"Sokka, it's not gonna work." I tell my idiotic brother who was going to sneak attack Aang. Aang is able to feel vibrations now and I know my brother, he won't be sneaky.

"Don't doubt my sneak attack skills, Aya." Sokka remarks and grabs my shoulders. "This is gonna be the ultimate sneak attack."

He gives me a creepy grin before he lets me go and hides behind a ledge. He waited until Aang was by himself and Toph and Katara weren't training him. I thought they were helping him, but they began to fight with one another instead of training Aang.

With all this training, it makes me wonder if I should ask Aang if he wants to learn firebending. I know he's scared of it because he burned me, but when Jeong Jeong was teaching him he caught on really well as did some good moves. He did get careless, but he has to learn to let go of fear.

"Sneak Attack!" Sokka yells out as he pops out and runs toward Aang with his arm up.

Aang, who was able to hear Sokka's voice and was looking away with a blindfold, creates an earth wall that halts Sokka dead in his tracks. Aang lowers the wall as Sokka falls and he removes his blindfold.

"Sokka, sneak attacks don't work if you yell it out loud." Aang advises my brother as I approach my boyfriend and gave him a smile.

"I told him it wouldn't work, but he didn't listen." I say and Aang chuckles as me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I giggle and hug him back with my arms around his neck.

"How's training?" I ask him, noticing Toph and Katara fighting in the mud.

"My teachers turned on each other." Aang tells me kissing my temple and I smile with amusement

I pull away and he grips my waist, giving me a soft smile.

Sokka recovers and we go over to Katara and Toph who were still battling one another. Aang lowers his arms and grabs my hand as we approach the girls.

"Uh guys, I thought we were supposed to be training me?" Aang asked the girls who stopped fighting and looked at us.

Katara becomes her calm self, and stepped forward covered in mud. "Very well, pupil. I believe we've had enough training for today." She walks away, leaving the four of us.

Toph earthbends the mud off her body and runs to the three of us. "While Katara cleans up, let's go have some fun!"

Aang, Sokka, and I cheered.

"Yeah!"

——

Aang, Sokka, Toph, and I head into Fire Fountain City. Aang and I were walking side by side with our hands interlocked and we pass by a messenger hawk coop that catches Sokka's attention.

"Look at all those messenger hawks! You know, I've been thinking about getting one for myself. That way, I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. I could just send them messages." Sokka explains to us.

"I gotta say, I like the idea of not talking to you." Toph mentions and I smile amusingly.

"So, guys. What are we gonna get with our last silver piece?" Aang questions, holding up our final silver piece.

"We can get more money." We stop and look back at Toph. "Right there." The boy's and I move back to where Toph was pointing to see a group of people surrounding a man that was sat at a table.

The table has three shells on it, all upside down. The first man places some money on the table and the second man, the owner I assume, lifts the shells to reveal that the middle one has a rock underneath it. He places the shells back down as they were and starts moving them around.

"This is where you're seeing people are at a disadvantage. Everyone guesses wrong because the dealer moves the rock at the last minute. But I can feel it with my earthbending." Toph explains to us and as she says this the dealer moves the shells around. If you're not Toph, you wouldn't be able to tell that the dealer is scamming you at all. It looks perfectly normal.

The dealer stops moving the shells and arranges them how they originally were. The gambler points at the shell in the middle, which the dealer lifts to reveal nothing underneath. The gambler stands up and walks away crying and the people move away from the front of the table to reveal the four of us.

The dealer notices us but looks at our blind friend. He probably noticed her milky eyes and figured out she's blind. He has no idea.

"You there. Wanna play a friendly game?" He asked Toph, pointing to her.

"How can I possibly play?" She asks innocently and waves a hand in front of her face. "I'm
blind."

"You don't have to see to be lucky." He remarks.

You also don't have to see to be an scam artist.

Toph sits in front of the table and feels around it, pretending to be helpless. She's the opposite of helpless actually. She places our last silver piece on the table and the dealer shows the rock under the shell in the middle and starts moving them around. I couldn't tell what was happening, but the dealer moved them around for a bit until he stops them. Toph points to the one on her left and he lifts the rock which has a rock underneath, winning another two silver pieces.

"Wow." I smile.

"Flamey-O, Toph!" Aang beams.

