Earth..
Fire...
Water...
Air...
Long ago, my brother and I found a boy in the ice of our home who would eventually become the Hero known as the Avatar who ended the Great 100 Year War that plagued the world for a century.
Under the leadership of Aang and Fire Lord Zuko, the Four Nations formed a tight bond that would eventually blossom into a glorious peace that lasted for two years.
But that would not last.
They came...
We didn't know who they were, or what they were or even their origins. The spirits couldn't tell us, and they abandoned the physical world as the invaders came and harvested everything in sight, poisoning the world from within.
They were known as the Ladies. They dressed in royal garb and acted as beautiful women, but underneath their masks were a twisted hate of humankind. They came for us, and all we could do was fight back and eventually, lose.
Humans made deals with them to preserve their lives, and propaganda eventually turned the Ladies into gods among the populace of the world. Those few who knew the twisted truth could only run and hide, and eventually I watched as Avatar Aang was beaten and struck to a place I still do not know.
Now me and my friends can only hide..
and wait for the inevitable doom to follow...
The chirping of birds..
Katara's ears were met with this sound as she awoke within her mind, the blackness of sleep still blacking her out from the rest of the world through the usage of her eyelids.
However even her eyelids were fighting back the urge to keep sleeping, as light seemed to gleam through in slight cracks, as if urging her to get up and start hunting for food.
"No no.." she murmured. "Not now."
But sunlight didn't have a snooze button, nor did it give any regard to Katara's plea for a return to night.
So she reluctantly opened her eyes, sitting up so that the fur blankets fell off her own shoulders.
Around her were carved runes, and intricate architecture formed of sweeping paintings of bald monks, meditating on clouds, some of them with arrows tattooed on their arms and legs, wearing orange robes.
The old temple was majestic and beautiful once, but now it was dusty and filled with moss and crumbling from the winds of time itself.
Katara rubbed her eyes tiredly as she stood up, looking at her reflection in the waters of an old fountain. A beautiful 16 year old girl with tan skin, and black hair wearing blue tribal furs looked back at her from the reflection, her blue eyes shimmering.
For a moment she looked at herself in the reflective surface of the calm rippling fountain, when a sharp cry rang out, interfering with her thoughts.
"AGHHH! OWWW! Dangit!!"
The sounds of Katara's brother Sokka rang out from outside the temple.
Katara ran out into the large stone courtyard, where the air felt thin yet heavy and clouds lay level with the very altitude of the mountaintop temple.
Trying to climb a tree while he used his legs to hold onto a low hanging branch while swinging around a sword in one hand at what appeared to be a strange animal, was a young 17 year old man with the same tan skin as Katara and similar blue clothing.
"What are you-?" Katara began.
"SHHHHHH.. Katara.. you're gonna scare it away.." Sokka whispered.
"That's a wild beaver bird, you can't honestly think we're gonna eat that." said Katara. "That thing's tiny."
"Tiny or not tiny, this thing is meat, and meat is going into my stomach." said Sokka. "yesss. yesss you are you little cute, pudgy, delectable little-."
"SQUUUAAAAAK!!!" The odd bird with a beaver's tail jumped onto Sokka's head and began rapidly pecking him with gale force, so much so that it sounded like bullets richocheting of armor.
"OWWWW OWWWO NOT AGAIN!! CURSE YOU MEAT! I WILL EAT YOU!!!" Sokka screamed as he waved his sword around furiously.
"Is Sokka trying to kill the Beaver Bird again!?" a girl's voice called out from inside the temple.
"Yep." said Katara, her eye twitching slightly.
"Toph, you know that meat is a PERFECTLY good reason to go overboard, and we need to keep up our ener- OW OW!!" Sokka let out another yell of pain as the bird continued to peck his head. "-Th-that totally justifies killing this insanely cute and pudgey piece of protein!! If we're going to find Aang and defeat those weirdo Ladies then we need all the muscle we can get!"
"I mean I'm all for having a little bit of meat now and then." said Katara. "But Aang's a vegetarian and he's completely fine."
