most importantly, he wasn’t alone anymore.

All this is thanks for the simultaneously armored and nude Kyoshi Warriors, and he was appreciative, even giving the one closest to his head a lick of gratitude for this brief relief.

But of course it wouldn’t last.

Appa hears the footsteps first, then Suki, and they all move out of the way as the massive bolt of lightning strikes the tree behind them, knocking it down and blocking the path.

Emerging from the brush were three mongoose lizards, where a girl sat on each of them. The one on the right is a girl with a round face, gray eyes, and a long brown braid going down her back. She’s also completely naked. The girl on the left has almost pitch black hair, mostly tied up in the back with hair buns either side of her head and chest, long strands going over her shoulders, as well as an emotionless face. She’s also naked, but sporting pointed dark red boots, shin and forearm bracers with stilettos holsters around it, as well as a brown waist belt with two holsters, similar to the Kyoshi Warriors in terms of style and frontal/rear coverage, where several knives are sheathed. In the middle and leading is a girl with dark hair mostly tied up in a topknot with a golden fire crown stabbed into it, though she does have bangs on either side of her face. She’s also sporting crimson eyes, a smug look, steel soled sandals, and a clump of white fur in her hand.

“My, my, you’re easy to find,” Azula says to the bison. “It’s really astounding my brother hasn’t captured you yet.”

The Kyoshi Warriors stand in front of Appa to protect him, withdrawing small metallic devices that quickly unfold into a circular shield.

“What do you want with us?” Suki asks, no, demands.

“Who are you?” Azula asks, amused. “The Avatar’s fan girls?”

…

Ty Lee’s eyes widened after figuring it out. “Oh, I get it. Good one, Azula

“If you’re looking for the Avatar,” Suki says, not backing down, “you’re out of luck.”

Mai lets out a loud sigh. “I knew this was a waste of time.”

“No Avatar, huh,” Azula says, undeterred. “Well, that's okay. Any friend of the Avatar,” she jumps off the lizard's back, fist engulfed in flames, “is an enemy of mine!”

She shoots a fire blast at the bison, but the warriors rush together, connecting their shields to block the flame. Mai and Ty Lee leap off their lizards, the former engaging two warriors.

She throws three shurikens at one warrior, the blades sticking between the chainmail and pinning her to a tree.

“Huh?” she says as she takes in the weapons sticking her armor to the tree.

“You’re so colorful,” Mai says dryly, “it’s making me nauseous.” She swings her arm, sending several darts at the other warrior, who draws her sword to block them.

That warrior then charges Ty Lee, who dodges each swipe with her airbender esque acrobatics. She circles the girl, before prodding her fingers in several key spaces between the warriors armor. This immobilizes her, and she calls to the ground, still as a statue.

“You’re not prettier than we are,” Ty Lee says smugly as the girl falls.

Meanwhile, Suki continues to defend Appa from Azula’s blasts with her shield. Each blast of blue flame is deflected across the smooth metal fan shield, one of them lighting the fallen tree behind the bison up, frightening him.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Azula. “Afraid of fire, I see,” she says, evil grin forming on her face. “That’s good. You should be.”

Unsheathing her sword, Suki tells the bison, “Go, Appa! Fly away from here!”

Appa begins to take off as Suki charges at Azula, ready to end this. The princess simply leaps up above the blade and, as if in slow motion, smacks the girl's arm, freeing the sword from her grasp and embedding it into a nearby tree. Feet back on the ground, Azula begins to shoot at her again, only for Suki to continue to block the blasts.

Suki attempts to deliver a powerful kick to the attacker, but she strikes first, knocking the warrior to the ground. Appa catches this and begins to turn back to help.

Seeing this, Azula prepares another fire blast to knock him right out of the sky. However, she hears the sound of something flying up behind her, and ducks out of the way of the thrown fan. She sends a slice of fire towards the Kyoshi Warrior, before charging after her.

Seeing an opportunity, Suki rises up and grabs a flaming branch. She runs up to the approaching Appa and begins to swing it, shouting, “Get out of here! You have to find Aang! We'll be okay!”

Scared by the flames and Suki’s word, Appa does just that, and flies high into the sky.

Suki looks up at this, relieved, accidentally letting her guard down for a sec. She barely rises her shield back up to block the blue flame coming at her side. She takes several steps back before pulling out and unfolding her golden fan.

Azula just looks calm yet smug at this. “Don’t you know fans just make flames stronger?”

The two charge, Azula firing fire blasts, and Suki deflecting them as they clash

----

Appa flew far away, first over the treetops, then over a river with a flock of birds, then through the rain above the ocean, where he’s noticed by a group of Water Tribe boats.

One particular man, one with tanned skin, chin length brown hair, blue eyes, and a small, pointy beard, watches the bison with great interest.

He had, of course, heard of the Avatar’s return, and with it the flying bison. He also heard of the Avatar’s various travels and shenanigans, as well as who he’s been traveling with, including his two children, one of whom hasn't been wearing a stitch of clothing in months.

So as he looks up at this bison, he does so intently.

Regardless, Appa continues his flight over the sea, until he reaches a mountainous island. Continuing his flight above the clouds, he eventually finds it. Atop several mountain ranges, connected by bridges.

The Eastern Air Temple.

He flies up and lands onto one of the empty courtyards, before walking into a hall with a big enough door to fit him. As he walks, he has flashbacks to his time as a calf in this temple over a century ago, running with his siblings, then gnawing on a circular railing.

Out of habit, Appa does the same to the same railing, bow rusty from a century of abandon. He immediately stops and coughs out the dust as he continues walking.

He crosses a bridge into another building in the temple, where he sees a figure meditating on a balcony.

Overjoyed, Appa runs up to him, startling him as he knocks him down and licks his face. Then he looks down and opens his eyes, seeing this isn’t Aang.

He’s bald and completely naked, that for sure he has in common with the boy, but he lacks the tattoos, has darker skin, and rather than being mostly hairless sans eyebrows and lashes, this man sports a big, bushy, white beard.

Needless to say, he’s also surprised. “Hello,” he says, blinking in confusion. “I am Guru Pathik.” Overcoming his temporary shock, Appa leaps far back to the wall of the balcony and growls at the man, Pathik. The man raises his head up as he continues. “I know I'm not the person you expected. And I didn't expect to be licked by a giant tongue just now. The world is full of surprises.”

Appa growls again, to which Guru Pathik lays back down and shuts his eyes.

After a while, he raises his head and opens his eyes, causing Appa to growl at him again. Seeing this, the Guru lays back down and shuts his eyes again.

After a while, he raises his head and opens his eyes again, and this time, Appa just snorts at him. Seeing this, the Guru lays back down and shuts his eyes again.

This routine continues into the night, and when he raises his head and open his eyes, the naked man sees Appa fast asleep on his side.

Pathik stands up and approaches the bison, placing his hand on his stomach.

“Oh, dear,” he says, surprised at what he feels. “You've been through so much recently. Hurt and betrayed. So twisted up inside.” The Guru moves his hand. “You're still full of love. Ah. But fear has moved in where trust should be. I've been expecting you and the young Avatar for quite a long time. I had a vision many years ago of helping him. That's why I came to the Eastern Air Temple. Oh, your emotions are so turbulent. Like swirling storm clouds.” He takes his hand off Appas stomach and places it on his forehead. “Let the clouds in your mind be gentle, peaceful ones.”

Appa starts purring as he fully fades into the darkness of slumber.

----

When he awakes, Appa is still on edge, looking around in hostility, before noticing some fruit piled on the ground in front of him. Eating them, he then notices a trail of the food, which he starts to follow.

Eating the fruit and not caring where he’s going, Appa eventually finds himself atop a raised platform, where Guru Pathik feeds a few birds and squirrels.

“Someone looks very well rested,” he says, noticing the side of Appa’s head where the fur is messed up, “judging by your bed head.”

Growling, Appa shakes his head of the messy fur.

Still, he remains at the temple until nightfall, where the now well fed Appa goes to look for the man. Tracing back up, he finds him in the same spot he was the previous night, meditating. He walks up behind him, pacing around him twice, before collapsing to the ground.

Hearing this, Pathik opens his eyes and gives the bison's side a pat, scroll in hand.

“I have prepared a message for Aang. May I attach it to your horn?” he asks, to which Appa mutters in agreement. The Guru ties the scroll to Appa’s horn as the leaves fall around them. “You and the Avatar's energies are mixed. You have an unbreakable bond. By reading your energy, I can sense where Aang is.” Appa then licks him, causing the man to laugh. “Funny, what invisible strings connect us all.” Pathuk places his hand on his forehead, and in that moment, as he feels the bison's energy, they both see exactly where Aang is. “ I'll see you again, great beast,” he says as Appa takes off.

----

It’s still night when Appa flies over the walls of Ba Sing Se, and despite the time, his entrance does not go unnoticed.

Laying stealthily atop a roof, two Dai Li agents observe the Avatar’s bison flying into the city, before descending down the wall, needing to get the word out.

Not noticing this, Appa flies over the Lower Ring city in search of his friends, when his eyes widen.

He hears it, the bison whistle, meaning Aang is trying to summon him. He descends, passing a roof where three pygmy pumas stand, observing this strange creature.

Appa lands on the ground and begins to search for Aang.

But that whistle isn’t from Aang, as that naked bald boy is fast asleep, the whistle laying right beside the boy's butt and is clearly not being used.

Who is blowing a high-pitched whistle is Long Feng, the dark haired leader of the Dai Li, who emerges from the shadows in front of Appa.

He growls at the man, taking a harsh step back, leaving his footprint into the mud as he backs away in fear.

With a single motion, Long Feng flips the earth walkway around, sending Appa underground to fates unknown.

As the dust clears, the only sign of the bison is his footprint in the mud, where a certain lemur would find it days later.

Having witnessed all of this, the pygmy panthers simply slink away into the darkness.

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 16
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

The sun was high over Ba Sing Se, and that meant most people were getting to work.

That certainly rings true in one fairly small house in the Upper Ring.

Laying on his stomach on the floor, surrounded by drawings of, how do we say, “unique” interpretations of a flying bison, is a boy, in the midst of sketching another picture. He has tan skin, blue eyes, and brown hair tied up in a warrior wolf ponytail. He’s sporting a pair of brown knee-high boots, navy blue gloves with white elbow high bandaging, a white stone necklace, a holster for his boomerang and a sheath for his club/machete. Other than that, this “artist” boy is naked.

Sitting on her back a bit beside him with her hands behind her head and legs crossed is a girl, also naked with the exception of green wrist and shin bands, and a green and gold headband, holding her black hair into a large bun, with some bangs covering her face. She also has lighter skin and a shorter frame. Her most defining features are her eyes, and what should be light green eyes have a milky look to them. She just lays there and does nothing as the naked boy continues his drawing, all the while a lemur sits down by her feet, looking up at her.

As he draws, the front door opens, and two more lightly dressed youths, first a boy and then a girl, rush into the house and towards the two laying on the floor.

The boy is light skinned, has a round face, gray eyes, and a big head and ears. His back and limbs are adorned by light blue tattoos, ending in arrows at his feet, hands, and forehead. All of these tattoos are on display, since this kid is completely naked.

The girl is dark skinned like the drawing boy, and like him has blue eyes and brown hair, hers tied in a braid down the back and in loops at her sides. She’s wearing brown fur boots, navy leather bracers, a short light-yellow skirt with green lining, and aside from an ornate and sentimental necklace, is naked from the waist up.

Both look incredibly cheerful as they rush up, the girl saying, “We found a printer to make our posters!” She then unrolls a nicely made missing poster of their flying bison, Appa, complete with a well-drawn portrait.

“Hey,” the tan boy, Sokka, shouts in annoyance, “I thought designing the lost Appa poster was my job. I’ve been working all day on my Appa!”

He then grabs and proudly shows the two his drawing of the bison, it being an above view shot of what looks like a giant peanut with spider legs and an arrow on the top.

As the tan girl, Katara, attempts to hold back her laughter, the bald boy, Aang, just looks dismayed as he points out the obvious flaws in this drawing.

“Sokka, the arrow is on Appa’s head.”

“This is his head,” the dismayed Sokka says, pointing at his drawing.

Taking the picture, Katara looks at it, and is a bit confused. “Why are feet coming out of it?” she asks.

“Those are his horns,” he says, snatching the drawing back, before hanging his head. “I haven’t seen him in a while, okay?”

“It looks just like him to me!” the other girl, Toph, says in a mocking tone.

Not catching it, Sokka turns to her and says, “Thank you, I worked really-” He pauses, remembering the fact that, not only did the girl not look his way once while drawing, but even if she did, she couldn’t see the drawing thanks to her being blind. “Why do you feel the need to do that?” he asks.

“Let’s just stick with the professional version,” Katara says as Sokka tears the drawing into shreds, before turning back and looking up at her.

Getting excited, Aang says, “Come on, let’s get busy!” Holding up some pamphlets he turns and begins to head for the door. “C’mon, Momo!’ he shouts, to which the lemur runs up and hops onto his shoulder as he charges out the door, leaving the others in his wake.

The second they’re out the door, the naked boy and the lemur take flight, him opening up his glider and bending himself up.

Once in the air, the two begin air dropping the pamphlets all over the city. Upper, Middle, and Lower Ring, all over the place without a care in the world.

----

Within one of the nicer areas of the Lower Ring is a simple tea shop that’s slowly been gaining prominence over these past few weeks.

A big reason for that is the older, larger man with gray hair and beard who’s in the midst of serving two wealthy looking men tea. Evidently, they like it quite a lot, and as the old an turns and begins walking away, the two rise.

“So, you're the genius behind this incredible brew,” one of the men, with a neatly trimmed beard, says, causing the old man to turn back to him. “The whole city is buzzing about you! I hope Pao pays you well.”

“Good tea is its own reward,” the old man says humbly.

“But it doesn’t have to be your only reward,” the younger man says, a smirk forming on his face. “How would you like to have your own tea shop?”

“My own tea shop?” the old man repeats, intrigued, causing another old man, evidently the man in charge, Pao, to glance around with a concerned look on his face. “This is a dream come true!”

Rushing to stand between his employee and the two men, Pao says, “what’s going on here? Are you trying to poach my tea-maker?”

“Sorry Pao,” the man says with a shrug, “but that’s business for you, am I right?”

“Mushi,” Pao says desperately to the old man, “if you stay, I'll make you assistant manager. Wait, senior assistant manager!”

“I’ll provide you with a new apartment in the Upper Ring,” the man counters, further pushing this Mushi man to his offer.

Observing this discussion as he cleans teacups is a younger man, no, boy really. He has messy short black hair, light skin, amber eyes, a burn scar around his left eye, and a perpetual dower look. He glances over his shoulder, no longer doing his job, as he eavesdrops.

“The tea shop is yours to do whatever you want,” the man continues, “complete creative freedom.”

“I even get to name the shop?” Mushi asks.

“Of course!”

“Uh,” Pao says, desperate to keep the man on his payroll, “senior executive assistant manager?”

That, naturally, doesn’t work, as Mushi simply hands him the teapot in his hands. As the tea shop manager walks away sadly, the dark-haired boy walks past Mushi and the two men.

“Did you hear that, nephew?” Mushi asks the boy. “This man wants to give us our own tea shop in the Upper Ring of the city!”

“That’s right, young man,” the man says, “your life is about to change for the better!”

“I’ll try to contain my joy,” the boy says sarcastically as he sets down his tray, walks out and slams the door shut. He leans against the door frame, when he notices one of many pieces of paper falling from the sky.

Snatching it, he the oh so familiar visage of a flying bison. The Avatar’s flying bison. Not only that, but the flier has a small drawing of the Avatar, saying this is the person the bison should be returned to.

