Double Bender

Part 18

We spent the rest of the day on Roku's island and traveled to another village that night, we had to travel at night a lot because a giant flying bison would have turned some heads. We stopped in a little valley and set up camp and the next morning, Aang, Katara, and Toph continued training, unfortunately, Katara and Toph didn't get along too well. It started out with Aang tying his headband around his eyes as a blindfold. "I'm ready for training," He said. Toph was teaching Aang to "see" the way she did; with earth-bending. She bended several columns of rock in front of Aang but he dodged them easily. Katara threw in a water-whip which he, again, dodged easily. He then bended a rock at Toph, who busted it with her fist. "Very good, Twinkletoes," said Toph. "Visualize and attack!" Toph hurled a boulder at Aang, who dodged. The boulder sailed through the air and hit Katara, sending her flying. "Maybe you should take a bit of your own advice, Toph," Katara muttered angrily. "What's the matter?" Said Toph obnoxiously, "Can't handle a little dirt, Madame Fussy Britches?" Katara splashed Toph who feel backwards. The water Katara used water-bending to make a mud pile and covered Toph in mud. "Oh, sorry," said Katara sarcastically. "Did I splash you, mud slug?" Aang, who was still blindfolded, was extremely confused. "Are we taking a break?" he asked. I looked up from my book to see Katara and Toph shoving each other and Sokka was sneaking up on Aang. "SNEAK ATAAAACK!" Sokka yelled. Aang held out his fist and bended a column of rock which made Sokka trip. "Sokka," said Aang as he removed the blindfold, "it's not a sneak attack if you yell it out loud." Geo and I laughed at Sokka's idiocy. Katara growled at Toph who shoved mud in her face. "Hungry for a mud pie?!" said Toph. "I'll give you a mud pie!" Katara replied. "Um, guys?" I said. "I thought we were supposed to be training Aang," Katara stopped, looked at Aang, and said, with all the dignity she could muster, "Very well pupil. I believe we've had enough training for today," Katara stormed off and Toph said, "While Katara cleans off, you guys wanna go have some fun?" "Yeah!" We all said at the same time.
While we were in town, we didn't really know what to do. We had a very limited amount of money (one silver piece, to be exact) and that wouldn't buy us very much. Sokka stopped to look at the messenger birds. "Look at those messenger hawks," Said Sokka. "You know, I've been thinking of getting one for myself. That way, I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. I could just send them a message," Toph took this as an opportunity to lay down a wisecrack. "I gotta say, I like the idea of not talking to you," We all laughed (except Sokka, of course). "So what are we gonna do with our last silver piece?" I asked. Toph looked over (or sensed it with earth-bending) at a guy who was running a game stand. "We make more money out of it, right there," She pointed at the gambling stand. "This is where seeing is at a disadvantage. The dealer moves the rock at the last second. I can feel it with my earth-bending,"
We walked up to the stand and the man running looked at Toph. Seeing an opportunity to scam someone, he called out to Toph. "You there!" He said. "Would you like to play the game?" "How could I possibly play? I'm blind," She said, pretending to be innocent. "Oh you don't have to see to be lucky," The man said slyly.
The man put the a turquoise stone under a bowl and started shifting the bowls left and right to try and trick Toph. But he didn't know that he was dealing with the greatest earth-bender of all time who could easily tell if someone was lying. She pointed at the first bowl on the right. The dealer picked up the bowl to reveal the little stone.
"Flamey-o, Toph," Aang said. The dealer looked for a better opportunity to scam. He eyed Sokka's sword greedily and said, "Wow, fancy guessing. You're amazing at this," Empty complements. Gotta hate 'em. "Why don't we make this a little more interesting? You toss in your friend's fine sword there, I'll put in twenty silver pieces against it, and that's more interesting," Toph grabbed Sokka's new sword and gave it to the dealer, much to Sokka's dismay. "Make it forty and you have a deal." "Forty it is," the dealer said. He switched the bowls again to try and trick Toph. Then he pulled a total prick-move. At the last second, he pulled the rock up into his sleeve. Then all of a sudden, the rock snapped back under the bowl. The dealer stopped shifting the bowls and Toph pointed to the one in the center. "Sorry, little lady, that's not-" He pulled up the bowl and, much to his surprise, there was the little turquoise stone. "I won!" Toph squealed.