"Fine!? Come on Katara! Have you SEEEN his skinny arms!?" Sokka exclaimed before falling out of the tree with another 'OW!'
"Yeah, no offense to Twinkle Toes." said the girl's voice as a pair of bare mud caked feet pattered over next to Katara. "But he's definitely got some skinny arms."
A girl wearing earth green clothing, her hair tied into a bun and bangs to hide her pale blind eyes, stepped out next to Katara.
"Well, I mean, yeah he's skinny, but he's a really powerful Bender, and very good at being the Avatar in spite of all that-." said Katara.
"But do you seem doing lifts and squats? No, cause he lacks a very important food group!" said Sokka, jumping to his feet. "Namely, one of the delicious, fleshy and seared over mango chutney variety."
"Mmmm, I wanna try mango chutney over roasted turtle pork.." said Toph, her mouth seeming to salivate a little. "Wait what's chutney..?"
"Heck if I know, I heard King Bumi mention something about it, and now I can't get it out of my head. The guy's crazy, but like, crazy like a foxmonkey.. or Spidermonkey."
"Spidermonkies don't exist Sokka." said Katara.
"They do! And I'll prove it!!" Sokka roared. "I told you I saw one! An honest to god Spider.. MONKEY!"
"Sokka's still sore about how he said he saw a monkey with four arms and four eyes when we were kids." said Katara with a teasing smirk. "Nobody believed him."
"CAUSE YOU'RE ALL DUMBOS!" Sokka exclaimed. "Think logically about it! There are Hog Monkeys, Crab Monkeys, Bear Monkeys, Giant Platimonkies! Why not a Spider Monkey!?"
"What I'm wondering is if The Earth King's pet is just a Bear, is there such a thing as just a monkey?" Toph asked.
Sokka opened his mouth to speak, then he held up a finger in shock as his mouth dropped even wider. "Toph you just blew my mind.."
"Weren't you getting meat?" Katara asked.
"Oh right that, thing is we are DEFINITELY low on food. And as we no longer have a flying bison or even a flying bald dude, we have no choice but to mount an expedition for gathering supplies.. "
"Really? We're that low?" said Katara, her face filled with worry now. "How much is left?"
"Probably enough lettuce and mushrooms to hold out a few days." said Sokka seriously. "And that's why before those few days are up we need to find food, specifically meat... especially meat... okay just meat."
"And mango chutney." said Toph eagerly, placing her hands on her hips. "Especially Mango Chutney."
"Right, soon as we figure out what this so called chutney is." said Sokka, stroking his chin inquisitively.
Katara sighed. "Well, I suppose if we have no choice, but if we journey too far down into the forest we're going to attract attention."
"Come on, what you're afraid that the meat we kill is gonna fire flares into the sky?" said Sokka.
"No, but remember how fast they found us before. " said Katara seriously. "Sokka, think it through, if they know where we are, we're done."
"I know I know! We'll be cautious." said Sokka. "In the meantime, there's a more important problem."
"What's that?" asked Katara.
"I'm holding this bag upside down." said Sokka, as he took out a fur pouch and shook it. "There's nothing coming out? Can you guess what bag this is?"
"Uhhh-."Katara began.
"Da meat bag!" Sokka exclaimed. "The bag that shouldn't be empty!!! So we're going to fill it with the screams of the fluffy cute animals, okayyy? So let's go have some fun and kill some cute little balls of defenseless and timid forest creatures! Preferably when they're not looking at us in the eyes so the ghosts of their suffering do not haunt us in our dreams. Whose in?"
"Violence against cute things? Sign me up!" said Toph with a grin.
"Okay, okay, I guess I should come along, but if you guys try going after a wild Platypus Bear again, pick up your own broken bones."
"Come on we have Toph, as if a Platypus Bear's gonna stand a chance against her." said Sokka. "Come on! We are off to find MEAT!"
"He's really been meat obsessed lately hasn't he? I mean more than usual." said Toph.
"I mean I can't blame him, we have been surviving on nothing but lettuce and mushrooms for 3 weeks." said Katara with a shrug.