His eyes widen at this, and his gaze shoots for the sky, looking for any sign of the bald naked boy who’s been such a thorn in his side for the past few months. Not seeing him, the boy climbs onto the roof of a nearby building. He still doesn’t see the Avatar, but does catch a few more fliers falling to the ground a little aways.

It doesn’t matter, he knows the Avatar is here, within reach, and now Prince Zuko has the element of surprise and knowledge of his lack of a flying bison, and he’s damned sure he was going to take advantage of that face.

Glancing down at the poster again for a sec, his gaze raises back up, a determined look in his eye.

----

Back at the Avatar’s house, Katara and Sokka are in the midst of a tile game, Toph laying on her back by the door as Aang and Momo enters the house.

“I just finished dropping all the leaflets,” Aang says as he walks in, dropping his staff and bag before running up to the table where the siblings are seated. “Has anyone come in with news about Appa?”

“It’s only been a day,” Katara says, not glancing his way. “Just be patient.”

Unenthused, the bald naked boy slinks down beside the two, resting his chin on the table, as all he could do was wait for a knock at the door.

Seconds later, however, he gets his wish, and jolts back up to his feet at the sound.

“Wow, you’re right!” he shouts as he turns and rushes towards the door. “Patience really does pay off!” He opens the door and is surprised by who he sees.

It’s a young woman with lightly tanned skin, gray eyes and shoulder length flawless black hair held in a golden headdress. Aside from that and the green silk scarf with the Earth Kingdom insignia emblazoned on it, she’s naked, though her shared nudity was not a comfort to the bald boy, especially since she’s still sporting that uncanny smile.

“Joo Dee?” Aang says to the woman.

“Hello, Aang,” Joo Dee says in her usual perky manner, “and Katara, and Sokka, and Toph.”

Obviously, her presence is a shock to the other three, who rise and all walk up to her.

“What happened to you?” Sokka asks. “Did the Dai Li throw you in jail?”

“What? Jail?” Joo Dee says with surprise. “Of course not. The Dai Li are the protectors of our cultural heritage.”

“But you disappeared at the Earth King’s party,” Toph says, suspicious.

“Oh, I simply took a short vacation to Lake Laogai, out in the country. It was quite relaxing.”

Sokka gives the woman a skeptical glare as Katara says, “But then they replaced you with some other woman who also said her name was Joo Dee.”

This does seem to genuinely catch the woman off guard. “I’m Joo Dee.”

“Why are you here?” Aang asks, squinting his eyes at her.

Regaining composure, Joo Dee says, “Dropping fliers and putting up posters isn't permitted within the city. Not without proper clearance.”

“We can’t wait around to get permission for everything,” Sokka says.

Much more sternly, despite retaining her usual chipper tone, Joo Dee says, “You are absolutely forbidden by the rules of the city to continue putting up posters.”

Glowing bright red with anger, Aang shouts, “We don’t care about the rules and we’re not asking for permission!”

This reaction, naturally, horrifies the naked lady, who slowly backs out of the house as the Avatar continues to shout at her.

“We’re finding Appa on our own and you should just stay out of our way!” he says, slamming the door as Joo Dee leaves.

Ever the smart one, Sokka says, “That might come back to bite us in the blubber.”

“I don’t care!” Aang shouts as he starts to calm down. “From now on, we do whatever it takes to find Appa!”

“Yeah,” Toph shouts, throwing her hands in the air in excitement at finally being able to wreck some shit, “let’s break some rules!”

The ground shakes, and any outside observers would then see as the side of the Avatar’s house is completely destroyed in a move of earthbending. Seconds later, the four walk out the door, Momo flying out the house's new hole.

There are people observing this act, specifically, two agents of the Dai Li from atop the roof of the house across the street, not liking what they see.

----

It’s customary for everyone employed by the Dai Li, either direct members or anyone else under “payroll”, to report to their leader, Long Feng, after every task, no matter how big or small.

Long Feng himself is an intimidating man, with an angular face, small eyes, black hair mostly tied back in a tail, and a small beard and mustache. He also sports a fancy black, gold, and dark green robe, quite contrary to the other Dai Li’s clothing, which consists of dark green and black rice hats, black boots, and black and green poncho esque robes with nothing underneath.

Two agents stand guard at the door as Joo Dee, still completely naked, kneels before Long Feng, who’s seating on a chair in front of a fireplace, it’s green fire the room's sole source of light.

“I'm very disappointed in your work with the Avatar and his friends, Joo Dee,” he tells the woman sternly. “I had hoped that you would be able to control this situation”

Starting to get upset, Joo Dee says, “I am so sorry, but they don't trust me anymore. I don't think I can keep working like this!” She then starts sobbing, which only annoys the man further.

“Joo Dee, the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai,” Long Feng says in a clear tone, the effect on Joo Dee being immediate and strange.

She straightens up and her eyes widen, showing her pupils dilating. Completely monotone, she says, “I am honored to accept his invitation.”

“Good,” he says with a nod. “Now go await further orders.”

Joo Dee nods back and rises, turning towards and walks right out the door, completely stiffly.

Long Feng rises from his seat and walks up to the green fire. “If the Avatar keeps searching for his bison,” he says, “it could upset the delicate balance we've worked so hard to achieve in this city. It could even cost us control of the Earth King.”

“Should we take care of him?” one of the Dai Li agents, a man, asks.

“No.” Long Feng says sternly to him and the other agent, a woman. “It's much too dangerous for us to confront him directly. Let's see if we can still handle this quietly.”

He turns his head back to the fireplace, and he stares into the green inferno as he ponders his next move.

----

Back down in the Lower Ring, Iroh kneels beside a table in his house, packing his things into a chest. He’s visibly excited about his future prospects at not only moving up to the Upper Ring, but to own his own tea shop. Dream come true for him, and to think this old man's old dream was to conquer this city with the largest army the Fire Nation could muster.

As he’s packing his clothes, his scarred nephew, Zuko, walks into the room holding something.

“So, I was thinking about names for my new tea shop,” he says as Zuko approaches. “How about the Jasmine Dragon? It's dramatic, poetic, has a nice ring to it.”

He stops talking when Zuko holds out the poster to him, allowing him to read it.

“The Avatar is here in Ba Sing Se,” he says with determination, “and he’s lost his bison.”

Taking the flier from his nephew's hands, Iroh says, “We have a chance for a new life here.” But Zuko isn’t really paying attention, instead turning and walking towards the window. Iroh nonetheless continues. “If you start stirring up trouble, we could lose all the good things that are happening for us.”

Turning to his uncle, Zuko says, “Good things that are happening for you! Have you ever thought that I want more from life than a nice apartment and a job serving tea?”

“There is nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity,” the old man says. “I suggest you think about what it is that you want from your life and why.”

“I want my destiny.” Zuko says, turning back to the window.

“And what that means is up to you,” he says as the boy turns and walks out of the room. With that little chat done, Iroh continues to ponder over potential tea shop names. “The Tea Weevil!” he shouts, before shaking his head. “No, that’s stupid.”

Walking back into the other room, Zuko ponders his next move, thinking about what his uncle said. All this time and effort to capture the Avatar and restore his honor, and return to the man who burned him, exiled him, and now considers him a fugitive if Azula’s anything to go by. All that, and his uncle is telling him to throw all that out just to be simple civilians in a prosperous city, make a decent living, and have guaranteed safety.

It’s while he’s pondering this when his head turns slightly, the fireplace with a dying fire in view. What catches his eyes are the dying embers, slowly losing their orangish glow, many already now just simple charcoals, meaning he has a decent amount of coal dust to work with.

He knows then what he must do.

----

While this particular alleyway was unoccupied at the moment, the four knew from their time in Ba Sing Se that this was a popular shortcut for many people going to and from their workplaces on this side of town, so this the general area were a good place to start.

While Aang hangs up a poster on the exterior of a shop further down the alley, Katara and
Sokka got to work covering a white brick dividing wall with the fliers, all the while Toph rests against it between the two.

While it did provide decent coverage for that wall in particular after a few minutes, the overall coverage of the city was basically nil, and the older nude boy realizes this quickly as finishes with one poster.

“We’ll split up to cover more area,” Sokka says, before looking down to the naked girl. “Toph, I guess you should just come with me.”

Toph, naturally peeved at his implication, asks, “Why? Because you think I can’t put up posters on my own?!”

She snatches the brush from his hand and puts a thick slash of glue on the wall. She then grabs a poster and slams it on the wall … backwards.

“It’s upside-down, isn’t it?” she asks. “I’ll just go with Sokka.”

She hands him the brush back as they head down the alley on their side, Katara going the other direction, and Aang and Momo heading down another alley.

Heading through the alley, Katara walks into a smallish square that holds a small stream of water. Catching her attention was a decently sized stone plinth, which would be the perfect place to put up a flier or two.

Using waterbending, she dots the spot on the plinth where it would be most visible. The shirtless girl then grabs and begins to stick the flier up, not noticing that someone was walking up behind her.

“Katara?” a familiar voice calls to her. Surprised by what she hears, Katara turns around, and is shocked by who is walking up to her.

Tall, tanned skin, spiky brown hair, mismatched shoulder pads.

It was Jet.

Katara lets out a gasp in shock, not only at him being here, but also because, sans his shoulder pads, hip guards, and boots, he was naked.

Continuing to walk towards her, Jet flashes his usual lightly smug smile as he says, “I think I can help you.”

Katara snaps out of it quickly, and her shocked blush shifts into a look of utter rage. With a simple sweep of her arm, she kicks up a large amount of water from the stream and sends it towards him, causing his demeanor to likewise shift to one of fear.

“Katara, I’ve changed!” Jet shouts as the wave smacks into him, pushing him quite a distance back, into an alleyway.

Not satisfied, Katara runs up to the alley, collecting some water from a puddle made by the wave, and bends it into a rapidly rotating sphere.

“Tell it to some other girl, Jet!” she shouts, freezing the sphere into solid ice. She throws it at him, shattering into large icicles, which he deflects with his hook blades as he attempts to reason with her.

“I don’t want to fight you, I’m here to help!” he shouts, before tossing his swords to the ground. He then reaches for something behind his back, and Katara uses this chance to send more icicles his way. In seconds he’s pinned to the wall, his hand that was behind him balled up in a fist.

Evidently having heard the commotion, Aang, Sokka, and Toph rush into this scene.

“Katara, what is it?” Sokka asks as they approach.

“Jet’s back,” she says scornfully, to the surprise of the two naked boys, and no reaction from the naked girl. “We can’t trust anything he says.”

“But we don’t even know why he’s here!” Sokka says with his arms raised, not fully trusting him but willing to at least humor whatever's going on.

“I don’t care why he’s here,” Katara says, completely resolute, “whatever the reason is, it can’t be good!”

“I’m here to help you find Appa!” Jet says, shifting his closed hand, opening it so they all can see. Aang and Sokka walk up and lean in closer to confirm what it is. One of Appa’s missing fliers.

“Katara,” Aang says, turning to her, “we have to give him a chance.” The fact that he was willing to help them find Appa after what happened back at the dam was enough to at least allow him to give him the benefit of the doubt. Also helping is his new clothing style, or lack thereof, which Aang noticed almost immediately, and anyone willing to embrace a no-clothed life was a-okay in his eyes.

“I swear, I’ve changed!” Jet says pleadingly. “I was a troubled person and I let my anger get out of control, but I don't even have the gang now! I've put all that behind me!”

“You’re lying!” Katara shouts, still unwavering.

However Toph, the person who never met Jet, is the one who ultimately got her to at least consider. How? Simple, she just walks up to him and places her hand on the wall he’s pinned to.

“He’s not lying,” she says.

Surprised, Sokka asks, “How can you tell?”

“I can feel his breathing and heartbeat,” Toph says, dropping her hand. “When people lie, there's a physical reaction.” She turns to the three, saying, “He's telling the truth.”

“Katara,” Aang says, “we don’t have any leads. If Jet says he can take us to Appa, we have to check it out.”

Despite it all, she still feels very resentful for Jet betraying her trust back at the dam. How he so easily manipulated her and her feelings to get her to take part in his cruel scheme.

Still, Aang was getting desperate to have Appa back, and with no other leads, there’s really no choice. “All right,” she says, before shooting and angrily looking and pointing at Jet. “But we’re not letting you out of our sight.”

With that settled, the two waterbenders melt the ice and let him free, and he begins leading them to wherever he’s going.

----

Katara’s trust and patience was only getting more and more tested the closer they got to wherever he intended on taking them. Especially as they get deeper into the more seedier and out of the way places of the city.

He’s trying to ambush us, she thinks, maintaining her constant scowl, as well as keeping her eyes on him. Trying to get us all alone so he can do whatever he really intends for us. Just got to keep my eye on him, and his incredibly fine re- No Katara! Slap Bad! He’s our enemy now!

Still, the others seem to trust him. Aang has a trust in anyone who lives by his clothing standards or similar, with the exception of Azula, who was both clothed and attacked when they first met. Toph never met him, and “knows” he’s telling the truth, and Sokka, despite being suspicious of his intentions when they first encountered him, was technically betrayed the least by him, so is a lot less bitter.

Katara, on the other hand, had a lot to be bitter about. He manipulated her, acting all smoozy and alluring to bring her in just to use her for his cruel scheme. And despite her shifting opinion on the matter of nudity, she’s still a bit resentful for allowing him to see her completely undressed back then, so even with Toph’s confirmation, she's still not giving him her trust just yet.

It’s further tested when they begin to approach an old warehouse, him pointing to it and saying, “Just ahead.”

She stops dead in her tracks. “Absolutely not!” she shouts, turning her back to the building. “We’re walking right into an ambush. I’m not going in there!”

“Katara,” Aang says, walking up beside her, “it’ll be fine. I mean even if worse comes to worse, we’re still three powerful benders and a skilled fighter.”

“And also,” Toph says, shifting her foot, “while it’s not very clear, I can’t feel anything that gives away an ambush.”

“You coming?” Jet asks, looking back at her as he, Aang, Sokka, and Toph begin walking towards it.

Katara glances around left and right, before scoffing and following them.

“This is the place I heard about,” Jet says as they enter the mostly empty warehouse.

Just a few sacks, a couple boxes, and a pile of canvas and rope. Nothing, especially not the massive bison they’re looking for.

"There’s nothing here,” Aang says, causing Katara to ready some water from her waterskin in preparation to defend herself.

“If this is a trap-”

“I told you, I work nearby!” Jet says defensively. “Two guys were talking about some giant furry creature they had, I figured it must be Appa!”

Toph, meanwhile, senses something and walks deeper into the warehouse to get a better feel of it.

“He was here!” she says, bending forwards and picking the thing up. Turning to the four, she shows a clump of white fur in her hand.

This doesn’t help Aang’s mood as he takes it from her and begins stroking it. “We missed him,” he says, slumping forward as an old man walks into the room to start sweeping, seemingly paying no real mind to the five fully/mostly nude youths.

“They took that big thing yesterday,” he says, causing the boy to straighten back up. “Shipped him out to some island. About time, I've been cleaning up fur, and various, uhhh ... leavings all day.”

Aang rushes right up to the man, making his nudity harder to ignore as he says, “What island? Where’s Appa?”

“Foreman said some rich royal type on Whaletail Island bought him up,” the old man says, taking a few steps away from the boy. “Guess for a zoo or such. Though, could be the meat that'd be good.”

Turning to the others, he says, “We’ve got to get to Whaletail Island!” Then his shoulders drop as he realizes something. “Where’s Whaletail island?” he asks dejectedly to the map guy.

Sokka promptly retrieves the thing from his bag and begins to pour over it. “Far, very far,” he says as he lays it on the ground for them all to see. “Here it is. It's near the South Pole, almost all the way back home.”

