by The Tale of Aang; Azula; Toph; Sokka; Zuko; Katara (retail) (epub)
Hands against the back wall of the cage. Focus, Toph. Focus. Go back to day one, the first time you ever moved a rock. Remember, that seemed so hard until you found the right place in your mind, the right level of concentration. After that, it was a snap.
Come on, metal, bend, bend! Nothing. Okay, deep breath, then try again.
Bend, metal. You can’t hold me back. You can’t box in willpower. I am rooted. I am solid. You will bend!
My hands are trembling. I can feel power surging from deep within me. The metal is starting to buckle. Yes! Toph, you rule! Okay, okay, don’t get carried away. Take that feeling and build on it. Focus. Harder, harder. Push!
The back wall of the cage is ripping open. I’m free! I’m out of that cage! And I’ve gained a whole new Earthbending skill in the bargain.
I’ll just slip around to the front of the carriage and give those clowns a surprise.
“What was that noise?” Master Yu asked.
“It must be one of her tricks,” Xin Fu replied.
“It’s no trick,” I said, standing right beside them. “And neither is this.”
WHOOSH! Take that, you clowns! Now it’s your turn in the cage. I’ll just Metalbend the cage shut—I love this! There, now you’re trapped. How does it feel, boys? “I AM the greatest Earthbender in the world. And don’t you two dunderheads ever forget it!”
Finally—free again! I’ll just ride this Earthwave back toward Ba Sing Se. Freedom tastes especially sweet today, knowing that there is now one less element that can hold me!
Too bad about that letter, though. Too bad it wasn’t real. It would be really great if my folks could understand and accept me. Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.
Wheeee! This is the only way to fly—with my feet still on the ground! Man, Earthwave riding is the best. Once I get there, I’ve got to see if Katara and the others are all right. I mean, if the letter from my mom is a fake, who knows about Katara’s dad and Aang’s guru. I—
Whoa! What’s that! Something swooping down from the sky. I’m losing the wave! I’m crashing down—
BOOM! Appa? “Hey! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“Need a ride?”
Sokka’s here too! I guess I’ll be riding Appa the rest of the way—oh, joy.
On our way back Aang told me that while he was with the guru, he had a vision that Katara was in trouble. That’s why he left. He picked up Sokka on the way. Gosh, I hope that Katara’s okay. I hope Aang’s vision isn’t real. …
We’re back at our house in Ba Sing Se, but Katara isn’t home.
“Katara IS in trouble,” Aang said. “I knew it!”
And now I can feel someone else is coming. “Someone’s at the door.” I recognize the footfall. “Actually, I know who it is. It’s an old friend of mine.” I flung the door open, and sure enough, it’s Iroh.
“I need your help.”
“You know each other?” Aang asked.
“I met him in the woods once, and knocked him down. Then he gave me tea and some very good advice.”
I invited him in. Sokka immediately took up a warrior’s stance. “I’m warning you. If you make one false move …”
Give him a break, Sokka. This guy seems about as dangerous as a soggy tea leaf.
“Princess Azula is in Ba Sing Se,” the old man began.
“She must have Katara!” Aang said.
“She has captured my nephew as well.”
“Then we’ll work together to fight Azula, and save Katara and Zuko,” Aang said.
The old man brought along a Dai Li agent he had captured. Intimidated by a bunch of angry benders, the guy talked right away. “Azula and Long Feng are plotting a coup. They’re going to overthrow the Earth King.”
“Where are they keeping Katara?” Sokka insisted.
“In the crystal catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se, deep beneath the palace!”
I wasn’t here to help Katara before. But I’m going to help her now. I’m going to find those catacombs.
We’re hurrying to the palace courtyard. Hmm … I can’t feel anything. Everything seems pretty solid. “If there’s an ancient city down there, it’s deep.” I’ll just blast them open. Yup, the catacombs are definitely down there.
“We should split up,” Sokka suggested. “Aang, you go with Iroh to look for Katara and the angry jerk. No offense …”
“None taken,” Iroh replied.
“And I’ll go with Toph to warn the king about Azula’s coup.”
