Hey guys, I'm back with a new chapter. I've kept you waiting long enough over the past few months so let's get on with it:

The city of Omashu was a sight to behold, even with the Fire Nation banners everywhere. From the looks of things, the residents had taken a page from the Air Nomads and literally carved their city from the peak of a mountain. However, given that it was a city and not a temple, it was way bigger and WAY more densely packed. Buildings almost seemed to be built on top of each other as they went up the slope toward the peak of the mountain.

"Place has got Fire Nation crawling all over it. I don't even have the slightest idea on where to start looking," I said as I lowered my binoculars. We were on the far side of the canyon from the city, trying to find a way in to find Bumi without being spotted.

"Aang, I know you had your heart set on Bumi for a teacher, but I think it's best we move on," Katara said.

"No. I'm going in. This isn't about a teacher, it's about a friend," Aang replied.

"The city is huge. Any idea where they'd be keeping him?" Sokka asked.

"Someplace he couldn't earthbend, someplace made of metal," the Avatar answered. I raised my binoculars again and looked over the city. Finally, I settled on one area that seemed to be reasonable.

"There's a lot of scaffolding and a big ass metal statue near the peak. If I was going looking for an imprisoned earthbender, I'd start there," I advised. Aang seemed to beam at the news.

"Great, let's go! I know a secret way in!" he said, eagerness in his voice. We all climbed aboard Appa, and Aang guided the flying bison down into the canyon surrounding the city. Along the cliff face, well below the edge of the city, there was a large metal grate. The young airbender jumped from the head of his bison and began to pry at the grate with his staff.

"A secret passage? Why didn't we just use this last time?" Sokka asked. At that moment, the grate burst open, allowing a large blob of raw sewage to go tumbling down into the canyon below. The Water Tribe Warrior reacted with an appropriate amount of disgust.

"Does that answer your question?" Aang asked. Sliding onto Appa's head, I took control of the reigns.

"You three go on. I'll take Appa and set up a base camp," I said.

"What, afraid of a smelly sewer?" Sokka teased.

"No. I can't track over solid rock. Unless we get into a fight, I'd be next to useless in there," I reasoned. Sokka gave a shrug.

"Eh, suit yourself," he said before swinging into the tunnel after his friend and sister. I cracked the reins and Appa flew up and out of the canyon, using the failing light of the dusk to our advantage. It took a little bit, but I eventually found a small, sheltered valley not far from the city. It had ample water, and decent enough foliage to keep the sky bison fed for a while.

As I sat under the star filled sky, silently cooking a rabbit squirrel over the fire, I couldn't help but feel a little on edge. This was suppose to be the time that Aang and the group encountered Azula. Now my memory of the show was hit and miss, but there was one thing I did remember; the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation was no joke.

I don't know what Aang's plan was after he found Bumi. What I did know was that with each passing hour, our chances of running into Azula increased. For the first time, I found that waiting around patiently wasn't doing me any good.

"You seem troubled," a voice said. My head shot up at the unexpected voice. Sitting across the fire from me was the little girl spirit that had appeared to me before. She hadn't changed a bit since the last time I had seen her.

"What do you want? I thought you were sworn not to interfere," I said with a hint of bitterness. It had been made abundantly clear that whatever happened was totally up to me. There would be no aid from the more mystical forces of the universe.

"Another Spirit has introduced an unforeseen variable. Your life and the lives of your friends are in danger," she said. I rolled my eyes and went back to cooking my supper. We were being hunted by the Fire Nation and traveling on our own. Our lives were in danger every time we stepped into a bush to pee.

"What, did you guys get broard and decide to summon Godzilla or something?" I asked.

"No. A man, a proficient wielder in these weapons you call arms of fire," she said. I looked up again and cocked my eyebrow at her.

"You mean firearms?" I asked. She nodded, not seeming to have realized her mistake in speaking.

"Yes. I believe your world refers to him a slinger of guns? I'm not sure if that's right."

