"Earthbenders!" Katara bangs a spoon against a rusty metal lid. "You don't know me, but I know of you." She takes a deep breath once she gains the attention of those around her.
"Every child in my Water Tribe village was rocked to sleep with stories of the brave Earth Kingdom and the courageous earthbenders who guard its borders."
Say what now?
"Some of you may think that the Fire Nation has made you powerless."
Polu watches as the warden stops a guard from heading to the waterbender in the open area. They don't assume us to be any threat. Or, rather, they don't assume her to be a threat. Spirits, I wanna wipe the smug look off his face.
"-They can't take away your courage, and it is your courage that they should fear. It runs deeper than any mine you've been forced to dig. Any ocean that keeps you far from home. It is the strength of your hearts that make you who you are."
Katara smiles, slightly out of breath. "It is your hearts that will remain unbroken when all rock and stone has eroded away. The time to fight back is now!"
Polu sighs quietly as he looks around him. Not a single one of them was moved by that statement. The Fire Nation really has stripped the last of their hope.
"I can tell you that the Avatar is back, and he has with him his Advisor! Remember your courage, earthbenders! Let us fight for our freedom!"
Polu's heart breaks a bit at Katara's defeated expression. I tried to tell her. He glares at the back of the warden's head. I would really like to beat him, though.
Polu offers a hand to his friend and helps her off the table. "I'm sorry, Katara. I really am, but these people have no hope left."
She sighs as she wraps her arms around herself. Katara's blue eyes meet Polu's, sorrow clear as day in her gaze. "Surely there's something we can do to help them? You're their prince, right? There's something you can do?"
He wraps her in a hug, shivering at the cold evening air. "No, there's nothing I can do."
Katara frowns at him.
"Not by myself, anyways. We're gonna need Sokka and Aang for this too, Loops." Polu smirks as the girl's eyes light up and she hugs him tightly.
"I knew you had a plan!"
Now it just has to work.
~~~~~
Hours later, Katara and Polu rest on thin cots next to each other. Katara jumps as a hand rests on her shoulder, Polu slowly waking at the sound of movement.
"Shh," Aang whispers.
The three quietly make their way to the edge of the boat. Katara and Polu had come to an agreement hours before, and now it's time to set the plan in motion.
Sokka sits on Appa's saddle in wait. "Your twelve hours are up. Where's Haru?"
Katara briefly looks at Polu before back at her brother. "We can't."
"We don't have much time. Guards are everywhere," Sokka pleads.
Yes, they certainly are. Polu shudders a bit at the thought.
"Katara, Polu, what's wrong?" Aang's innocent eyes pull at Polu's heart.
"We're not leaving," Katara murmurs.
"I'm not giving up on my people. Katara and I agree that we're not abandoning them on this metal beast." Polu crosses his arms in an attempt to stop their shaking.
Sokka groans as he and Aang climb onto the boat and crouch in a circle. "What do you mean you're not leaving?"
"We can't abandon these people, Sokka."
Katara nods in agreement. "There has to be a way we can help them."
"Maybe they're right," Aang concedes. "What do you say, Sokka?"
"I say you're all crazy," Sokka accuses.
The group ducks as a beam of light comes scarily close to them.
"Last chance. We need to leave now."
"No," Katara hisses.
"I hate when you get like this." Sokka groans as he shakes his head. "Come on, we better hide."
Katara and Polu smile as they follow after Sokka. When they reach a cluster of boxes, the group crouches.
"So, what are we gonna do?"
Aang sighs. "I wish I knew how to make a hurricane."
The teens deadpan at the 12-year-old.
"The warden would run away and leave his keys behind. We could steal them!"
Sokka raises an eyebrow. "Wouldn't he just have his keys on him?"
Aang frowns. "I'm just tossing ideas around."
Katara sighs sadly. "I tried talking the earthbenders into fighting back, but it didn't work. If there was just a way to get them to help themselves."
Sokka turns to the Advisor. "What about you? Can't you bend a way out of here?"