Back at the campsite, we came back with our arms full of merchandise. I had bought another dagger, matching the one I had, and a sweet brown belt with a bunch of loops and a dagger sheath so I could hold my new dagger as well as my old one, my whip, and the little sack of money leftover from our scams. Katara was shocked. "Where did you guys get the money to buy all this stuff?" She asked. "Toph got us the money," said Aang. "She scammed one of the guys in town who moves shells all sneaky-like." "She used earth-bending to win the game," said Sokka. "Classic." "So she cheated?" Katara said. "Hey," said Toph. "I only cheated because he cheated. I cheated a cheater. What's wrong with that?" "I'm just saying, this isn't a good thing to make a habit of," "Why?" said Toph. "Because it's fun and you hate fun?" "I don't hate fun!" Katara said defensively. She picked up Momo and placed him on her head. "See? Fun." Katara said. Momo slid off her head with an annoyed chitter. I gotta say, it was the most pitiful way to prove that you were fun. I mean, putting a lemur on your head doesn't say, "I'm fun, come see how fun I am," it says, "I'm crazy. Stay away from me." Aang tried to ease Katara's worries by making a promise. "Katara," he said,"I'll personally make you an Avatar promise that we won't make a habit of doing these scams." He lifted his headband to reveal his arrow and bowed to her.
Apparently, Avatar promises mean the equivalent of... absolutely nothing. We scammed all afternoon! Heck! Me and Geo even got roped in. I was actually pretty good at it, surprisingly enough. Geo was fantastic at it. And she so was good at keeping her poker face the whole time too. But Toph was definitely the best at it. She earth-bended dice so they would roll her way, she would move the rock into the right bowl while the dealer was shifting it. Oh, and one time, this one's my favorite, she earth-bended a bump in the road under a guy's wheels and then laid on the ground to make it seem like he had hit her. Then Sokka came out disguised as a soldier and the guy bribed him so he wouldn't tell. The best part was it wasn't even a gambling scam, it was just a kind of scam you make up when you feel like screwing with people. We came home with full bags of money. Katara still wasn't thrilled. "Guys, I think these scams have gone far enough," She said. "If you keep doing them, something bad is gonna happen." Toph rolled her eyes. "Could you just for once stop being a sourpuss and just lighten up?" Katara got a little steamed. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said sarcastically. "You think I should be more like you? Some sort of wild child?" "Yeah, maybe," Toph said hopefully. "Maybe then you'd see how great we have it. We're traveling around the world, making easy money, having fun, and no parents to tell us what to do." Katara suddenly realized what this was about. "Oh, I see," said Katara. "You're acting like this because of your parents." Toph got even more annoyed. "Whatever," she said. Katara went on. "They were controlling over you so you ran away. Now you act like they don't exist. You act like you hate them. But you don't. You just feel guilty." "I do hate them!" Toph said defensively. "I don't think so," Katara said. "I think you miss them. But you don't want to deal with that, so instead, you act like some crazy person." "Look, I ran away to help Aang!" Toph said angrily. "You know what?" said Katara. "That doesn't matter. These scams put us all at risk and we don't need that. We've already got some third-eyed freak after us." ''Speaking of that third-eyed freak," said Sokka, who was only making the situation worse, "I think I've come up with a name for him. What do you think of... 'Sparky Sparky Boom Man'?" I face palmed. "Just think about it," Sokka said. Katara went back to arguing with Toph. "We have enough money. You need to stop this," "I'll stop when I want to stop and not when you tell me," With that, she walked off. Sokka, once again, made everything worse. "Speaking of money, I'm off to spend some. See you guys later," And with that, he walked off. I rolled my eyes. Why did he have to say stuff that only seemed to make every situation worse.
