A few days had passed since the run in with the pirates and with Zhao again and our team avatar has been on the move ever since. Continuing their journey to the north pole having journeyed 200 miles east and north of the fishing village where they had encountered the pirates. In no rush today the gang finds themselves slowly going about their early morning routine, Zuko brews a pot of tea while Katara prepares some of the salted and smoked meat. Sokka goes about checking the snares and field dressing any game he caught from the night before while Aang goes about grooming Appa and feeding the large bison. The rambunctious lemur is bounding about the trees hunting for bugs and for fruits that might be growing from the massive thousand foot tall redwoods that shade them. The leaves of the canopy is a beautiful hue of reds, yellows and oranges.

Pouncing on a yellow leaf bug, Momo barely misses the insect and takes off chasing after it. Circling around the tree upwards then down towards the ground. As Momo pounces on the dirt, the insect escapes him leaving the poor lemur hungry. Luckily for him though a pile of lychee nuts is stacked neatly a few paces away. The airbender's pet scurries over to the nuts and picks up the first one bringing it to his mouth. Suddenly a spring trap is set off trapping Momo in a spherical cage made of brass. The sudden activation of the trap causes the lemur to screech in fright as the lychee nuts fall to the forest floor below. Hearing his lemur call out Aang perks up hearing Momo before running off in the direction of where Momo had gone. "Momo! Where'd you go?!" He calls running into the woods.

Coming to a clearing, Aang spots Momo a few dozen feet in the air in the brass trap. The lemur trying to reach for the ropes holding the trap up. Around him two baboons are also caught up in the trap hanging and bellowing for someone to release them. Wasting no time, Aang spins upwards towards the trap that is holding Momo, bouncing off the trees to gain more height. Getting to the brass sphere Aang wrenches it open allowing Momo to escape it before dropping to the ground below. Seeing that the bald boy freed the lemur, the baboons start calling towards him to get his attention. "Alright you too." Aang says as Sokka makes it to the clearing.

"That's gonna take way too long." He says to Aang before throwing his boomerang upwards towards the ropes holding the baboons' cages. The boomerang cuts through both ropes sending the cages to the ground. After freeing the imprisoned creatures from the traps, Sokka inspects the metal design of the cages. "These are firenation traps. You can tell by the metal work."

"We're in the west of the earth kingdom, we're pretty close to where the colonies are." Zuko comments upon seeing other laid traps around the clearing. "We should get going theres bound to be patrols coming through here." He suggests looking around for any other signs of the soldiers.

"Well let's go get on Appa then." Katara turns and heads back towards the flying bison but is stopped by her brother placing his hand on her shoulder.

"Wait. I don't think that's a good idea there's firenation patrols in the area and Appa isn't exactly conspicuous when flying." Appa groans loudly at Sokka's comment.

"What do you mean by that?" Aang ponders.

"He's a ten ton fluffy flying monster the size of a house. He isn't exactly easy to hide, especially in the air." Sokka retorts gesturing wildly at the bison. "Look just for today I think we should travel on foot. At least until we're out of the forest, call it my instincts but my gut is telling me that if we fly out of here something bad is gonna happen."

"Eh it can't be that bad, who knows? Walking could be fun." Aang says in his typical positive manner.

A Few Minutes later.

"Walking Sucks!" Aang yells as his feet ache from the few miles they had trekked. "I hate walking. How do people get around without a flying bison?" He questions trudging his feet along on the forest floor.

"It would help if your shoes weren't designed to merely be foot coverings and actually had tred under them." Zuko responds being unphased by the short walk, even carrying his dual swords and several more packs than Aang and Katara were carrying. "We had to run 5 miles each morning when I joined the fire nation military academy."

"Dad and I had to trek miles through the snow fields to hunt the seals that migrated around the south pole so this is nothing." Sokka adds in.

"Well Aang if you're sick of carrying all that stuff, why not ask big strong military man over here to carry it, or you could ask Sokka's instincts." Aang smirks when Katara suggests this, as he goes to open his mouth Zuko cuts him off.

"You know we didn't have to pull all our stuff off of Appa right? He's a pack animal and he carries the four of us around for days at a time. I think he'd be fine just carrying our tents and stuff for a few miles." Now wondering why they didn't just do that in the first place, he jumps onto the back of Appa and puts his stuff down in the saddle.

"Well, now that I don't have all that stuff on me I think it's time for our next lesson Zuko." Aang bounds off of Appa and in front of the young avatar who is taking off his pack. "This is gonna be a simple race. If you can catch me we'll move on to the next lesson in airbending,"

"Is this gonna be the-"

"Yep the air scooter... 1 2 3 GO!" Aang rapidly counts before spinning up the ball of air in his hands and taking off through the underbrush.

"Hey! That's not fair!" Zuko yells before creating his own air scooter and jumping on it. He teeters a little bit but manages to find his balance before taking off after the airbender.

