Percy Jackson and that kid in the iceberg

I use puns in a pep talk (Percy)

"Let's go, Appa! Come on, boy," Aang said, trying to get the flying bison to move to no avail. "Look I'm sorry, but the others aren't coming to the Fire Nation with us. If they got hurt, I'd never forgive myself. So get your big butt off the ground and let's move!"

"I think his big butt is trying to tell you something," Sokka said.

Aang looked around in surprise to see the four of us walking toward him.

"You can't go," I said, feeling angry at him despite myself. Almost losing Annabeth to some spirit monster was freaky enough, and it had reminded me exactly how much they all meant to me, as sappy as that sounds.

"The world can't afford to lose you to the Fire Nation," Katara agreed. "And neither can I."

"But I have to talk to Avatar Roku to find out what my vision means," Aang said. "I need to get to the Fire Temple before the sun sets on the solstice. That's today!"

"That's doesn't mean you have to go alone," Annabeth said. "Aang, when I was in the spirit world I met Kyoshi. She warned me that things were going to get a lot more dangerous and that we would have to rely on each other to survive. You need us."

"Yeah," Sokka agreed. "Without me, who will make sarcastic quips? You'll be quip-less."

"I don't think that's a word," Katara said.

"It is now."

"It should be a word. Anyway, Annabeth's right Aang," I said, keeping the conversation on track. "We're coming with you, like it or not."

Appa licked me in agreement. Fantastic. Now I was covered in Bison drool. And I had just taken a bath too.

"It's a long way to Crescent Island," the village leader said, handing us the rest of our supplies. "You'll have to fly fast to have any chance of making it before sundown. Good luck."

Aang smiled and bowed. "Thank you for your-"

"Go!" he said.

We went.

Annabeth, I noticed, was in her uniform again, face paint and all. She looked so different in it, more intimating, dangerous. Someone you would want on your side. Little wonder I had started crushing on her when I first saw her.

Not that the crush had exactly gone away. It was slightly awkward, I hadn't said anything to her, or her to me. We were definitely friends, and nothing else could be mentioned yet less that suddenly change.

"So, you saw Kyoshi?" Aang said. "Why didn't she talk to me?"

"She said only Roku could do that," Annabeth said. "I think she only appeared to me because, well, I am a Kyoshi Warrior. She called me daughter."

Aang shook his head in amazement. "If you're her honorary daughter, does that make me your honorary-"

"No."

"It's like we're related, without being related. It's weird."

"Everything with you is weird," Sokka grumbled.

I knew Annabeth was holding something back. I waited for the others to fall asleep, which happened quickly enough. It had been a long night with little sleep, between Annabeth and Aang getting lost in the spirit world and trying to keep Aang running off by himself like an idiot. The others drifted off one by one, but Annabeth stayed awake. The shimmer of the moonlight on her white paint made her look like an avenging spirit.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

She instantly stiffened, and I wished I had asked her something less personal. "Fine."

"Pretty night," I mentioned, wanting to smack myself.

"Lovely."

"Did uh, Kyoshi warn us about something else?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. You just seemed to be hiding some dark secret."

Annabeth sighed. "I'm really not. I just...Kyoshi said things were going to get worst. I need to prepared for a fight. We all do."

I grinned. "I trust you to have my back. You're the only real warrior here, after all."

"That's part of what worries me."

"Annabeth," I said with a smile. "Let's do a headcount. We've got an avatar, a boomerang man, two semi-decent waterbenders, and a fan-tasic warrior."

"You are as bad as Sokka. Possibly worst."

"And Appa, a giant magical flying bison. Come one. Everything will work out. One way or another it always does."

Famous last words

———————-

"We have trouble. And it's gaining, fast!"

I didn't need Sokka to tell me that. Bad enough we were on the fire nation's doorstep, we now had a ship on our tail. And though I was probably just imagining things it looked like it belonged to a certain prince.

"Fireball!" Katara screamed as it launched toward us.

"On it," Aang said, smacking it back with a wave of air.

The good news was that we weren't on fire. The bad news was that apparently, fire balls stink. Bad. But better stinky than dead, as I always say. Or will start saying if I survived this.

"We have to get out of Zuko's range before he shoots another hot stinker at us," Katara said.

I agreed, filing 'hot stinker' under good nicknames for the prince.

"Can't you make Appa go any faster?" Sokka asked.

"Yeah, but there's one problem," Aang said. "That."

A blockade. A line of fire nation ships that made Zuko's look like a tugboat. How we were going to get by that was beyond me.

"If we fly north, we can go around the Fire Nation ships and avoid the blockade! It's the only way," Aang said.

Annabeth shook her head. "That'll take too long."

"This is exactly why I didn't want you to come," Aang said. "It's too dangerous."

"And that's exactly why we're here." Katara replied.

"And it's a little bit late to do anything about it anyway," I pointed out. "Let's run this blockade!"

Aang took a deep breath. "Appa, yip-yip!"

We all screamed our heads off heroically as we ran the blockade, fireballs everywhere. Pretty soon we would be dead and smelly. But Aang and Appa worked as a team, dodging or blowing away the fireballs and we all managed not to die in the first ten seconds. Appa ended up on fire a few times but we got it out before he got anything worst than singed fur.

It looked like we might actually survive this.