꧁ chapter ten ꧂
no rest for the wicked (or team avatar)

✧₊⁎⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁎⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁎⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁎⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁎⁎⁺˳✧༚

"HEY, YOU GUYS picked a great campsite," Toph complimented as she wiggled her feet around, "The grass is so soft"

"That's not grass" Meiluna replied, scrunching her nose.

"Appa's shedding" Sokka said, looking displeased.

"Oh, gross!" Katara gagged as she raised her foot in the air, attempting to kick Appa's fur off of her leg.

"That's not gross, it's just a part of spring! You know, rebirth, flowers blooming and Appa gets a new coat" Aang explained excitedly.

"Ah, the beauty of spring" Katara said sarcastically.

Appa then let out a huge sneeze, releasing a thick cloud of fur.

"Stop! Appa, stop! Ugh!" Katara waved her arms around.

"It's not that bad, Katara" Sokka said, turning around revealing a wig made of Appa's fur that sat on top of his head.

"It makes a great wig!" Meiluna added, laughing as she adjusted the beehive wig she made for Sokka.

"And a great beard!" Aang said, revealing his fur beard as he laughed at Sokka.

"I'm just glad we finally have another girl in the group, because you two are disgusting and Luna only encourages you" Katara complained as she wiped the fur off her clothes.

Meiluna stuck her tongue at her as Katara shook her head with a small smile.

"Excuse me, does anyone have a razor?" Toph asked before she dramatically raised her arms to reveal the fur she had stuffed inside her sleeves,

"Because I've got some hairy pits!"

The four of them burst into laughter as Katara watched them, letting out a slight chuckle.

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

"So Toph, usually when setting up camp, we try to divide up the work" Katara explained.

"Hey, don't worry about me. I'm good to go" Toph shrugged casually.

"Well, actually, what I'm trying to say is some of us might fetch water, while someone else might set up the fire pit, or put up the tent," Katara kept going as Momo flew over to her, dropping berries into her hands, "Even Momo does his fair share"

"Katara I'm fine. I can carry my own weight. I don't need a fire, I've already collected my own food" Toph countered as she patted her bag.

"And look, my tent's all set up" She continued as she used her earthbending to create a rock tent.

"Well that's great for you, but we still need to finish-"

Katara got cut off by Toph's outburst,
"I don't understand what's the problem here!"

Katara waved her hands dismissively before speaking under her breath,

"Never mind"

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

"Hey Toph, I wanted to apologise for earlier. I think we're all just a little tired and getting on each other's nerves" Katara said, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

"Yeah, you do seem pretty tired" Toph told her.

"I meant all of us" Katara frowned, feeling irritated again.

"Well, goodnight" Toph said from inside her tent.

"Goodnight" Katara replied, still slightly irked.

As time passed, everyone had finally fallen asleep. Except Meiluna. She remained awake, staring straight up at the moon. She couldn't really help but feel as though she shouldn't be wasting the precious time she had with her sister.

Though she traded her only hours of rest, she thought it was worth it for Yue.

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

"There's something coming towards us!" Toph yelled out, waking everyone from their slumber.

Meiluna opened her eyes immediately. She could hardly even say that she was asleep before Toph woke everyone else. Her eyelids had just shut a short while ago, practically in sync with the moment the sun began to rise.

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"It feels like an avalanche, but also not an avalanche" Toph said as she pressed a hand to the ground.

"Your powers of perception are frightening" Sokka retorted.

"Should we leave?" Katara asked anxiously.

"Better safe than sorry" Aang answered as the team made their away to Appa, flying off to find another place to set up camp.

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

"Ah, land sweet land!" Toph cried out in relief as she leapt off Appa, lying on the ground, "See you guys in the morning!"

"Actually, can you help us unload?" Katara asked.

Meiluna jumped off Appa, dragging her feet to a place where she could set her own sleeping bag down. Her eyes straining from keeping them open for such an extended period of time.

"Really? You need me to help unload Sokka's funky smelling sleeping bag?" Toph asked sarcastically.

Aang handed Sokka his sleeping bad, which he proceeded to sniff causing him to pass out. Katara looked at Meiluna for support.