Okay, we’re close to the palace; the Dai Li is arresting General How!
“The coup is happening right now!” Sokka said. “We’ve got to warn the Earth King!”
We’re in the throne room. Something feels strange to me. Huh? Who’s that? Feels like a Kyoshi warrior. And she’s heading right for Sokka. If Suki thinks we have time for smooches, she’s sorely mistaken. …
“Hi, cutie,” she cooed.
Wait a minute—that’s not Suki! And that’s a voice I’ve heard before. “They’re not the real Kyoshi warriors!”
Oh, boy, I can feel darts heading right at me! I’ll raise a stone slab. This is crazy. I mean, I like bending just as much as the next person, but when will this madness stop!
“This fight is over.”
Azula! And it sounds like she’s standing right next to the king. She’s right. The fight is over. We can’t risk endangering the king. One quick fire blast from her and the king would be seriously hurt. We have to give up. …
So, Azula’s Dai Li agents led me, Sokka, Momo, and the Earth King out of the throne room, and have locked us in what they called an “Earthbender-proof” prison cell. In other words, it’s made out of metal.
Beautiful! I love surprising the bad guys. This is one of those times I’m sad I’m blind … I have to miss out on seeing their shocked faces!
Here you go, Toph, you can do this again. Channel the energy … NOW!
The metal cell door is open. Time to make a dash for the entrance to the tunnel. Almost there, almost—Wait, someone’s heading toward us. It’s Katara! But where’s Aang? Oh, no! He’s hurt! She’s carrying him.
Just then Appa swept down and picked us up—me, Sokka, Katara, Momo, the Earth King, the king’s pet bear, and Aang, stretched out motionless on Appa’s soft fur.
Katara’s using her healing water to revive him. His eyes are open! Oh, thank goodness!
But, you know, I wonder if any of us is really going to be okay. I mean, the Earth Kingdom has fallen to Azula and the Fire Nation. Now what do we do? We thought we were doing the right thing, we thought delivering that message would make everything all right. We thought it would end the war.
But now that hope is gone. Azula has control of the Earth Kingdom, and once again we’re on the run. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be on the run with any other team. I’m glad I met Sokka, Katara, and Aang—even Appa and Momo.
But what happens next? I wish someone had the answer, because I have no idea. I guess I’ll just do what I always do: feel my way through and hope for the best.
Chapter 1
My name is Sokka. I’m a warrior from the Southern Water Tribe. My sister, Katara, and I have been traveling with Aang, the Avatar, for some time now. We’re kind of his unofficial bodyguards. Katara is a Waterbender and she’s been teaching Aang Waterbending. As a master of planning strategy, I’m here for my brains—and for my skill in battle with a boomerang.
We’ve just stopped a Fire Nation attack on the Water Tribes of the North Pole. Okay, so Aang really did most of the actual stopping, but Katara and I were right there to give our support.
While we were at the North Pole I met the most amazing girl in the world, Princess Yue. She was beautiful. And I say “was” because she became the moon to help save the Water Tribe. It was so sad. I was SO sad…. But she did the right thing.
Well, enough mushy stuff! I’ve got a job to do.
Aang has to travel to the Earth Kingdom next to begin learning Earthbending f
rom his old pal King Bumi in the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu. You see, Aang has to master all four elements so he can stop the Fire Nation and end the war that’s messed up the lives of so many people—including mine. My dad left home with other warriors from the Southern Water Tribe to fight the Fire Nation. Katara and I haven’t seen him in a very long time, and I really, really miss him.
Aang, Katara, Momo (Aang’s winged lemur), and I all climbed onto Appa (Aang’s flying bison) and flew off toward Omashu. Our first stop was an Earth Kingdom base run by General Fong. This Fong guy was supposed to provide us with an escort to Omashu.
“Welcome, Avatar Aang!” Fong said when we landed. “And welcome to all of you, great heroes. Appa, Momo, mighty Katara, and brave Sokka.”
Now THIS guy had things figured out. He called me “brave Sokka!” Awesome.
