'I can't believe that he could bend such a huge thing with no movements. It's like I'm watching Toph mess with Korra in the swamp. I might have to rethink about bending in general....' this fight gave her many ideas and theories about improving her bending abilities.

"So...Did aang win or not!? I'm kind of dying here!" Sokka asks with a yell.

Just as he says that, Bumi smirks.

"Hehe, well done Avatar. You fight with much fire in your heart." He says with a confident tone.

He throws the giant boulder away before falling on his back and goes through the ground where a hole in the exact shape of his body was made.

He jumps out of the ground in front of Sokka and Katara. When he notices Sras he smiles before facing Aang who just jumped up.

"You passed all my tests. Now you must answer one question."

"That's not fair! you said you would release my friends if I finished your tests." Aang complains.

"Oh, but what's the point of tests if you don't learn anything."

"Oh come on!" Sokka says in annoyance.

"Answer this one question and I will set your friends free." He gestures to them.

"What....is my name?" A few dramatic seconds later, Bumi asks.

Aang gives a confused look.

"From the looks of your friends I'd say you only have a few minutes." Bumi smiles before walking away.

The gang get closer while Seras helps Sokka by rolling him across the ground.

"How am I supposed to know his name?"

"Think about the challenges. Maybe it's some kind of riddle."

"I got it!" Sokka yells out confidently.

"Yeah?"

"He's an earth-bender right? Rocky!" Seras tilts his body to the side facing away from the rest.

"Hey!" He yells before his face is against the ground making his words come out as a grunt.

"Ok, so back to the challenges. I got a key from a waterfall, I saved his pet, and I had a duel."

"And What did you learn?" Katara asks.

"Well, everything was different than I expected."

"And?" Katara asks urgently as the Genimite just crept closer to her face.

"Well, they weren't straight forward. To solve each test, I had to think differently than I normally would."

"I know his name." Aang thinks for a few more second before snapping his fingers and smiling.

Sokka, katara, and Seras follow Aang to the throne room, where Bumi is wearing his normal green robe.

Aang goes to the king and guesses his name correctly. They hug each other when Katara and Sokka walk closer drawing attention to their predicament. Bumi, earth-bends the Genimite from the siblings and grabs one midair. He then takes a big bite out of it.

"I get that the crazy king is your friend from a hundred years ago, but why all the challenges?" Sokka asks in frustration.

"There is a method to the madness. Aang is the avatar and he needs to face the Fire Lord. The challenges were my way of helping him realize that conventional methods are sometimes not the correct answer."

"I hope that when you do face him, you think like a mad genius." Bumi turns to Aang and gives him a big smile.

"Before I go, I have a challenge for you." Aang bows before smiling mischievously.

"Huh?" Bumi sounds out.

A while later they are on the chute system laughing hysterically while destroying more parts of the city.

Seras is at the bottom waiting for them with Sokka and Katara when she hears a guy yelling 'My cabbages!'

"Hehe, say what you want about the man. but if you were over a hundred years old, could you fight like that?"

"No way! I don't even want to think where I'll be in a hundred years." Sokka denies.

"Yeah, its pretty crazy that he could have muscles and fight like that at his age." Katara says.

"I'm going to go get Appa." Seras says before walking away.

When Aang and Bumi get to the end, they're still laughing for a little bit when Bumi notices Seras isn't there. His smile lowers a bit and turns to Aang.

"Aang, I want you to be careful around that girl."

"Who? Katara?"

"No, the other one. She is a great ally, but she could also be a greater enemy than the Fire Lord. Please be careful."

"I will, but I think you're wrong about her."

"I hope I am as well. It was great seeing an old friend." They hug once again and Bumi leaves soon after.

Seras arrives with Appa a few minutes later and the gang get on before flying away.

A few minutes after they flew away, Bumi walks out of his room and onto a terrace. He looks in the direction they went before frowning a little in thought.

"She is an enigma, I sensed a heat that only comes off of fire benders, but today I also sensed the smell of the earth coming from her as well. Can she take in other people's bending and use it as her own?" He mumbles to himself.

"Whatever the case, she doesn't seem too bad as she chooses who to take it away from." He says as he thinks back to last night.

The next day After they left Omashu, the gang are in a forest scavenging for food. Sokka brings out an assortment of nuts and the rest complain when they hear loud banging.

"What is that?" Katara asks.

"Let's go find out." Aang state as he begins to run in that direction.

The rest follow when they reach a clearing and see a young man moving boulders with earth bending. Katara smiles and walks ahead of the group.

"Hey! Are you an earth bender?" She waves while asking.

The young man gasps and drops the boulder he was bending before turning around. He sees the group and his face pales like he just saw his worse enemies.

"Wha-?" Katara says in confusion.

The young man turns back around while running and blocks off the pathway with his earthbending.

"Why'd he run?" Aang asks.

"Sokka, it's official." Seras states while patting his shoulder.

"What is?" He asks back in confusion.

"You're so ugly that it scared him off."

Aang and Seras laugh while Sokka yells at her. Katara gives a worried look in the direction the stranger went.

"I think we should find out what happened. He looked scared."

"Here we go again."

"What?"

"Why is it that every time someone seems to be in danger we have to go and help? I mean it's not like we have some world saving quest to take care of. Oh wait, we do!"

"I know...but if we can help we should. That's how mom taught us." Katara rubs her necklace in sadness.

".....You're right. She did tell us that." Sokka gives a sad look before agreeing with her.

"Great, now that that's settled. Let's go get us some trouble." Seras claps her hands before rubbing them together.

She then cracks her fingers before getting in a horse stance. Before she does anything she looks back at the gang.

"You might want to move back."

Katara thinks for a second before showing an anxious look and grabs Aang's hand. She then drags him with her about 50 meters backward. Sokka sees this and realizes what Seras is about to do before running after them.