Meiluna shrugged whilst rubbing her eyes, not wanting to get involved in the fight.

"Yeah, well," Katara turned to face Toph, "You're a part of our team now, and-"

"Look! I didn't ask you to help unload my stuff!" Toph cut in angrily, "I'm carrying my own weight"

"That's not the point. Ever since you joined us, you've been nothing but selfish and unhelpful!" Katara burst out.

Meiluna's eyes widened as she gave Aang a worried look.

"What?" Toph yelled back, "Look here, Sugar Queen, I gave up everything I had so that I could teach Aang earthbending. So don't you talk to me about being selfish!"

Toph then used her eartbending to create a tent around her.

"Sugar Queen?" Katara repeated furiously as Toph immediately shut the door of her tent.

"Did you just slam the door in my face? How can you be so infuriating!" Katara yelled, looking enraged.

Meiluna lay down with her face squished into her pillow, trying to drown out the noise.

"Should we do something?" Aang asked as he and Sokka watched Katara bang her fists against Toph's earth tent.

"Yes, you should go to sleep" Meiluna spoke, her words coming out muffled.

"Hey, I'm just enjoying the show" Sokka said, still looking amused.

"Okay, okay, you both need to calm down" Aang tried speaking gently as he approached Katara.

"Both? I'm completely calm!" She screamed turning to Aang with a crazed look in her eyes.

Aang blinked before awkwardly answering,

"I can see that"

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

"The stars sure are beautiful tonight. Too bad you can't see them, Toph!" Katara spoke loudly, looking over to Toph's tent.

Meiluna groaned, her eyes growing heavier with every passing minute.

Typically, Meiluna wouldn't feel as tired at this time of night, but Katara and Toph's constant bickering hadn't allowed her to rest during the day.

Suddenly, a fissure was sent underground, sending Katara flying and landing on top of Sokka.

"Hey! How's a guy supposed to sleep with all this yelling and earthquaking?" Sokka asked, feeling annoyed as he pushed his sister off him.

"That thing is back!" Toph said as she reopened her tent.

"Well, how far away is it? Maybe we can close our eyes just for a few minutes" Sokka suggested as he pulled his sleeping bag over his head.

Aang watched the smoke billowing from behind the treetops,

"I don't think so, Sokka"

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

"Seriously, what is that thing?" Katara asked as Appa flew speedily away from the machine that seemed to follow them.

"I don't know, but this time, I'm going to make sure we lose it" Aang answered, leading Appa to fly between two mountains and land on a small rock bed.

The bison fell on his side, throwing everyone onto the ground along with their belongings.

"Okay, forget about setting up camp, I'm finding the softest pile of dirt and going to sleep" Sokka said sleepily as he crawled under his sleeping bag.

Meiluna did the same, barely able to keep her eyes open.

"That's good because Toph wasn't going to help anyway!" Katara yelled out frustratedly.

"Oh, I didn't realise the baby still needed someone to tuck her in bed" Toph spat.

"Ladies, please" Meiluna mumbled with her eyes still shut.

"Come on guys. There's something after us and we don't even know what or who it is" Aang reminded.

"It could be Prince Zuko" Meiluna suggested, rolling over to face the group.

Katara nodded,
"We haven't seen him since the North Pole"

"Who's Zuko?" Toph asked curiously.

"Oh, just some angry freak with a ponytail who's tracked us all over the world" Sokka explained.

"What's wrong with ponytails, ponytail?" Katara asked mockingly.

"This is a warrior's wolf tail" Sokka defended gesturing to his hair.

"Well it certainly tells the other warriors that you're fun and perky" Katara joked making Meiluna laugh drowsily.

"Anyway," Sokka said, unamused, "Whoever's chasing us couldn't have followed us here, so now would everyone just shh?"

Momo chittered excitedly before climbing onto Sokka's sleeping bag.

"No, Momo, shh," Sokka said as he began to relax, "Sleepy time"

Momo then quickly hopped off Sokka, moving to the ledge of a rock where he made a nervous sound with his ears raised up in alert.

"Oh, don't tell me" Sokka groaned as he buried his face in his hands.

"That's impossible," Aang stated, "There's no way they could've tracked us"

"I can feel it with my own two feet" Toph confirmed.