And so the trio walked down the treacherous mountain path with Sokka in the lead, Katara making sure to bring along her hip flask filled with water.
However, it wasn't long before they came across meat that was more interested in eating than being eaten.
"ROOOAAAAAARRRRRR!" Four massive bear-like creatures with duck bills and paddle-like tails rampaged at the group after Sokka went nonchalantly into a cave, obviously defending their territory.
"REALLY!?" Katara yelled as Sokka ran past her, screaming. "I told you not to go poking Platypus Bears and you find FOUR of them!?"
"Well that's just Team Avatar's luck isn't it?" said Toph, with a shrug. "I'll handle these chumps."
Toph slammed the ground with one of her bare feat and a wall made of hard rock rose out instantly. Toph then made several coordinated quick movements, as if she were practicing a form of martial arts, slamming her palms outwards, movements that if seen in a world far in the past, would be known as Shaolin Kung Fu.
With the thrust of her palms, the earth wall expanded and turned into a raging tidal wave of gravel that sent the Platypus Bears sprawling with irritated roars, before they scattered into the forest.
"See? we're fine!" said Sokka, sheathing his sword hastily. "Totally fine!"
"Odd cave though." said Katara, putting her hands on her hips. "Doesn't it look a bit rectangular to you?"
"Hmmmm." Sokka stroked his chin. "I mean now that you mention it. Maybe its man made. And man made means a kitchen, and a kitchen means a larder, and a larder means meat!"
"Well then what are we waiting for? Those Platypus Bears aren't going to come looking any time soon." said Katara.
"Well, as hungry as I am we can't just waltz in. First of all we don't know how old this settlement is, and if anybody put any traps. Obviously its a carved cave, so they were either Earth Benders or had good resources."
"I agree with Sokka on this, it feels weird in there." Toph muttered, narrowing her blind eyes. "I'm trying to use my Earth Bending to look further in, but there are just objects and formations in there that I don't quite understand. Like.. everything's unusually smooth, and there's an object in there that feels like it might be some kind of machine."
"A machine?" said Katara. "Is there anybody in there with it?"
"Nobody moving, I don't think there would be any surviving people if the Platypus Bears were there long." said Toph. "I mean maybe it's worth a look, but we should be careful."
"Machine means people, people means kitchen, and kitchen means.. MEAT!" Sokka exclaimed, pulling out a torch so fast that it made Katara's eyes pop.
"What if the only meat we find are dead people?" asked Toph.
"Then desperate times call for desperate measures." said Sokka.
"EWWWW!" Both Katara and Toph expressed their disgust with wrinkled face.
"I meant we'll burn them instead of burying them! We don't have shovels!" Sokka exclaimed. "Sheesh."
Sokka marched into the cave, holding his torch aloft.
The light of the fire splashed onto the surface of the cave. It was strange, The stone acted like a thin layer, a shell of sorts, that seemed to broken in certain places that obviously the Platypus bears had disrupted it.
Fragments of rock had dropped from the cave walls and peeled off the floor to reveal some sort of metal, which would make a clanging sound every time one of the group stepped on it.
"It's huge.." Toph whispered with wonder as she put her foot on the metal. "There's an entire building of some sort down there, no a machine. Made entirely of metal. It's as big as a small city."
"What!? no way! Under a mountain!? Something this big would take a ton of time to build!" said Sokka.
"Gran gran once told us an old myth about a civilization that lived millions of years ago, back when animals were all different." said Katara. "And the Ladies use some sort of Flying Cities too. Maybe the Ladies were from that ancient civilization."
"What? Those weird masked creeps? Forget it!" said Sokka. "They came from the dang SKY remember!? Not the ground!"
"Well we can't say for certain that others like them didn't show up before." said Toph. "In any case, my feet have been on the Lady's Flotillas, and this doesn't feel like that, it seems.. I don't know.. much bigger, like maybe 2 times bigger."
"Whoa.. seriously?" said Katara. "Is there a way in?"
