| By Aang20791 | Genre | Rating | Reviews | Updates |
| More from Aang20791 | Adventure | G (all ages) | Very Positive | News/Updates |
Previously on Around the World (Again)....
The gang, after Toph leaves them, decides to go to the Northern Water Tribe where they formed a plan in that would require the Mechanist's help; building machines to stop Long Feng and his followers from starting a war.
After being captured from Long Feng, Zuko returns to the gang.
Plot
The gang goes to the Northern Air Temple, where they want The Mechanist's help in stopping Long Feng from starting a war.
A Change in the Plan
"Appa, Yip Yip!!" Aang shook Appa's rope and the giant bison took off from the icy cold ground of the North Pole, heading for their, the gang's next destination; the Northern Air Temple. Zuko had returned the night before from his long adventure to escape Long Feng and find the gang.
Everyone was now in a good mood, though none of them had forgotten about Toph. Their mood went even more downhill when Zuko asked where Toph was and the others were forced to explain.
"Wow... so, she's, Toph is g...gone?" asked Zuko, a confused expression on his face.
The others nodded and they all stayed silent for a while, the only sound being the wind.
Zuko broke the silence by asking another question, "So, what's our plan? What are we going to do to stop Long Feng?"
"Well, we're going to the Northern Air Temple to ask the Mechanist-" Sokka was cut off by Zuko who said, "Who?"
"Oh, that's right. You don't know him. Well, remember when we were on our way to the Boiling Rock to rescue my dad, I told you that a friend of mine invented the air balloon we were riding." Zuko nodded and Sokka continued to explain.
"Well, the Mechanist is that friend. We met him when we first came to the Northern Air Temple. He can invent and build several things. So, we're going to ask him if he can build machines that can help us imprison Long Feng, Hama, and the Dai Li."
"Sounds like a good plan," Zuko said, nodding. "So, how far are we from the Air Temple, Aang?"
"Not far...in fact, there it is!" Aang pointed at a large temple located on a mountain. "Appa, Yip Yip!" Appa flew faster toward the Air Temple.
"It's amazing!" Suki said, looking at the temple, a smile on her face. "It's so different from the Western Air Temple. This temple is actually right side up," Suki added with a laugh.
Appa landed onto the floor of the temple with a thud. He growled as the gang jumped off him. They looked at the temple and saw a crowd of people approaching them.
A voice came from the crowd and it said, "Sokka!"
It was the Mechanist. He emerged from the crowd, who cheered as they saw Aang. Following the Mechanist was his son, Teo in his wheelchair, waving at the gang.
"It's great to see you again, Sokka. It's a good thing you're here actually," the Mechanist cheerfully said. Sokka had a huge smile on his face. "You see I've been working on new projects; little vehicles that can take you anywhere on land. I call them cars and motorcycles! It will be a long time until they actually work, though. I'd say about sixty to seventy five years. Teo here," He gestured to Teo. "will continue the invention after I'm gone."
Teo smiled.
"Cars and Motorcycles!?" yelled Sokka, the smile on his face widened. "I can't wait, I-"
"Sokka!" said Katara, her arms folded. "We're here for a reason. But cars and motorcycles sound very interesting," she added to the Mechanist, smiling at him.
"Thank you. So, why are you all here?" the Mechanist asked.
Aang explained how Long Feng was trying to kill them and that they had a plan to stop him and his followers from starting a war, which, in order to succeed, needed the Mechanist help.
"Hmm... I see. You want me to make machines to stop this Long Feng and his followers, right?" the Mechanist asked.
"Yes. Yes, that's the plan," Aang replied.
"I don't know. I'll think about it. But, in the meantime, you should all see what other inventions I've been up to."
"You have more!?" yelled Sokka, his eyes widening.
"Yes, I do. Come on, follow me."
The gang, leaving Appa and Momo outside, followed the Mechanist into the Air Temple.
As they walked, the Mechanist told Aang, "We've been trying to keep this temple sacred, while still making improvements. However, there some rooms, like the room we're about to visit, where there is a big mess of metal, but I should be able to clean it soon enough, with the help from the others living here at the temple."
"Thanks, that means a lot," Aang said.
They walked through another room, which included several giant pieces of metal.
"Here is where," the Mechanist gestured to the pieces of metal. "I've been working on the vehicles; very tricky to connect the pieces. I've only been able to connect two pieces of metal together so far." He pointed to two pieces of metal that were connected to each other. They were set apart from the other metal pieces.