“Aang,” Katara says, realizing what that means, “it will take us weeks just to get to the tip of the Earth Kingdom. And we’ll need to find some winter clothes for us, since it’ll be so cold down there. And then we'll need to find a boat to get to the island.”

“I don’t care,” the boy says, completely transfixed. “We have a chance to find Appa! We have to try!”

“Must be nice to visit an island,” the old man says dreamily. “I haven't had a vacation for years.”

“Don’t you have some more hair to clean up?” Katara asks angrily.

“Shuffle on, I for you naked girl. No more need for Old Sweepy …”

She then turns to Aang and places her hand on his shoulder. “You're right Aang,” she says calmly, “right now our first concern has to be finding Appa. We can come back when we have him.”

“All right,” Sokka says as he and the others rise and begin to walk towards the warehouse door, “let’s get moving.”

They begin to walk out, Aang and Sokka leading, Katara taking up the middle, and Toph trailing.

Jet, however, begins to walk with them right in front of Katara, saying, “I’ll come with you.”

“We don’t need your help!” she shouts, causing him to turn to her.

“Why won’t you trust me?” he asks, seemingly genuinely. Katara, however, just scowls at him. Seeing this non answer, he just turns and walks after Aang and Sokka.

“Gee,” Katara says, folding her arms over her breasts and turning defiantly to her right, “I wonder.”

Jet walks out with the other boys, at which point Toph, who lagged behind, walks up beside the waterbender.

“Was this guy your boyfriend or something?” she asks.

“What ... no!” Katara says, turning her head defiantly to the left.

Toph just smirks. “I can tell you’re lying,” she says teasingly, causing the now flustered Katara to rush out the door, a chuckling Toph walking after her.

----

After a quick stop to put a few extra fliers (don’t want to keep them on them as clutter, you know), the four youths and their lemur, along with Jet, head back down to the Lower Ring, on their way towards the border wall, and the rail station waiting there.

“We can take the train out to the wall,” Sokka says as they walk, “but then we’ll have to walk.”

“Don’t worry” Aang says, Momo seated on his shoulder, “on the way back we’ll be flying!”

Excited about their prospects, Toph says, “We’re finally leaving Ba Sing Se.” She spreads her arms wide in the air in celebration of leaving it. “Worst … city … ever!” she shouts as she continues to walk, not at all caring about the soundwaves of two people walking from an alleyway behind her, before stopping and turning in their direction.

“Jet!” says a familiar raspy female voice in utter surprise.

They all turn around, seeing the two youths. The girl that spoke was a shorter girl, though not as short as Toph, was rather lanky, had lightly tanned skin, a brown bowl cut held by a blue headband, and two red chevrons painted on each cheek. The boy is taller, lighter skinned, and just as lanky as her. He also has a more angular face with a bigger nose and ears, He sports a rice hat, a bow and quiver of arrows.

Smellerbee and Longshot, members of Jet’s old group, the Freedom Fighters, and the sight of them here, despite what he said, infuriates Katara.

Not helping is the fact that, like Jet, the boy and girl were naked, not helping his case.

Turning to him angrily, Katara says, “I thought you said you didn’t have your gang anymore!”

“I don’t!” Jet says, looking at Smellerbee and Longshot, the former running up and hugging her friend.

“We were so worried,” she says in utter relief, before pulling back. “How did you get away from the Dai Li?” she asks, looking him over. “Did they take your clothes?”

This news comes as a shock to the four, especially Katara. “The Dai Li?!” she says.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about!” he says, completely genuinely.

“He got arrested by the Dai Li a couple of weeks ago,” Smellerbee says to the others. “We saw them drag him away!

“Why would I be arrested?” Jet asks, completely baffled by this accusation. “I’ve been living peacefully in the city!”

Wanting to settle this bizarre dispute, Toph walks between the two and crouches to the ground, placing her hand on it. But this only makes things more confusing.

“This doesn’t make any sense. They’re both telling the truth.”

“That’s impossible,” Katara says, throwing her arms out.

“No it’s not!” Sokka, ever the smart guy, says as he quickly pieces it together. “Toph can’t tell who’s lying because they both think they’re telling the truth.” He then points directly at Jet. “Jet’s been brainwashed!”

“That’s crazy! It can’t be!” he shouts, glancing side to side as the others begin to surround him. “Stay away from me!”

Naturally, six on one, with half being skilled benders and the other half being skilled combatants (even if the long-distance oriented Longshot can be discounted), was no competition, and they’re able to grab and subdue Jet, Sokka taking the hook swords.

“Come with us,” Smellerbee says, leading them down the alley she and Longshot came from. “We need to go somewhere where we won’t be disturbed.”

As Toph secures his limbs with earth, they all begin to follow her, out of view and away from prying eyes.

----

The sun’s down and the moon’s up, meaning it was time to begin proper patrols of the streets of the city. Despite its size and the relatively small percentage of Dai Li agents when compared to the whole population, they still manage to have good coverage, mostly of the Upper and Middle Rings though.

There are considerably fewer men and women stationed down there due to it’s size, making what’s about to transpire easier to get away with unnoticed.

One such agent, a young man, is doing his patrol, walking down one of the wider streets, when he hears the sounds of running behind him. He really doesn’t heed it, until he feels whoever’s running push him to the side, knocking him to the ground.

“Out of the way, skinny!” the figure shouts as it runs past him into a dark alleyway.

The person has a dark body, completely black, albeit somewhat crude in coloring. Aside from the occasional lighter patches along the body, the only other coloring was from the bluish looking mask.

Regardless of what he looked like; the Dai Li agent was naturally infuriated at the blatant disrespect. He prepares a rock glove, before rushing down the alley the man ran into.

He turns and sees what looks like the figure, black body, blue and white face, and what he now sees are silver spikes coming from his hands. The agent promptly shoots his rock glove at the assailant, followed shortly by the other. Both are reshaped into fists as they each make contact, the first going through his chest and the second knocking his head clean off.

Now this came as a surprise to the man. The rock gloves were powerful, but not THAT powerful, and he was only intending on knocking the guy to the ground.

Then he notices that instead of bleeding profusely, which was expected all that was coming out was white stuffing.

“Huh?” he says, before feeling a presence behind him, followed shortly by two blades against his neck.

“If you don’t want to end up like him,” the Blue Spirit says threateningly, “you’ll do what I say.”

----

Getting him there was one thing. Making sure he was subdued was a whole other battle. Still, the number advantage and Toph’s earth cuffs paid off, and now Jet was tied to a chair within the main room of Smellerbee’s and Longshot’s living quarters, the others standing around him as he struggles against the rope.

“The Dai Li must have sent Jet to mislead us,” Katara says after the two groups caught each other up on all the info, “and that janitor was part of their plot, too!”

“I bet they have Appa here in the city,” Aang says with a little scorn in his tone. “Maybe he’s in the same place they took Jet!” He then turns to the former Freedom Fighter, head slouched down. “Where did they take you?”

“Nowhere!” he says, looking up at the group. “I- I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“We need to find a way to jog his real memories,” Aang says, turning to the others, silently asking for suggestions.

Seizing an opportunity to tease his little sister, Sokka turns to her and says, “Maybe Katara should kiss him. That should bring something back!”

“Maybe you should kiss him, Sokka!” she says back to him scornfully.

“Hey, just an idea!” he says defensively.

“A bad one,” Aang says, lightly jealous.

“Ooh, wait!” Sokka pipes up, getting a real idea. “I’ve got it!” he says, before heading over to a nearby mattress, picking it up and plucking out a loose piece of straw from it. He then heads in front of the tied boy, before stuffing the end into his mouth in the way he remembers him doing during their last encounter. He stares at him intently, looking for any change.

…

“I don’t think it’s working,” Jet says before spitting it out.

“Try to think of something from your past that triggers your emotions,” Toph suggests, causing the other small girl to pipe up.

“The Fire Nation!” Smellerbee says, taking a few steps closer to him. “Remember what they did to your family!”

“Close your eyes,” Katara says encouragingly. “Picture it.”

He does so, and with his eyes shut, he begins to attempt to look back on his past. Then his forehead starts to sweat as images begin to flood back in. A young naked boy standing in front of a town in the midst of burning to the ground. People running away. A man in red and black armor staring over it, his act of terror inflicted on these people.

“No!” he says, sweating head to toe. “It’s too painful!”

It’s no secret that whatever he’s seeing is utterly devastating, and he’ll need some sort of assistance, something to soothe him to make the memories easier to cope with.

Luckily for him, they have a trained healer.

“Maybe this will help,” Katara says, walking behind him and unscrewing the cork on her waterskin. She was about to start bending, when she remembers what she learned about healing, about how nudity made the art of healing purer and more effective. With this in mind, she uses her free hand to slide down her skirt, bringing the amount of not naked people in this room of seven down to zero. Stepping out of her skirt, she then begins to pull water out of her waterskin and presses it against his ears, before beginning healing.

The images that flash in his head are much clearer, not to mention more important. He sees a tall man with a small mustache staring down at him, before Jet then feels himself sink into a lake, ending up in a small dark room under the water, where a Dai Li agent, shining a spinning light into his face, saying that he was now safe in Ba Sing Se.

“They took me to a headquarters under the water,” he says after snapping out of his little trance. “Like a lake!”

“Wait!” Sokka shouts. “Remember what Joo Dee said? She said she went on vacation to Lake Laogai”

Recognizing the name, Jet says, “That’s it! Lake Laogai.”

“That’s the lake on the easter end of the Agrarian Zone, right?” Aang asks.

“Yes,” Sokka says, gesturing towards the door. “Luckily for us, we’re on the north-eastern side of the Lower Ring, In and out.”

“Let’s go!” Jet says, beginning to follow them, causing Smellerbee and Longshot to lag behind, turning to him. “What?” he says at their looks.

“Well,” Smellerbee starts, gesturing to his torso, “I figured you’d want to clothe yourself first. This is an effect of the brainwashing, yes?”

“It’ll be a waste of time,” Jet says, walking past them, “and it’s not like what I wear matters at this point. Not like being naked would bother anyone.”

With that he walks out of the building after Team Avatar, Smellerbee and Longshot heading out shortly after him.

----

On this bright day, a major break-in was to happen. Not at any of the banks or the palace, but a decently sized lake on the eastern edge of Ba Sing Se.

On the shore of this lake stood seven nude youths. Katara, having realized the probable necessity of powerful bending, elected to leave her skirt off.

Staring out at the water, Sokka turns to Jet and asks, “So where’s this secret headquarters?”

“Under the water,” Jet says, images flashing in his head, “I think.”

Jutting out her finger to her right, Toph says, “There’s a tunnel right there by the shore.”

Whistling, the blind nude girl walks up to the side of the shore, before leaping into the air. Upon landing, a slab of earth emerges from the water, connected to a circular platform with a circular rock seated in the middle.

She then walks onto the platform, before bending up the rock cork, revealing a tunnel. All seven peer down at the tunnel and ladder as Momo flies away.

One by one they descend into the deep dark tunnel, entering the Dai Li’s headquarters, mostly consisting of circular halls made of white and mossy limestone bricks, almost like a more sanitary sewer.

They wait cramped by the entrance, weapons drawn, waiting and watching for a few Dai Li agents to walk out of sight, before slipping into the main hall.

As he walks, leading the group, Jet looks up and says, “It’s all starting to come back to me.”

He leads them as they press against a wall and slow their paces. As he moves, he peers into an open door, seeing a female Dai Li agent standing before a bunch of wide-eyed women.

“I’m Joo Dee,” she says in a calm tone. “Welcome to Ba Sing Se.”

“I’m Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se,” all the women repeat in unison, all now taking the moniker of Joo Dee. Unlike the Joo Dee Team Avatar knows, only like two of them were naked, the rest were in yellowish green robes with dark green lining, but they all wear the same headpiece and scarf.

“We’re so lucky to have our walls to create order,” the agent says.

“We’re so lucky to have our walls to create order,” the Joo Dee’s repeat.

A bit unnerved, the group slides past this door quickly, continuing down the hall.

“I think there might be a cell big enough to hold Appa up ahead,” Jet says as he leads the group of naked youths through the hall. After a bit of walking and avoiding being spotted, they come upon a roughly triangular shaped door. “I think it’s through here!” he says, opening it.

----

It was hard to tell how long Appa was down there, as he hadn’t seen the sun in days at least. So, with that, he just lays there, barely moving as the days pass by, mostly spending his time sleeping. It’s not like those Dai Li people were interrupting him much anyways, as all of his (quite minimal) food was simply bent into the room.

So today, when his cell door was opened, it naturally came as a surprise to him.

He pipes up and looks towards the door and sees that it’s not the bald naked boy he was expecting.

It was a naked boy, but his skin was colored black, almost as if covered in coal dust, and is sporting a pair of black boots and gloves, and a blue and white dragon mask, and wielding two broadswords.

“Expecting someone else?” the Blue Spirit asks tauntingly as he enters the room, unsheathing one of his swords and approaching the bison, now sitting up and facing him.

----

Jet slides open the door, hook swords in hand, and lead the group into the room. It’s a large, cavernous one, with what seem to be hooks and chains hanging from the roof.

One by one, they all walk into the room, and the second Smellerbee and Sokka walk past the door frame, it slides back shut and locks them in, which comes as a surprise to the lot. Then the crystals lining the floor and walls begin to light up, revealing a good dozen or so Dai Li agents hanging from the chains, looking down at them.

“Now that’s something different,” Sokka says sarcastically, though cautiously, already prepared with his club as the others brace for the now inevitable fight.

Then another voice booms out throughout the room, and although they can’t see him, the voice of Long Feng was one to remember, especially now with how threatening and stern it is.

“You have made yourselves enemies of the state. Take them into custody,” he says, to which the agents drop down to the ground, landing in a circle formation around the seven nude youths.

Two agents shoot their rock gloves towards the group, only for them to be annihilated in midair by Toph’s bending. She then promptly shoots up two rock pillars beneath the stunned man and woman, sending them flying.

Jet moves next, charging towards two more agents, also shooting their gloves at him. He deflects them with the hook swords, before hooking one of their feet and tripping them to the ground.

Then it breaks into a full-on brawl, and it becomes immediately apparent to an observing Long Feng that his agents, despite all being at least a decade older than any of these youths, were severely outmatched by the Avatar, the last southern waterbender, a proud Water Tribe warrior, the Blind Bandit, and three hardened fighters who’ve spent their whole lives fighting.

So he just watches scornfully as Aang effortlessly takes down two agents with a mix of air and earthbending. Then shifting his gaze and sees Katara and Sokka destroy a pair of rock gloves shot at them with a water whip and boomerang respectively.

The Dai Li do get some success, as the next batch of rock gloves to grab and begin to pull them away, but even this progress is quickly nullified by Toph forming a wall between them and the two agents pulling them. She then turns to them and raises a rock platform beneath her feet, the two following suit, aiming towards her. As they do that, two more agents run up the wall either side of her and shoot large pillars towards the small naked girl. She promptly deflects the two agents coming up and leaps up to avoid the two pillars, then raises up two slabs to shoot at the two agents charging towards her.

Then she feels rocks wrap around her wrists and is suddenly jolted back from the pillar. The Dai Li agent attempts to pull her towards him, but she’s intercepted by Jet, grabbing her with the hook swords and pulling her safely to the ground. The agent shoots another rock glove towards them, but Longshot rushes between the two and the agent and shoots an arrow, shattering the glove to pieces.

Then Jet lets go of Toph and begins to advance towards the Dai Li agent, shattering each glove with his blades.

Seeing the tide rapidly turn against him, Long Feng makes the wise decision and bails, running back into another room.

Seeing this as he blasts two agents away with airbending, Aang says, “Long Feng is escaping!” before pursuing him.

