"Oh fucking hell." Harry groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. The group were currently sat on Appa's saddle as the sky bison flew through the air, flying above a mountain and a great many trees. "So, let me get this straight," Harry said as he brought his hands down and looked at Aang. "so you met Avatar Roku, correct?"
"Correct." Aang quietly confirmed.
"He then told your bald little ass to hurry the fuck up, yeah?" Harry asked.
"Not quite how I would put it," Aang frowned, "but yeah." he nodded.
"Because if you don't master the elements by this summer then Sozin's Comet will return by the end of the summer, and Fire Lord Jerk-face will use its power to finish the war, once and for all." Harry sighed. Sozin's Comet, which was formerly known as the Great Comet, passes close to the Earth every one hundred years, just skimming the surface of the upper atmosphere, when the comet came close firebenders would be able to harness its energy, greatly increasing their powers. Fire Lord Sozin had actually used that comet to begin the war.
"Basically, yeah." Aang nodded, he sighed as he ran a hand over his bald head. "It's what Avatar Roku said. I'm supposed to master all four elements before that comet arrives."
"Well, let's see. You pretty much mastered airbending and that only took you a hundred and twelve years. I'm sure you can master three more elements by next summer." Sokka said in a sarcastic voice.
"Oh no!" Aang suddenly gasped. "I haven't even started waterbending yet! And...we're weeks away from the North Pole! How am I supposed to master three elements in time?"
"Calm down, Aang." Katara said soothingly as she rubbed Aang's arm with her hand.
"Yeah," Harry nodded after taking a deep breath. "you and me can start learning on the way there."
"And I'll teach you both what I know," Katara volunteered. "I'm no master by any means but I do know a few moves."
"Right, so the next time we stop we find a source of water to practise." Harry said, Katara and Aang quickly nodded in agreement.
As soon as they were able to find a source of water the trio had begun practising while Sokka went to work cleaning Appa, even though he wasn't very happy about being assigned that job.
"Alright, this is a simple move but don't be too upset if you don't get it straight away, it took me months to get it down." Katara said before she began moving her hands back and forth, making small waves in the water. "The key is to get the wrist movements right." She added.
"Hmm." Harry hummed before he copied the movements, his waves were slightly smaller than Katara's.
"Not bad," Katara smiled at him before turning to Aang. "Aang, do you need any he..." Katara trailed off when she saw that Aang was making waves that were twice the size of her own.
"Like this?" Aang asked.
"Um yeah," Katara nodded after a moment. "right...let's move onto the next move. This is a more difficult move. I call it streaming the water." She said before she moves her hands and raises a stream of water from the river into the air and begins moving it around. "It's harder than it looks, so don't be disappointed if..." Katara trailed off when she saw Aang had already had a stream of water and was effortlessly moving it around his body with an ease that made Katara very jealous, she looked at Harry and felt a bit better when she saw his efforts. He had a stream of water but it wasn't quite as controlled as Aang's or even her own.
"What next, Katara?" Aang asked excitedly as he dropped the water.
"Well," Katara hesitated before she continued. "I kind of know this one other move, but it's pretty hard. I haven't even totally figured it out yet. The idea is to create a big, powerful wave." She said before she raised her shaking hands. A bunch of water rose upwards but unfortunately ended up popping and falling back down before she could do anything with it, Harry tried the same but ended up with the same result as Katara.
"Like this?" Aang asked before he raised his hands. A massive wave of water rose up and began moving forwards, it went down the river and ended up crashing into Appa and Sokka, emerging them in water and washing them several meters down the river. "Hey, I got it!" Aang grinned before turning to Katara. "So, what's next?"
"That's enough practicing for today." Katara said in an irritated voice. Harry was about to protest when Sokka spoke up.
"I'll say," He said as his head popped up out of the river. "you just washed our supplies down the river." He said, gesturing behind himself to the supplies that were being washed away.
"Oops...sorry," Aang said apologetically. "um... I'm sure we can find somewhere to replace all this stuff."
"We can go shopping later," Harry said. "but until then we should keep practising."
"I said that's enough practising." Katara said, glaring at Harry.
"Yeah? Well, we have a time limit for how quick Aang needs to learn." Harry said, glaring back. "That means we can't afford to only have him practise for less than two minutes every practise session. We can go shopping later, we have no current plans, we can practise more."
"Well, I don't feel like it so you two can practise by yourselves." Katara huffed before walking off.
"Oh, what's wrong with Katara?" Aang asked worriedly.
"Nothing," Harry rolled his eyes. "she's just being a bi.." Harry paused and decided to change what he was going to say so Aang wouldn't be offended on Katara's half. "...bit jealous."
"Jealous?" Aang blinked in confusion.
"Of how good you are at waterbending," Harry shrugged. "she's not as good as you so it's making her irritated."
"Oh," Aang said, suddenly feeling very bad. "should I apologize?"
"No, Aang." Harry said in a firm voice. "Katara will get over it, if you give her enough time. But you...you have a deadline and the entire world depending on you, you can't stall your training because of the irrational feelings of one girl."
"Katara's our friend!" Aang said, sounding offended.
"That's why I'm not insulting her. Like it or not, her feelings are irrational. You are the Avatar, naturally you're going to be good at waterbending. Once her jealousy dies down she'll be able to think properly, until then just give her space. Okay?"
