Excuse me," Harry said in a polite voice as he opens up a sliding door to the building where the Kyoshi warriors were training with their fans, though they immediately stopped upon seeing Harry. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Can we help you?" The leader of the girls asked.
"Yes, I was hoping there was somewhere I could train." Harry replied.
"We don't have anywhere in here for you to practise firebending." One girl replied, looking at Harry like he was going to attack them.
"I was actually hoping that one of you would be willing to spar with me." Harry replied.
"Spar with you?" One girl blinked.
"Yeah," Harry nodded. "I find hand to hand combat to be just as important as bending, and you all are clearly proficient at it. I haven't had anyone to practise my hand to hand with in a while. If any of you are willing to spar with me then great, if not then I'll just take my leave." Harry said before giving them all a questioning look.
"No bending will be allowed then." The leader of the girls said, much to the surprise of the others.
"Fine, but in that case I think we should both also agree to not try and cause serious damage to each other." Harry replied. "No weapons, no bending, no injuring or killing. Fair?"
"Fair." She nodded as she handed her fan to one of the other girls as Harry walked in. The other girls backed off to give Harry and her some space.
"Before we start," Harry said as they both got into fighting stances. "my name's Harry as you know, can I have yours?"
"Suki." She said. "I must say you're already doing better than your friend."
"You mean ponytail?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, he entered here without asking before basically calling us weak because we were women."
"Did you kick his butt?" Harry asked.
"Of course I did." She said in a way that made it sound like it was ridiculous to expect anything less.
"Good." Harry nodded before she charged at him.
Harry blocked her quick but powerful barrage of attacks before he pushed forward with a jumping kick that was aimed to her face, Harry managed to get out two kicks before he landed but unfortunately for himself she blocked both of them, as Harry descended down he had thrown out a palm strike which she avoided by moving to the side, Harry didn't let his arm drop and instead quickly elbowed her, barely managing to hit her on the head as she threw in her own strike which hit Harry in the side.
Harry grabbed her and threw her over his head, she landed on her back but quickly recovered and grabbed his arm before she span around so she was facing him. She managed to throw Harry to the floor in a way that caused Harry to land next to her. The two of them exchanged strikes while on the floor, all of them were blocked until Harry got hit with a punch to the face, he responded with a punch to her side before he rolled away, the two got up but Harry had managed to get up first.
He moved forwards with a jumping spinning hook kick, Suki managed to duck under his leg so he flicked out his other leg and hit her in the face with a guyver kick, causing her to stumble backwards before he landed on his back and kipped up.
"Nice trick." Suki said after taking a couple of steps back. "Flashy but not very powerful though, hardly the best kick to use in a fight." She said.
"It's not." Harry agreed. "But I'm allowed to show off occasionally."
"Fair enough." She said before the two of them charged towards each other.
A while later Harry was walking through the local market place, having finished sparring with Suki. Harry wasn't sure how much his relationship with the Kyoshi warriors had improved but he was sure that they at the very least respected his combat skills and appreciated how he acted. He noticed that the other villagers were still wary of him, they trusted the Avatar enough to let him stay but everything they had heard about him had told them that he was a blood thirsty monster so they weren't entirely sure, not that he could blame them for not instantly trusting him.
"Katara." Harry said when he stopped next to Katara who was shopping. "Where's Aang and your brother?"
"Sokka is probably pouting somewhere, as for Aang he is probably hanging out with his fan girls." Katara said in an annoyed voice, it seemed to her that Aang had really been letting the whole fame and popularity that came with being the Avatar get to him.
"We should go," Harry said. "we've been here for a couple of days already, that's longer than we should stay anywhere."
"Aang doesn't want to leave." Katara sighed. "He's enjoying the attention too much."
"Well, he won't for long." Harry said knowingly. "Pretty soon he'll see the downsides of being famous."
"What do you mean?" Katara asked.
"With fame comes expectations," Harry replied. "look at me, everyone expects me to be an evil monster who enjoys hurting people. As the Avatar, Aang will have very high expectations put upon him. He is expected to be the master of all four elements, wiser and stronger than you could imagine and would easily be able to restore balance to the world. Right now he's a twelve year old kid who is good at airbending, how do you think people will react when he doesn't measure up?" Harry asked.
"But...but they wouldn't abandon him, the people here worship him!"
"These people won't," Harry agreed. "unless he does something unforgivably horrible that is. The worst these people will do is get bored or disappointed with him, and that might happen soon. All Aang knows is airbending, we've been here long enough for him to exhaust all the non-combat tricks he knows. He is the Avatar, they're expecting more than a few bits of airbending."
"I...oh, poor Aang." She said, biting down on her lip.
"It'll be 'poor village' soon if we don't get out of here." Harry responded. "It is very likely that someone's heard we're here. Give it an hour or two if you have to but then tell Aang to get ready because we're leaving, even if I have to drag him from this island." Harry said before he turned and walked away.
An hour or so later Harry returned to the Kyoshi training building to thank them for their time, he opened the door and was surprised to see Suki sparring with someone. Suki sparring was not really what surprised him as much as who she was sparring with, it was Sokka but he was dressed just like a Kyoshi warrior and was even wearing their makeup. Suki was clearly taking it easy on him but Sokka was admittedly doing much better than before.
"Well, isn't this cute?" Harry spoke, announcing his presence as everyone turned to him, including Sokka. Even with the paint on his face Harry could tell that he was blushing. "Let me guess, long story?" Harry asked Sokka.
"I...this is a warrior's uniform!" Sokka said as proudly as he could manage.
"That was never in question, but why are you dressed like a 'weak girl'?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well...maybe I've learnt that there not as weak as I thought." Sokka quietly admitted.