"Wow. Fancy guessing. You are amazing at this." The dealer nods impressed with her skills, and takes a few silver pieces. "Would you like to make the game a little more interesting?"

"More interesting? How?" Toph asked, pretending to be confused.

"Well, let's say you toss in your friend's fine sword there." The dealer offers and grabs a big bag of money. "Then, I'll put up twenty silver pieces against it, and that's more interesting."

Sokka won't like this.

Toph takes the deal and tosses in Sokka's sword. "I'll do it for forty pieces!" Sokka stares at with his mouth open wide.

"Forty silver pieces it is." The dealer agrees before dropping the money in the bag and begins to move the shells around but faster.

I figured there was lot of scamming going on, but Toph is sneaky and will scam him back. When he finishes, Toph points at the shell in the middle and the dealer puts his hand over about to lift it up.

"Sorry little lady, but-" He lifts the shell and sees the rock which surprises him. He stared at the rock closely. "Huh?"

"I won!" Toph cheers and she grabs the items we won before we sprint off.

——

With all our money we got, we bought a bunch of goods and food. Aang bought me a cute red bracelet that had a red gem in the middle and I thought it was adorable how eager he wanted to buy it for me.

Katara was there cooking lunch and we all drop our baskets onto the ground.

"Where did you guys get the money to buy all this stuff?" Katara asked us with curiosity.

"Toph got us money." Aang tells her as he grabs an apple and takes a bite out of it. I sit down ob the ground with Bubbles in my lap and Aang sits next to me. "She scammed one of those guys in town who moves the shells around all sneaky-like." Aang mimics what the scam artist did by pretending to move invisible shells with his hand.

Katara gives us a disapproving expression.

"She used earthbending to win the game! Classic!" Sokka adds as he sits down with us.

"Ah, so she cheated." Katara summarizes.

"When you say it like that it sounds not fun." I mention and Aang and Sokka nod in agreement.

"Hey! I only cheated because he was cheating!" Toph protests, defending herself and smiles. "I cheated a cheater. What's wrong with that?"

"I'm just saying this isn't something we should make a habit of doing." Katara advises the earthbender.

"Why? Because it's fun? And you hate fun?" Toph argues and I quietly groan.

"Not again." Aang rubs my back and kisses my temple tenderly.

"I don't hate fun!" Katara exclaims and places Momo on her head like a hat while grinning unconvincingly. "See? Fun!" Momo slips off her head, screeches at her, and runs away.

"Katara," Aang stands up and lifts his headband to reveal his arrow tattoo and bows. "I'll personally make you an Avatar Promise that we won't make a habit of doing these scams."

——

That 'promise' Aang made didn't last too long. All of us, minus Katara, ended up doing a bunch more scams and they were successful but Katara wasn't happy with us. Katara can be scary when we disobey her rules and she becomes a mom toward us.

"Guys, I think these scams have gone far enough. If you keep doing them, something bad is gonna happen." Katara informs us as we were all back at the camp together.

"Could you for once stop being such a sourpuss and just lighten up?" Toph asked Katara with irritation as she tosses some money to Katara.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Katara angrily shoots back. "You think I should be more like you? Like some wild child?" She tosses the money back at Toph.

"Yeah! Maybe! Maybe then you'd see how great we have it! I mean, look at us!" Toph expresses as she leans back on the rock behind her and crosses her arms behind her head. "We're traveling around the world! Making easy money! Having fun! With no parents to tell us what to do!"

I was gonna make a comment but I decided to keep my mouth shut. I didn't want to interfere with their argument.

"Ah. I see. You're acting like this because of your parents." Katara says and I shift my eyes toward my sister.

She's pushing it to far now. No wonder Toph and her don't get along that well.

"Whatever." Toph dismisses.

"They were controlling over you, so you ran away, and now you act like your parents don't exist. You act like you hate them, but you don't. You just feel guilty." Katara continues and I look at my sister.

"Katara, don't push it." I advise her but she ignores me.

"I do hate them." Tooth argues.

"I don't think so. I think you miss them, but you just don't wanna deal with that, so instead you act like this crazy person." Katara fires back and I let out a soft sigh of defeat.

I think Katara is pushing Toph's buttons. If she doesn't shut up, Katara will get a boulder to the face.

Toph stood up angrily, "Look, I ran away to help Aang."

"You know what? It doesn't matter. These scams put us all at risk, and we don't need that." Katara snaps and points to her forehead. "We've already got some third-eyed freak after us."