"Whoa whoa whoa! We are NOT doing another, attract the Fire Nation with an old flare Trick like the last time you were tempted to enter a big empty abandoned something!" said Sokka.
"Says the guy who spent his vacation almost getting buried in a library after the big spirit owl warned him." said Katara with a raised eyebrow.
"The situation is different." said Sokka. "We needed information to invade the Fire Nation. We don't need anything here, except meat! And there's no guarantee of meat inside the scary underground facility of horrors."
"I guess you might be right, though I'd like to come back here one day and check it out." said Katara. "When everything's over."
"If we're still alive by then." Toph murmured sadly.
A heavy silence settled over the trio.
There was still an unspoken grief of the events that had occurred before they escaped to the temple they currently resided at.
None of them were any stranger to travel on the run. But immense loss was a different story.
There were a few that should've been in there group that weren't there.
"Look, what happened happened." said Sokka. "Sitting around here moping isn't going to solve anything or bring them back, so lets just see if there's any meat in here and be absolutely careful not to touch anything unnecessary!"
Sokka's hand brushed against the wall, and immediately a panel lit up green where his hand brushed.
"Storage Panel 70021 Cryogenics reactivated, waking subject 10 from cold sleep." said an echoing female voice.
"AHHH! WHat was that!?" squealed Sokka.
"What was that about not touching anything unnecessary!?" Katara exclaimed.
"It was a WALL! A WALL is a WALL!" Sokka yelled. "It doesn't TALK! (Nor does it get paid for by Mexico). "
A panel in the wall opened, and like a massive drawer coming out of a morgue freezer, a rectangular platform slid out, revealing a large object sitting on it.
It was large, a vehicle of some sort, but unlike any vehicle Katara had ever seen in this era.
It was made of rusted light brown metal, like one large long box, with glass 'eyes' on the front, and what appeared to be six odd black wheels that seemed to be made of a strange kind of black rubber.
Dish-like structures sat on its back, and windows lined the front and sides, all of them hissing as what appeared to be ice was rapidly melting from the vehicle.
"That would be the weird machine." said Toph
"Whoa, check this out." said Sokka, stooped down, looking at the large wheels. "See these grooves on the wheel? It creates grip on the whatever it rolls on and allows it to move faster and without sliding its wheels on something, like the grooves on a sandal."
"It looks almost like a house on wheels." said Katara. "Its even got its own roof. Wow."
"Guys." Toph touched a hand to the surface of the vehicle. "There's somebody in there."
"What!?" said Katara.
"I don't know, their breathing feels faint, like they're barely just coming out of ice or something, it doesn't sound good in there." said Toph.
"Wait." said Sokka muttered. "Are you telling me- that we found ANOTHER Frozen guy!? Okay, show of hands to how old this guy is."
"Sokka!" Katara yelled as she pulled on the strange door, trying to pry it open with her fingers.
"Right right, sorry." Sokka pulled out his sword and began poking at the seams of the door. "Wait, this looks like it might be a."
Sokka puta hand to the handle of the RV's door and pulled, and immediately it was swept open by a massive explosion of freezing air.
Two glowing bug-like green eyes glowed from within the vehicle as a deathly breath rattle was heard from within.. turning the floor into frost.
A strange humanoid creature with a skull-like black face and large orb-like eyes, skeletal arms, and legs, climbed out of the RV as Sokka's jaw dropped, his face turning pale at the sight.
The creature's body seemed to be draped in some sort of blue cowl-like hood and robe. However, the hood and robes suddenly unfurled themselves, showing themselves to be large wings.
"VIL-GA.. ahhhgghh.." The moth man let out a moan before falling over face down..
A flash of green light erupted around the creature, and in it's place, lay not the monster from before, but a youth with brown hair and an odd black and white jacket plus a set of long blue pants.
There was a pause as Katara and Sokka could only stare, while Toph's mouth remained slightly open, her blind eyes silently reflected in the dim blue lights of the room.
"So.." said Sokka. "How much you wanna bet the third frozen guy we find will be even weirder than the first two?"