The Legend of Percy: Book 1 - Finding Purpose

17. Within the Walls of the 'Big' City (Everyone Here is Creepy)

Percy was looking out of the monorail that was transporting them into the city. He'd seen monorails before, not many, but there were a couple in New York. The young man had never been on one though. It was an entirely new experience that was absolutely trumped by the sheer uniqueness of Ba Sing Se's structure.

Within the Outer Wall, there were plenty of what looked like a deer of some sort, or an antelope, grazing. Knowing this place, it's probably needlessly crossed with some other animal. Plenty of other animals and plants could be seen in the vastness that was the outer area of the city.

Well, city was a big word. To Percy, whilst it probably did classify as a city, it didn't quite live up to any of the modern-day cities he'd seen. That being said, it was still a sight to behold. The others in their little group didn't seem nearly as interested in the infrastructure of the outer parts of the city.

But Percy was rather enthralled. He hadn't seen anything like it. With the way it had an outer wall with farmlands, then an inner wall. It was a very ancient style of city planning. He couldn't help but wonder if this type of structure was used back when his dad and the rest of them were at their peak. Oh, Annabeth would love to see all this, he thought, with rather a fond smile.

Katara seemed to get excited, "Look, the Inner Wall!"

Percy saw it too. It was almost if not just as big as the Outer Wall.

"I can't believe we finally made it to Ba Sing Se in one piece." She continued. Oh, let's not tempt fate. With a demigod with you guys, it's never a good idea to say things like that. Apparently Sokka was of the same mindset.

"Hey, don't jinx it! We can still be attacked by some giant exploding Fire Nation spoon. Or find out the city's been submerged in an ocean full of killer shrimp!" Okay, so maybe he wasn't thinking the same thing that I was. And a giant spoon?

"You been hitting the cactus juice again?" Toph said, sarcastically. Well, I don't know what the cactus juice is, but it sounds like a wild time.

"How would the giant spoon even work?" Percy asked, quite curiously. Katara rolled her eyes at him, although it seemed more fondly than he'd thought previously. He decided to ignore that.

"Well-"

"No!" Katara interrupted Sokka, to which the two boys both pouted rather childishly. She turned to Percy, "Not you too, okay?" She said, rather hopefully. He just responded with a noncommittal shrug. Katara seemed quite distracted by the gaping burnt hole in his shirt too. I have to get a proper shirt, or what passes for one here.

"Well anyway, I was just sayin', weird stuff happens to us." Oh, you guys have no idea how much I haven't helped with that.

Just at that time, a rather odd-looking man, sucking on a shuck of corn, decided to sit in between Toph and Sokka. Percy rolled his eyes at the obviousness of it. It seems as if the equivalent of the Fates in this world have as bad a sense of humour as back home. At least it wasn't dangerous this time, he told himself.

Percy was sitting with a free seat on one side, and Toph on the other side. Katara had decided to sit directly opposite him, for some reason (he now was pretty sure he knew why), and Aang next to her.

Aang was looking out the window rather pensively, and they all knew why. Katara decided to do the good thing and support him a little.

"Don't worry Aang, we'll find Appa."

"It's such a big city." He said, pessimistically.

"He's a giant bison! Where could someone possibly hide him?" Percy didn't want to butt in with the reality of how people could hide rather large things pretty easily in a city if they had enough time and intelligence. Especially animals.