Meiluna ran her fingers through her hair as she clumsily stood up to walk towards where Momo stood, watching the smoke get closer.

"Let's get out of here" Katara said nervously.

"Maybe we should face them. Find out who they are. Who knows, maybe they're friendly" Aang spoke calmly.

"Always the optimist" Sokka replied looking down at Aang hopelessly.

Meiluna turned back to the tank that moved closer before noticing the people who had stepped out.

"Aren't those the girls from Omashu?" She asked anxiously.

"We can take them, three on four" Toph said as she assumed a fighting stance.

"Actually Toph, there's five of us" Sokka corrected.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't count you. You know, no bending and all" Toph added sheepishly.

"I can still fight!" Sokka yelled.

"Okay, three on four plus Sokka" Toph smiled smugly as Sokka let out a frustrated noise.

Toph used her earthbending to create 3 tall columns to slow the girls from Omashu down, but in an instant, the mongoose lizards the girls travelled on simply jumped over the obstacles.

"Well, we wanted to find out who they were and we found out," Sokka said as Aang and Katara ran back to Appa, "Now let's get out of here"

Meiluna let out a yawn as Sokka grabbed her arm, dragging her to the flying bison.

Toph used her earthbending the create a large wall in front of the three girls. Princess Azula moved her arms in a circular motion, generating lightning and exploded the wall, allowing the lizards to climb through.

One of the other girls swung her arms, releasing a flurry of stilettos at Toph, who quickly launched herself off a pillar and landed on Appa's back.

"Appa, yip yip!" Aang said quickly as they narrowly avoided a blast of blue fire.

"I can't believe those girls followed us all the way from Omashu" Katara shook her head in shock.

"I still think we could have taken them" Toph said grumpily.

Meiluna flopped her forehead on to Sokka's shoulder in exhaustion.

"Are you kidding me? The crazy blue firebending and the flying daggers are bad enough, but the last time we saw them, one of those girls did something that took our bending away," Katara said as she gestured to herself and Meiluna, "That's scary"

"Oh no, the sun is rising. We've been up all night with no sleep!" Sokka complained.

"Sokka, we'll be okay" Aang said trying to calm him down.

"Are you sure? I've never not slept before! What if I fall asleep now and something happens? And something always happens!" Sokka panicked going off on a tangent.

"Every time we land, these girls are there. So we'll just have to keep flying" Katara said.

Aang looked at Appa in distress,

"We can't keep flying forever"

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

Meiluna opened her eyes as she felt herself being lifted off the saddle. She looked down and noticed Appa descending very quickly,

"Aang!"

"What's going on?" Toph asked frantically as she woke up, grabbing on to the saddle.

Aang held onto the reins tightly,

"Appa fell asleep!"

Meiluna desperately clung to Sokka.

"Wake up buddy!" Aang urged Appa.

The bison opened his eyes right before crashing into several trees.

"Appa's exhausted" Aang commented.

"Okay, we've put a lot of distance between us and them. The plan right now is to follow Appa's lead and get some sleep" Sokka said as he carried his sleeping bag with him.

"Of course, we could've gotten some sleep earlier if Toph didn't have such issues" Katara said in a irritated tone.

Meiluna groaned, feeling a headache form upon hearing the girls begin to argue again. She took a seat on the ground and rested her head against one of Appa's legs, shutting her eyes while trying to block out the sound of arguing.

"What?" Toph screamed furiously.

"All right, all right, everyone's exhausted! Let's just get some rest" Aang interrupted, trying to ease the tension.

"No, I want to hear what Katara has to say. You think I have issues?" Toph said as she got up to face Katara.

"I'm just saying. Maybe if you helped out earlier, we could've set up our camp faster and gotten some sleep and then we wouldn't be in this situation!" Katara shouted.

"You're blaming me for this?" Toph yelled, outraged.

Katara tossed her sleeping bag aside challenging Toph to move closer.

Aang quickly intervened jumping between the two,

"No! No, she's not blaming you"

"No, I'm blaming her" Katara replied stubbornly.