Later, Sokka came back with a red hawk on his shoulder. "Sokka," said Katara. "Don't tell me you bought a bird," Sokka looked at his new pet proudly. "Not just a bird, a messenger bird. Now we can send messages all over the world, even to Gran-Gran." "So how does it work?" I asked. I kinda wanted to send a message to my "family" and tell them all that I'd done, maybe even brag about how I was traveling with the Avatar and saving the world and all they were doing was sitting around being dorks. Unfortunately, Sokka didn't even know how to send a message. "Hmm," he said. "I never actually thought of that," He looked at his new pet, pointed to the distance and said, "Hawky, Gran-Gran, South Pole," "Hawky" shook around to signal that he didn't feel like sending a message. "I think he gets the point," Sokka said. Just then, Momo hopped onto Aang's shoulder. Sensing competition, he pounced on Hawky and the two of them started to fight. "Hawky! Make nice! Bad Hawky!" Sokka said hopelessly. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to my book.
After Sokka, Toph, and Geo left for town again, Katara went over to Toph's stuff. I looked up from my book and said, "What are you doing?" "It doesn't concern you," Said Katara as she sifted through Toph's stuff. "I think it does concern me seeing as I'm the oldest here. So what's going on?" Katara pulled out a piece of paper and said, "I knew it!" "Knew what?" I asked. She handed me the sheet of paper. On it was a drawing of Toph, her eyes looked angry and her teeth were pointed. "Wanted," I read. "The Runaway. Wanted for scamming, lying, and cheating people out of money." "This can't be good," I said. "Exactly," said Katara. "That doesn't explain why you were looking for her stuff." "I wanted to make sure she wasn't doing anything stupid." "Katara," I said. "How old are you?" "Thirteen," she said. "So?" "You're not their mother," I said. "And?" she said sourly. "So stop acting like it. They're old enough to make their own mistakes and, even though I admire the fact that you're looking out for them, you need to stop bossing them around. Because, your not that much older than they are. In fact, Sokka's older than you. You're still young enough to make your own mistakes. You aren't their mom."
Katara was still pretty steamed by the time they got back. "Well, look who decided to join us," said Katara. "Off scamming again?" "Yes we were," said Toph. "And I don't suppose you think that what you're doing is dangerous?" said Katara. "No I don't," said Toph casually. "Then what's this?!" said Katara holding up the wanted poster. "I don't know!" said Toph. "I mean seriously. What's with you people?! I'm blind!" I snickered a little bit. The fact that they still forgot that Toph was blind was rather comical. "It's a wanted poster of you," said Katara. "'The Runaway.' Is that what you're called now? Are you proud of this?" "Where did you get that?" said Toph. "It doesn't matter where I got it. What matters is that-" Toph cut her off. "You went through my stuff!" Katara came up with a lie faster than you could say, "Scamming." "Your stuff was messy," Unfortunately, Toph didn't buy it. "That's a lie! You're lying!" Then she pointed at me. "You let her go through my stuff!" She yelled at me. "Um...I uh..." Toph went on. "You're the oldest one here, Tatiana. Take some authority!" "Leave Tatiana out of it," said Katara. "What matters is you're out of control lately and I knew something was up. I knew you were hiding something from me, and you were!" Toph knocked the poster from Katara's hands and started to walk away. "Don't walk away from me while I'm talking to you!" Katara yelled. "Oh really, mom?" said Toph. "Or what are you gonna do? Send me to my room?" "I wish I could!" snapped Katara. "Well, you can't!" said Toph. "Because you're not my mom and you're not their mom!" She pointed to the rest of us. "I never said I was!" said Katara. "No," said Toph. "But you certainly act like it. You think it's your job to boss everyone around. But it's not. You're just a regular kid like the rest of us. So stop acting like you can tell me what to do. I can do whatever I want!" "I don't act that way!" Katara snapped. "Sokka, do I act motherly?" "I'm stayin' out of this one," said Sokka. "Tatiana?" "Nope." I cut her off. "I'm with Sokka," "Don't look at me," said Geo. That only left Aang. Poor guy. "What do you think, Aang?" said Katara. "Do I act like a mom?" Aang started to nervously rub his eye. "Well, I..." "Stop rubbing your eye. Stand up straight. And speak clearly when you talk!" Katara snapped. Aang straightened up like a board. "Yes ma'am!" He said quickly. I shook my head. Katara just proved Toph's argument. "I can't be around you right now," Toph said to Katara. "Well, I can't be around you either!" snapped Katara. Toph went and sat by a bunch of rocks and Katara went in the other direction to sit on the cliff. Hawky started to squawk. "I know, Hawky," said Sokka. "Why can't they just get along?"