"You can learn?" Harry asked in a mock surprised voice.
"Don't bully him." Suki said, though her words were ruined by the small smile on her face.
"I..." Harry was cut off as Oyaji, the village elder, rushed in.
"The village is under attack, firebenders!" He yelled.
"I'll help." Harry said quickly. Oyaji looked at him for a moment as if to judge him, a second or so later he nodded.
"Come on then," He said before turning to the girls. "girls come quickly." He added before rushing off.
"I'm not a..." Sokka began but trailed off as everyone else started rushing out, he sighed before following.
"Come on Avatar!" Zuko said as he fought with Aang who had just blocked another fire blast.
"Hey Zuko." A voice said, Zuko looked forwards and saw Harry walking forwards. The other Fire soldiers tensed upon seeing the Emerald Dragon while Zuko simply growled.
"What are you doing here?!" Zuko demanded.
"Protecting this village, protecting the Avatar, etc." Harry said in a casual voice, he discreetly used his hand and gestured Aang to go, thankfully the airbender understood and did what Harry told him to.
"Why?! Why won't you just let me capture him?!" Zuko said angrily.
"Because this is bigger than you." Harry said before his fists lit up with green fire. "You're not capturing him, and you're not going to harm anyone in this village." The other soldiers hesitated but Zuko did not, he charged towards Harry, he hadn't gone too far before the Kyoshi warriors snuck out from hiding spots to attack the other soldiers.
Harry stomped his foot down on the ground, a stump of Earth rose up and caught Zuko in the legs, causing him to fall. Zuko managed to roll to his feet before shooting a fire blast at Harry. Harry easily blocked it before he and Zuko engaged in combat. Zuko shot another fireblast at Harry who ducked under it and responded with one of his own, Zuko blocked the blast before shooting out several fire arcs with a series of kicks.
"Good," Harry said while ducking, dodging and blocking Zuko's attacks. "you've improved."
"You won't stop me from achieving my destiny!" Zuko said as he sent a large arc of fire at Harry.
"I'm not trying to!" Harry said as he jumped over the flames with the help of fire shooting out from under his feet, he span in the air and sent an air blast which knocked Zuko off his feet. "This is not your destiny, Zuko!"
"How would you know?!" Zuko said as he got back up and charged at Harry.
"I'm getting tired of playing, Zuko." Harry said as he blocked another fire blast.
Various buildings around them were damaged and on fire, the village looked a far cry from the beauty it previously had. Part of the damage had been caused thanks to Harry and Zuko while the rest could be blamed on the other fire soldiers and those who were fighting them. Zuko appeared to be tiring, his movements had gotten worse as time went on and his breathing had gotten heavier.
"I'm not playing!" Zuko yelled before sending a fire blast that Harry ducked.
"Then I guess I'll stop as well." Harry said before he ran forwards and jumped up, Zuko blocked the drop kick that Harry tried to hit him with but he didn't expect for Harry to twist in mid-air and hit him with a kick to the stomach before landing. Zuko stumbled back before he was hit with a fireblast from Harry that sent him to the ground, Zuko rolled back to his feet but Harry had quickly closed the distance.
Harry blocked Zuko's panic strike and moved behind him and quickly pulled Zuko into a choke sleeper hold. Zuko tried his best to get out of it but Harry refused to break it and countered all of Zuko's attempts to escape. Zuko quickly felt his vision blackening and realised that he was close to being rendered unconscious. Just as Zuko was about to be put to sleep Harry let go of him and Zuko dropped down to his hands and knees, coughing violently for a few moments before he looked up at Harry.
"I never want to hurt you Zuko, I never did." Harry said as he took several steps backwards. He could have left Zuko unconscious but that wouldn't achieve much, if Zuko got captured he'd escape or Iroh would break him out, either way it would be easier for the village if he just left. "You had better keep practising, as long as I'm alive I'll keep the Avatar safe from the Fire Nation." Harry said just as he saw Appa flying towards them. "If you'll excuse me, my ride's here." Harry said before he turned and jumped into the air just as Appa began flying lower, with the help of air and fire bending he was able to get high enough to land in the saddle.
"Appa! Yip-yip!" Aang yelled and Appa flew up into the air and away from the village.
"We need to leave," Harry said. "they're after us, they'll leave the village to chase us."
"He's right, we need to get out of here!" Sokka agreed.
"I know it's hard, but you did the right thing." Katara said to Aang who didn't look very happy. "Zuko would have destroyed the whole place if we had stayed. They're going to be okay, Aang." She said in a comforting voice. Aang didn't reply, he instead adopted a determined look on his face before he jumped off of Appa and fell towards the ocean while the others screamed for him. Aang crashed into the water, a few seconds later he emerged on top of a giant black eel that looked like it could fit entire buildings into its mouth.
"Wait! Is that the Unagi?!" Harry said with wide eyes as Aang pulls the creature's barbels, causing it to open its mouth wide and begin spraying out water which rains over the town and removes most of the fires. After several moments of this the Unagi finally manages to toss Aang off of his head, thankfully Appa managed to catch Aang before he lands in the ocean again. Appa quickly took off before the Unagi could do anymore.
"I know, I know!" Aang cut off any response once he was back on the saddle, "That was stupid and dangerous." He admitted.
"Yes," Katara agreed. "but it was also very brave." She added with a smile.
"Bloody Gryffindor." Harry said under his breath. "Let's not do that again." He said to the others. "Next time we shouldn't stay so long in a single village, agreed?"
"Agreed." The other three replied.
"Good." Harry sighed as he began getting comfortable. "You guys will give me grey hairs soon." He said as he closed his eyes.