"Hey," Toph shoved Aang out of her way, "I never asked you for diddly-doo-dah. I carry my own weight, besides, if there's anyone to blame, it's sheddy over here" Toph exclaimed, pointing at the bison.

"What? You're blaming Appa?" Aang questioned, feeling insulted.

"Yeah you want to know how the keep finding us?" Toph walked to where Meiluna lay, grabbing a handful of Appa's fur that had settled on her hair, "He's leaving a trail everywhere we go!"

"How dare you blame Appa!" He saved your life three times today! If there's anyone to blame, it's you! You're always talking about how you carry your own weight, but you're not. He is! Appa's carrying your weight. He never had a problem flying when it was just the four of us!" Aang yelled angrily.

"I'm out of here" Toph said as she stomped the ground to gather her things.

Meiluna got up from her spot, stumbling slightly from her tiredness, trying to call after the earthbender,

"Toph! Please don't go"

Toph completely ignored her pleas.

Sokka then moved to stand infront of her,
"Wait!"

Toph used her earthbending to shift Sokka to the side as she stormed off.

"What did I just do?" Aang said full of regret as he slumped down on the ground, "I can't believe I yelled at my earthbending teacher. Now she's gone"

"I know. We're all just trying to get used to each other," Katara added sorrowfully, "And I was so mean to her"

"You two were pretty much jerks" Sokka said, taking a seat beside Meiluna who nodded her head.

"Oh yeah"

"Thanks guys" Katara said, looking at the two sarcastically.

"No problem" Sokka replied.

"We need to find Toph and apologise" Katara said.

"Okay, but what are we going to do about the tank full of dangerous ladies chasing us?" Sokka questioned.

Aang grabbed a handful of Appa's fur letting it blow away in the wind before he looked up,

"I have a plan"

━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━

"Toph was right. The fur was leaving a trail right to us. But now that he's clean, no more trail" Aang explained.

Meiluna saw Sokka struggling to wring out his shirt, so she used her waterbending to expel the water from his clothes as he gave her a grateful smile.

"Are you sure he's okay to fly?" Katara asked with concern.

"He'll be fine as long as we leave his saddle and all our stuff here," Aang said as he knelt down to place pieces of fur on the ground, "I'm going to use Appa's fur to make a fake trail to lead the tank off course"

"Stay safe, Aang" Meiluna told him, giving him a quick hug.

Aang gave her a small smile before she hopped on Appa's back, along with Katara and Sokka, taking off in the opposite direction.

"Toph couldn't have made it too far," Sokka said as he surveyed to woods, when Momo began to chitter and move back defensively,

"What is it, Momo? Oh no"

"How did they find us?" Katara asked in shock as she saw two of the girls right on their tails.

"Appa, come on, we need to go faster!" Sokka urged.

"He's too tired!" Katara replied.

"Not good, not good! We just need to make it across that river!" Sokka panicked.

"Come on Appa, just a little further" Meiluna pleaded with the bison.

Appa began his descent, crashing into treetops and snapping off branches. He barely skimmed the surface of the river before crashing straight into the ground on the other side

"We made it! We're safe!" Sokka cheered.

"You did it Appa!" Katara smiled.

Meiluna patted the bison on the head as she praised him,

"Good boy Appa"

She focused her gaze behind Appa when she spotted the mongoose lizards rapidly making their way across the water. Katara quickly spun around to send a huge wave at the girl in pink.

She reacted instantly and jumped off her creature landing near the treetops. The girl somersaulted onto the ground attempting to land a hit on Meiluna.

"Hi, again!" She said cheerfully.

Still slightly unfocused from her lack of sleep, Meiluna couldn't help but feel flustered as her legs were kicked out from underneath her while the other girl pinned her to a tree with a knife.

Katara used the water from her pouch to produce several discs of water, throwing them at the girl. She managed to cartwheel out of the way and escape the attacks.

Katara stopped in front of a tree to draw a stream of water to attack the girls, when the dark haired one hurled two shuriken knives her way, pining her wrists to the tree trunk. Beside her lay Sokka, who had been paralysed and fallen onto the ground.

"I thought when Ty Lee and I finally caught you guys it would be more exciting. Oh well, victory is boring" The knife girl spoke dryly.

The girls got ready to attack when