"Hey! Be careful you don't know if there's any of those patrols here!" Katara calls after them but the master and student are far too far ahead of them for her words to be heard. "Ugh, Come on Sokka we need to keep up with them." Katara declares running after the two of them.

Several hundred yards ahead of them Aang is speeding along on the air scooter, he has such a lead on Zuko that the cocky airbender even turns around to grin at his protégé. What he doesn't see as he barrels through a bush is the smoke of a camp. As the airscooter comes to a stop Aang turns around to see an encampment of an entire battalion of firenation soldiers. They stare at each other for several moments before Zuko comes barreling through the bush and into Aang. As they get up the firebenders grab their weapons and begin to circle them. Aang and Zuko are forced into a defensive stance with Zuko grabbing his dual blades and Aang his staff. Shortly after Sokka and Katara burst through the bushes and right into the sight of what's about to go down.

"Give up now and we wont hurt you. You're no match for us and the avatar." Sokka bluffs prompting Aang to turn and question him.

"Sokka. What are you doing?" He asks through gritted teeth.

"Bluffing." Sokka responds less confidently.

"You? Promise not to hurt us?" The eyepatch sporting commander questions raising an eyebrow above the covered eye. Suddenly he's hit in the side of the neck by a poison dart rendering him unconscious shortly after/

"How'd you do that?"

"I didn't."

"I don't care. Attack them!" Zuko declares before spinning with his dual swords and firebending at the soldiers. From the trees above Katara spots a man with dual hook swords drop down from above and run into the fray catching two soldiers by the ankles and throwing them over his shoulders.

"Down you go." He says in a confident and suave voice as more people descend from above and attack the soldiers.

Arrows whistle through the air from a rice hat wearing archer as several more kids around the same age as the gang descend from the tree tops. The soldiers turn their pikes and spears on the attackers but are quickly disarmed and rendered out cold by the attacking resistance fighters. The man with the hook swords effortlessly disarms and incapacitates several of the soldiers at once, either cleaving off the spearheads off the spears or ripping the weapons away from their wielders. The hooks of the dual swords find limbs and clothing pulling soldiers to the ground or off balance only to be finished off by a swift strike to the neck or side of the head. Wanting his own piece of the action, Sokka lets out a war cry and raises his club to fight off another one of the soldiers but is unable to attack as the hook sword dualist easily takes down the man fighting Sokka. "Hey! That was mine!" Sokka complains before the man responds "You gotta be quicker than that." with a smirk on his face.

"Now theres only one left. You're move Ashbreath." The hooks word wielder taunts Zuko who shifts his stance to a more defensive style incase of an attack.

"Stop. He's the avatar. He's on our side." Katara tries to reason but is cut off by the man.

"He's a firebender. He isn't on our side." He says coldly before going in to try to disarm Zuko's dual swords. However the prince is far faster than this duelist, stomping his foot hard on the ground Zuko lifts a stone from the earth then punches it into the man's swords and chest causing him to drop them and get sent back several feet. "He really sis the avatar." He mutters before conceding the match, he brings a hand up to his mouth and whistles into his fist creating the sound of a bird call causing the others to drop their weapons. "So Avatar Ashbreath. Got a name?" He asks dusting himself off from the attack.

"It's not Ashbreath, it's Lee. And lets get this straight, I'm not with them considering they have been trying to capture me for the last couple months." Zuko responds in a hostile manner.

"The names Jet." The man introduces, "And these are my freedom fighters." He motions pointing to the others around him. "Sneers, Longshot, Smellerbee, The Duke and Pipsqueak."

"I'm Aang, Lee's airbending teacher and this is Katara his waterbending teacher and that's Sokka, he's Katara's brother." Aang introduces as Jet motions to his posse to start raiding the firenation camp of valuables.

"I take it he is this so called "Good Firebender?" Jet questions pointing towards Zuko. "He better be since he's the Avatar and all."

"That's what people started calling me after we helped free some earth kingom slaves from a firenation shipyard." Zuko responds, gaining the attention of a few of the others. "We wont be here long if you have a problem with me being a firebending avatar. We're heading up to the north pole so Katara and I can learn from a true master and not just the one scroll we have."

"Sorry for any of the hostility then, 'Good Firebender' everyone here has lost people because of the firenation. Judging by your scar, I can say you have too." Jet alludes, collecting his swords and sheathing them.

"Hey Jet! These barrels are filled with blasting jelly!"

"And the crates are filled with jelly candies."

"That's great, just don't get those mixed up. Let's take them back to the hideout."

"You have a hideout? That's so cool!"

"Wanna see it?"

"Yes Please." Katara answers quickly, getting noticeably close to Jet, too close for Sokka's liking though Aang doesn't seem to notice. After transporting the stolen firenation supplies on carts and on Appa, the combined group comes upon a clearing about a half mile up the road from where the firenation camp was.

"Uh... are you sure it's here because I don't see anything." Sokka questions looking around the area, even upturning a stone which happens to be a tortoise.

