Wandering Spirits (ATLA DP crossover)

Waking up -Chapter 2

Danny's eyes opened suddenly as he took in a sucked breath as if coming back to life. But quickly slammed his eyes shut again because of the too-bright light of the sun. He heard a conversation going on around him, the words were indistinguishable at the moment, his head felt like it was splitting, and his side and arm hurt, like a sunburn but a hundred times worse. He reached for his side; it was bandaged! He tried to sit up but gave up and just rolled his head back gritting his teeth, were these people friendly?

Danny then felt a slight weight being placed on his chest, barely noticeable, but still there. After a moment he was able to open his eyes and he was immediately met with bright green eyes an inch from his face, he jumped with a strangled sound as he tried to crawl back out of fright. The creature jumped off of his chest and ran around next to a small group of people. The creature was some sort of white and brown lemur with big ears. The people it ran to for safety turned around to face Danny. The girl's eyes widened and she stepped forward quickly with her hands at her sides, "Hey, listen, you got hurt. You're safe now."

Danny was glad he could understand them, but he definitely didn't trust them. He had been tricked more times than he could count. "My name is Katara, this is Aang and Sokka. And the one that woke you up, that was Momo." She explained calmly before asking. "What's your name?" Danny hesitated for a second.

"Danny." he winced at the sound of his own voice, it was pained and dry, but the others there didn't seem to care.

"Yeah yeah, hi Danny, very nice to meet you and all. What were you doing in the sky!?" Sokka exclaimed and pointed up. Danny followed where he was pointing and looked up seeing the canopy of trees above them.

"I fell," Danny answered dryly, reverting his gaze to the boy.

"How did you fall from that height?"

"Not sure." Danny's voice slowly started to come back to him.

Katara stepped closer to him. "How did you get hurt?" She pointed to the bandages that she put on him.

Danny turned away, "It doesn't matter." Was the only answer they were going to get out of him. He didn't want to talk to them that much. He was still trying to assess the situation he was in.

A few moments later he jumped up and yelped out of surprise (with all the pain that came with doing that). A large tongue licked him across his back causing him to fall over. He scrambled away to see what looked like a furry buffalo, with white fur with a brown arrow on his head. He was also much bigger than most animals he had ever seen. He would have guessed it was about the size of Cujo in his angry form, maybe bigger.

"Oh sorry, I forgot to introduce you. This is Appa, my flying bison." Aang explained as he tried to help Danny steady himself by holding his arm.

"He can fly?" Danny looked incredulously at the creature, as it just looked back at him with puppy eyes and a tilted head. Danny had to give it to him, he was quite cute.

"That is how we have been traveling for the last couple of days," Sokka said. Leaning back on a log and sharpening his boomerang with a rock.

"Where are you guys going?" Danny asked, pulling his arm away from Aang who was still holding it from helping him up, he just forgot to let go.

"We are trying to get to the North Pole to find a water-bending master. So, they could teach me and Aang." Katara said as she started to pack up some stuff so they could go out again.

Danny tilted his head to the side a bit. "What is water bending?" He asked his voice full of confusion, he had never heard of it before.

Sokka started laughing hysterically, clutching his stomach. He laughed for a couple of seconds until he came to the realization that Danny wasn't laughing with him. "Wait you are serious!? How have you never heard of water bending before?"

"I'm not from around here." Danny shrugged and ignored the looks of disbelief the others were giving him.

Katara spoke up. "It's, um like being able to control water, only some people are born with it. like me and Aang, see." She raised her hands in the air to create a small bubble of water that floated out of the river next to them. Her hands shook from strain, and after a couple of seconds, the bubble popped causing the water to fall to the ground. "I am not even close to becoming a master, but I am learning."

Danny heard a crack of a stick nearby and turned his head to listen closer. "Someone's here." He muttered just loud enough that the others could hear. He tried to power up a blast in his hand, but as soon as he tried to redirect his ectoplasm, a shock from the chip in his neck zapped him painfully. "I guess no using my powers for a while huh." He spoke to himself; the others didn't hear.

Aang spun his staff around in his hand and pointed it at the trees. "Who is there, show yourself!" He called out, while everyone got into a battle stance, including Danny. Out from behind the trees stepped Zuko with three fire nation guards behind him.

"Zuko," Sokka snarled, ready-ing his boomerang for a fight. "How did you find us?"

"We saw someone falling out of the sky. And came to investigate, and what do I find but the Avatar and his friends." Zuko lit a small fire in his palm with a smirk on his face.

Aang jumped into the air and brought down a huge blast of air flinging Zuko and his crew members back into the trees. "Get to Appa!" he yelled and jumped nearly twenty feet into the air and landed in the bison's back.

Danny wasn't sure who these newcomers were, but he guessed he should go with the people who saved him. He ran behind them as the bison turned around letting his tail fall down onto the ground like a ramp. Zuko let out a yell of anger, as he tried to blast fire at the bison as he was lifting off of the ground. The burst of flame barely missed his back leg.

They broke a couple of branches as they flew through the trees, and a couple of leaves and pine needles were left in the bison's fur.

They all breathed a sigh of relief once they got high enough into the air. "That was close." Katara breathed out.

Danny held his side tightly, his body really didn't like running that much. "Who was that?" He asked breathlessly.

"That is Zuko, he has been following us ever since the South Pole. He is trying to capture Aang." Sokka explained.

"Why does he want you?" Danny turned his attention to Aang who was holding the reins of the giant bison.

"Because, because I am the avatar." He answered looking down a bit, sounding ashamed.

"Okay, and that is?" Danny asked with an eyebrow raised.

Everyone on the bison turned around in shock to stare at Danny who just had a confused look on his face. Sokka spoke up. "How do you now know who the Avatar is!? You know master of all four elements, hero, this doesn't ring any bells." He threw his hands in the air.

Danny shook his head no. "What, have you been living under a rock!" Sokka yelled.

"Sokka." Katara scolded.

"I don't know anything about where I am, what is going on. Nothing about this bending thing, I am not from around here, and I don't know how to get home." Danny exclaimed leaning back against the edge of the saddle and looking out into the sky. Everyone stayed silent for a couple of minutes, not knowing how to respond to what Danny said.

"We will try our best to help you get home," Katara reassured putting her hand lightly on Danny's non-burned shoulder.

Danny sighed and pulled away from her hand. "Sure."

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Re-Edited: 4/14/2024

Notes:

Ahh, I know this is not a great chapter, I wasn't sure how to get them to meet properly. I wanted the fight with Zuko to be longer but I didn't know how. I will be making this so much better when I update it. The next chapter will be a day after this one during the Kyoshi episode and will be much, much longer. Please leave a review for any ideas for the future or things I can add, also to tell me what you think so far.