"A gunslinger," I corrected before looking at my supper again. This was worrying, if not for any other reason than I simply knew almost nothing about this supposed new enemy. Was he an actual gunman from the Old West, or a modern professional shooter? The answer to that question alone would determine what I did with this information.

"Do you know anything else?" I asked.

"Only that he has been tasked to hunt you down and kill you," she replied.

"That's helpful," I muttered, a hint of bitterness returning to my voice. The Spirit actually looked like she felt sorry for me.

"I wish I could do more, but as you know."

"You're forbidden to interfere. My life, my choice," I finished. She only nodded. A sudden revelation struck me, and a twinge of panic settled into my chest. What if this new threat was in league with Azula or the Fire Nation? What could result from that, I didn't even want to think about.

"Just tell me, where is this gunslinger? With the Fire Nation?" I asked.

"No. He is to the east, between you and the Earth Kingdom Capital," she answered. Well, good, that was one thing I didn't have to worry about for the moment.

"You have much greater trials ahead of you, Jacob. Good luck," she said before turning to dust and vanishing on the breeze.

I was expecting the others to come back with one or maybe two other people, not literally half of the city. The crowd that Sokka and Katara led could have numbered in the hundreds easily, maybe even the thousands. Even stranger, all of them had red marks all over their skin like chicken pox. I was standing on a small bare rise over looking the campsite, watching the stream of people stretch all the way back to the city gates.

"I hope you two realize that I only made enough food for four or five people," I called down to them as they got close. Sokka gave a nonchalant wave of his hand.

"Way ahead of you. The guards were so terrified of the pentapox that they didn't notice us clearing out the lower levels of the city of supplies," he said. I slid down the incline and stared walking alongside the siblings.

"Pentapox?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at Katara.

"It was the best I could come up with on the fly," she replied, her cheeks gaining some color.

"So, you guys went in there looking for one guy, and came back with half the city. Clearly I'm missing something here," I said.

"These people were apart of the local resistance. Aang managed to convince them to leave the city and we helped them get out," Sokka explained.

"And where is Aang now?" I asked.

"He went back to look for Bumi," Katara said. I paused and looked back toward the city. Aang was able to handle himself, I was well aware of that fact. But he was still my friend, so of course I was going to be worried about him.

"Let's get these people set up in a camp. If he's not back by sunset, Sokka, you and I are going in after him," I said. Katara gave me a glare.

"And why not me, huh? I'm the better bender of the two of us," she pointed out.

"And both Sokka and I have more experience at tracking and hunting," I replied.

"So why not send Sokka and I then? You said yourself you couldn't track over solid rock," she pointed out. Sokka actually snorted at that.

"You want to leave Morgan in charge of all these people? I mean he's a good cook but his people skills are just the worst," he said, earning a glare from me.

"Thanks, ass." He gave a friendly nod as if I had just thanked him politely.

"But, unfortunately, he's right. Your people skills are way better than mine," I reluctantly conceded. Katara let out an annoyed huff, but I could see the argument was starting to sway her.

"Fine," she finally said. We set up a rather large camp in a narrow valley a short distance away from the city. Close enough we could still see the smoke from the new industrial elements, but far enough away we'd have some warning if the city garrison suddenly decided they wanted to come after us. Katara helped organize the people into some sort of order rather than an unruly mob. Sokka and I did too, but to a much lesser degree. I wound up being relegated to maintaining a fire and a cooking pot at my original campsite after losing my temper with a group of pottery makers on having to explain why you don't dig a latrine anywhere near a water source.

Thankfully, Sokka and I didn't have to go into the city to look for Aang. The kid showed up at the edge of the camp shortly after nightfall with an orange rag tied around his head in order to hide his arrow tattoo. This would have been fine, if not for the fact that he was being followed by a muscle bound monstrosity that was at least twice as big as he was.