"That's because it's a hideout Sokka. Here, grab this." Jet replies before handing Sokka a handle connected to a rope above.

"Ok, but still don't see aAAAAAHHHHhhhh." Sokka is suddenly yanked upwards by said pulley.

"Your turn Aang." Jet says before the airbender turns down the offer and instead opts to jump up the trees using his bending.

"You're jumping too Lee!" Aang calls down prompting the firenation prince to sigh before following his Sifu's footsteps, or jump steps in this case, and bounding up the tree.

"Hold on to me, Katara." Jet says pulling the watertribe girl into his arms, with a simple tug of the handle he and Katara ascend much more gracefully than Sokka did into the canopy. Above them in the trees was a makeshift village for the freedom fighters, tents and platforms along with walk ways between each of the layers.

"Wow. This place is amazing!" Katara compliments as Jet begins leading her and Lee around the scaffold village.

"Yep, it's protected and best of all it's out of the reach of the firenation. They've been hunting us down since they took over the village a few years back."

"Why are they looking for you then?"

"Let's just say I'm a bit of a thorn in their side."

"We've been ambushing their convoys, disrupting their supply lines and stealing all their weapons."

"That's so brave."

"Yeah nothing braver than a boy in a tree house."

"Shut it Sokka. Don't pay any attention to him, he's just jealous you're a better leader than he is."

"That's ok, you all have had a pretty rough time because of the firenation. Everyone here has too. Longshot's village was destroyed by them, and we found the duke stealing food." Jet replies as he leads Katara and Lee towards the center most tree of their hide away village.

"What about you?" Katara questions.

"Both my parents died fighting them, I was only eight years old."

"I lost my mother to the firenation when they raided the southern water tribe."

"I lost mine as well." Zuko says quietly prompting Jet to turn over at him in a bit of shock at this. "One day when we were on the run from the colonies, she vanished. I haven't seen her since."

"What about your father?" Jet asks.

"He was the one who gave me this scar." Zuko answers truthfully but this answer puts a lull in the conversation causing a moment of awkward silence between them.

As day turns to night, the kids in the freedom fighters gather around the large table in the center of the hideout retelling the stories of the day's raid. A mix of cheers and laughs between the kids echo through the trees but Zuko doesn't find any of it funny. Instead he silently eats his food, sipping on a cup of tea and ignoring the ire filled stares of some of the other residents. Aang notices that his pupil is off by himself and decides to sit next to Zuko to speak with him, try to see what's on his mind.

"I'm guessing you're not a people person?" Aang questions prompting Zuko to look up from his tea.
"Never was back home, but that's not why I'm off by myself. I can feel that every one of them hate me because I'm a firebender. Despite the fact I'm also the avatar. Not to mention that their leader Jet rubs me the wrong way." Zuko says slightly under his breath just as Sokka makes his way over to the two of them.

"What's wrong with Jet? He seems nice." Aang questions, raising an eyebrow at the notion.

"Your culture doesn't use weapons, you preach pacifism and kindness. So you wouldn't know what Hook Swords are used for." Zuko accents this statement with a head jerk towards Jet whose talking up Katara at the moment. "I've seen what's left of the survivors of a hook sword wielder. Those swords are designed to hook and pierce into joints and rend the tendons within. They're meant to maim and inflict as much pain and damage as possible." Aang falls silent when he hears Zuko say this.

"You feel something off about him too? I knew I wasn't the only one who could read the room. I'd have to agree with Zuko, Aang, Jet is bad news and I think we should leave as early as possible tomorrow." Sokka says just as Jet himself and Katara come walking over.

"So, what do you think of the place? Me and my freedom fighters?" Jet questions as Katara takes a seat next to Aang and her brother.

"I want to know why you're using swords especially made for destroying joints and permanently disabling people." Zuko says bluntly, causing Jet to withdraw the piece of wheat from his lips and take a seat in front of Zuko.

"These are meant to disarm and throw any firebenders that we come across. I don't use them to do that." Jet says firmly, meeting Zuko's trademark glare. "That is cruel, and we're not firenation."

"Is that so? Then would you mind showing me the hook swords then?" Jet smirks before turning over the swords for him to inspect.

"I have to keep them sharp enough to catch into the armor that the firenation soldiers use, otherwise they'd just bounce off." Jet comments seeing Zuko take a string that was hanging off of his clothes and cut it in half against the blade of the hook sword.

"Even if you think they're evil, you need to remember they're still people. Just soldiers following orders, so cutting tendons and disabling them for life is far crueler than outright killing them." Zuko responds before handing the swords back to Jet.

"If you stay tomorrow, we have a mission that would be perfect for the avatar and you Sokka. This mission is to see if you really are The good firebender as the rumors say you are and if you prove that true then you'll have our trust." After saying this, Jet puts the piece of wheat in his mouth and walks away.

"What was that about Zuko?" Sokka whispers.

"I was seeing if the inside of the blades were nicked and if they had rust on them." Zuko replies. "They did, and that means only one thing. He was lying."