'Ye people of little faith. They don't even know about my earth-bending yet they ran so far.' Seras' face shows frustration at their lack of trust in her abilities.

Seras breathes in and out before placing her right palm facing up in front of her. She then raises it slowly and as the gang is confused by not seeing fire they yell in surprise when the earth blocking the path slowly floats.

Aang goes to tell when Katara covers his mouth. She sighs in relief that she stopped him in time before she remembers her bumbling brother. She turns to find Sokka with his mouth gaping and she knew she was too late.

'Crap' She thinks before she hears Sokka yelling.

"What the hell!?" This snaps Seras' concentration and she flinches which makes the rocks and dirt fly off somewhere as she used her normal strength.

The ground beneath her makes a rumbling noise as a crater forms around her. It extends about 25 meters all around her and 10 meters deep.

"Sokka! You know what happens when Seras uses her normal strength! Why did you yell!?" Katara yells at him in anger.

"But she is earth-bending! She fire bends! How can she earth bend now?"

"I don't know but she clearly just got it. Look at what you made her do!"

Seras sighs in frustration and goes back to the group. They stop arguing and everyone decides to see where the young man went. on the way nobody asks Seras about her newfound abilities which makes their walk go in silence.

Just when Seras has enough and she is about to tell them, They arrive at a small town which looks desolate. They look around for a but when Katara spots him and tells the others.

The group follow him to a building which he enters, they all look at each other before nodding in agreement. The door to that building opens and they walk inside.

"Hey! You're that kid. Why did you run away before?" Katara states the obvious before asking.

"Uh...you must have me confused with some other kid." The kid looks to his mom before answering.

"No she doesn't, we saw you earth bending." Aang says with his swanky new hat he bought with nuts.

The two people gasp before the mother runs to the door and window before closing hem abruptly. She turns to them with a worried look.

"They saw you doing what?"

"They're crazy mom. I mean look at how they're dressed." The kid defends himself.

The group looks down and Seras realizes that they are dressed weirdly. She is wearing the South Pole clothes she got from Katara and they are the same. While the others are wearing what they wore in the show.

"You know how dangerous that is. You know what will happen if they caught you earth-bending." As soon as the mother says that a bang is heard at the door.

"Open up!" A voice says from behind the door with more banging.

Sokka opens the window slightly to find fire nation soldiers. He turns to the rest.

"Fire nation! Act natural." He whispers while the mother opens the door.

A middle aged fire nation soldier walks in with a very arrogant expression that reminds Seras of Maxwell. She scowls as the man looks around. Katara is in the middle of eating cherries while Aang is leaning on a barrel. Sokka is looking at an apple while talking to the young man.

Aang slips and his hand falls into the barrel that is full of water. Seras is leaning against the wall right by the entrance where the soldier couldn't see her.

"What do you want? I've already paid you this week." The woman speaks up hoping to distract the soldiers.

"The taxes have doubled." The leading soldier states arrogantly.

"What? I-I don't have anymore money." She backs up in fear.

"Oh really?" The soldiers looks around.

"Y-Yes."

"Then I suggest you come up with some money quickly. We don't want an accident, do we? Fire can be so hard to control." He bends out a ball of fire which makes a shadow cover his face giving him an evil look.

This intimidation act is interrupted when a hand touches his shoulder.

The soldier turns to the right to find Seras giving him a smile.

"You know, I agree with you." She says while she puts her hand in the flame the man created.

"Huh?" The man asks when he feels his connection to the flame was severed.

Seras takes her hand out of the middle of the man's palms and brings the flame with it. She then starts to put her other hand on top of it.

"Fire can be very dangerous and difficult to control." She continues as she molds the flame into a long rectangle that goes about a meter in between her palms.

It starts out as red and in a gradient goes to orange, then yellow, then green, then blue and a small sliver ends up as black.

The man stumbles back in fear at what he is witnessing when he feels the surrounding air is heating up. He looks around and notices that nobody else can feel it.

"W-What are you d-doing!? Don't you know who I am?" He tries to scare her.

"Yes I know exactly what you are. A big fish in a small pond acting like the center of the universe. Let me tell you that you're even more insignificant than the dust in my shoes." Seras says as the rectangle becomes completely black and the man's armor begins to melt around him.

He screams before running out of the store making the other soldiers confused before following him.

"What did you do? I've never seen a black flame before." Sokka asks in wonderment.

"You...What have you done?" The woman asks while trembling.

"You're a fire-bender?" The young man states with as much disgust as he can muster.

"You could say so." Seras shrugs before taking a bite out of an apple.

"Why did you do that? They'll come back for revenge now." The mother states in worry.

"Then we won't go." Katara states in determination.

"What!?" Sokka yells.

"We won't leave here until we help this town and get rid of the fire nation."

"I know mom said to help, but she said if we can. If!"

"We can help. Give me a few days and I'll think of something."

"Fine. How long has the fire nation been here?" Sokka slaps his forehead in frustration before asking he mother and son pair.

"5 years. Fire Lord Ozai uses our town's coal mines to fuel his sh.i.p.s." The mother answers.

"They're thugs. They steal from us and everyone is too much of a coward to do anything about it." The boy complains.

"Quiet Haru! Don't talk like that."

"But Haru's an earth bender, he can help." Katara states naively.

"Earth bending is forbidden. It's caused nothing but misery for this village. He must never use his abilities."

"How can you say that? Haru has a gift." Katara asks in indignation while walking forward.

"Asking him not to earth bend is like asking me not to water bend. It's part of who we are." She continues.

"You don't understand."

"I understand that Haru can help you fight back. What can the Fire Nation do to you that they haven't done already?"

"They could take Haru away, like they took his father." The mother states worriedly.

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like