The Undiscovered Girl (Avatar: the Last Airbender; Book 2: Earth)

Return to Omashu

The teenage girl easily catches up to us and Aang uses his airbending to cause some of the construction scaffolding to collapse. The girl notices this and sends a throwing star at him, but Aang twirls his staff in front of it and catches the star with it. The girl continues to throw more arrows at us, but the ground beneath us opens up, causing us to fall and it rapidly closes once we're inside.

I looked around the area we fell into and it was room with a group of people looking at us. The room had green sewage dripping from the ceiling and it smelled like Sokka's feet.

My sister and I share a disorientated look as the two boys rub their heads. Bubbles awakens but didn't move from her position and just chitters.

——

Turns out these people underground are the resistance and are fighting for their kingdom. The small tunnel had hundreds of people inside, fighting for their lives. Aang, Katara, Sokka, and I enter the large room through a tunnel and we were talking to three other men.

"So, is King Bumi with you guys? Is he leading the resistance?" Aang asked the man who seemed to be the leader.

The mad balled his fists in anger at Aang's question.

"Of course not! 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. But before we even had a chance, King Bumi surrendered." The man explained and I felt sorrow rush through me.

I turned to Aang who was disconcerted by the news of his friend. I gave Aang a sorrowfully expression and touched his shoulder, assuringly.

"The day of the invasion, I asked King Bumi what he wanted to do. He looked me in the eye and said..." The man stopped for a moment before continuing. "I'm going to do...nothing!"

I met King Bumi once and it seems like something he would do. Think of something like this as a joke and just sit back and relax.

"It doesn't matter now." The man continued and I glanced at Aang who was still downcast. "Fighting the Fire Nation is the only path to freedom. And freedom is worth dying for."

The man smiles at the end of his speech but Aang quickly speaks up.

"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."

Aang makes a good point. Retreating now would mean they would live to fight another day and win this fight.

"You don't understand. They've taken our home, and we have to fight them at any cost!" The man expressed using big hand gestures to make his point clear.

"I don't know, Yung, living to fight another day is startin' to sound pretty good to me." A resistance fighter reasoned with the leader who was apparently named, Yung.

Another fighter stepped forward and points to himself. "Yeah, I'm with the kid!"

All the people who were taken underground start to whisper to one another as Yung ponders Aang's idea.

"Fine. But there's thousands of citizens that need to leave. How're we going to get them all out?" Yung asked.

"Suckers!" Sokka suddenly yells out. We all give Sokka an odd look as the animals chirp questionably at my brother and Sokka smiles broadly.