When Worlds Collide: Book Two, Earth

Chapter Five

“A secret passage?” Sokka asked. “Why didn’t we just use this last time?”
“Last time?” I asked.
“Long story,” Aang said, waving his hand, then took off the lid to the sewer pipe. We were splashed with disgusting green water. “Does that answer your question Sokka?”
I chuckled and followed Aang into the pipe.
I was behind Katara, and took her idea of water bending all of the gross water away from me.
I heard Sokka complaining behind me, but I just laughed and ignored him.
When we reached the city, we climbed out of the sewer, and I sighed.
“That wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Katara said.
Sokka came out, covered in slime and goo. Katara water bended all the gunk off of him, and he fell back, soaking wet, so Aang used air bending to dry him off.
I tilted my head, looking at Sokka. “Um... Sokka?”
“What?” he asked.
“You have something on your face,” I told him, hiding my smile. He looked as the two small pink creatures started sucking on his face, and started screaming.
Aang tackled him into a wall to shush him. “Stop making so much noise,” the monk said. “It’s just a purple pentipus.”
Once we had all of the cute little things off, two Fire Nation guys started yelling at us.
“Hey!” one said.
Aang hid behind us and pulled a hat on over his head.
“What are you kids doing out past curfew?” the same guy asked.
“Sorry,” Katara said, “we were just on our way home.”
We all smiled and turned to walk away.
“Wait,” the man called. “What’s the matter with him?”
The others froze, and I rolled my eyes, looking at the back of Sokka’s neck. Huh... it looked like he had the chicken pocks. Do they have those here? “He has Pentipocks, sir,” I said.
They others looked at me, relieved.
The man walked towards us, and started to touch Sokka’s face.
“Um... it’s very contagious,” Katara rushed. The man pulled back his hand, and I sighed.
Sokka started to put on a show, and started to moan. “It’s so horrible, I’m dying!”
“And its very deadly,” I said.
The man backed up to his friends, and started saying how he had heard of it. Wait, was it really real? “We better go wash our hands!” the guy said. “And burn our clothes!” they ran off, and I giggled.
“Wow,” I said. “Those are the most gullible people I have ever met.”
Aang chuckled too, and then we were off, searching for King Bumi.
We were walking when we saw a group of people walking. From behind us, we heard something, and turned to see a giant boulder sliding down the hill, heading right toward the group. Aang, acting quickly, used air bending to knock it out of the way just in time.
“It’s the Resistance!” a woman yelled, and then another girl, about my age, threw something at Aang. He dodged, and we started to run, with the girl hot on our heels.
At one point, I tripped, and when I got up, the girl was right behind me. I took out my fans, and stood to face her.
She had an emotionless look to her. My eyes widened as I recognized who she was.
Mai.
She smirked and threw something sharp at me. I dodged and opened my fans, ready to fight.
She made a move to hit me, and I ducked, then spun to hit her with my fan. She faltered, but was quick to jump back. I used fire bending to make a wall in between us, and when the flames died down, I was already with the others.
Suddenly, the floor dropped, and we were with another group of people, all of whom were from the Earth Kingdom.
A man stepped forward, and I gulped.

“So is King Bumi with you guys?” Aang asked. “Is he leading the resistance?”
“Of course not!” the guy said. “The day of the invasion, we were ready for battle. We were prepared to defend our city. To fight for our lives, and our freedom. But before we even had a chance... King Bumi surrendered.”
We looked at Aang, and I saw his face fall.
“The day of the invasion, I asked King Bumi what he wanted to do,” the man continued. “He looked me in the eye and said ‘We are going to do nothing.’ It doesn’t matter now. Fighting the Fire Nation is the only path to freedom. And freedom is worth dying for.”
“Actually, there’s another path to freedom,” Aang said. “You could leave Omashu. You’re directing all your energy to fighting the Fire Nation, but you’re out numbered. You can’t win. Now’s the time to retreat, to live another day.”
“You don’t understand,” the same man said. “They’ve taken our home, and we have to fight them at any cost!”
“I don’t know Yin,” the guy next to him said. “Living to fight another day is starting to sound pretty good to me.”
Everyone else agreed, and Yin sighed. “Fine. But there’s thousands of citizens that need to leave. How are we going to get them all out?”
Sokka had a thoughtful look in his eye, and he smiled. “Suckers,” he said. “You all are about to come down with a nasty case of Pentipocks.”
I grinned. “Sokka, you’re a genius.”

After we were all covered in dots, and we were acting sick, we started making our way to the gates. In no time, the Fire Nation people opened them, and we were free to go. We walked until we were out of sight of Omashu before we stopped to rest. Everyone set up camp, and we all waited for Aang to return.

“There he is,” I said, standing up, and racing over to Aang and a giant creature.
“We looked everywhere,” Aang said, “no Bumi.”
Katara hugged him, and Sokka hugged the giant beast. My eyes widened as I took it in.
“What