The Girl He Won't Remember

Chapter 10

"Let's find Bumi, and get out of here," Katara urged.

"Where would they be keeping him?" I asked.

"Somewhere where he can't earthbend," Aang replied thoughtfully. "Somewhere made of metal."

The four of us walked along an elevated construction site. As we walked, I noticed a group walking below us: soldiers guarding a woman, a baby, and a girl about my age. I felt like I'd seen the girl before, but from where? Dark hair, sullen expression, incredibly pale complexion. Where had I seen her before?

My body was jerked back just as a cloud of dust and rubble exploded in front of me. Sokka was holding me by my forearms. "Pay attention!" He hissed. "I'm not letting you get hurt by falling rocks again." I looked at him in confusion, then back down at the girl, whom I'd suddenly locked eyes with. Then it hit me: Mai. The same morose girl that played in the palace with Azula. The same unexpressive girl that had a poorly-hidden crush on Zuko.

Mai's arms flung forward, shooting a dozen knives in Aang's direction. Aang leapt into the air, avoiding each one. We were already sprinting away, guards not far behind. Katara waterwhipped them over the ledge, and yet Mai was somehow already in their place. We made a sharp turn around a corner. I bent a wall of ice behind us to catch her knives, but that didn't slow her down a single beat.

Aang twirled his staff and knocked a large stack of wood down, but this hardly had any effect.

Just as the four of us stopped to put up a fight, the ground opened from under our feet, swallowing us into a dark abyss.

Dust was still raining down as we recovered from the fall. We looked around and found ourselves surrounded by earthbenders.

"Why is there a firebender with them?" One of them growled.

"You brought the enemy with them, you idiot!" Snarled another one.

"I say we just get rid of her!"

Suddenly, Aang was in front of me, his staff out to ward off attackers. "Whoa, hey! She's not a firebender, or the enemy!" He said. "She's an avid ally."

The men didn't seem all too pleased, but they complied when a man (whom I could only assume was the leader) walked in.

"My apologies for my men," he said, mainly to Aang. "Everyone has been on edge ever since the Fire Nation invaded."

Sokka held his hand out and helped me to my feet. "We really need to get you some Water Tribe clothes or something," he whispered to me.

We were all led through a tunnel. It opened up to a gargantuan room of Omashu's citizens. The leader of the resistance group was explaining something to Aang about King Bumi, something about how he'd abandoned them and surrendered. My focus, however, was on the mass of people. All of these people were forced underground. They saw no other choice, and now there was going to be an uprising.

But I just couldn't see it ending in their favor.

I don't know what had happened in their conversation, but, when I was focused on reality again, people were murmuring about how they sided with the Avatar.

"There are thousands of citizens that need to leave," the leader pointed out. "How are we going to get them all out?"

"Suckers!" Sokka blurted. When no one shared his excitement, he elaborated. "You're all about to come down with a nasty case of pentapox."

Everyone emerged from underground by sunrise, which led me to realize that I hadn't slept in 24 hours. We extracted as many pentapi as we could from the sewer and placed them upon everyone's face, neck, and arms. Soon, we were all "suffering" from a pentapox epidemic.

"Aang, what are you doing?" I asked.
"Aren't you coming with us?" Katara asked.

Aang shook his head. "I need to find King Bumi." With that, he was leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

"C'mon," I said, holding Momo in my arms. "Let's go spread the pentapox armaggedon."

Moments later, the hoard of people was moaning and groaning through the streets, topped off with Sokka's dramatic antics.

I won't bore you with the details of our hours of moaning and groaning. So, it's safe to say that the "infected" citizens were all evacuated.

Come nightfall, we were all gathered a mile or so away from the city. Aang returned with no news of Bumi, but he came back with a goat-gorilla instead.

There was more bad news: we had an extra person. A baby. The new governor's baby, if we want to be exact. Though, we didn't know this until later.

As we all sat around a fire, the baby boy waddled after Momo, eventually losing interest and deciding to use Sokka's weapons as teething toys.

"No!" He snatched the weapons away. "Bad Fire Nation baby!" Once the baby cried, he gave in and let him play.

Katara picked up the boy and kissed his cheek. "Oh, you're so cute!" She exclaimed.

"Sure, he's cute now," the leader said. "But wait until he gets older. He'll join the Fire Nation army; he'll be a killer."

"Does that look like the face of a killer to you?" I asked. He had no response.

A messenger hawk squealed as it came down, and Aang grabbed the letter once it landed.

"What is it, Aang?" Katara asked.

"It's from the Fire Nation governor," he answered. "He thinks we kidnapped his son."

Author's Note
Hey, everyone! So this chapter is kinda shorter than planned, but this part is rather difficult to write without it seeming boring. The next chapter will be kind of short too, but please bear with me! I'm trying to make up for my lacking, but I've been pretty busy lately. I promise I'll have more updates!