Jet follows, and the two boys chase after him, heading through a hole blasted into the wall by Toph taking down one of the last agents still standing, and follow as the man disappears around a corner through the hall.

They follow, finding themselves into a dead-end chamber with two pipes spewing out water from the sides on the back wall. The door shuts behind them, causing them to turn and see Long Feng jump from the ceiling in front of it.

“All right, Avatar,” he says, “you've caused me enough problems. This is your last chance ... if you want your bison back.”

“You do have Appa!” Aang shouts, even more pissed off at this guy. Taking a few steps closer, he says, “Tell me where he is!”

“Agree to exit the city now, and I'll waive all charges against you and allow you to leave with your lost pet.”

Getting into a fighting position along with Aang, Jet says, “You’re in no position to bargain.”

“Am I not?” Long Feng says almost cheekily.

“You’re definitely not!” Aang shouts, fully prepared to take this man down.

But he actually was. In a confidently smug voice, Long Feng says, “Jet, the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai.”

Jet’s eyes suddenly dilate, and in a monotonous voice, says, “I am honored to accept his invitation.”

He then takes a swing with his hook swords. Not at Long Feng, but at Aang, who narrowly dodgers, maneuvering himself behind the suddenly mad boy.

The bald boy has a look of pure terror as the completely out of it Jet charges at him, murder in his eyes.

----

Appa roars in fear at the sight of this figure approaching, swords drawn. He attempts to take a swipe at the boy, but the chains restrict his paws.

“You’re mine now,” the Blue Spirit says, about to approach closer to the bison, when suddenly he hears the door open behind him. The nude boy turns around and gets into a fighting stance, ready to face the intruder, only to lower it when he sees who it is. “Uncle?”

“So, the Blue Spirit” Iroh says sarcastically, standing in front of the now closed cell door. “I wonder who could be behind that mask…”

Zuko just sighs and takes the mask off, revealing his face. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” he responds, gesturing towards the boy's body. “I mean, do you know how hard it is to clean off coal dust? Stains both skin and fur, which brings me to my next point. What do you plan to do now that you’ve found the Avatar’s bison? Keep him locked in our new apartment?” When Zuko doesn’t answer, he continues, “Should I put on a pot of tea for him?”

“First I have to get out of here,” Zuko says.

“And then what?!” Iroh says, raising his voice. “You never think these things through!” He then points at his nephew. “This is exactly what happened when you captured the Avatar at the North Pole! You had him, and then you had nowhere to go!”

“I would have figured something out!” Zuko says, completely convinced in himself.

Iroh wasn’t buying it and responded accordingly. “No! If his friends hadn’t found you, you would have frozen to death!”

“I know my destiny, Uncle!”

“Is it your own destiny,” Iroh says, cutting right into the issue, “or is it a destiny someone else has tried to force on you?”

“Stop it, Uncle!” Zuko says, immediately drowning in thoughts of maybe he’s right, and actively suppressing them. “I have to do this!” he says desperately, turning to Appa.

“I’m begging you, Prince Zuko!” he shouts as his nephew grits his teeth in anger. “It's time for you to look inward and begin asking yourself the big questions. Who are you, and what do you want?”

Completely overwhelmed by what his uncle is saying, Zuko lets out a scream, tossing the mask and swords to his bare feet, consumed with doubt and questioning himself and what he’s doing with his life.

----

“Jet, it’s me, Aang!” the bald nudist shouts and he continues to back up, staff raised defensively, as the fully out of control former Freedom Fighter continues to swing his hook swords at him.

It’s safe to say that Jet’s completely gone at this time. Eyes dilated, no speaking and the sole noises he’s making are shouts with each swing. Whatever they did to him was definitely effective.

“You don’t have to do this!” Aang shouts desperately.

“I’m afraid he no longer has a choice,” Long Feng says, smirk forming on his face as Jet’s assault continues.

He swings and swings, Aang keeping out of reach, not wanting to fight back. Still, he needs to defend himself, and when the brainwashed naked guy charges closer, the boy uses a gust of air to push him back, almost to the other end of the room. Jet manages to halt his movement with the hook swords, panting heavily.

“Jet, I’m your friend!” he continues, “Look inside your heart!”

“Do your duty, Jet!” Long Feng orders, though Jet does nothing as he still needs to catch his breath.

“He can’t make you do this!” Aang shouts, intending on using the one thing Jet values above everything else.

“You’re a Freedom Fighter!”

…

Jet straightens up in an instant, but he doesn’t attack. He just stands there as his vision goes white.

Then he starts to see them, the images of who he is and what he stands for.

He sees Smellerbee and Longshot, pantsed and fully clothed like when he first met them.

He sees a giant shirtless guy and a small naked boy, Pipsqueak and the Duke.

He sees images of all the boys and girls of varying ages and clothing who fought under the name Freedom Fighters, cheering and celebrating after a victory over the Fire Nation.

He sees Katara by the lake, his hands on her shoulders.

He sees himself sitting with two people, an old fat man and a teenaged boy with a burn scar around his eye.

He sees them giving food to passengers on a boat.

He sees himself being dragged away by the Dai Li agents, and his brainwashing.

He sees his village being burned to the ground by a Fire Nation general, him helplessly watching.

Then he sees Long Feng standing on the surface of Lake Laogai.

These images repeat in his mind at the speed of light.

Freedom fighters, Katara, Zuko, Iroh, Village, Dai Li, Smellerbee, The Avatar, Longshot, Long Feng.

Then his irises shrink back to their normal size.

“Do it!” Long Feng shouts, evidently seeing Jet’s recovered enough to stand up straight. “Do it now!”

A grimace forming on his face, Jet pulls up one of his hook swords, and hurls it at his enemy.

Long Feng.

And it misses.

Seeing as his puppet freed himself, the man deals with it tenfold, and takes a step and thrusts his fist at the naked guy, and time slows as a fissure begins to form in the ground, advancing towards Jet and filling the room with dust.

When the dust clears, Aang sees a wedge of earth jutted out of the floor right by where Jet once stood, the boy himself laying on the ground several feet away, all the while Long Feng attempts to make his escape.

Aang lets him, though, as he’s more concerned with Jet, and how he doesn’t seem to be moving.

“Foolish boy,” Long Feng shouts as he escapes through the pipe. “You’ve chosen your own demise.”

As Aang reaches Jet, it’s immediately apparent that he’s in bad condition.

Naturally, due to him being naked, his toro and limbs are scraped to hell and back, and that’s just the front. No doubt far worse scraping on his back and buttocks, but neither are Aang’s concern. He’s focused on the large lumpy, black, red, and purple bruise plastered on his chest, as well as a few small pebbles lodged into his skin.

It’s bad, no doubt, and an injury that’ll be hard to shrug off, especially the bruise, as there’s no doubt some major internal bleeding going on.

He is still alive, although barely, and the way he’s moving shows just how weak and in pain he is.

Looking up at the Avatar, Jet says weakly, “I’m sorry … Aang.”

“Don’t be,” the boy says sadly as the sounds of a slab of rock sliding down start.

As Toph bends the door open, Katara, Sokka, Smellerbee, and Longshot stand there wide eyed and slack jawed in shock at the sight of their downed companion. All five rush towards the two, joining Aang in looking down, completely frozen, unsure what to do.

Katara snaps out of it first, quickly unscrewing her waterskin and covering her hands in water. She crouches beside him and places her hands on his chest, the water starting to glow as she begins to rub it against his wound.

Nada.

She tries three times in rapid succession, each not doing anything. The light fades and the water falls onto his bare chest. “This isn’t good,” she says as Aang, Sokka, and Toph walk beside her.

“You guys go and find Appa,” Smellerbee says, she and Longshot standing on the other side of Jet's body. “We’ll take care of Jet.”

“We’re not going to leave you,” Katara says, causing Longshot to raise his gaze at the four.

“There’s no time,” he says, causing all eyes to focus on him. “Just go. We’ll take care of him. He’s our leader.”

The four don’t move, only stare in silence for a moment.

Weakly, Jet shifts his gaze to the waterbender and says, “Don’t worry, Katara. I’ll be fine.” He even adds his usual smug smile, though it’s still obvious he’s in pain.

Emotionally pained, Katara shuts her eyes and rises to her feet as she and Team Avatar turn to make their leave, her and Aang leading while Toph and Sokka take the rear.

Feeling that Katara is far enough to not hear her, Toph whispers to Sokka, “He’s lying…”

Sure enough, Smellerbee’s harsh and tough exterior completely shatters, her quietly sobbing as tears stream from her eyes. Longshot maintains his stoicism for her sake. He keeps his eyes on Team Avatar’s backs as they head down the hall at the other end of the room.

Loading an arrow, the naked archer turns and aims it at the other tunnel, all the while Smellerbee stokes Jet’s hair with one hand, the other on his forehead, as he lies there in wait as his vision starts to fade.

----

Toph slams open the door to the giant cell, only for the four to discover it empty, though the chains on the ground are big enough to hold a flying bison.

“Appa’s gone!” Aang shouts, understandably frustrated. “Long Feng beat us here.”

“If we keep moving, maybe we can catch up with them!” Sokka says, rushing out of the cell door, the others following his trail.

They’re able to find another pathway, and Toph promptly shoots it up to the surface, before blowing a hole into the now emerged mound of earth, allowing the four access to the surface again.

They jump out and begin running along the beach, and after a few seconds, a good dozen Dai Li agents jump out after these nude youths.

“You think we can outrun them?” Sokka asks, looking back at the agents after them.

“I don’t think it’s gonna matter!” Aang says, still looking in front of them, and the dozen Dai Li agents, along with Long Feng, stand in a line waiting for them. The agents raise the ground into a large wall, Long Feng standing atop it while the agents hang off the side. The men and women pursuing them stop behind them and do the same, while a third group slides down the cliff wall, effectively boxing them in.

The four look up, seeing just how outnumbered they are. Even with their earlier success against these agents, this was just extreme. Long Feng, it seems, has won.

I say it seems cause after a matter of seconds, something else joins the fray, flying down to Aang’s shoulders, a white and brown lemur.

“What is it, Momo?” Aang asks, to which he just flies into the air again, leaving Aang to wait for him to emerge again.

Well, something does emerge, that being a three-ton flying vision, who’s appearance sparks utter joy in the four down below.

“Appa!” Aang shouts as the bison slams through one of the rock walls, sending the Dai Li agents flying either onto the beach or into the water, before flying through the other, causing the same result. Aang and Toph, now with a reduced workload, rush to the cliff edge and slam their fists into it, causing a slab of rock to jut out slightly, launching the half dozen agents standing in that area into the lake.

Long Feng regains his breath as his agents retreat. He looks back at them confused for a moment, though it quickly fades when Appa lands right in front of him.

Getting into a fighting stance, the man says, “I can handle you by myself,” before charging.

Appa immediately grabs his leg, and tosses him into the lake, spitting out his shoe afterwards and getting cheers from Team Avatar.

“Yeah! Appa!” Sokka shouts as the group runs towards him, leaping onto his soft fur.

Pressing his teary-eyed face into his head, Aang says, “I’ve missed you buddy,” causing Appa to shut his eyes in relief.

Now for the first time in what feels like years, the four climb onto Appa’s back, just without the reins or saddle. Still, he takes off after a “Yip Yip!” and begins to fly over the lay.

With this ordeal finally over, they all just collapse on Appa’s head as he flies, although things aren't completely okay, mostly with Katara.

She looks down at the passing water, knowing what for sure now lies below it, a somber look on her face.

A look that clears up quickly when Aang places his hand on her shoulder, before pulling her into a group hug.

----

As the bison flies past it, two figures emerge from the very same entrance the Avatar and co. entered, a bearded older man, and a scarred boy who’s naked body is covered in coal dust, the latter pulling up the former.

Once both are on their feet, Iroh says, “You did the right thing, nephew.”

Sighing, Zuko reaches behind his back and pulls out the blue spirit mask, looking down at it thoughtfully.

Placing his hand on his shoulder, Iroh says, “Leave it behind.”

Zuko walks up to the edge of the path, and tosses the mask into the lake, letting it sink beneath the surface.

And just like that, the Blue Spirit was dead.

----
Book 2 Chapter 17
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

It’s around midafternoon in the walled city of Ba Sing Se, so most of the city was brimming with activity.

That rings true even within a decently sized lake far away from the main rings of the city, as over there the activity was dying down.

Specifically, the remaining activity takes place on an islet in the middle of the lake, where a massive flying bison lands, wherein three people jump off, leaving the fourth to embrace his head.

This person, a boy, has light skin, a round face, gray eyes, and is completely hairless aside from eyebrows and lashes. Aside from his bald head, his most noticeable features were his line and arrow tattoos, which cover his limbs, spine, and forehead, all completely visible to all, as this boy was as naked as the day he was born.

“I missed you more than you’ll ever know, buddy,” the naked boy says as he hugs the bison. As another critter, a flying lemur, flies up and hugs the bison as well, the bison raises his head, causing the boy to let go, and licks him affectionately as he falls, causing the boy to laugh.

Meanwhile to the side, three more scarcely dressed youths, stand or sit there after a fairly hard fight.

One of them, another boy, rises to his feet and begins to approach the other two, both girls, one standing and one seated. This boy has tanned skin, blue eyes, brown hair tied into a wolf tail, and is both the tallest and oldest of the group. He sports long brown boots, navy gloves above white wrappings that go up to the shoulders, a white rock necklace, a holster for his boomerang, and a sheath for his club/machete. Aside from those, he was also naked.

“Look,” he says as he approaches the two girls, “we escaped from the Dai Li. We got Appa back,” he gestures towards the bison, “I’m telling you, we should go to the Earth King now and tell him our plan. We’re on a roll.”

The standing girl, also with dark skin, blue eyes, brown hair tied in a braid down her back and loops at the side of her face, doesn’t seem to like this notion. “One good hour after weeks of trouble isn't much of a roll.”

“We can build on it,” the boy says excitedly. “IF we want to invade the Fire Nation when the eclipse happens, we’ll need the Earth King’s support.”

“What makes you think we’ll get it,” the other girl says skeptically. She’s the shortest and youngest in the group, and has lighter skin, black hair tied up in a large bun with some bangs covering her face, and greenish eyes that have a very distinctive milky property. Aside from the gold and green headband holding up the bun, green wrist and ankle bands, she’s as naked as the earth her butt’s seated on. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things don’t usually go that smoothly for our little gang.”

“I know,” he says, “but I’ve got a good feeling about this. This time will be different.”

“Sokka,” the tanned girl, named Katara, says, “Long Feng is in control of the city. His conspiracy with the Dai Li is too powerful. I think we should just keep flying and leave this horrible place behind us.” She then turns behind her, blushing lightly as she looks down at her completely exposed buttocks. “Even if that plan isn’t exactly peachy either.”

Of the four, Katara’s the only one who’s still not fully onboard with the whole nudity thing, at least from the waist down. Her normal yellow skirt with green linings having been left in the house of an ally, her only items of clothing were her brown fur boots, navy blue leather bracers, and an ornate and specially carved necklace, leaving everything between her neck and ankles exposed.

“I’m with Sweetness,” the seated girl, Toph, says in agreement. “I’ve seen enough of Ba Sing Se.” She then raises her arms and opens her milky eyes to accentuate her point. “And I can’t even see!”

“But now that we have Appa back,” the bald boy, flying beside Sokka, says excitedly, “there’s nothing stopping us from telling the Earth King the truth. About the conspiracy and the war.”

“See? Aang’s with me,” Sokka says, putting his arm around the boy and pulling him closer. “It’s the whole reason we came here in the first place. We have to try.”