I forgot about him. He almost annihilated me when he first attacked us.

"Speaking of that "third-eyed freak", I think I've come up with a name for him." Sokka chimes in and I rest my head on Aang's shoulder. "What do you think of "Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man"? Just think about it."

Oh, Sokka, you always know how to speak at inappropriate times. Love you brother.

Katara ignored him."We have enough money. You need to stop this!"

"I'll stop when I wanna stop and not when you tell me!" Toph exclaims angrily before using earthbending to launch the bag of into her hand and walks away. Katara shakes her head angrily as Toph sits and creates an earth tent.

Sokka stands up with his bag of money and sword. "Speaking of money, I'm off to spend some. See you guys later."

Sokka walks off and Aang and I look at each other.

"Aang, when will you be ready to learn firebending?"

Aang was a little surprised to hear that question and he seemed a little nervous about it.

"I don't know, Aya." He shrugs and scratches his head.

"It's okay." I assure him. "I know you're still scared but whenever you're ready, I'll be here to train you. I mean, we don't really know anyone else."

"Thanks Angel." He smiles and kisses my cheek. "You'll be the first person I go to for a firebending teacher."

I smile with pink cheeks at his comment and rest my head on his shoulder again.

——

Later, Aang and Katara we're practicing waterbending and Toph was busy counting her money she got. I don't know what Sokka was out doing but I wouldn't be surprised if he returned with messenger hawk.

I noticed Sokka had returned and I saw a hawk on his arm. I sigh and I saw Katara roll her eyes as the three of us stopped what we were doing and approached him.

"Sokka," Katara Places her hand on her face; annoyed. "Tell me you didn't buy a bird."

"Not just a bird, a messenger bird. Now we can send messages all over the world. Even to Gran Gran." Sokka explains and I raise an eyebrow.

Maybe I can send a message to Iroh. I hope he's doing okay.

"Wow, how does it work?" Aang asks, excitedly.

"Hm. Uh, I never actually thought about that. Hawky, Gran Gran, South Pole." Sokka points in the distance and the bird shakes his head. "I think he gets it."

Bubbles and Momo appear next to Aang and I and they screech at Hawky. I jump as Bubbles and Momo leap over to Sokka and start chasing Hawky around his head.

Sokka starts to freak out. "Hawky! Make nice! Bad Hawky!"

Later on, Toph and Sokka went out to scam again. I know scamming is wrong, but Toph isn't physically hurting anyone. I can see where Katara is coming from, but I think she's overreacting about all this.

Katara was currently cooking dinner while Aang and I were eating the soup she was cooking. I looked over and saw Toph and Sokka had returned with Hawky on Sokka's shoulder. Katara notices they have returned and sees the bags of money in their arms.

"Well. Look who decided to join us." Katara sarcastically comments, standing up. "Where have you two been? Off scamming again?"

"Yes, we were." Toph agreed, setting her bags down.

"And I suppose you don't think what you're doing is dangerous at all?" Katara questions her.

"No, I don't."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really?"

"Well then. What's this?" Katara rips out a piece of paper and I squinted my eyes, leaning closer to see it. It was a wanted poster of Toph and Aang and I shared a surprised look when we saw that.

I didn't even notice Toph was named 'The Runaway' after all these scams.

Toph turns around annoyed. "I don't know! I mean, seriously! What's with you people? I'm blind!" She pulls down on her eye eyelids, dramatically.

"It's a wanted poster of you! 'The Runaway!' Katara informs her. "Is that what you're called now? Are you proud of this?"

Toph seemed upset. "Where did you get that?!"

"It doesn't matter where I got it. The fact is-"

"You went through my stuff! You had no right!"

Okay, Katara can be annoying and motherly, but she would never invade other people's stuff. She's told me herself.

"Your stuff was messy and I was just straightening up, and I happened to stumble across it!" Katara defends herself.

"That's a lie!" Toph accuses, pointing a figure at my sister. "You're lying, Katara!"

Well, she apparently lied to me.

Katara glares at Toph and pushes her pointing hand out of her face. "Fine! It's a lie! But you've been so out of control lately, I knew something was up! I knew you were hiding something and you were!" Katara shows her the poster again, but Toph grabs it, tosses it and starts to walk past her "Don't you walk away from me while I'm talking to you!"