Suddenly, Sokka got an idea. "Hey Aang," he said. "Want to help me test out my messenger hawk? I've got an idea," Me, Geo, and Aang gathered round Sokka to hear his idea. "I'll send a note to Katara, saying it's from Toph, who wants to apologize. Then, everyone will be friends again." His idea seemed extremely flawed, but I was willing to do anything to get them to stop fighting. Sokka wrote up the note and gave it to Hawky, who flew over to Katara. She read the message and suddenly got very angry. "I know this is from you, Sokka!" she yelled. "Toph can't write! Ugh! You're all driving me crazy!" She stomped off. "That could've gone better." I sighed. "I can't believe we forgot Toph can't write,"said Aang. "Yep, we're idiots," said Sokka. "What's this 'we' that I hear?" said Geo. "You boys are the ones who are idiots," Aang thought of another plan. "I guess plan B would be to send a note to Toph saying it's from Katara," Sokka had his doubts. "I think we're gonna run into a similar problem. Sorry, Hawky," he said, looking at his bird. "Looks like I'm gonna have to do this without your help." He walked over to Toph and said they needed to talk.
Whatever Sokka did, it worked. While I was reading, and Geo was practicing her knife throwing, Katara came over to Toph and said, "I wanted to-" Toph cut her off. "You don't need to apologize, Katara. I was the one being stupid. These scams are out of control, and I'm done with them." Katara paused for a moment and said, "Actually, I wasn't going to apologize." Toph looked offended for a second but Katara went on. "I wanted to say...I wanted to pull a scam with you!" Toph looked surprised. "What?" she said. "You want to pull a scam?" "Not just any scam." Katara said. "The ultimate scam. What do you say? Just us girls? One last go?" "Totally!" Geo and I looked at each other. "Hey!" I said. "What's going on?" "Oh nothing." Katara said innocently. "I was just saying Toph and I were going to pull a scam. You guys in?" "Heck yeah!" we both said. "So what's this idea of yours?" Geo asked.
We planned all the way 'til sunset. Katara's plan was simple but at the same time, a little dangerous. Just the way we like it. "Alright," Said Katara. "Here's what we're gonna do; On the reward poster, it says that Toph's worth a lot of money. So Toph, you and Geo are going to get captured. Toph is going to get captured for obvious reasons and they'll want Geo for being in league with her," "Yep," said Geo. "I have scammed so many people." "I have taught you well, pupil," said Toph proudly. Katara went on. "Tatiana and I will turn you guys in, get the money, you metal-bend yourselves out, and we're on our way." I was a little bit nervous because I had scammed a few people as well. Toph told me not to worry about it. She told me that she was the big prize and that Geo would just be a bonus to the soldiers. They'd be too distracted by Toph and Geo's capture too realize that I'd been in league with them too. So the next day, around noon, we executed our plan.
Toph and Geo started running all through the town away from the soldiers. Earlier that day, Katara and I had tipped them off on where to find them. The girls ran under the statue of Fire Lord Ozai and stopped for a minute too long to catch their breath. The guards ran up behind them and trapped them each in a net. "How could you do this to us?!" Toph yelled angrily. "You betrayed us!" Geo yelled. Katara and I stepped foreword. "You brought this on yourself, Toph," said Katara. "And then you got Geo involved too. You were out of control. We had no choice." I stepped foreword with my arms crossed. "I'd expect this from Katara, but you, Tatiana?" said Toph. "I thought you were on our side," I looked at the ground and did my best to look offended, confused, sad, and angry at the same time. "It's your own fault," I said, shaking my head. I was beginning to surprise myself with how good I was at acting. Toph told me so a little while later. Anyway, the two were dragged away screaming as the mayor of the city came up to us. "You did the right thing by turning them in." Katara pretended to calm down (she pretended to because she was never actually angry in the first place). "The right thing is its own reward," Katara said. "I'm glad to hear that," said the mayor greedily. "But... we still want the actual reward," I said quickly. "Of course," said the mayor.