Katara thinks for a moment. For all the risks, they are right, and it’d be a waste of all that time spent getting there. Scrounging through the desert ass naked, the constant conflict from getting across the lake to inside the wall itself. “Well, I guess if the Earth King knew the truth, things could change.” Aang and Sokka smile widely. “Plus, that means I could get my skirt back.”

Aang's smile drops.

Standing up, Toph says, “I don’t trust the new positive Sokka.” She then points accusingly at him, saying, “Long Feng brainwashed you, didn’t he?”

However, Aang notices something, and runs up to the shore of the islet to look out.

Sure enough, in the distance there are a few ships sailing around Lake Laogai, seemingly in search of something, or someone, or four ass naked youths and their giant bison.

“That’s probably the Dai Li searching for us,” Sokka says, before turning to his sister. “So?”

Katara ponders this for a second.

Looking at her brother, she says in a determined voice, “Let’s fly!”

----

Easier said than done, as at the moment, Appa lacked his usual saddle and was as naked as the four youths desperately clinging onto his fur as he flies towards the center of the city.

“Can we please buy a new saddle?” Toph shouts in utter fear. “Riding bareback is terrifying!” She then buries her face into the bison’s back.

“Says the girl who lives bareback,” Katara says under her breath as Appa flies closer to the palace, which is now visible to them.

“There it is!” Sokka shouts, pointing towards the ornate building surrounded by a circular wall. “That whole thing is the palace! The Earth King’s chamber should be in the center!”

“We have to be careful,” Katara says, focused intently on the approaching building. “Long Feng’s probably warned the king that we’re coming.”

“Why would you assume that?” he asks. “If you ask me, I think we’re just gonna sail right in and-”

He cuts himself off by screaming as Appa suddenly shifts his direction to avoid a massive boulder being shot at him.

“What was that?” Toph asks, almost completely blind to her surroundings.

“Surface-to-air rock!” Sokka says, looking down and seeing several more of the large boulders being shot at them. “More incoming!” he shouts as Appa dodges another.

One

Two

Three

Each rock was dodged with relative ease, until one was shot directly at the boy seated atop the bison's head.

Aang, focused, simply juts his hand to the side, shattering the boulder on impact with his fingers.

They dodge another boulder, and Aang rises to slice another with his staff, before they manage to get behind the launching stations, and the bison begins to descend towards the path leading up to the palace.

Already stationed on this path was a whole battalion of palace guards and their captain, who’s seated atop his ostrich horse, signaling his soldiers to get into fighting stances.

As they approach, Aang gets into position, ready to dismount at the right moment. When that moment comes, he launches himself from Appa and soars towards the ground.

He slams his staff into the ground, creating a wave of earth that knocks most of the guards back. Behind him, Appa lands right in front of the captain, roaring loudly, which knocks the man from his horse. He then walks up behind Aang as the other three naked youths dismount, and they all begin to advance towards the palace on foot.

As they run, more and more guards appear and begin launching cubes of earth towards them. Toph rushes up front, and she and Aang begin to deflect and destroy the cubes with earth and airbending, all the while behind them, Katara uses her advanced water whip to knock back the guards attacking them.

Still, since they’re technically fighting for both parties' best interests, she’s sympathetic. “Sorry!” she shouts after whipping a pair, before immediately turning around and whipping another pair, though she does flinch slightly after doing so.

In front of them, another group of guards begin to charge at them, weapons drawn. However, the pathway they were running on was divided into tiles, something Toph quickly exploits. With some bending, she flips the tiles backwards, knocking the guards back and trapping them between the slabs of earth.

“Sorry!” Katara shouts, she and Aang running on one side of the flipped panels, Sokka, Toph and Appa on the other. “We just need to get through to see the Earth King!”

They then begin to approach a bridge that leads to the palace, on the other side more guards gather to block their path. Further up the stairs to the palace, several guards use bending to lift up two massive badger mole statues and hurl them at the nude four.

Sokka looks up in fear as they approach, knowing there’s basically no way to stop them, but Aang and Toph have a solution. They cover themselves and Appa with earth, almost like an igloo, and the statues shatter on impact.

When the dust clears, Katara charges out from behind the igloo, hurling some water from her waterskin towards the edge of the divide, freezing it into a ramp. She uses it to jump the gap and uses the stream water to whip the guards into the water below the bridge. She then promptly turns and whips the guards further up on the stairs, sending them into the stream as well.

The water is then frozen by Aang as he and the others cross the bridge to rejoin Katara.

This little victory is short lived, as their attentions are immediately turned to the palace stairs, seeing dozens of men charging down them as earthbenders launch rocks from the top of the palace down at them.

Feeling this, Toph steps forwards and raises her hands, and the ground starts to shake. Bringing them down to her sides, the stairs flatten into a slide, and the men begin sliding down. She and
Aang then slice a bit of the ground they and the others are standing on, before bending it up as a sort of elevator along the new ramp, all the while men slide past them.

“Seriously,” Sokka says to these men, “we’re actually on your guys’ side!” He pauses for a moment. “Sorry.”

They reach the top, and the remaining soldiers stationed there begin to charge either side of them. Aang and Toph simply walk to either side, and raise decently sized barriers, before pushing them at the men, sending them all away.

After this, Sokka charges towards the palace doors. Opening them, he shouts, “In there!” as the others charge into the palace of the Earth King.

First the Dai Li were defeated by a gaggle of ass naked youths, and now the palace guards after facing considerably less of them.

Not the finest day for the Earth Kingdom army’s elite.

----

Outside the palace was one thing, actually going into it and searching for the man was a whole other matter.

Not because of any hard fights. As the four run down the hall, they come upon a three-way intersection, with guards down all three halls prepared to block their movements. Toph feels this and simply slams her foot into the ground, sending up pillars that push at least two thirds of them up against the ceiling.

Sokka, armed with his club, takes a few steps forward and scans the area, seeing nothing. “Toph, which way to the Earth King?”

“How should I know!?” she shouts back, arms still raised. “I’m still voting we leave Ba Sing Se.” She then thrusts her hands forward, sending a wave of rock towards the men in front of her, before raising two pillars of earth to launch at the men either side of her.

As she does that, Sokka runs up to one door and peers into it and sees nothing inside. As a guard is launched through the sky, he looks through a second door to the same result.

He slams open the third door, accidentally seeing a woman admiring herself in the mirror in a very long green and gold dress. The sudden opening of her door startles her, and she turns her head to see this buck ass nude guy standing in her doorway, and freaks out.

“Naked man!” she shouts, attempting to run away, but stomps on the hem of her dress, tripping and falling flat on her face.

Sokka, face dropping to a scowl, simply says, “And that is why,” before shutting the door and resuming his search.

----

In another section of the Upper Ring, two guys return to their new homestead.

The former is a boy, who’s tall with light skin, dark hair, amber eyes, and a noticeable burn scar around his left eye. He’s also naked, with everything from the neck down covered in coal dust. His nudity is barely covered by a brown tarp wrapped around his shoulders. He walks into the main room visibly dazed, dragging along a sheath with two broadswords, and is being trailed by the other guy.

He’s older with gray hair and a big beard, and a wide frame, covered by a fancy looking green robe. “You did the right thing,” he tells the boy as they enter the house. “Letting the Avatar’s bison go free.”

The boy, still dazed, takes a few steps forward, before placing his hand on his head. “I don’t feel right,” he says as his vision starts to get fuzzy.

Then he collapses to the ground, completely unconscious.

“Zuko!” the old man shouts, rushing up to his nephew's side.

----

Having dealt with the rest of the palace guards, the naked four now stand beside a decently sized pile of rubble, which Sokka immediately turns to and begins climbing up. On the other side, at the end of a hall, was a large and very fancy looking door.

“Now that’s an impressive door,” Sokka says. “It’s gotta go somewhere.” He leaps off the rubble and charges at the door, jumping into the air to kick it open, all the while letting out a great, “Yeaaah!”

The door doesn't budge, and he falls to the ground. Raising up, he starts pushing against it, again to no avail.

He’s so preoccupied that he doesn’t notice Aang and Toph rushing behind him. The boy swings his staff, and the girl pushes her hands towards it, and with their combined force the door is knocked off its hinges and goes flying into the room, along with Sokka, who lands flat on his face.

Raising up and rubbing his head, he says, “A little warning next time?”

He gets to his feet as the other three charge into the room, each armed with the weaponry they’re specialized in.

On the other end of the room sits a massive golden statue of a badger mole with the Earth Kingdom insignia in front of its face, which serves as the throne to the Earth King himself, and boy was he…

...not particularly outstanding.

He’s a younger man, mid-twenties, with light skin, short dark hair, and green eyes, as to be expected of someone from the Earth Kingdom. He has a long head and chin, big ears, and small eyes, with small reading glasses held up by his decently sized nose. He’s dressed in a fancy robe of greens, yellows, and golds, and sports an odd-looking green hat with the Earth Kingdom insignia emblazoned on it as well.

Standing to his side is Long Feng, an older man with black hair tied in a braid down his back, a small mustache and beard, and an angular face. He’s sporting a robe consisting of greens and blacks with golden lining.

Standing between the two men and four naked youths were a half dozen men and women, each with stern looks on their faces. They each wear black boots, dark green rice hats, and deep green poncho-esque robes that cover the front and back that goes down to their knees (evidently, they’re wearing nothing beneath) with the Earth insignia emblazoned on either side at the chest area. All are in fighting stances, and all have their fists covered by rocks.

The Dai Li.

“We need to talk to you,” Aang says towards the king after a second standstill.

Turning back to the King, pointing his arm at the four, and in a voice of seemingly genuine concern, Long Feng says, “They’re here to overthrow you.”

“No,” Sokka says, “we’re on your side. We’re here to help.”

“You have to trust us,” Katara says.

Rising from his throne, in an audibly aggravated tone, the King speaks. “You invade my palace, lay waste to all my guards, break down my fancy door, and you expect me to trust you?”

“He does have a point,” Toph says.

“If you are on my side,” the King continues, “then drop your weapons and stand down!”

The four look at each other, unsure what to do. If they stand down, they give Long Feng an advantage, even if they could possibly gain the king's trust. If they don’t the King won't listen at all, but they’ll still be able to defend themselves.

After a moment a decision is made. Aang drops his staff, and the others follow suit. Sokka drops his machete, Toph lets the boulder she’s levitating drop to the floor and, reluctantly, Katara slides the water back into her waterskin.

Now the four are not only naked, but now completely defenseless.

Smiling, Aang says, “See? We’re friends, Your Earthiness.” He then gives a slightly nervous chuckle.

Long Feng gestures for Dai Li to move, and they launch their rock gloves towards them wrapping around their wrists and holding them behind their backs.

A sinister smile forming on his face, he says, “Detain the assailants!”

As the agents walk behind them, Sokka says, “But we dropped our weapons. We’re your allies.”

“Make sure the Avatar and his friends never see daylight again,” Long Feng says, which causes the King to turn towards him, shocked by what he said.

“The Avatar?” the King says, before turning back and pointing at Sokka. “You’re the Avatar?”

“Uh, no,” Sokka says. “Him,” he continues as he nudges his head in the direction of Aang.

With no effort, Aang frees himself from the restraints and raises his arms, saying, “Over here,” before holding his hands behind his back, the cuffs reforming.

“What does it matter, Your Highness?” Long Feng asks. “They’re enemies of the state.”

The King considers it for a moment. “Perhaps you’re right,” he says, before looking down at the group, seeing his bear, dressed in a yellow shirt and green hat, walking up to and sniffing the bald nudist, causing him to laugh a little. “Though Bosco seems to like him. “I’ll hear what he has to say.”

As Long Feng shoots him a glare, Aang takes a few steps forwards. “Well, sir,” he starts, “there's a war going on right now. For the past one hundred years in fact. The Dai Li kept it secret from you. It's a conspiracy to control the city, and to control you.”

“A secret war?” the King says, surprised. “That’s crazy!”

“Completely!” Long Feng shouts, wanting this exchange to be put to an end quickly.

“Long Feng didn't want us to tell you,” Aang continues, “so he stole our sky bison to blackmail us. And blackmail is the least of his crimes; he brainwashed our friend!”

Turning to the King, Long Feng says defensively, “All lies. I've never even seen a sky bison, Your Majesty. Frankly, I thought they were extinct.”

“Your claim is difficult to believe,” the King says, taking a seat back down. “Even from an Avatar.”

Long Feng leans forward and starts to whisper into the King's ear, “These naked hooligans are part of an anarchist cell that my agents have been tracking for weeks.” This gets a reaction from the King, one of shock. “If you listen to them, you're playing right into your own destruction.”

The King ponders this new piece of totally real information for a moment. Straightening up, he says, “I have to trust my advisor.”

Long Feng signals for the Dai Li to take them away, and they promptly start to drag the four nude youths away from the King and out of the palace to make them “disappear”, all the while they attempt to resist.

Managing to stop for a moment, Sokka says, “Wait! I can prove he's lying. Long Feng said he's never seen a sky bison. Ask him to lift his robe.”

“What?” Long Feng says, genuinely offended at this buck ass naked boy's request. “I am not disrobing! Unlike you four cretines, I have standards.”

However, the King does seem to ponder this for a sec, but retains his suspicious look towards the four.

Aang, suddenly realizing Sokka’s plan, shoots him a sly grin, before blowing a large gust towards Long Feng. It blows up his robe, revealing his dark undergarments, and a big round, red mark around his legs, marks that resemble Appa’s teeth exactly.

“Right there!” Aang says triumphantly. “Appa bit him!”

“Never met a sky bison, huh?”

“That happens to be a large birthmark,” Long Feng says, lowering his robes. “Thanks for showing everyone,” he says sarcastically.

“Well I suppose there's no way to prove where those marks came from,” the King says thoughtfully.

“Of course there is!” Sokka says.

It takes a bit to get the large bison into the throne room, but when they do, the King orders the Avatar to make the bison open his mouth and for Long Feng to raise his robe again.

With a large grin on his face, Aang delightfully points out how the shape of Appa’s tooth matches the scar on Long Feng’s leg perfectly, at least enough for the King to be convinced.

“Yup. That pretty much proves it,” he says, causing the four to cheer. “But this doesn’t prove this crazy conspiracy theory,” he continues, causing the four to become downcast. “Though, I suppose this matter’s worth looking into.”

This statement does make Team Avatar feel a little better about their chances.

Meanwhile, Long Feng makes his exit from the chambers, the Dai Li agents following him, briefly shooting a glare towards the King as he leaves.

----

When Zuko comes back to his senses, he finds himself laying under a blanket completely drenched in sweat and still not feeling good. He’s still nude, but a quick look shows that Iroh had washed most of the coal dust off his body.

Speaking of Iroh, he’s sitting beside his nephew, tending to him. “You’re burning up,” he says as he dips a cloth into a bucket of cold water. Placing the rag onto his forehead, he continues, “You have an intense fever. This will help cool you down.

“So thirsty,” Zuko says, attempting to sit up, but Iroh quickly lays him back down.

He grabs a spoon and a pail and pulls it closer to his nephew. “Here’s some clean water to drink,” Iroh says as he scoops some water from the pale and hands it to his nephew, sitting him up slightly as he takes it. “Stay under the blankets and sweat this out.”

The boy raises slightly and grabs the spoon, begging to drink from it, before quickly tossing it to the side. He then grabs the bucket and starts chugging water from it, spilling it all over him. Tossing the bucket aside, Zuko then lays back down.

Iroh then pulls the blankets back onto his upper torso, intending to use the heat to break the fever and get his nephew back into a healthy state as soon as possible.

----

Out of all the sights the people on the Ba Sing Se trains expected to see, one of them was not the King himself, flanked by his royal guard, all the while accompanied by three ass naked youths, one of whom being the Avatar himself.

