A special task

My ex girlfriend hates me lols

"I'm only doing this for Suki, you realize that right?"

"Yep perfectly clear your highness" I said exasperated .

She raised a brow at me.
"And you're one to call names, Aangy?"

I cursed wishing she hadn't heard that. We were getting on Appa, loading supplies. Five minutes ago we said bye to the village, promising we'd return with every Kyoshi warrior who was taken, and that we would return. Unfortunately I got some cries from the Kyoshi warriors- in-training.

"Wow you're jealous of a fourteen year old, I'm not even surprised."

"I'm not jealous, just bewildered that after all these years you still just want attention from your fan clubs."

I finished carrying in Katara's last bag.

"So now your jealous of the attention I receive, wow Katara you really should do something about that."

She scoffed.

"And to think some people call you humble Aang, they do not know you the way I know you."

I gritted my teeth

"Can we just agree not to talk the entire trip."

"Fine with me!" She shouted back.
I got an Appa, muttering multiple curses under my breath.

"Yip yip" I said quietly, and we took off.

Fifteen minutes in the air

"Oh Momo I've missed you so much."

For some reason that made me inexplicably angry. I turned to see Katara petting Momo, as if they were friends. There was no rational way to justify my anger, it was just there.

"Momo" I called, so that the lemur would come to me. When he tried to jump off, Katara held him more firmly.

"Shhh" she whispered at him, petting his ears so that he once again was comfortable in her touch. Then she shot daggers at me.

"What, am I not allowed to pet Momo anymore?"

"Sure, fine, go ahead and pet my lemur."

"Thanks, I will."

I couldn't believe we were going to be together for such a long period of time. I just wanted this mission to end.

An hour in the air

We had gone a long time without speaking. It was me who requested that when we first got on Appa. Now I could see Katara was playing with the ends of her hair. She always did that when she was thinking. It made me almost uncomfortable at how well I could read Katara, it almost felt forbidden, like that was a right reserved for "friends only". She turned to face me and I tried to play it off like I wasn't looking at her.

"Aang, will you at least tell me what this mission is? I know you didn't say much because you didn't want to scare Sokka, but I want to know what I'm getting myself into."

That was a fair question.

"Well if I'm going to be honest I'm still not super sure. I had a meeting with the White Lotus and they think they may know what's been happening."

I took a breath.

"I'm sure you've heard of pro-bending."

She nodded.

"Well a while ago Toph and I discovered it was a front, a way to hide money. There was this man, called himself The Recruiter. He didn't just find teens to be Pro-benders, he found teens to be part of a gang. He'd let some of them train to be Pro benders, and the others he gave them to the Triple Triads."

"Wait but Toph told me about this, she said it was her biggest case yet. She said she put away The Recruiter."

"Well yes, we were able to prove how the funds from the Pro bending didn't match the money in his accounts. He went away for fraud, and he'll be there for a while, but what we were never able to prove our theory. The council didn't believe the gang-theory, and a large part of that is because the kids that he did send to Pro bending testified on his behalf. Pro bending became so popular in Republic City that it would've caused an uproar if we shut it down, so we kept it, but now it's a clean system."

Katara slowly nodded.

"Okay so we have to take down the Triple Triads, their ring leader, and free all those people."

"Not exactly. I've dealt with gangs before, and they're not this big or smart. I think the Triple Triads are working under someone or.. relying on someone. The Recruiter, he got street kids, poor kids who didn't have a home, then he sent them off to Pro bending or the gangs. But what's happening now I think is much bigger. There no longer taking in kids, they're just taking them. And no longer teens, they've moved on to adults. I think this is all some sort of plot to raise an army of some sort. If they're stealing non-benders then it's because they're warriors, and they need people like that. I-I'm not sure who's doing this." I admitted

I expected Katara to yell at me but she didn't. She reached for the ends of her hair again and began twisting a strand.

"So then we'll get taken, or recruited. To find our friends we'll just work our way up until we know what's happening or whose behind all this."

I frowned.

"That won't work, even if I started growing out hair now, I can't cover up my tattoos, and we're pretty well known people. I say we scout the Triple Triads and let them lead us to their boss."

Now she mirrored my frown. Maybe I looked to o harsh, because she looked pretty menacing.

"No, that won't work. They'll know if they're being watched and they probably don't even meet with their employer. We'll never earn their trust, and they'll never tell us anything. The only way to to get to the top is to go undercover, as one of teens who gets taken."

I wanted to face palm, but then I realized Katara was right. We weren't going to gain their trust by scouting them, we would have to go undercover, just not as their captives.

"Why don't we go undercover as gang members then, we'll still be close to their prisoners, but we won't have to answer to them, and they'll probably tell fellow gang members information, rather than prisoners."

Katara said nothing and shrugged ( with a hauty attitude) so I guess she agreed. I turned back to the reigns, not that Appa needed steering. We'd been to Republic City multiple times, I just wanted to get as far away from her as possible. So much for partnership.