Okay, Katara is acting way to motherly. I loved my mother, Kya, but this is a little tense and Katara needs to calm down.

"Oh really, Mom? Or what are you gonna do? Send me to my room?" Toph argues, sarcastically.

"I wish I could!" Katara exclaims.

"Well you can't! Because you're not my mom, and you're not their mom!" Toph yells, gesturing to Sokka, Aang, and I that are sitting on a ledge.

"I never said I was!" Katara reasons.

No, but you certainly act like it! You think it's your job to boss everyone around, but it's not! You're just a regular kid like the rest of us! So stop acting like you can tell me what to do! I can do whatever I want!" Toph rambles off, irritatingly.

"I don't act that way!" Katara looks at Sokka and I, causing us to jump as she says our name. "Sokka, Aya, do I act motherly?"

"I'm not saying anything!" I quickly respond, looking away slightly.

Sokka raises his hands defensively. "Hey, I'm staying out of this one."

She turns to the Avatar. "What do you think, Aang? Do I at like a mom?"

Aang rubs his eye. "Well. I, uh-"

"Stop rubbing your rubbing your eye and speak clearly when you talk!" Katara orders Aang, who listens with tension.

All three of us sit up straight as Aang replies. "Yes, ma'am."

"I can't be around you right now!" Toph confirms.

"Well, I can't be around you!" Katara fires back and both girls turn to leave. Hawky, who was perched on Sokka's shoulder, screeches.

Sokka rests his head in his hands. "I know, Hawky. Why can't they just get along?"

——

Later, Toph and Katara we're sitting on two different ledges not speaking. We do not need this tension between two people right now, we have bigger issues at hand that we need to take care off.

"Hey, Aang, Aya. You wanna test out my messenger hawk with me? I've got an idea." Sokka asks us and Aang and I agreed moving closer to him.

"Sure." We both say.

"I'm going to send a note to Katara and say it's from Toph, who wants to apologize. Then everyone will be friends again." Sokka explains and I immediately opposed to that idea.

"Sokka, I think you might run into a problem." I advise him and he shushes me.

"Aya, don't doubt my friend-reuniting skills." He says and I roll my eyes.

I think he forgot Toph can't read and write.

"I gotta say, Sokka, you continue to impress me with your ideas." Aang says and I lightly glare at my boyfriend.

"It's a gift." Sokka grins and starts to write the letter with a a pen and paper. "Dear Katara, sorry for everything. Your friend, Toph."

I nudged Aang and he turned to me. "What?"

"Toph can't write or read, remember?" I remind him and he made an 'O' shape with his mouth.

"Oh." He says and I shake my head.

Before we could stop Sokka, he positions Hawky on his arm and places the note in Hawky's message holder. Hawky flies to Katara, who takes the note out, reads it, and angrily stands up.

"I know this is from you, Sokka! Toph can't write!" Katara yells angrily and tears the note up into pieces. "Ugh! You're all driving me crazy" She walks away after that.

"I can't believe we forgot Toph can't write." Aang sighs and I snicker.

"Well, you two did." I grin and they both narrow their eyes at me.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Sokka asks me.

"I tried but you didn't care to listen." I shoot back and he rolls his eyes.

"I guess Plan B is we send a note to Toph pretending it's from Katara." Aang suggests and I rub his back.

"I think we're gonna run into a similar problem, love." I tell him and he sighs as Sokka stands up.

Hawky screeches when Sokka stands up. "Sorry Hawky. Looks like I'm gonna have to do this without your help." He walks up to Toph. "Come on. We need to talk."

Toph huffs before following him.

——

Night fell and Sokka and Toph were still talking. Katara returned not to long ago but she seemed downcast and wouldn't speak to us. Aang and I were worried but didn't want to upset her more. 

I was resting my head on Aang's lap and he was stroking my hair softly. My eyes were shut due to Aang's soft and gentle touch; I love how gentle he is with me sometimes.

I heard footsteps and my eyes open to see Toph and Sokka walking toward us. Katara notices Toph and walks up to her.

I lift my head and rub my weary eyes. Aang kisses my cheek softly and I smile lightly at him.

"You're adorable." He sighs lovingly.

I blush and avert my eyes from the Avatar.