"Whoa," Sokka ran over to the pieces of metal. Looking at one giant of piece of metal, he asked the Mechanist, "Where did you get all this metal?"
"Well, the Earth King once sent me a message, about ten months ago, after hearing about the air balloons the Fire Nation had possession of and asked me if I could make more of these balloons and sell them to him," the Mechanist explained. "And I did so. "
"Yeah, I was wondering how the Earth Kingdom got the air balloons," said Zuko, remembering the air balloon stores he encountered in Ba Sing Se during his adventure.
"I got a lot of money from the Earth King after making only ten balloons and he told me to continue working on making more. And, as you can see, I'm doing just that." He pointed to an open door on the right side of the room, in which air balloon pieces could be seen. "A few weeks later, I used the money he gave me to buy more parts to build the air balloon. While buying them, I thought, what if there was a faster way of traveling. I soon came up with the idea of cars and motorcycles and I then bought several metal pieces to try and create them. I do think that I may need other materials to create these cars and motorcycles, but right now, I'm just using metal until I'm sure of any other materials needed."
"This is amazing," Sokka, who was still looking at the metal pieces and even touching some of them, said to the Mechanist. "Maybe... hm... Can I see the schematics for the cars or motorcycles?"
The Mechanist grabbed a rolled up scroll from a nearby table and handed it to Sokka.
Examining it, Sokka said, "This piece could go with this one." He motioned to two different metal pieces. "They look like the ones here on the plans."
"Maybe you're right, Sokka," the Mechanist agreed, walking towards Sokka. "And this piece could go well with this one, judging by the plans."
The others waited for a few minutes, until, "I think it could work!" Sokka and the Mechanist said in unison.
"I've looked at the schematics for so long now and then tried to find pieces the matched the ones in the plans, but I could not find them. But, they were right in front of me the whole time. You're a genius!" the Mechanist told Sokka.
"Thank you, you're a genius!" Sokka said to him. They both laughed.
"Aang, maybe we should talk to the Mechanist about the plan again," Katara whispered.
"You're right. I think he forgot about it. He doesn't seem to realize how important this is." Aang then walked up to the Mechanist, who was still praising Sokka and told him," Um... hey. About the plan-"
"Oh, yes. I almost forgot." He took a deep breath and said, "I hate to tell you this, but I really think you should face this on your own."
Everyone in the gang, including Sokka, yelled. "What?!"
"We can't face this on our own!" Mai said. "There are too many of them."
"We nearly got killed last time!" said Sokka.
"Stop!" The Mechanist held his hands up. "Stop... Now listen, you ended the war. And you ended it on the day the Firebenders' Firebending was at its peak. You can face this little conflict."
"But, I repeat, we nearly got killed last time-"
"But," the Mechanist interrupted Sokka. "you didn't. All you need to do is train up again."
"Maybe you're right," Aang agreed. He turned to face the gang; Teo was next to his father. "I mean, it's been about a year since we fought. We lead a peaceful life in Ba Sing Se where we barely trained. So, when the Dai Li attacked at us the Boiling Rock, it was hard to fight them off so we just flew away on Appa. Later, in Jiang Hu, we faced the agents again. We did beat them that time, because we started to get a gain our fighting experience back. However, in Ba Sing Se, when Long Feng ambushed us, there were too many of them. We couldn't fight them all. The Mechanist is right; what we need to do is train up again. I don't think machines will help us win this battle. We can do this! We ended a hundred year war! We are Team Avatar!"
"YEAH!!!" the others yelled.
The Mechanist nodded his head at Aang, a smile on his face.
"Well, now that that's settled, we need to go now. Sorry," Aang added to the Mechanist. "but we need to beginning training again as soon as possible."
"I completely understand," the Mechanist replied. "No worries. But I do have something to give to Sokka. Follow me everyone."
The gang and Teo followed him out of the room to outside the temple. He led them to a blue air balloon.
The Mechanist turned to Sokka. "Here, Sokka, this is yours," he said. "You helped me fix these things and I think it's about time you owned one. I painted it blue to represent the Water Tribe."
"Thanks! Thanks so much!" Sokka then turned to face the gang. "So, where are we going to next?"
"We need a place that we can train in," said Aang, thinking of a location. "Um... how about Omashu?. Bumi can help us train. We were planning to go there next anyone."
"Omashu," Sokka said. "That's a good idea."
"But I feel that we need another place, you know, to practice in," Katara commented. "We can still go to Omashu, but why don't we go to another place."
"Like?" Suki asked.
"The Freedom Fighters!" Katara said.
"Who?" Suki and Mai looked at her, confused.