This thing, as I would later learn, was called a goat gorilla. Now, I'm not going to lie, I had completely forgotten about Crazy King Bumi's pet. Hearing details about it would have given me some worry. Actually seeing it nearly made me crap my pants in fear. It had similar colorings to Appa, only with huge goat horns, tusks protruding from it's lower jaw, and it sat on its hind legs and knuckles like a gorilla. If it wasn't for the fact that Sokka just strolled up to this thing and gave it a hug on it's face, I might have shot first and asked questions never.

"We looked everywhere, no Bumi," Aang reported glumly. Katara gave him a hug of reassurance. I placed a hand on his shoulder as well, ignoring the huge monster that was less than three feet away. If the other three weren't bothered by it's presence, I didn't see a reason to be either.

"Come on. I got some egg drop ramen cooked up. We'll see the refugees off, and go back to looking in the morning," I proposed. Aang's stomach growled, and he looked up at me with a hopeful, cocked eyebrow.

"Egg drop ramen?" he asked. I shrugged.

"It was the best I could do with what I had. Besides, I don't exactly have the means to bake that tart custard thing you like so much," I said. The young airbender just gave me a bright smile.

"That's alright, Morgan. Ramen is a close second," he said. Just as we started to head back into the camp, a man wearing an Earth Kingdom soldier's uniform came up to us. This was the man who had been in command of the local resistance before we arrived, and now he was more or less the leader of the refugees while Bumi was still MIA.

"We got a problem. We just did a head count," he said.

"Oh no, did someone get left behind?" Katara asked, concern in her voice.

"No. We have an extra," he answered, pointing a short distance away. Momo was being clung to by a child that couldn't have been more than a year and a half old. The kid had a bright smile on his face and was squealing with joy, the lemur looked like it would trade it's soul just to get out of the situation. I blinked and cocked my head at the sight, confused on how a toddler somehow got mixed up in this whole situation.

"Tell me you have babysitting experience," I said, looking at Katara. All I got was a bemused smirk in response. Thankfully, Katara did have experience in babysitting, because our group got saddled with the responsibility of watching the kid. No one else really even wanted anything to do with him, and honestly I wasn't that surprised. They'd just been forced to flee from their homes after being oppressed by whomever the kid's parents were, so the fact that he was a helpless toddler didn't really matter anymore to them.

Katara, being Katara, naturally took over watching him. She gave him some food when he was hungry, changed him when needing changed, and otherwise just played with him and kept him entertained. While she did that, I passed out the ramen I had made for supper. Behind us, Appa and Flopsie as I had learned was the big creature's name, lay side by side and snoozed away. The two were roughly the same size, and actually made a pretty decent barrier in separating our fire from the rest of the encampment.

The baby just toddled around, generally giggling and being in a good mood. He mostly chased Momo, always trying to get the lemur back into his grasp. Momo, however, had learned his lesson, and went to great lengths in order to stay out of the kid's reach. Eventually, he settled on one of Appa's horns, letting out a flurry of chatter at the toddler which I'm sure could have been translated into a series of curses and profanity. The baby didn't seem to notice or care, just simply plopping down into the dirt, picking up one of Sokka's clubs, and beginning to chew on it.

"No! Bad Fire Nation baby!" Sokka snapped, snatching the club out of the kid's reach. Instantly, the baby burst into tears and began to wail. This earned the Water Tribe warrior a smack up side the head and a stern look from his sister, which caused him to relent and give the club back. Upon seeing the weapon, the toddler immediately went back to making happy noises as he looked it over.

"Oh, you're just so cute!" she exclaimed, doting on the kid as he played. I couldn't help but give her a second look as she handled the entire situation, noting that she would make an excellent mother one day.

'I see a great romance. The man you are going to marry. I can see he is a powerful bender, and he has traveled far. A simple man, a man of the wild.' That had been the prediction Grandma Wendy gave her all those months ago. Aang may have been a powerful bender, but he was not of the wild. Was it true? Was I going to be the one that Katara would marry instead? As I watched her play with the toddler across the fire, I couldn't help but wonder, would she one day being doing this exact same thing with my own child?