Nonetheless, that is what they see, and the King is just as confused as they are.

“So this is what a train is like?” he asks the others. “I didn’t realize it would be this … public.”

“So you’ve never been outside the Upper Ring before?” Katara asks, awkward at all the people staring in her general direction. She is actively resisting the urge to ask if they could make a detour to retrieve her skirt from Smellerbee and Longshot’s place, as it could potentially compromise their goal, as well as the King’s willingness to listen to them.

“I’ve never been outside the palace,” the King says, causing the siblings to glance at each other, not sure if they should be surprised at this or not. The King then turns his head towards the window. Seeing Aang flying on Appa’s back, somewhat transfixed. “Now that’s the way to travel,” he says, before turning back to the Water Tribe siblings. “So, may I ask where we’re going?”

“Underneath Lake Laogai, Your Kingliness,” Sokka says. “To the Dai Li's secret headquarters. You're about to see where all the brainwashing and conspiring took place.”
And that’s exactly where they’re going.

Or rather, where they wanted to go.

They do reach Laogai, but when Toph goes back to the edge of the water to raise up the entrance hatch they went into earlier, they find the entrance completely shattered.

“It’s gone!” she shouts, to the others' shock.

“Oh don’t tell me-!” Sokka starts, before abruptly shifting his tone, giving a thumbs up and fake smile. “That’s okay. Still got my positive attitude.”

“The Dai Li must've known we were coming and destroyed the evidence!” Katara pleads to the still suspicious looking King.

“Hm,” he says with an air of sarcasm. “That seems awfully convenient.”

“Hey, if anything, this proves the conspiracy exists even more” Sokka says with a nod and smile.

“Long Feng was right. This was a waste of time,” the King says, turning to leave with his precession. “If you'll excuse me, I'm going back to the palace.”

Katara suddenly smiles, realizing something. Turning to the others, she says, “The wall. They'll never be able to cover that up in time.”

“Oh, yeah!” Aang shouts, before leaping into the air, landing in front of and startling the King. “If you come with us to the Outer Wall, we can prove to you that the secret war is real.”

“No Earth King has ever been to the Outer Wall,” he says, walking past the bald, naked, visibly depressed boy. “I don't have any more time for this nonsense.”

Then Sokka rushes up to him, remembering something else. “If you come with us, this time you can ride on Appa.”

The bison lows up to them as the King subtly shifts his gaze to him, a smirk forming on his face.

----

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Appa flies towards the outermost wall as the King screams and clutches onto his fur for dear life.

Toph, also desperately clutching, is amused by his reaction, and says, “First time flying?”

“It’s both thrilling and terrifying!” he shouts back in fear, though there is a light smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Toph says, smiling. “I hate it, too.”

“I have to be honest with you,” the King says, turning to Aang, who’s steering, “part of me really hopes that what you’re telling me about this war isn’t true.”

His face dropping, Aang simply responds, “I wish it wasn’t,” as they approach the wall.

----

When Zuko finally awakens, he’s not laying ass naked on the floor, fighting off a fever. Instead, he finds himself seated on the regal, flame surrounded Fire Throne, fully decked in the robes and crown of the Fire Lord, with a whole legion of soldiers kneeling in the throne room in front of him.

And he had no scar.

He sits there stoically as two slithering dragons, one red and one blue, slide down the poles either side of him. The blue one then begins to move around him, speaking in the cold, sultry voice of his sister, Azula.

“It’s getting late. Are you planning to retire soon, my lord?”

“I’m not tired,” Zuko says back stoically.

“Relax, Fire Lord Zuko,” the dragon says right into his ear. “Just let go. Give in to it. Shut your eyes for a while.”

Zuko’s eyes then start to get droopy, and he begins to fade into unconsciousness, shutting his eyes.

Suddenly, another voice, belonging to his uncle, booms from the red dragon and wakes him.

“No, Fire Lord Zuko! Do not listen to the blue dragon. You should get out of here right now. Go! Before it's too late!”

The dragons poise themselves either side of the boy, either to attack him, or each other.

“Sleep now, Fire Lord Zuko,” the blue dragon says again.

Then everything crumbles into nothingness. The dragons, the room, the soldiers, even Zuko’s clothing. He floats there, naked, in a black void for several seconds that feel like forever.

Then the blue dragon reappears, flying right at him, staring him down with its amber eyes.

“Sleep,” it says, the dragons/his sister's voice becoming more hostile as it gets closer. “Just like your mother!”

The dragon charges, opening its mouth, revealing a fully nude woman with long brown hair, amber eyes, and a motherly face.

“Zuko!” the woman shouts towards the visibly distraught boy. “Help me!”

Before he could do anything, he feels his form sink into the floor, and the nothingness it was.

–

The boy’s sweating starts to get worse, so Iroh rewetted the cloth and placed it back onto Zuko’s head.

----

As Appa flies over the wall, the four youths begin to search for their proof. Fortunately for them, they flew out in the right area, and the metal wreckage would be hard to miss in the desert sand.

A long, large cylindrical tube made entirely out of metal, partially stabbed into the wall from its attempt to breach it weeks ago, a smaller wall built around the wreckage to maintain full coverage, even if these walls were nothing in comparison to those surrounding the city.

Pointing down to it, Aang shouts, “It’s still there!”

Looking down, the King see’s the wreckage and is naturally horrified by it. “What is that?” he asks.

“It’s a drill. A giant drill,” Sokka says to him, “made by the Fire Nation to break through your walls.”

That’s it, that’s enough to make him realize just how serious these kids were.

Appa lands and he, the four naked youths, and his presession dismount, and the King immediately walks up to the edge of the wall and looks down at the drill.

“I can’t believe I never knew,” he says, still in utter shock.

Then he turns to his right, hearing something. They all see, rising up from the floor, Long Feng, backed by two Dai Li agents, and while he’s maintaining a calm demeanor, there’s a faint look of desperation in his eyes.

“I can explain this, Your Majesty,” he says, walking up to the King. “This is nothing more than ... a construction project,” he continues, gesturing down to the drill.

“Really?” Katara asks sarcastically, before also gesturing down towards the drill, specifically the giant fire insignia emblazoned on the top of it. “Then perhaps you could explain why there's a Fire Nation insignia on your construction project.”

The King looks back up from the drill and back at Long Feng, an undeniable look of suspicion on his face.

“Well it's imported of course,” he says, a worried look forming on his face. “You know you can't trust domestic machinery. Surely you don't believe these children instead of your most loyal attendant?”

The King looks back at Team Avatar, who look back at him innocuously. Then he looks at Long Feng, and if the overwhelming evidence against him wasn’t enough, the glare sealed it.

“Dai Li!” he orders. “Arrest Long Feng! I want him to stand trial for crimes against the Earth Kingdom.”

Both Long Feng and the four were shocked, pleasant for the latter, and infuriating for the former.

The two Dai Li agents, having halfway expected this, share a glance, before launching shackles onto Long Feng’s arms and begin to drag him away.

“You can’t arrest me!” he shouts, struggling against them. “You all need me more than you know!”

The earth elevator lowers both him and the agents out of sight, causing a celebratory mood to foster among the four.

Sokka in particular is very pleased with this result, saying, “Looks like Long Feng is long gone! Ha! Ah, yeah, I've been waiting to use that one.”

Aang smiles, amused by Sokka’s joke, while Katara just looks at him, unimpressed as usual.

It’s then when one of the King’s guards, a gruff sounding woman, walks up and says, “It’s best we head back to the palace now. You’ve been exposed for too long, Your Majesty.”

“Oh,” Katara pipes up, a perfectly timed gust of wind reminding her of something, “before we head back, can we make one quick stop?”

The King, ignoring the protesting looks of his guards, ponders for a second, before nodding his head.

----

The King and his guards rode back to the palace on the trains, while the gang flew on Appa’s back. The guards insisted he go that way when Katara said their detour would be in the Lower Ring.

Didn’t matter that much, as now they had Appa, who flew as fast as the trains, back with them, so they could make their detour and just barely come back to the palace after him.

After a bit of scoping, they find the place and fly down to it, Katara dismounting almost as soon as they land, Sokka following after.

The siblings run up to a smallish house, slowing down when they see what’s on the door.

A piece of parchment with an arrow shot into it.

Sokka walks up, pulls out the arrow, and holds up the parchment so he and Katara could read the sloppily written note.

Avatar and Friends

We had to leave the city in a rush
Your stuff is still in there, but we’ve hidden it.
Our paths will cross again one day
Good luck

-SB

“Guess that makes sense,” Sokka says with a shrug. The note's writer, a girl named Smellerbee, was with them when they broke into the Dai Li headquarters, so she, along with archer Longshot and, possibly, their old leader Jet would have to flee the city. They’re not only not as important as the Avatar and his group, but technically wanted criminals already, so it makes sense.

Nonetheless, Katara walks into the now abandoned building, Sokka following her, still holding the note.

Aside from the missing bedsheets, the room was basically untouched from the last time they were in there. The Dai Li probably couldn’t track them down quickly enough to find where they lived.

Still, in the event they did, Katara’s discarded skirt as well as Sokka’s Earth Kingdom bag, were nowhere to be seen.

The two scan around the room for a minute, before Sokka spots it. Painted on a floorboard were four red marks, innocuous to anyone else, but unmistakably the same pattern as Smellerbee’s cheek chevrons, two painted on each cheek.

Pulling out his machete, Sokka inserts it into the line between it and another board, finding it to be quite loose. It doesn't take too much effort to pull it up enough to grab it and fully pull it out, revealing-

“My skirt!” Katara shouts, reaching down and grabbing the yellow and green cloth, snuggling it against her cheek. “I thought I’d never see you again!” she shouts in relief.

“Where was that enthusiasm when I came back from the Spirit World?” an offended Sokka asks, before looking back down the hole. A wide smile forming on his face, he reaches down, pulls out, and holds to the air, “My bag!”

Katara lowers the skirt from her face and scowls at her brother.

----

It’s night now, and with Aang reunited with Appa, Katara reunited with her skirt, Sokka reunited with his bag, and Toph reunited with the burning urge to either get out of the city or start wreaking shit, the four fly back to the palace, where they’re greeted as heroes to the people they beat up a few hours ago.

Same is true for the people inside the palace, Sokka even managed to overhear a talk between the woman he met earlier.

“Don’t know why he said it, but everyone else with the Avatar is naked, so it must be of some benefit. So why not give it a try?”

He smiles triumphantly as they walk by.

The four are brought before the King, who’s name, as it turns out, is Kuei, yet again, this time he’s more jovial at the presence of these four nude youths, even if one is slightly less naked now.

“I want to thank you, young heroes,” he says, “for opening my eyes. All this time, what I thought was a great metropolis was merely a city of fools. And that makes me the king fool.” His smile then fades, and he buries his face into his hand as he fully comes to terms with the harsh reality. “We're at war. With the Fire Nation.”

“That's why we came to Ba Sing Se, Your Highness,” Sokka says, “because we think you can help us end the war.”

“We don’t have much time,” Aang says as Momo flies over to and begins to climb Kuei’s arm, amusing him a bit. “There's a comet coming this summer. Its energy will give the firebenders unbelievable strength. They'll be unstoppable.”

“But there is hope,” Sokka continues. “Before the comet comes, we have a window of opportunity: A solar eclipse is coming. The sun will be completely blocked out by the moon, and the firebenders will be helpless.”

This intrigues the King. “What are you suggesting, Sokka?”

“That's the day we need to invade the Fire Nation,” he says seriously. “The Day of Black Sun.”

King Kuei is a bit taken aback by this suggestion. “I don’t know,” he says, leaning back a little. “That would require moving troops out of Ba Sing Se. We'd be completely vulnerable.”

“You’re already vulnerable,” Sokka continues, pressing the urgency. “The Fire Nation won't stop until Ba Sing Se falls. You can either sit back and wait for that to happen, or take the offensive and give yourself a fighting chance.”

The King sits there in contemplation for a moment. He did just learn about this war’s existence a few hours ago, and now he has to make a major decision like this. As much as he wishes he could go back to believing the war was a ruse, the wreckage of a massive Fire Nation drill embedded within the wall could not be ignored.

And it won’t

“Very well. You have my support.”

Sokka was right, they were on a roll, and they couldn’t help it. They start jumping and dancing and cheering in celebration, Aang even forms and hops onto an air scooter and rides around a little.

However, it’s cut off quickly by another person running into the room. A man decked in Earth Kingdom’s finest armor, so he must be important.

“Your Majesty,” he says, walking up beside Team Avatar and bowing before Kuei. “I apologize for the interruption.”

No doubt seeing their confusion, the King turns his head to the four and says, “This is General How. He's the leader of the Council of Five, my highest-ranking generals.” He then turns back to the General to allow him to continue.

“We searched Long Feng’s office,” General How says. “I think we found something that will interest everybody.”

The four turn to each other, no doubt intrigued by what other secrets that nasty man held.

----

Despite the inherently sinister look of the former Dai Li leader’s chamber, the feel of it was a lot more upbeat. Probably because rather than being threatened, they’re getting something.

King Kuei sits beside a table with his back to the green fireplace, while General How and Team Avatar stand to his side while another guard walks into the room, holding a metal chest.

As he places it on the table for the King to open, General How says, “There are secret files on everyone in Ba Sing Se. Including you kids.”

“Secret files?” Aang asks, confused and a little unnerved.

Pulling out a scroll, Kuei reads the side aloud, “Toph Beifong.” He hands the scroll to General How, who passes it to the fully nude girl, evidently unaware that she’s in fact blind like most people.

She promptly passes it to Katara, who opens the scroll and reads it. “It’s from your mom,” she says. “Your mom’s here in the city. And she wants to see you.”

This causes the girl's eyes to widen, though she quickly regains composure. “Long Feng intercepted our letters from home?” she says, before shaking her head. “That’s just sad.”

Kuei takes out another scroll and reads the side. “Aang,” he says, passing it to the nude bald boy.

“This scroll was attached to the horn of your bison when the Dai Li captured it,” How says.

Aang opens it and reads, a smile forming on his face. “It’s from the Easter Air Temple,” he says excitedly.

“Is there a letter for me and Sokka by any chance?” Katara asks, her brother nodding in anticipation.

The King peers into the box, before shaking his head. “I’m afraid not,” he says, causing the siblings to become downcast.

“Oh,” Sokka says.

“But there is an intelligence report that might interest you,” General How says, causing the siblings to pipe back up a little. He hands the topfree girl another scroll, and she reads it.

“A small fleet of Water Tribe ships,” she reads aloud, causing her brother to rush up to her side.

“What?” Sokka says. “That could be dad!”

Katara continues to read the scroll aloud, getting excited. “Protecting the mouth of Chameleon Bay. Led by Hakoda,” she says, her and Sokka’s eyes widening, the two turning to look at each other in excitement. “It is dad!”

The siblings hug each other, finally glad to know where exactly their father is, and being relatively close.

----

When Zuko regains consciousness, he’s not drawing in the flames of his father, chasing after the visage of his mother, having an intense faceoff, both physically and psychologically with his sister, or being weighed down by the weight of the fancy Fire Lord robes and crown, but under a few blankets on a wooden floor, having tea prepared for him by his uncle.

“You should know that this is not a natural sickness,” Iroh says, pouring the tea into a cup and turning towards Zuko, “but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying tea.”

The old man raises him up a little and feeds him some of the tea.

“What’s happening?” Zuko asks.

“Your critical decision,” he answers. “What you did beneath that lake. It was in such conflict with your image of yourself that you are now at war within your own mind and body.” He then feeds him some more tea.

“What’s that mean,” the boy asks, before he starts uncontrollably coughing, laying back down.

