Chapter Text
Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, there were four nations. These nations often fluctuated in alliances over time, but one thing always stood clear with respect among the nations; the avatar. The avatar has stood as a beacon of peace throughout the generations, a sign that the four nations can get along. But then, the fire nation attacked, and the balance between the nations was fucked. Now, only the avatar can fix it, but where is he now?
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The ship sailed across the skies, cutting through clouds on the blue sky. The ship itself seemed to fly on its own, not needing much assistance from the people on board once it was up and flying. It was a great ship, not terribly big, but decently sized, built more for speed by its creators than for size. It was just big enough, though, for the six people who made up its crew.
“Noah! Where are we headed again?” Charlie asked, standing at the helm to put the location in.
“Earth kingdom!” Noah shouted back, looking over Ted’s shoulder at the map. Ted poured over the map, scanning where exactly in the earth kingdom they would head. No matter. They still had a few days to figure that out.
Carson and Cooper were busy making their cover, a cloud that traveled with them, obscuring vision from the ground. They bent water around the ship, manipulating the clouds around them to make the ship look like a cloud. Travis, the other waterbender of their group, was down below deck, cleaning up some things last minute.
After Charlie set the heading, he sat and watched Cooper and Carson bend the water, pulling some stones out of his pocket to juggle them. There wasn’t a lot of earth for him to bend up here, up in the sky, but he had a few rock piles scattered about the ship just in case of a fight.
Ted tapped Noah’s shoulder and spoke with him briefly about what towns to go to and what towns to avoid, and Noah nodded and got out of his way. Ted wasn’t a bender, but he did have a way with things, knew how to use any weapon put into his hands, could read a map better than the rest of them, and was pretty smart. He’d learned how to make his own glasses, and even helped Charlie make some too.
Noah walked around the deck, talking amongst his friends. Carson and Cooper were done creating their cloudy cover, so he sat with them. He’d met Cooper in a swamp, the blonde bender calling the place his home, at least until he had decided to go with Noah. Cooper had been his first friend after he’d woken up from a… very long nap… And they’d been sailing together ever since. Cooper was helping him learn waterbending, Travis and Carson helping out whenever they had a technique to add.
Carson was by far the least helpful on that front, not teaching him much and always asking him things during training. It was extremely distracting. Not to shit on him or anything, though, he was still very helpful in regards to upkeep of the ship and whenever they had to fight battles. And they had to do that often. It was like the Fire nation had a master tracker, tracking them where they went, no matter where they went. The guy was good, it was always the same fucking guy with the same fucking face and the same fucking sense of duty to his cause and his absolute warmongerer of a Fire Lord.
Travis was a nice guy. He didn’t really enjoy using his bending to fight, mostly just froze people when he had to fight, and only in self defense. The guy was a pacifist, basically, but he was a great healer, his warmth and energy towards life despite being from the North Pole helping him to be great at healing. He’d met Noah and Cooper in a port, a good ways away from the North Pole, and they’d all bonded. It was great having him as a part of the team, especially with how many rocks Charlie likes to bend at people, or how chaotic Ted can be with a sword. Travis had told them how he’d learned from masters how to bend and heal up in the North Pole, and had been influential in teaching Noah how to waterbend, and even a little bit of healing, but he didn’t have as much of a knack for that as Travis.
Noah wouldn’t say he was the leader of their little crew, since Ted was more likely to take that role than anything, but he was the reason for their being here. He had to learn all he could, after all, from water to earth to even fire, though that one might be a bit difficult. Noah already knew air, having been originally from the Air Nation before he’d disappeared. But now, now he was back, back to do what he needed to do to free the world.
The four nations, as the old world used to have, were in a state of trouble, the Fire Nation having brought war upon the other nations as they sought to claim more land. The Air nation had been all but extinguished, save for Noah, a happenstance trip and a large storm sparing him from the wrath of the Fire Nation and plunging him a century ahead of his time.
Noah was, as fate would have it, the solution to the world’s anguish, the avatar. He would have to, in his lifetime, master all four elements and keep the balance of the four nations.
He was already a century late to that.
The Fire Lord had issued a hunt for him, which was probably why whoever had been on their tail for so long was even on their tail, hunting them down tirelessly, either by ship or by land. He’d even gotten a hold of a small airship at one point, but they’d managed to evade him thus far. They hadn’t seen him in several days, and it was possible that he’d given up, but Noah thought that unlikely. Maybe he was just waiting for them to show up in a town somewhere. Or he was waiting for a sign. Either way, Noah was always uneasy about letting his guard down for too long.
“Look alive, people,” Ted shouted, pointing ahead. “There’s a storm brewing. Noah! Should we touch down for the night?”
“Yeah. See if we can find a shore,” Noah said. It was always risky to get close to the ground, cause a flying ship is kind of obvious, but once they were down they could blend in with other ships. Going up and down, though, was always dangerous, though, when they were trying to avoid being spotted. In the case of storms, though, a stray bolt of lightning could be the end of their ship, so they usually had to go ahead and touch down if they wanted to stay alive, or keep their nice airship. So that was generally what they did, unless they could sail around it, but this storm looked to be pretty big.
Charlie took the helm, guiding them down and steering them to a shore where they could tie off their ship and make camp.
Noah watched the storm, watching as it began to pour in the distance, blowing in quickly towards them, loud claps of thunder spelling a potential disaster. He just hoped that they weren’t too obvious as they sailed towards the ground, abandoning their cloudy cover.
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They were obvious. Intel on their location had finally come in, and he watched through a seeing glass as they sailed down to the shoreline, presumably to wait out the storm. This was perfect.
Schlatt readied his men, alerting them as to the plan, to ambush the avatar and his crew. They had the element of surprise on their side, he was sure they could capture the avatar this time. All they had to do was wait until the storm blew in, when the avatar and his friends would have made camp and gone to sleep, then they could move in.
Schlatt watched them land, all of them unboarding to quickly set up camp and tie down their ship. He knew about the avatar and his team, knew what kind of people they had onboard. Three waterbenders, an earthbender, a nonbender, and of course an avatar.
All Schlatt had to do was get past five people to capture an avatar. Easy peasy. He had his men. This would be fine. They’d fought them before, of course, and admittedly lost or they had escaped, but this time was different. They had the element of surprise. Sometimes, that was more powerful than any other element.
Night fell, and the storm rolled in, a clap of thunder disguising the moment that Schlatt gave the order to move in. All torches and lights were extinguished, and the lightning illuminated them for a flash as Schlatt pointed in the general direction of the avatar’s camp. He and his men swiftly moved in, stealthily moving through the trees and shadows. The rain poured and they stepped carefully, one slip-up could spell disaster.
He has his men circle the camp, so that the Avatar was surrounded.
And then they struck.