"Sure, he looks cute now. But when he's older, he'll join the Fire Nation Army. You won't think he's so cute then, he'll be a killer," the commander of the refugees said, speaking up for the first time in hours. Katara, however, remained undeterred and simply held the kid up.

"Does that look like the face of a killer to you?" she asked, just as a snot bubble popped on the kid's nose. The Leader's face remained stoic and unmoved. This was a guy who'd lost his home, his city, and probably most if not all of his family to the Fire Nation. It was going to take a little more than a bubbly toddler to change his mind.

"It won't last that long," I mumbled, poking the fire with a stick.

"What?" Aang asked.

"Sozin's Comet will be here by the end of the summer. One way or another, this war will be over by the end of the year," I answered. Before anyone could take in that rather dark prediction, the screech of a hawk filled the night. Down from the star filled sky came a hawk with a leather harness tied around it's midsection, held together by a small Fire Nation symbol. It landed on a large rock a short distance away and waited patiently. Aang, being the closest, got up and went over to the hawk.

Taking a small scroll from the cylinder on the bird's back, the Air Nomad made his way back to us while reading what was inside.

"It's from the Fire Nation Governor. He thinks we kidnapped his son," Aang relayed what he was reading.

"Why do we always get the important ones?" I asked, looking across the fire at the baby, who was once again knawing on Sokka's club.

"He wants to make a trade," Aang continued, ignoring me, "his son, for King Bumi."

The trade was set for high noon, atop some rather large scaffolding near the peak of the city. In fact, it was the same construction site I had spotted when we first arrived. The Fire Nation, not content with just having the city under their control, felt the need to rub it in by building a huge statue of Fire Lord Ozai.

It was just the four of us, plus the kid. Aang had the orange scarf on around his head again, while Sokka was holding the toddler. My bow was strung, but I had it hanging over my shoulder rather than at the ready in my hands. This was suppose to be a trade, not a fight. A drawn weapon would send the whole situation south fast.

Finally, they arrived. A trio of young women came from the end of the site opposite we had arrived from. They were led by a tall, pale teen who wore a dark, long sleeved red dress. She wore a scowl which suggested she'd rather be doing anything else than this. Flanking her was a young woman who had big, doe eyes, hair in a top knot and pony tail, and a pink outfit which showed off her midriff. But opposite her was the one that attracted my attention.

Like the first woman, she had a scowl on her face, although it seemed to be more of a determined one rather than an annoyed one. The armor she wore was a crimson color, as was the headpiece that adorned her top knot. At sight of her, I felt my blood turn to ice, and the grip on my bow string tightened.

Azula.

Cackling filled the air as a crane lowered a metal coffin behind the trio. Sticking out of the coffin was the face of an old man with spiky white hair and beard. I saw Aang smile out of the corner of my eye, which meant that this was the long sought after King Bumi. Glancing around, I silently cursed as I realized that I had no water. It was only gonna be my weapons this time, not my bending.

"You brought my brother?" the young woman in the lead called. In Sokka's arms, the kid in question pawed at the warrior's face, who, to his credit, remained stoic the entire time.

"He's here. We're ready to trade," Aang replied. We watched as Azula and the girl in the lead, Mai, I think her name was, began to talk amongst themselves. Even across the gap between us, I could see Mai thinking, looking from her companion to us. I felt my gut drop as I realized what was about to happen.

"Go for the one on the right," I hissed to Katara as I unslung my bow into a ready position. The waterbender looked at me with surprise.

"What?"

"The one in the armor, she's the only bender out of the three," I continued as Mai stepped a few paces forward.

"The deal's off!" she declared before lifting her hand skyward. With a bump, the box containing Bumi began to be hoisted skyward again. The old King began to laugh again, as if the movement alone was tickling him. Without wasting a beat, Aang charged forward, staff at the ready. Azula had been anticipating this, as she unleashed a massive blast of blue fire at the charging kid.