"Hi, Toph. Um, I wanna-"

Toph holds up her hand to make Katara stop talking. "Katara, stop. You don't need to apologize. I was the one being stupid. These scams are out of control, and I'm done with them."

What did Sokka say to Toph and what did Katara do? Suddenly, they are friends again.

"Actually I wasn't going to apologize. I was gonna say ... I wanna pull a scam with you." Katara smiles and Aang, Sokka, and I stare at my sister from behind, extremely shocked.

Huh?

Toph was shocked. "What? You wanna pull a scam?"

"Not just any scam. The ultimate scam." Katara declares and Sokka and Aang, still staring at her with shock, look at each other and faint, foaming from the mouth slightly. I just stood there completely shocked and speechless. Katara puts her arm around Toph's shoulder, who gives a sly smile. "Whaddaya say, Toph? Just me and you. One last go. You in?"

"You know I'm in! Now what's this idea of yours?" Toph asks Katara as walk away and leave. Aang and Sokka were still unconscious with foam in their mouths.

"What just happened?" I asked myself with confusion.

——

Time has passed and Katara and Toph still haven't returned. I was getting worried, what if they got captured or hurt? Maybe Katara was right, these scams are way to dangerous.

"Do you think this scam of theirs is taking to long?" Aang asks worriedly, pacing back and forth.

"I was thinking the same thing. We'd better check it out." Sokka suggest and I felt relief rush through me.

"You three behave." I point to Hawky, Momo, and Bubbles. "Appa's in charge."

The three of us leave right after that.

We made it to town and wandered around looking for Toph and Katara. The town was seemingly abandoned and it was very eerie and unsettling.

"Where do you think they might be?" Sokka asks us and I shrug

"Where do you think anyone is?" I ask them and I was extremely cautious of my surroundings.

"Sokka! Aya! Watch out!" I whip around and I saw the assassin standing on the rooftop above us. I flipped to the side as the assassins shot at Sokka and Aang as they hid behind the statue. I formed a fire shield and blocked the blast with it.

I moved behind the Ozai statue.

"It's Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man!" Aang expresses nervously.

"You know, I'm starting to think that name doesn't quite fit." Sokka mentions.

The assassin hops down and fires another blast, but I hop up and block the blast with my fire shield.

The assassin started to chase us and I was able to fight off most of his blasts. It's difficult when Aang can't firebend yet and help me out.

The assassin fires another blast and we dodged it but it still sent us flying. We crash into a wheelbarrow, which we hid behind.

"This guy is too good! He shoots fire from his brain!" Sokka exclaims frantically. "Aya can't even do that!"

I hit his arm. "Not yet."

I probably won't ever be able to do that, but gotta keep my hopes up.

"We should split up. He can't chase all of us." Aang suggests.

The three of us split up in different directions and the assassin seemed to follow Aang, which didn't surprise me. I turned a corner and spotted Sokka with Katara and Toph.

"Aya!" Katara calls and she hugs me.

"I'm glad you guys are okay." I smile at them.

After that we run off to find Aang. We ran toward the statue and saw Aang on the floor with the Assassin above his body.

I glared and was about to shoot the assassin but Katara blast water at him to encase his head in ice. The assassin wobbled around dazed which gave us time to escape.

I immediately went up to Aang and helped him. "Aang, get up!"

"Let's get out of here!" Toph yells and we take off.

I glanced behind me and the assassin was free. He launches another blast at us, but Toph quickly launches a boulder at the blast, blowing the boulder up. A pebble from the boulder flies toward the assassin and hits him square in his third eye, which momentarily stuns and angers him. He tries to fire another blast, but with his chi is blocked, he ignites the air around him and gets sent back, head-first into a wall. I mentally cheer as we successfully escape.

"Hey, I got it! The perfect name for that guy: "Combustion Man!""

"Good job, Sokka. Now let's get outta here before Combustion Man catches us." Toph compliments Sokka as we continue to run.

"See? It fits so well!"

——

Later that night, we were flying to a new camp spot. I was extremely exhausted and didn't want to move when we landed.

Sokka yawns. "Well, I'm exhausted. Hawky, how about you, buddy?" Hawky makes a bird call. "Yeah. You're such a lazy little bird."

"Aya." I groan and turn to my side. "Do you want me to carry you?"

I groaned again and Aang picked me up before he hops off Appa. I cradled in his arms and he kissed my forehead.

"Hey, where did Hawky go?"