He took us to an official looking building and brought us inside. His assistant brought out a box that was full of gold. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. The mayor suspiciously went over to the door. "Katara, something isn't right," I whispered. "They the ones you were looking for?" The mayor said. I spun around and was faced with the metal man, the one with the third eye. He nodded. "Come on," The mayor snapped. Katara and I were dragged down the hall past metal cell after cell after cell. Then, we were shoved into a wooden cell with Geo and Toph. "It's a trap!" Geo said. "No duh!" I said angrily. Katara looked dismal. "Not for us, Tatiana," said Toph. "We're the bait. He wants Aang." Katara looked even worse. "I can't believe I was so stupid," she said. "See? This is exactly why I'm against these scams. I knew this would happen," "To be fair," said Geo. "This was your idea," "I know," said Katara. "I wanted to show you that I'm not so motherly. That I know how to have fun too." "You are fun, Katara," said Toph. "If anything, you're at least fun to argue with." "Can't argue there," I joked. Katara gave Toph a hug. "I know your relationship with your parents isn't that great," said Katara. "And I shouldn't have said what I said." "It's okay," said Toph. "I was really mad when you said that because, well...maybe it's true. I try not to think about it because when I left, I probably hurt them," She started to cry. Katara gave her a hug. I almost felt like crying myself. Even though my old family was terrible to me, and even though I honestly hated them, they were still people. They were honestly better than I gave them credit for. Not to me, hell no. But they were very good to each other. If you took me out of the picture, they actually looked like a family. And they only hated me because I was a double-bender. Like I said before, they accepted me for about ten minutes, before they knew I was... you know. If they didn't know or I wasn't a double-bender, maybe they would have accepted me. They may have even loved me.
Anyway, after that moment, we were still stuck and we needed to get out and warn Aang. "So what are we gonna do?" asked Katara. "I don't know," I said. " I wish we had some earth or water though. We need something to bend." "Do you have your meteor bracelet?" Katara asked. I shook my head. "I left it at the campsite." "Same," said Toph. "I was afraid they'd confiscate it." Katara wiped the sweat from her forehead. Then she got a look on her face that said she had an idea. She got up and started to run in place. "Uh...are you okay?" Said Toph. "Just fine," Katara replied. "Tatiana," She instructed. "Get up and do what I do," "Okay..." I said reluctantly. "Why?" "We're making our own water," She answered. I got her message and started to run a little faster. "Katara, you're a genius!" Toph praised. "A sweaty stinky genius!"
It was long, tiring work, but we eventually made it out of the prison cell and into the empty town square. It was eerily quiet. Suddenly, I heard an all too familiar sound; the sound of someone taking a breath, a split-second of silence, then BOOOM! An explosion rattled the air. "Sparky-Sparky Boom Man" was on the prowl once again, looking for the prey that dodged him the last time. As the smoke cleared, we saw Aang lying on his back. "Aang, get up!" Katara urged. "Let's get out of here!" Toph screamed. As we were running, Sokka had another burst of inspiration. "Hey, I got a better name for that guy; Combustion Man!" I rolled my eyes. Sometimes, Sokka could be a genius, sometimes he could be sincere. But ninety-five percent of the time, he was just being a moron, or a genius but at the wrongest of times. Toph rolled her eyes as well. "Fine," she said. "Great job, Sokka. Now let's get out of here before 'Combustion Man' catches us." "See?" said Sokka. "It fits so well,"
We ran for what seemed like hours before we made it back to the campsite. Hastily, we packed our stuff and climbed onto Appa. We flew for a while until we were sure we lost "Combustion Man". "I'm exhausted," said Sokka. "Hawky, how 'bout you, buddy?" Hawky squawked in reply. "Yeah, you're such a lazy little bird." Katara and Toph hopped down. "Katara?" said Toph. "I... need your help," "What is it, Toph?" Said Katara as she unpacked her things. "I need you to write some things down for me...I want to write a letter to my parents," "I'd be happy to help," Said Katara smiling. So Toph said her thoughts to Katara and Katara wrote them down and gave them to Hawky, who joyously flew off into the night. "Hey, where'd Hawky go?" Sokka asked.

YAY! I finally updated again! Leave a comment and vote. Luv you!!