Polu shakes his head. "There's no earth for me to bend. Metal is immovable, and I'm not as clean a waterbender as I'd like to believe. I could take out the ship, but I'd take everyone out, not just the Fire Nation."
Katara gasps in realization. "Back in the South Pole, didn't you say you could sense things in the air with your waterbending?"
Aand and Sokka's eyes widen at the statement as Polu nods thoughtfully. "I did. I could do it, but it's tricky and I can't sense a large area. It would have to be concentrated."
Aang smiles and points to the chimney behind his friend. "They're burning something up there. I bet it's coal! Polu, can you double check?"
The teen frowns but nods. "I can do my best. I'll need you all to be quiet, though."
The group nods in unison as Polu closes his eyes. He focuses on the water in the air and quickly moves it in the direction of the chimneys. He finds the dry spot and winces as he pulls more water into the area, molecules evaporating at a speed nearly too quick for him to work.
The water drops down and Polu gasps.
"What is it?"
The boy's eyes open and he smiles. "I don't know."
"What?" Sokka's face contorts in frustration.
"I don't know what it is, but it's not metal. I'm sure it's something earthbenders can use." Polu smiles as his friends do the same.
~~~~~
As dawn approaches, Polu pulls more and more water from the area surrounding the chimney. If I can just get that fire to rage, the firebenders will leave the area. It'll make it easier to get rid of all of them in one go.
"There's the intruder!"
Polu jerks to a stand at the exclamation. No, no, no.
"Katara, stop. You can't win this fight," Tyro demands.
The Advisor approaches his friends as the crowd goes silent.
"Listen to him, child."
Oh, I'm going to love defeating you.
"You're one mistake away from dying where you stand." The man glowers at the girl in front of him. He shrieks when a water whip slams against the back of his head.
"Now you've done it, girl."
Polu slides between the man and his friends. "Her finger didn't even twitch. I suppose you can add 'colossal idiot' to your list of achievements, warden."
The man's eye twitches. "You insignificant little brat. I ought to-"
Polu cuts the man off by laughing. "Little? Please, I tower over you, old man. You're powerless against me."
As he finishes his statement, a load of coal bursts from the vent and into the air. Polu jumps to avoid getting crushed and lands on the lumpy earth.
He smirks as small and large chunks alike circle him, looming over the warden.
The Advisor hears gasps and whispers, but no movement. He turns to find the earthbenders in the same places as they were ten seconds before.
Aang soars from the vent and lands next to his friend, covered in soot.
"Here's your chance, earthbenders! Take it! Your fate is in your own hands!"
Even as Katara speaks, no one moves to action. Polu frowns as they back away.
The warden laughs hoarsely. "Foolish girl. You thought a few inspirational words and some coal would change these people?" He is cut off again as a piece of coal smacks him in the forehead.
"Yes," Polu challenges. "A few inspirational words can be the difference between life and death." The boy turns to his people.
"A hundred years ago, I was told by someone very important to me that what makes me is not the tiles I've been dealt, but how I use them. My title as the Avatar's Advisor was used as a weapon against me.
"I was made to believe it made me less an earthbender than all of you, but that isn't true. Deep down, we're all just people, and we're all connected. Today, let that connection guide you to your freedom and away from the Fire Nation!"
Polu's smile wavers as he watches more earthbenders back away, still muttering amongst themselves.
The warden laughs again. "And yet you continue to try. These people had their spirits broken long ago, boy." The man pretends to coo in pity.
"Oh, but you still believed in them. How sweet. They're a waste of your energy, children. You failed."
Failed. Failed. Failed. The word echos in the pair's heads. They lock eyes, both seeing pain and discouragement in the other's.
As the warden walks away, another lump of coal is thrown at him. Polu and Katara smile at Haru, who circles a few more around his hand.
Flames burst from the man's hands, sending Polu scattering away in fear. Aang approaches his friend with a worried side-hug.
Polu watches proudly as a wall of coal protects Haru from the fire.
"Show no mercy!" The warden calls.
No mercy, huh? Good thing they're going all-out since I wasn't planning on holding back. I'd almost feel bad.