But Fong had a strange idea: He wanted to force Aang into the Avatar state—where he gets amazingly powerful, but a little out of control—so he could defeat the Fire Lord quickly. Aang agreed with the general, but Katara didn’t.
“Aang, there’s a right way to do this,” she said. “Practice, study, discipline.”
That sounded pretty dull to me. “Or just glow it up and stomp that Fire Lord!” I countered.
“Katara, I don’t have time to do this the right way!” Aang said.
Glow it up, here we come! But no matter how hard Fong tried, Aang just couldn’t force himself into the Avatar state. And Fong went all nutso about it! He slammed Aang with an Earthbending blast, knocking him through a window! I couldn’t believe this guy had just attacked Aang.
Before I could do anything, Fong’s soldiers grabbed me, which made me even madder. I struggled to break free of the soldiers’ grasp, then rushed to help Aang.
At that moment, Fong made the ground in the courtyard open up and swallow Katara.
“Katara! No!” I called out.
That’s when Aang’s fury made him slip into the Avatar state. Come on, buddy, you’ve got to rescue Katara!
He whipped up a huge funnel of wind that knocked aside Fong and his soldiers. Boy, Aang is really scary looking when he’s like that.
“Katara is really in no danger,” Fong admitted. “Burying her in the ground was just a trick to get Aang mad.”
Well it sure worked! And just like that, Katara was freed. But Fong wasn’t satisfied. That guy was really out of his mind.
“That was almost perfect!” he shouted as Katara comforted Aang. “We just have to find a way to control you when you’re like that. I guess we’ll figure it out on the way to the Fire Nation.”
Uh-uh. There was no way the general was coming with us to the Fire Nation. As far as I was concerned, the only place he was going to was dreamland.
I sneaked up behind Fong and bopped him on the helmet with my boomerang.
WAP! Down he went for a nice little nap.
“Anybody got a problem with that?” I asked, looking around at Fong’s troops. Not surprisingly, no one protested.
Next stop, Omashu!
We stopped by a river for a short rest.
From out of nowhere I heard music. Looking up I saw a group of weird-looking people coming from the woods. They played musical instruments and sang. Hmm … they seemed friendly, but these days you never know. The Fire Nation is tricky and they’ve got lots of spies everywhere. I wouldn’t put it past them to be working in disguise to throw us off.
I confronted these so-called musicians. “Who are you?”
“I’m Chong, and this is my wife, Lily,” said a guy with long hair and flowers around his neck. “We’re nomads, happy to go wherever the wind takes us.”
Nomads, huh? Could be. But how would we know for sure?
“I’m a nomad too,” Aang said.
“Hey, me too!” Chong replied.
“I know. You just said that,” Aang said.
Okay, so they couldn’t be spies. The guy seemed too out of it to be from the Fire Nation!
Chong started telling Aang stories about all the places he’d been. While that’s all very nice, we had someplace we needed to be. “Look, I hate to be the wet blanket here, but we need to get to Omashu quickly. No sidetracks,” I said.
“Omashu is dangerous. Maybe you should go someplace else,” Chong chimed in.
What’s with this guy? We’re not tourists looking for a fun vacation spot. We’re on a mission. A very important mission. “We’re going to Omashu!” I repeated.
“Whoa! Sounds like someone’s got a case of destination fever. You worry too much about where you’re going.”
Maybe he didn’t hear me right, so I repeated, louder this time, “O-MA-SHU!”
Then Katara explained that we needed to find King Bumi so that Aang could learn Earthbending.
“Sounds like you guys are headed to Omashu,” Chong said, like it was the first time he had heard of our plan.
I smacked my forehead in frustration. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along!” This guy was really dense.
Then Chong told us about a secret tunnel that leads right through the mountain. A shortcut to Omashu carved by two lovers who were the first Earthbenders.
“I think we’ll just stick with flying,” I said. “We’ve dealt with the Fire Nation before. We’ll be fine.”
We took off on Appa, but a few minutes into our flight the Fire Nation attacked, shooting huge fireballs at us and trying to knock us from the sky. Okay, this was way more than we’d faced before. And Appa was freaking out from the fire. We had to turn back. “Secret tunnel, here we come!”