However, Aang leapt twenty feet into the air, easily clearing the flames before unfurling his glider. In the process, his scarf came undone, exposing his bald head and blue arrow tattoo for the whole world to see. The look on Azula's face morphed from one of shock and surprise, to narrow eyed determination. I drew and fired an arrow, targeting the Fire Princess.

It glanced off of her armor, which was enough to get her attention and send a few fire blasts our way. Katara jumped into action, bending out a blob of water to shield us from the flames. Unfortunately, Azula used that distraction to break contact with us and use a pulley system to go after Aang. That left the other two to come after us.

"We've got to get the baby out of here!" Katara said as she fell into a bending stance. Behind her, Sokka was blowing on Aang's bison whistle as he ran back in the direction we had arrived from.

"Way ahead of you," he replied. We followed suit, just in time to watch as a fist slammed into Sokka's heal from underneath. He hit the planks hard, skidding to a stop just shy of going over the edge. The woman in pink cartwheeled out of a hatch in the scaffolding ahead of us and went after Sokka. I drew an arrow and fired. She dropped hard as a blunted arrow hit her in the back of the head.

"Damn training arrows," I muttered, realizing I had forgotten to take all of the practice arrows out of my quiver before this. Katara bent out a water tentacle, gripping the girl by the ankle and dragging her away from her brother. Sokka was up in a flash, clutching the toddler to his chest as he scrambled down a ladder and out of sight.

Katara and I stood back to back, bow and water respectively at the ready as we faced our opponents down. Mai charged at us, throwing knives in our direction. Katara made a wall of ice, catching the projectiles before thawing it again. As the water came down, I fired an arrow, this time with an actual broad head on it. But Mai was no slouch. She narrowly dodged the arrow and kept coming.

At that moment, the other girl cartwheeled her way in between the two of us, stuck Katara with several quick strikes, and then was well out of reach again before either of us could react. The effect was instantaneous, as any water she had been controlling fell to the plank floor and refused to obey her commands.

"How are you gonna fight without your bending?" Mai gloated as she produced a rather wicked looking throwing knife. I stepped in front of Katara, slashing my bow hand upward. A beam of water rocketed upward, slamming into the woman in pink's gut and forcing her backward into some more construction material. The look of surprise on Mai's face was all the time I needed.

"I'm still here," I replied as I loosed my arrow. It stuck the young woman in the upper arm, but it wasn't the arm holding the knife. She screamed in pain, and then launched the weapon at me. I didn't have a chance to react as the blade covered the distance between us in less than the blink of an eye, embedding itself in my abdomen.

Fiery pain engulfed my stomach as my free hand went to the knife handle. The air left my lungs as I fell backwards, just as Appa landed between us and them, slamming his tail down and blasting the two young women away with a gust of wind.

"MORGAN!" Katara screamed as she ran to my side.

"That wasn't how I saw that going," I gasped as I gripped the knife and tried to pull it out. Katara's hand stopped me.

"Don't. You'll bleed out if you do that. Sokka, help me with him!" she snapped. They both grabbed me and loaded me on to Appa.

"We need to catch up to Aang," Sokka said as he sat me down in the saddle as gently as he could.

"You fly, I'm gonna try and stop the bleeding," Katara replied. I lay in the saddle, blood spilling out between my fingertips as I struggled to remain still. The amount of pain was unbearable, and I was twisting in place out of basic response.

"Bend…water…heal," I struggled to get out. She put a hand on my forehead.

"I don't know how long it will be until what that girl did to me wears off. I know it hurts, but hang in there, I'll heal you as soon as I can," she said. I don't know much about what happened next. Between the pain and the blood loss, I was pretty much out of it. We managed to pick up Aang, but Bumi elected to stay behind for some reason.

The last thing I remember as we made our getaway from the city was Katara talking quietly with the other two.

"Are you sure?" Aang asked.

"Yes. It's the only option we have left now," Katara replied. After that, I felt an extreme cooling sensation over the knife wound.

And then, only darkness.

And cut. Cliffhangers, am I right? You guys know the drill, drop a review, leave a PM, let me know what you liked or didn't like, and I'll see you all next time.