“You are going through a metamorphosis, my nephew. It will not be a pleasant experience, but when you come out of it,” Iroh pauses to wipe away some sweat around Zuko’s head, “you will be the beautiful prince you were always meant to be.”

As the coughing fades and his uncle wipes his head, Zuko drifts back into sleep.

----

“I can't believe it,” Aang says excitedly as he and his friends sit by the table and fully read their letters. “There's a man living at the Eastern Air Temple. He says he's a guru”

“What’s a guru?” Sokka asks. “Some kind of poisonous blowfish?”

“No, a spiritual expert. He wants to help me take the next step in the Avatar journey. He says he can teach me to control the Avatar State.”

“And I can’t believe we know where our dad is now,” Katara says, also excited.

“I know what you mean,” Toph says, clutching her scroll tightly in hands. “My mom's in the city. And from her letter it sounds like she finally understands me.” She then has a little realization at their inevitable reunion. “I should probably find something to wear. Mom’s not gonna like it if she finds out her little girl has been running around the Earth Kingdom naked.” She then chuckles lightly.

“I’ll get something for you,” Katara says.

“This is all such big news!” Sokka shouts. “Where do we even start?”

“I hate to say it,” Katara says, turning to her brother, “but we have to split up.”

“Split up?” Aang asks worriedly. “We just found Appa and got the family back together! Now you want us to separate?”

“You have to meet this guru, Aang,” she continues, a bit more seriously. “If we're going to invade the Fire Nation, you need to be ready.”

“Well, if I'm going to the Eastern Air Temple, Appa and I can drop you off at Chameleon Bay to see your dad,” the bald boy says.

Sokka’s enthusiasm drops slightly. “Someone has to stay here with the Earth King and help him plan for the invasion,” he says. He then stands up and continues, “I guess that's me.”

Also standing up, Katara says, “No, Sokka. I know how badly you wanna help Dad. You go to Chameleon Bay. I'll stay here with the king.”

A smile starts forming on the naked boy's face. Tears forming, he starts dancing happily. “You are the nicest … sister … ever!” he shouts, throwing his arms around her and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

“Easy there, big brother …” she says, before giving a light chuckle. “Though you’re right. I am.”

With that settled, the boys quickly gathered up their few possessions, Katara and Toph asked a servant to provide a dress for the latter, and Appa was brought right to the front of the palace.

They’re preparing to make their leave when they hear the sounds of footsteps. Turning back to the palace stairs, Aang sees the King, flanked by two guards, descending towards them.

He then turns and sees Katara, whose face is pressed against Appas fur as she pets him goodbye and decides now’s as good as any. Walking up to her, he says, “Katara? I need to tell you something.” She turns her head to him, and the boy starts blushing. “I’ve been wanting to say it for a long time.”

“What is it, Aang?”

Rubbing the back of his head, Aang says, “Katara, I-”

“All right,” Sokka says, cutting him off by throwing him into a headlock. “Who's ready to get going on our little men-only man trip?” He starts to noogie Aang’s bald head, much to his sister's annoyance.

“Aang and Sokka,” King Kuei says as he reaches them, causing everyone's heads to turn, “I wish you a good journey. Ba Sing Se owes you its thanks. We look forward to your safe return.”

The boys and Katara bow to him, before Sokka turns and begins to mount Appa.

As he does this, a soldier runs up to the King, saying, “Your Majesty. There are three female warriors to see you. They're from the island of Kyoshi.”

“That’s Suki!” a shocked Sokka shouts, losing his grip and falling to the ground on his hindquarters.

“You know these warriors?” the King asks as the boy gets to his feet.

“Oh yeah. The Kyoshi Warriors are a skilled group of fighters. Trustworthy too. They're good friends of ours.”

“Then we shall welcome them as honored guests,” Kuei says.

Aang then turns towards Appa, also ready to mount him, when Katara says, “Wait, Aang.” She rushes up and hugs him, startling the boy. She then plants a kiss on his cheek, causing him to blush again.

“I’m really gonna miss you guys,” Toph says, causing Aang and Katara to walk up and hug her too.

“Me too” Katara says as Sokka turns away and crosses his arms.

“Yeah,” Aang says.

Then the three walk up and start hugging Sokka, causing him to yelp. “Aahh! Great. That’s enough,” he says, smiling. “Okay, we love each other. Seriously,” he continues, patting the tops of Aang’s and Katara’s heads.

With the goodbye hugs done, Aang and Sokka mount Appa, and after waving the others off, he takes off.

----

It was late when Zuko finally woke up, feeling much better.

The naked boy drowsily gets up, walks past his uncle, who was fast asleep in a meditative position, and walks into the bathroom.

He starts to splash his face with water to fully wake him up, then looks up at the mirror.

Horrified, he backs up and stares at his reflection.

No scar, bald, and with a distinctive Arrow tattoo on his forehead. He raises his arms, seeing matching ones there too, and doesn’t even need to check to know the ones on his legs, and the one going from his collar to his tailbone.

--

Screaming, the boy wakes up in a huff, and starts to breathe heavily.

He raises his hand to the left side of his face and starts prodding the area around his eye. He feels the rough, hard skin of his burn scar, and the breathing slows back down to more normal levels.

Relaxing a bit, he shuts his eyes again.

----

Flying away from the outer wall of Ba Sing Se towards Chameleon Bay is a giant flying bison, with two completely nude boys atop him. Aang sits atop Appa’s head while Sokka lounges on his upper back and the two are in the midst of conversation.

“You see, Aang?” Sokka asks smugly. “A little positive thinking works wonders. We got the king on our side, we got Long Feng arrested, and when we get back, Suki's waiting for me.”

“Yeah,” Aang says slightly dreamily, mind still on Katara. “Girls are waiting for us. Thanks, positive attitude.”

“Everything is gonna work out perfectly. From now on and forever.”

Turning around, Aang gives his friend a smile.

----

Deep within the dungeons of the palace, Long Feng sits in the corner of his cell, his mind racing through just how the hell he ended up in this situation, after his predecessors managed to keep complete control of the city for over a century, and great influence even before that.

All of that control and power, brought down by four naked youths, it’s enough to infuriate anyone.

As he’s quietly seething, a man walks up to his cell door.

“Dinner,” a male Dai Li agent says, sliding a tray of food. Not much, and it’s the very same meal plan he himself devised for prisoners. Insulting.

As he grabs a roll from the plate, the agent continues, a bit quieter, but loud enough for the man to hear. “The Council of Five and the military are loyal to the Earth King,” he says, causing Long Feng to look up at him, “but the Dai Li remain loyal to you, Long Feng, sir.”

The agent then walks away, leaving Long Feng alone to eat. As he does so, a sinister grin forms on his face.

----

Standing in front of a large door of a fancy building in the Upper Ring is Toph, uncomfortably pulling against a form fitting white dress, trying desperately to make it a bit roomier for her body to breathe.

After being completely naked almost consistently for well over a month or so at this point, the girl was uncomfortable wearing something that covered so much, especially as tight as it is. She wishes she could just have the reunion nude and just get it all over with, but she knows her mother. She knows that she’ll react poorly to seeing her daughter naked, but also to the knowledge that she’s walked almost the whole length of the Earth Kingdom naked to boot.

It’s better to ease her into it anyways. Listen to her, talk to her, and at some point bring up the elephant mandril in the room and let her know what she’s been doing. Then she could take off or (more likely) tear it to shreds and tell her that this is who she is and how she wants to live, and she can either accept it or not, but she won’t change it.

Good a plan as any. Taking a deep breath, Toph opens the door and walks into the building.

“Hello?” she says, not feeling anyone in the room around her. “Mom? Anyone home?”

She walks to the center of the room, when she finally senses something, two presences in the house with her. She barely has time to react, as something falls from the ceiling and surrounds her fully. The second her feet touch the bottom of the device, she should tell it was metal, the very same metal cage she was trapped in back at the arena.

“Hey!’ she shouts, trying to sound threatening, but can’t hide her fear. “Who do you think you're dealing with!?”

Two men approach the opening of the cage, and while she can’t see them, she’ll be able to tell who they are when the second one starts talking.

“One loud-mouthed little brat who strayed too far from home,” Earth Rumble host Xin Fu says, Earthbending teacher Master Yu by his side.

----

Back at the palace steps, King Kuei stands atop a fancy platform, his guards lined up either side of it as three women begin to walk up to it.

The Warriors of Kyoshi, dressed in their standard “attire” of gloves, brown boots, a chainmail top, a knee long “skirt” with chainmail at the front and back and green cloth on the sides, and golden headdresses with tassels. They also sport the standard makeup of pure white faces, bright red lips, and red chevrons between the eye and brow.

As the three approach the King and bow before him, he gives a speech.

“In our hour of need, it is with the highest honor that I welcome our esteemed allies, the Kyoshi Warriors!”

The three look up to address him and show their faces. Only one of the warriors, the one on the left, has the brown/reddish brown hair color Kyoshi Islanders are known for, it being done in a long ponytail that goes down her back. She also has a roundish face and, quite oddly, gray eyes, which were almost extinct as they typically belonged to airbenders.

The other two warriors sport darker hair, the one on the right sporting almost pure black hair, her’s long, tied up most in the back with a large bun, with two smaller ones either side of her head, with two strands of hair go over her shoulders and go down to her breasts. She has amber eyes, a small chin, and a look that could kill.

The middle one also sports black hair, hers also tied up in the back in a topknot, with bangs either side of her face. As she raises her gaze, she opens her eyes, her golden eyes.

Attempting to mask her sinister tone, Azula says, “We are the Earth King's humble servants.”

----
End of Book 2 Chapter 18
----

Chapter Text

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world

----

It’s early morning in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se, and most people were getting ready for their days.

Same rings true for an older gentleman in his kitchen preparing a meal. He’s a large man with a bald spot, long gray locks and big bushy beard and an inviting face. He’s wearing a green robe/apron with yellow linings, over a brown outfit and he stands by the counter stirring a pot of some white substance.

As he’s cooking, someone else enters the room. Another man, no, boy, based on how young he looks. He’s still fairly tall, well built with short messy dark hair, amber eyes, and his most eye-catching feature, a burn scar around his left eye. He’s sporting a more casual getup of brownish robes.

Drowsily, as if he’s just woken up, the boy begins to approach the old man, saying, “What’s that smell?”

“It’s jook,” he responds, pausing mid-stir. “I’m sure you wouldn’t like it.”

Still, the boy keeps walking up to it. Leaning forwards, he wafts the fumes towards his nose and sniffs. Satisfied, he says, “Actually, it smells delicious.” He then grabs a bowl and holds it up to the man.

He looks at his nephew with light suspicion, not used to how optimistic he’s been acting. Still, he turns and grabs his ladle to pour him some. “Now that your fever is gone, you seem different somehow,” he says, pouring it.

“It's a new day,” he says as he begins walking towards a table by the window. “We've got a new apartment, new furniture, and today's the grand opening of your new tea shop.” He then takes a seat and looks out the window. “Things are looking up, Uncle,” he says as he takes a drink from the bowl.

It seems like what the old man had been saying all this time had finally gotten through to him, and his expression shifts from one of shock, to a simple smile.

----

Southeast of the outer walls of Ba Sing Se was a place called Chameleon Bay, a bay that’s well, shaped like a chameleon. It consisted of a beach surrounded by a plateau.

It’s on this beach where a blue colored campsite rests besides several wooden boats in the water, and atop the plateau where a giant flying bison lands, overlooking the campsite.

Seated atop the bison’s head are two boys, who look down at the camp. What’s odd about them, aside from the bison, is the fact that both boys are completely naked. Well, only the bald boy is completely naked, as the older of the two sports a pair of brown boots, navy blue gloves with white wrappings beneath, a white rock necklace, a sheath for a club/machete, and a holster for a boomerang.

Holding the bison's reins was the bald one, who’s the younger of the two, has light skin, a round face, and gray eyes. He also sports several tattoos lining his limbs and spine, blue lines that end in arrows at his feet, hands and forehead. Turning to the other naked boy, he says, “You haven’t seen your dad in over two years. You must be so excited!”

The older of the two with the boomerang and club, who’s, taller, has darker skin, blue eyes, and brown hair tied in a wolf tail, looks less excited and more nervous, even resisting the urge to throw up. “I know I should be, but,” he says, clutching his stomach, “I just feel sick to my stomach.”

“Nervous?” the bald boy asks.

“It’s just that so much has changed,” the tan boy says. “I’m older, a lot more experienced, and if you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly dress as I used to.”

“So you’re scared your father won’t like the fact you go naked now?” the boy asks, baffled. “But Bato saw you like that, and you didn’t seem to mind it back then, Sokka, and neither did he really.”

“I know, it’s just scary,” the older boy, Sokka says. “And it’s not just that. If I was only nervous because of me being naked, it wouldn’t take much to get over it. It’s a lot of things.”

“Well, don’t be nervous,” the bald boy says with a smile. “He’s going to be so happy to see you! Even if it is a lot more than the last time he did.” The boy then puts his hand on Sokka’s shoulder, which seems to calm him down a little.

“So what about you?” he then asks. “Are you nervous to meet this guru?”

“Not at all,” he says. “I'm ready to master the Avatar State. I'll do whatever it takes.”

Sokka then hops off the bison's back, then he turns and waves the boy, Aang, off.

“See you in a week. Yip yip!” Aang says, whipping the reins of his bison, it then taking off for the horizon.

Once he’s away, Sokka turns to the distant camp, sighs, and begins his walk.

It takes a good hour for him to reach the beach, and another few minutes for him to walk towards the camp.

Grabbing his arm, he walks into camp, the other Water Tribesmen turning to look at him, which does little to calm his nerves. Those seated stand up, and those with their backs to him turn his way.

Sokka glances around, before looking back forwards, one of the men having walked up to him.

A smile on his face, the man reaches a hand out to him and says, “Sokka, good to see you.”

Sokka grabs his forearm as he grabs his and they shake hands. A few others surround him to great their chief's son, one even grabbing the top of his head and messing with his hair a little.

Due to the Southern Water Tribes location at the South Pole, open nakedness was next to impossible for anyone other than the Avatar, so one would expect that they’d not be used to the sight of a butt naked boy, let alone one of their own out in the open. However, thanks to their experiences in the Earth Kingdom, including a brief stay at an abbey of naked nuns, rumors about Team Avatar’s shenanigans and near full nudity among it’s members, as well general comradery among the Tribes men, and they see Sokka no different than they did the last they saw him. Hell, Sokka even overhears one of them saying something along the lines of, “I always knew that if he left the pole, he’d go this route.”

So Sokka was in good spirits, nerves almost completely flushed away, when the men direct him to the biggest tent in the camp, and he starts to walk towards it.

Upon entering, he sees a bunch of warrior men looking down at a map. At the far end of the tent sits one man in particular. Tan like the rest, he sports brown shoulder length hair that’s tied in a ponytail at the back and with two dreadlocks at the front right of his face, a small beard, and visible cheekbones. However, he’s too preoccupied looking at the map to notice their guest.

Who does notice is the man at his side, a skinny man with longer hair and a more angular face, the aforementioned Bato, who nudges the man, causing him to look up.

A smile forms on his face immediately.

“Sokka,” he says.

“Hi, Dad,” Sokka says as Hakoda rises to his feet and begins to walk towards him.

Sokka starts walking two, and they soon meet, embracing each other for the first time in years.

----

Back at the middle of Ba Sing Se, in the royal palace, the King, Kuei, sits on his throne, stroking the head of his pet bear.

“Look Bosco!” he says, gesturing towards three girls seated on their knees in front of his throne. “The Kyoshi Warriors are here to protect us! Aren't you excited?” The bear just yawns in response.