“Actually, it’s not just one tunnel,” Chong told us when we returned to the river. “It’s a whole labyrinth.”
“A labyrinth?” I asked. A series of twisting paths built so that anyone who entered would get hopelessly lost inside forever? Great plan, Chong! Maybe those fireballs weren’t that hot after all.
“It’ll be fun, Sokka,” Aang said, smiling that cheery, optimistic smile he always has.
Fun? Oh, sure, getting lost in an endless maze, being stuck in the dark, and being trapped with no food is definitely my idea of a good time! Not.
At that moment I spotted smoke in the sky. “It’s the Fire Nation. They’re tracking us. Everyone into the tunnels,” I said.
The nomads lit five torches so we could find our way in the dark. Now it was up to me. I’m the plan guy. All we needed was a plan. “Chong, how long do those torches last?”
“Two hours each.”
“We have five torches, so that means we have ten hours of light!” Lily said.
I smacked my forehead again. These nomads sure were completely clueless. I tried to be patient as I explained, “It doesn’t work like that if they’re all lit at the same time!”
Suddenly a wolf-bat came flying right at Katara. I swung my torch at the creature, but the torch slipped from my hand and rolled toward Appa.
The fire freaked Appa out and he started jumping around and slamming his tail into the wall. Unfortunately, the force of Appa’s tail shook loose rocks from the ceiling, and they came tumbling down all around us.
The next thing I knew I was flying backward through the air. When I landed, I saw that a huge wall of rock had fallen between me and Aang, Katara, and Appa. Aang must have pushed me to safety with an Airbending blast.
Oh, boy, now I was trapped on the side of the rock wall with Momo and those annoying singing nomads! I began pulling rocks off the pile, trying to break through.
“It’s no use,” Chong said. “We’re separated. But at least you have us.”
“Noooo!” I was not going to spend whatever time was left in my life with those smiling, singing, clueless nomads! I picked up my pace, digging though the rocks faster and faster, but all I succeeded in doing was bringing more rocks down from above. It was no use. I had to find another way out.
As we moved further through the tunnels, the nomads began singing, “Don’t let the cave-in get you down …”
“I don’t get it,
” I said. “You guys travel around the world with no maps and no idea of where you’re going. How do you ever get anywhere?”
“Somewhere is everywhere, and so you never really need to get anywhere because you’re already here,” Chang said.
“Don’t remind me,” I said, almost ready to admit defeat. I know I’m here! That’s the problem. I don’t want to be here, I want to be there, which is where I’m not. Oh, great—I was starting to sound like them.
That’s when I heard wolf-bats howl again.
We kept moving, but I was completely lost. It was strange. I had a feeling the tunnels were constantly changing, because once again we hit a dead end. But how could they be changing?
“Your plans have led us to a dead end,” said a nomad named Moku.
“At least I’m trying to get us out of here!” I replied impatiently.
Then a flock of wolf-bats swarmed us. I swatted at the bats with my boomerang, but amazingly they all just flew right past us.
“Sokka, you saved us!” Chong said.
“No, they didn’t leave because of me,” I said, realizing what was happening. “They were fleeing.”
“Fleeing? From what?”
A low roar filled the caves. “From whatever is making that noise!”
Suddenly the cave wall burst open and giant badger-moles rushed out.
I was right! The tunnels were changing because the badger-moles were digging new ones all the time. But being right didn’t do much good if I wasn’t going to make it out of there to tell anyone.
As one humongous creature came at me, I tripped and fell backward. My hand hit the strings of one of the nomad’s instruments and it made a musical sound, which caused a very strange thing to happen: The badger-mole stopped charging and actually looked friendly.
Badger-moles. Music. Digging. That’s it! Sokka’s got a plan!
“Quick, start playing,” I shouted to the nomads. “Play anything, as long as it’s music!”
They made up a song about the badger-moles, but it really didn’t make any difference what they were singing about. As long as they made music, the badger-moles stayed friendly. So friendly, in fact, that they let us climb up onto their backs as they tunneled through the mountain.