"They're a gang of teenagers and children who fight to rid the world of Firebenders," Katara explained. "or at least they used to. I don't know what they're doing right now and I wonder who their new leader is since Jet d-" She suddenly stopped, but then finished in a whisper. "since Jet died."
A long silence fell in which everyone stared at her. Aang and Sokka knew perfectly well why she didn't want to mention Jet's death since she had a thing for him. Aang, though Katara and him were dating, did not mind her still troubled by Jet's death; he did after help them and he was a great friend with a troubled past.
The silence was broken by Sokka, who said, "Yeah, we can go to there, too if you'd like Katara!"
Katara nodded.
"Great! Then it's settled. We'll go to the Freedom Fighter's Treetop Hideout and then go to Omashu. You guys travel on Appa while I follow you on my air balloon," Sokka told the gang. "Who knows, the balloon might come in handy someday."
"I want come with you, Sokka; you know travel on the balloon with you."
"I think that's a great idea, Suki!" Sokka said. "Of course you can come!"
"But wait. I don't exactly remember where the Treetop Hideout is located. When we first visited it, we traveled on foot.....thanks to Sokka's instincts," Aang added quietly to himself. And, luckily for Aang, Sokka didn't hear that last part.
Instead he said, "Okay, I'll go get the map. It's in Appa's saddle, right?"
Aang nodded.
"I'll be back then." Sokka went Appa and then returned to them, though it took him a while, and surprisingly, he wasn't holding anything.
"Where's the map?" Aang questioned upon looking at Sokka's empty hands.
"It's not there. It's not in Appa's saddle. I checked everywhere. Aang it's not there!"
"Calm down, Sokka."
"No, Katara! We lost it," Sokka said, a scared expression on his face.
"Sokka, why are you overreacting?" Zuko asked.
"I know why," Aang said, in a low voice that was almost a whisper. "Sokka and I wrote on that map and it showed what and where our destinations for this trip are. So, what if someone like Long Feng found it; he would use it to track us down and attack us."
The others gasped.
"So, what do we do now?" Suki questioned. "Do we still continue on our trip as it was planned or what?"
"Well, we can still continue," Sokka answered. "I mean, even if Long Feng does have the map, we can still go to the Treetop Hideout since Aang and I didn't plot that place on the map so Long Feng won't know where we are."
"But what about Omashu?" Aang said. "I really want to see Bumi again and we did plot Omashu on the map so..."
"So, maybe we can go after visiting the Freedom Fighters," explained Sokka. "If Long Feng goes to Omashu a day before we do, he obviously won't find us and might think that we moved onto our next location therefore leaving Omashu to follow us; meaning that when we go to Omashu, we'll be safe."
There was a pause in which everyone thought of what Sokka had just said.
Then Katara said, "I ....guess that could work."
"But how are we going to know where the Treetop Hideout is located?" Aang asked.
"Don't worry. My instincts will know," Sokka told him.
"Oh great," Katara said, under her breath.
"Excellent!" the Mechanist told them, clapping his hands together. "Sorry to see you all go so soon, but I know that this is very important. But remember; you can all come back anytime." The gang told them that they would after they defeat Long Feng. He, the Mechanist, turned to face Sokka. "Sokka, if you ever want to help with the inventions, just use your air balloon to travel here."
Sokka smiled and replied, "I will. And thanks again for the air balloon."
"Anytime!"
"Okay, guys," Aang told the gang. "let's go now."
The gang bid the Mechanist and Teo goodbye and then Sokka jumped into his air balloon, accompanied by Suki, while the others jumped onto Appa's saddle.
And with a 'Yip, Yip', Appa was off, followed by a blue air balloon in which Sokka and Suki were in.
Aang thought, as the Northern Air Temple disappeared from view and into the white fluffy clouds, Time to get training!
Trivia
- Sokka and the Mechanist complimenting each other (You're a genius!) is a reference to them saying that in ATLA, specifically in the episode The Northern Air Temple.
Dedication
This chapter is dedicated to Skybender. She is a very nice and friendly user! She's been so nice to everyone and is always polite, even during disagreements. She's also helped me with my fanon and is an editor. Thanks Sky!!
Please don't ask to be dedicated. And don't think that I'm singling out users when I dedicate them. You all are great and friendly users (as long as you're not trolls or rude). Don't worry, I have a great idea that will benefit everyone. You'll all see in the last chapter.
--Aang20791 Talk Fanon 
23:21, June 15, 2011 (UTC)
See more
For the collective works of the author, go here.