The three girls sport the same, for lack of any better words, attire, even if it leaves nothing to the imagination. Brown and green gloves and brown leather boots provide the most coverage, and the rest of the outfit consists of a chainmail top, a brown belt, and a skirt that’s chainmail in the front and back and green cloth on the sides. A golden headdress and a painted face, consisting of a white face, red lipstick and red eye chevrons, completes this look, the look of the Kyoshi Warriors.

Something is off about these three, however, even if the King doesn’t notice. Maybe it’s the fact that two of them, the lead one and the one to her left, sport darker hair than the Kyoshi Islanders, the left one being almost fully black and very long, tied up in the back in a massive bun with two smaller ones poking out either side (with strands of hair coming over each shoulder that go down to her chest), or that these two also have amber eyes. The one on the right, while having the reddish-brown hair, tied down in a long ponytail, expected of an Earth Kingdom citizen, sports a uniquely roundish face and grayish eyes.

It’s probably nothing, though, and the King has more important things on his mind, like a recent betrayal being revealed.

“It's been a difficult week for me. My most trusted advisor, Long Feng, and his Dai Li agents tried to take control of Ba Sing Se from me,” he says, still not done processing the events.

“It's terrible when you can't trust the people who are closest to you,” the middle Kyoshi Warrior, the one with amber eyes and dark hair, hers shorter and tied into a topknot at the back with bangs either side framing her face, says with an almost unmistakable air of some kind, the kind that says she’s planning something.

“But there is good news,” the King continues. “As we speak, the Council of Five is meeting to plan an invasion of the Fire Nation this summer, on the day of a solar eclipse.”

This gets a reaction out of the girl. Her eyes widen slightly in surprise, shock, and maybe even a little worry. Thankfully, she’s far enough away for the King to notice, so she quickly regains composure.

“Really?” she asks, playing it off as curiosity. “Now that sounds like a fascinating and brilliant plan.”

Just behind her, the other two warriors exchange glances, realizing that they have very vital information. Information that might be necessary for them to have.

After all, they don’t want to have their home invaded.

----

Speaking of the Council of Five’s meeting, let's head to the room where it happens.

In another building within the Upper Ring, the six individuals involved with this discussion meet.

On a semicircular table sits five men. All decency aged, all powerful, and all hardened by years of fighting and warfare. In front of this table lays a large map of the four nations with several green and red pieces signifying Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation troops.

At the center of the table and leading the meeting is a general named How, who uses his bending to direct the green pieces towards the spot on the map where the Fire Nation capital is, where a single red piece lays, all the while saying, “General Fong's base will serve as the launching point for the attack. In exactly two months, the army and navy will invade the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun.”

However, the serious mood is quickly interrupted by something running onto the map and knocking the pieces over. It’s a white and black lemur, who promptly runs over and begins knocking down other pieces.

This lemur is here courtesy of the sixth person in the room, who stands at the end of the map opposite the five. She’s a young girl with tan skin, blue eyes, and brown hair, tied down in a braid down her back and in loops by her side. Unlike the fully armored men in front of her, she’s lightly dressed. Her attire consists of brown fur boots, navy blue braces around her forearms, a blue necklace with an ornate carving on it, and a short yellow skirt with green lining and patterns on it, and is naked from the waist up.

Watching the lemurs display, she jokingly says, “Or we could send in Momo to do some damage!” She then starts chuckling at her joke, but it quickly dies down when she sees how unamused the five men are. “'Cause, the ... sorry,” she says awkwardly.

General How just waves his hand and earthbends the pieces back upright, startling the lemur, Momo, and causes him to fly away. “All we need is the Earth King's seal in order to execute the plan,” he then says, holding up a scroll.

He then places the scroll onto the table and bends it towards the girl, who grabs and takes it.

“I’ll get these scrolls to him right away,” the girl, named Katara, says. “Thank you, General How.”

She then turns and walks out, excited at the prospect of the plan, one who’s formation required her to walk through a scorching hot desert ass naked, was finally about to see the light of day.

----

Flying on his bison between the mountains, Aang scans the surroundings, until he finally sees it.

The Eastern Air Temple, three structures built into the three tallest mountains in this range, with bridges connecting them.

He flies up to the tallest spire of the tallest building, squinting his eyes as he sees some odd shape atop it.

As he gets closer, he sees that it’s a man meditating. Skinny, dark skinned, bald with a white beard, and completely nude. Evidently, this was the guru who left the message for Apps to deliver to him.

He lands Appa beside the structure the man’s seated upon, a tall circular mound of earth with a spiral staircase going up.

Upon landing, he looks up and asks, “Uhhh ... hello? You're Guru Pathik, right?” When he gets no answer, the naked boy dismounts and begins to ascend the stairs. Once Pathik is in his sights, he says, “The person who attached the note to Appa's horn?”

“Indeed,” Pathik says. “I was a spiritual brother of your people and a personal friend of Monk Gyatso.”

That catches Aang a little off guard. Gyatso was around when Aang was learning how to airbend, before the war, a century ago. And Gyatso was an old man when he knew him, and pretty thoroughly dead when Aang last saw him several months ago. So this guy must be at least a fair bit older than a century for this to be true. Granted, there’s King Bumi, who’s also older than a century, and there’s the fact that one of Aang’s predecessors, Kyoshi, lived to be two hundred and thirty, and the rumored Tieguai who’s apparently anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand years old, but still it’s a bit odd seeing someone THAT old.

Taking a seat in front of him, Aang says, “In your note, you said you could teach me how to gain control of the Avatar State. How?”

“You must gain balance within yourself, before you can bring balance to the world,” Pathik says. “And the first step to gaining balance begins with this,” he continues, holding up a wooden bowl with a yellow liquid in it to Aang, who takes it. “Drink up.”

Aang looks down at the fluid for a second, before taking a drink. Eyes widening, he spits it out almost immediately. “Uggh! It tastes like onion and banana juice!” the naked boy says, disgusted.

“That’s because it is!” the guru says, holding up another cup, before drinking it fully, then holding the now empty bow over his head. “Yum Yum!”

To say Aang was thoroughly weirded out by this guy would be an understatement.

----

A fair distance away from Ba Sing Se, an ostrich horse pulls a small cart, with two men seated at the front and a metal cage resting securely at the back.

This cart heads up to a crossroads, the right trail going up and the left going down. The cart heads left, which one of the two men immediately objects too.

“I believe we need to go right!” the man, who sports long neatly held up brown hair, mustache and beard, along with fancier clothes, says, pointing right.

“What are you talking about?” the man with the reins, also sporting long hair, his black, but is clean shaven and sports a rough rougher looking face and attire, says and the cart comes to a stop. “The Beifong Estate’s this way!”

“I’m quite certain you’re mistaken,” the first man, named Yu, says back, annoyed.

“Hey!” a female voice shouts from the cage, accompanied by the sounds of banging against the metal, both getting the two’s attention. “Can you two old ladies quit your bickering for a second?”

Inside the cage is a girl. She has light skin and black hair, tied up in a large bun with a green and gold headband, though some bangs escape to partially cover her face. What it doesn’t cover are her most defining features, her eyes. Jade green, but with a distinctive milky look to them that grays her eyes. She’s sporting green wrist and ankle bands, a knee length white dress, and a very angry expression.

Looking up, the girl shouts, “I got to go to the bathroom!”

“Oooh … uhhh, okay,” Yu says awkwardly, beginning to rise up, “but make it quick!” He pulls out a key, no doubt for the cage, and begins to turn, but the other man stops him.

“What’s wrong with you?” the man, named Xin Fu, shouts.

“Ooh,” Yu says, realizing that she was making an escape attempt, turning to the cage, “very sneaky Toph! Nice try, but you can’t trick me!” He sits back down and slides the key back into his pocket.

Further angered, the girl in the cage, Toph, shouts, “Let me out of here so I can kick both your butts!” accompanied by more smacking of the inside of her containment chamber.

“Quit your banging!” Xin Fu shouts back, smacking the cage himself. “You might think you're the greatest earthbender in the world, but even you can't bend metal!” he continues in an attempt to dishearten the girl enough to calm down, before whipping the reins and causing the ostrich horse to start moving again.

It seems to work, as her angered expression fades into one of sadness. Reaching out, Toph places her hand on the metal walls of her cage, desperate to feel the seismic waves she’s used to on regular earth, only feeling cold.

----

After being given a decently luxurious home to stay in while they’re here, the three “Kyoshi Warriors” now found themselves alone and unobserved as night fell.

Once they were certain they were no longer in the enemy's sights, they let their facade fall, along with their stolen Kyoshi Warrior attire.

“Three naked girls in a house together,” the one with the brown ponytail and round face, named Ty Lee, comments with a slight grin. Turning to the other two, she continues, “Bet the boys around here would kill to see this, huh?”

The girl with the long, pitch-black hair, named Mai, just glares at her, while the girl with the topknot, Azula, walks past them and towards the stairs to the upper level, cloth in hand and already clearing her face of makeup.

“I assure both of you that no one will see us, and if any do…” she says, holding up her free hand. With a small gesture, bright blue flames appear around it. Partially turning her head back to the two, Azula says, “...I’ll make quick work of them.”

With another gesture, her flame is extinguished, and she walks upstairs out of sight.

With her out of sight, Mai lets out a sight. Technically speaking, she’s not fully naked, as around her wrists, ankles, and waist are holsters for her many knives and stilettos. As she begins to undo the rope around the waist holster, she says, “Glad to finally be out of that thing.”

This causes Ty Lee’s eyes to widen slightly. “Oh, first they let Fire Nation nobility into the city, and now Mai’s actually excited about being naked for once?” she says, laughing at the irony. “What’s next? Are we gonna fight FOR the Avatar rather than capture hi-?”

“Will you keep quiet!?” Mai says, cutting Ty Lee off by covering her mouth with her free hand. “If they find out who we are, WE. ARE. DEAD.” She lowers her hand and calms down a little. “And I’m not excited about being naked, just relieved I don’t need to be in that dreadful thing for a bit.” She then begins walking to another ground floor room, no doubt looking for a cupboard that could house a robe or something. “Be right back.”

Ty Lee watches until Mai’s pale back is out of sight, before turning and walking up the stairs herself. After looking around, she finds Azula standing in front of a mirror beside a large window, almost done with removing her makeup.

Taking a seat in one of the chairs beside her, Ty Lee begins removing her own makeup. “Well Mai’s certainly having a good time,” she says jokingly.

Azula doesn’t respond, though, and the way she’s looking in the mirror says that she’s deep in thought.

A minute or so later, Mai enters the room, still naked and a bit more annoyed. As she takes a seat on the other side of Azula, Ty Lee asks, “Nothing?”

“Evidently, since they believe we come from Kyoshi Island,” she says, gesturing for Ty Lee to hand her another cloth, “they didn’t provide us with even a single robe.”

After that, the girls remove their makeup in silence. Azula finishes hers quickly, and once she’s done, she begins to pace the room, her brain evidently still very occupied.

She only speaks after Ty Lee just finishes up removing her makeup, and what she says reveals what's on her mind. “We have been presented with an extraordinary opportunity, girls.”

As Azula walks past them, Ty Lee decides to continue to poke fun at her friend. “Mai’s excited about being naked for a change and finally gets to wear make-up that's not totally depressing?”

Mai turns to her, large blotches of black makeup dripping from around her eyes, and gives a sarcastic, “Ha ha,” before turning back to the mirror. “And I’ll say that chainmail against my skin was not a comfortable feeling, and after dealing with it for hours, I can say that I’d prefer going bare-assed than that again.”

“Aaaah, so you admit it!” Ty Lee says teasingly.

Before Mai could give an angry retort, Azula cuts off this conversation by revealing fully what’s on her mind. “I'm talking about conquering the whole Earth Kingdom,” she says as she walks up and stares out the large window, causing the two to turn to her in shock. With a smirk, she continues, “For one hundred years, the Fire Nation has hammered away at Ba Sing Se from the outside. But now we're on the inside, and we can take it by ourselves.”

“Gosh, you're so confident,” Ty Lee says. “I really admire that about you.”

“From the inside, we're in perfect position to organize a coup and overthrow the Earth King,” she continues. “The key is the Dai Li. Whoever controls the Dai Li,” Azula turns to face Mai and Ty Lee, “controls Ba Sing Se.”

----

Back at the Eastern Air Temple, Guru Pathik stands beside a creek that leads into a small moss-filled pond further downhill, which leads into another creek, and another pond, and so on and so on, Aang standing by his side.

“In order to master the Avatar State,” he tells the nude boy, “you must open all the chakras. Aang, tell me everything you know about chakras.”

As he rubs his eyes, Aang says, “What are chakras?”

Visibly and audibly disappointed, the naked man says, “Oh, I see. I guess we'll start with the basics.” He then points to the creek and ponds. “The water flows through this creek, much like the energy flows through your body. As you see, there are several pools where the water swirls around before flowing on. These pools are like our chakras.”

Getting it, Aang says, “So chakras are pools of spiraling energy in our bodies?”

“Exactly,” Pathik says. “If nothing else were around, this creek would flow pure and clear. However,” he says, gesturing to the building moss in the nearest pond, “life is messy, and things tend to fall in the creek. And then what happens?”

“The creek can’t flow?”

“Yes. But,” he says as he bends down and removes the moss from the pool, “if we open the ponds between the pools…”

“The energy flows!” the boy says excitedly. And he’s right, the creek begins to flow smoothly, water going further and further down, clearing up and even looking like it’s lighting up, as if energy were flowing through it.

--

Later, in another part of the temple, a cavern, the two sit in meditative poses across from each other atop a large rock formation within.

It’s here where Pathik explains what he wants Aang to do.

“There are seven chakras that go up the body,” he says. “Each pool of energy has a purpose, and can be blocked by a specific kind of emotional muck. Be warned, opening the chakras is an intense experience, and once you begin the process, you cannot stop until all seven are open. Are you ready?”

Aang looks down for a moment, hesitant, but he brushes it away when he realizes this is necessary for defeating the Fire Lord. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“First we will open the Earth Chakra, located at the base of the spine,” Pathik explains. “It deals with survival, and is blocked by fear. What are you most afraid of? Let your fears become clear to you.”

Aang shuts his eyes and visualizes what he’s afraid of in his mind.

The first thing he sees is a bizarre humanoid creature. With a black body (with grays, whites, and blues painted all around in patters) shaped like a naked human male, with a blue and white face of a dragon.

The visage of the Blue Spirit, in the midst of attacking him with it’s broadswords.

Next he sees a girl, Katara, sinking into the earth, a real thing that happened, courtesy of General Fong in an attempt to force him into the Avatar State, which actually worked.

Then he sees himself leaning before a pond, walking up to a white fish with a black spot, the ocean spirit La. He then sees himself merging with the spirit into a massive, bright blue fish monster.

Then a silhouetted man surrounded by flames, the Fire Lord, the most powerful man in the world, who he must defeat before the end of summer.

Speaking of, the next thing he sees is a comet flying overhead.

Sozin’s Comet, his deadline to defeat the Fire Lord

The images repeat and repeat in his mind, overwhelming him.

He screams.

“Aang,” Pathik says, “your vision is not real. You are concerned for your survival, but you must surrender those fears. Let your fears flow down the creek.”

Concentrating with great effort, the images begin to fade from his mind.

As he opens his eyes, the Guru says, “You have opened your Earth Chakra!”

Pleased with himself, Aang wipes away some sweat from his forehead.

--

Later, the two sit behind a waterfall.

Pathik starts by saying, “Next is the…”

“Water Chakra?” Aang cuts off, already guessing.

“Brilliant!” the impressed guru says. “Maybe one day you will be a guru too! This chakra deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt. Now, look at all the guilt which burdens you so. What do you blame yourself for?”

Aang shuts his eyes and visualizes what he’s guilty of in his mind.