Polu watches as a group of adults come together and bend a large shield of coal. He smiles proudly as Tyro and the others launch the coal at the firebenders.
Polu picks up a large portion of coal and welds it together before launching it at a few nearby firebenders. He smirks in satisfaction as they fly over the edge of the boat.
He runs up to his friends as they make their way to one side of the ship.
"Get to the ship!" Tyro cries. "We'll hold them off!"
"Do not let them escape!"
Polu and Tyro lock eyes and nod in unison, forming a plan without words. After Sokka and Katara supply Aang with coal to launch at the warden, Polu, Tyro, and one other adult bend the earth under the final firebenders.
The warden screams as he is lifted over the ocean. "No, please. I can't swim."
Pity, Polu thinks.
"Don't worry, I hear cowards float," Tyro taunts.
Polu adds his own jab. "Yeah, but too bad idiots sink."
The three release the coal and watch as the firebenders drop into the cold winter water.
~~~~~
As the earthbenders and the four misfits sail away from the prisoner's ship, Aang and Polu are chatting happily while playing with Momo.
Polu giggles as the lemur launches himself at Aang's face.
"I want to thank you for saving us." Haru smiles at Katara.
"All it took was a little coal," she admits sheepishly.
"It wasn't the coal, Katara. It was you."
"Thank you for helping me find my courage, Katara of the Water Tribe," Tyro smiles. "If it weren't for you and the prince, I don't think we ever would have left. My family and everyone here owes you much."
Katara smiles proudly. "So, I guess you're going home now."
Tyro nods. "Yes, to take back my village." He turns and boasts loudly, "To take back all of our villages!"
The earthbenders all around them cheer in unison.
"The Fire Nation will regret the day they set foot on our land!"
Polu smiles at the cheers of his people.
Aang nudges him. "You helped them, Po. You and Katara saved these people. Your people."
Polu blushes as he spins to look around at the earthbenders. Ultimately, his eyes land on the stretching figure of Sokka behind him. "Yes, but I've got a long way to go before I can say that I truly saved them."
Aang sighs. "When are you going to tell him?"
The Advisor's face heats up as he turns back to his friend quickly. "Tell him what? That you're crazy?"
As the Avatar begins to protest, Polu dunks him with a bubble of water he bent.
"Hey!"
Polu laughs as the Avatar blows a cold gust of wind at him.
"That's them? The Avatar and his Advisor?" Haru watches as the friends shove each other on the bison's head.
"Katara, thank you for bringing my father back to me. I never thought I'd see him again." Pity swims in his eyes as he looks at the waterbender. "I only wish there was some way..."
"I know," Katara mutters. She reaches up to take comfort in the charm of the necklace, gasping as she only grabs air.
"My mother's necklace! It's gone!"
Polu's eyes widen as he reaches up to his own neck. Spirits.
Aang notices his friend's expression. "Po? What is it?"
The Advisor's eyes well with tears. "Your necklace, A. It's gone."
The younger boy gasps at the sight of the marks on Polu's neck. It's been years since I've seen those. "Don't you have-"
Polu doesn't hear his friend's words, as he's already racing along the bison's back and toward his satchel. In a fluid motion, he reaches into the bag and pulls out a dark blue necklace with a circular pendant.
The boy clasps it around his neck and sighs in relief. Even if it brings back bad memories, it's better than showing what's underneath.
Behind him, Sokka tries to comprehend what he just witnessed. He had heard Polu's gasp and turned around to question him. In a moment, Polu had rushed past him, but Sokka caught something in the blur.
Why were patches of skin on his neck darker than others? I'm fairly certain it wasn't just a trick of the light.
~~~~~
On the prisoner ship, a blue necklace rests near a green and yellow necklace. A pale hand reaches down and takes both.
Fire Prince Zuko scowls at the necklaces in his hand, knowing exactly who they belong to.
That Water Tribe girl and the boy Commander Zhao believes to be the Advisor. These will surely come to be useful.
They can't run forever.