ATLOP: Trial by Fire

The Painted Boy

This chapter is for showing how Percy is learning and it covers about a year of time. There's one or two more chapters like this planned before I hit the canon timeline.

Edited: 4/2/22

OO OO OO OO

Percy was learning waterbending.

His mom had told him to be careful, and he was! She did say he could use his powers if he was careful, but he didn't think she wanted him to use them at all. But... he was a waterbender, and he had to .

He was like Katara. She didn't have to hide her powers from everyone, just everyone outside the home, but she was hiding them for protection. And he figured from how his mom acted about them that he was also hiding his for protection.

He didn't know how the treat was though, unlike Katara, so everyone had to be considered a bad guy.

We... anyone that wasn't like him. If there were other waterbenders like him-

He shook his head.

It didn't really matter at the moment, he only had himself at the moment.

Well, not only himself. Unlike Katara, he did have easy access to a Master Waterbender to learn from.

Katara herself.

OO OO OO OO

He may have maybe kinda snuck money from Gabe.

But he'd been careful! He'd only taken a few bills, a little at a time, and he'd snuck a few from Gabe's gambling buddies too. He was smart, like Katara was with her gambling in that episode with Toph.

You had to be smart and distract the people you were tricking, he learned that from Katara.

So he brought the group beers and food, asking mom to help him make some dip for them. Then, when they weren't looking, he'd sneak a few bills..

In the end he managed to collect enough money to buy the complete Avatar: The Last Airbender video set. And when he'd mentioned it to a neighbor they'd offered him a little old video player! They apparently got a new one and had been planning to throw it out.

It was really nice of them to give him the player and he thanked them with cookies he made.

He finally had access to his teacher, which meant at last he could start proper waterbending training.

First thing he had to do was take notes, that's what all the teachers said to do in order to learn. And he really wanted to learn this.

So he took notes, carefully writing down everything about waterbending in the show... And also the other things the other benders do, Iroh said he learned new techniques by watching other benders.

He watched the show, then watched it again, then watched it once more.

He had his notebook out the whole time and wrote down everything he saw waterbenders doing. Katara wasn't the only waterbender there, though she was the coolest. He'd learn from all of them, becoming the best ever.

And then he started using the things he learned.

First thing he did was keep water with him all the time, it was his new favorite drink. It was easy to practice moving water in a cup without anyone noticing, just little movements and spirals. He needed every chance he could get to train if he was going to be a master.

Everytime he rewatched the show he learned new things about waterbending. Things he quickly put into practice.

They were the small bits that weren't taught, just done. Lifting the water, spinning it, making shapes, pushing it as far away as possible. Freezing the water, changing the shape of the ice, even melting it again.