"Fine." Aang said, not looking too happy about it.
"Yeah Aang," Sokka said as he pulled himself out of the river. "the key to girls is..."
"No, you shut up." Harry cut Sokka off.
"What? Why?"
"Because I am very sure that Appa knows more about girls than you."
"So, we have everything, right?" Harry asked as the group walked through a city street market.
"Yeah, I think so." Katara said in a calm voice. She hadn't talked much with Harry or Aang since their last argument and had settled on giving Harry the cold treatment.
"How much money do we have left?" Sokka asked.
"Quite a lot." Harry said. King Bumi had given them quite a lot of money and Harry had made sure to put himself in charge of it since he was the only with actual money experience, it was a good thing that he did seeing as Aang wanted to buy so many unnecessary stuff. Though Harry had allowed him to buy the bison whistle that he wanted to get. As they walked by the docks they heard a very loud voice.
"Get your valuables here!" The voice belonged to a shifty looking man who was standing by a ship. "Earth Nation! Fire Nation! Water Nation! So long as bargains are your inclination, you're welcome here! Don't be shy, come on by!" He said before he noticed the group. "Oh! You there, I can see from your clothing that you're world-traveling types. Perhaps I can interest you in some exotic curios?" He asked with a grin.
"You don't even know what those are, do you?" Harry said, biting back a sigh.
"I...well...no," The man admitted. "but I'm pretty sure we have them." He said as his grin came back in place.
"Cool!" Aang said and rushed into the ship before anyone could protest, the shifty man smiled and walked in after him.
"Forget the Fire Lord, I'll be the one to kill him." Harry said under his breath before he and the others followed Aang into the ship. Once inside they found themselves in a shop and saw Aang looking around at the whole horde of collectibles all around them.
"Wow, neat." Aang commented as he continued to look around.
"My, my," A voice said as a man entered the room and stopped behind the shop counter, he was dressed as a pirate captain and had a green iguana-parrot on his shoulder. "I've never seen such a fine specimen of lemur." He said as he looked at Momo who was perched on Aang's shoulders. "He'd fetch me a nice sum indeed, that is...if you're interested?" He asked Aang, "We trade, buy and sell here." he added as his iguana-parrot squawked.
"No, he's not for sale." Aang said in a firm voice.
"Aang!" Katara suddenly called out in an excited voice as she looked down at a scroll in her hands. "It's a waterbending scroll! There are tons of amazing moves on here! Where did you guys get this?" She asked the pirate captain.
"Let's just say I got it up North, at a most reasonable price, free." He said as he took the scroll away from Katara and put it away.
"Great, we're here with pirates." Harry said, rolling his eyes.
"Pirates?" Sokka blinked before he began mentally compiling what he knew so far, including but not limited to the shifty behaviour and pirate clothes. "Oh." He blinked.
"We prefer to call ourselves 'high risk traders'." The shifty man from before said, grinning.
"So...how much for the traded scroll?" Katara asked, hoping to use their language to ease the tension in the room.
"I've already got a buyer, a nobleman in the Earth Kingdom." The captain said. "Unless of course, you kids have two hundred gold pieces on you right now." He added in a questioning tone.
"Let me handle this." Aang said with a grin as he pulled out a copper piece.
"No," Harry said before he lightly slapped Aang on the back of the head and took the coin away from him in one swift movement. "how much do we need this scroll?" Harry asked Katara.
"Really badly." Katara said, looking at him with a pleading look.
"I..." Whatever Harry was about to say was cut off as he noticed something out of the corner of his eyes. "where did you get that?" Harry asked, noticing a golden locket necklace in a display case. "...where did you get that?" Harry repeated, pointing to the necklace. Aang and the two Water Tribe siblings looked confused at the sudden change in topic and all looked at each other, silently questioning the others on if they knew anything about the necklace.
"Ah, a deceased associate of mine." The captain replied. "He managed to get it for me. It once belonged to none other than the 'Emerald Dragon'." He said with a grin, missing the looks of realization appearing on the faces of the other three children.
"I know, I know who it belonged to." Harry said in a quiet voice.
"Ah, you want it?" The captain grinned. "That'll be..."
"Free." Harry cut him off in a cold voice as he walked over to the necklace, he removed the display case and was about to pick up the necklace when the shifty sales man placed a blade against his throat.
"Don't be stupid now." The captain warned.
"You mean like the kind of stupid that threatens a guy who can bring down the whole ship?" Harry snorted. "Now, I'll be taking my necklace back."
"Your necklace?" The shifty man managed to ask before Harry moved, in a blur of movements Harry had disarmed the man before hitting him hard on the side of the head with the handle of the blade, the shifty man fell to the floor and became unconscious shortly after his head crashed against the wooden floorboards.
"Hey! Who do you think you are?!" The captain demanded as he pulled out a sword.
"Me? I'm just the Emerald Dragon." Harry said as he turned to the captain. He glared at him as green flames covered his hands.
"Oh." The captain gulped and stepped back slightly. "Um...perhaps we can talk about this? You...you wanted that scroll, right?"
"If you want this ship to stay standing and for you to stay alive then you are going to give me and these three imbeciles whatever we want, for free." Harry said before he took his necklace and put it on. "Go on guys," Harry said to Katara, Sokka and Aang. "take as much as you want." Harry said before he looked at the Captain and silently dared him to argue, the man wisely didn't.