Chapter 97: Identity Theft is Not a Joke (1)
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"Mmh, does this tickle?" Katara's sweet voice mewled as she wrapped her arms around Nik's soft waist and spooned against his surprisingly elastic buttocks.
"Just like that," Suki replied drowsily as she felt Nik tenderly hold her from behind. It was strange that his usually hard pecs felt soft but as long as she's held so comfortably, it hardly mattered.
The two suddenly fell silent.
'Did I hear Katara/Suki?'
The two suddenly opened their eyes quickly and Katara gasped, hurriedly pulling back while Suki quickly sat up. The nearest sheet already pulled over her body as she stared hard at Katara who regained her bearings and sat up. Her clothes were lying next to Suki's outfit just a bit away as Katara pursed her lips and bore the awkwardness of only her body being naked at the time.
"What are you doing here?" Suki instantly inquired with a quizzical expression since she couldn't find Nik only for Katara to raise her eyebrows in surprise.
"You really don't remember?"
Suki frowned hearing this. She thought hard but just the slight recollection made her blush even if her memory of the night was a bit blurred and she looked at Katara awkwardly.
"I... don't know what to say," was her only response.
"Oh," Katara, however, had something to say, "We're clean?"
"Nik just waterbends and then puts a clean sheet..." Suki explained, not surprised but then gasped, "Wait! You... did?"
Katara dodged Suki's stare with a soft blush, "Hey... you're the one who kept calling yourself my senior and claimed to teach me."
"I was drunk!"
"Weren't we all?" Katara lowered her head with a pang of obvious guilt.
The interior of the igloo grew silent once again until Katara felt Suki scooch forward and then wrap Katara in the same sheet, "You really shouldn't stay naked for too long. Even if a waterbender, you might just catch a cold."
Katara still had her head lowered as Suki's expression turned a bit sad. Sighing softly, she hugged Katara by one shoulder but the moment she felt their breasts touching, she backed off and whispered, "It wasn't your fault... obviously, you could have left but still..." Suki chuckled while saying this as Katara rolled her eyes secretly. Leave? Suki is the one who pulled her, gave her a second-hand kiss, and then set her on top of Nik!
Still, Katara was more than sensitive enough to not blame Suki for anything.
"It's his fault!" Katara hissed and Suki nodded with a proud expression as if an older generation watching the younger one make the right choice.
"When in doubt— it's always his fault indeed." Suki defined the rule itself. Katara looked up with a smile only to find Suki grinning in return and she quickly hugged Suki, this time, not minding the touch of their skin since Katara has grown up under the care of women only.
"H-hey!" Suki blushed while Katara smiled, "Thank you, Suki!"
"Fine, fine!" Suki emphasized, "Now get off me!"
The two soon got ready with things obviously less awkward but that didn't mean there was no tension between them. In fact, both of them would discreetly glance at one another only to find the other one, too, looking at them and then quickly look away.
Once prepared, Suki and Katara walked out of their igloo. This time, Suki didn't wear her face paint since Nik held it in his 'storage'. The duo didn't know what the dynamic of the group would end up with but now they could confirm that even within the large 'Avatar' team, the trio was... a group of their own.
Their worries came to no conclusion as they found that their encampment was only sparsely filled at this moment. Aside from a few waterbenders keeping guard, only Mai and Tom-Tom were the two people that the duo was familiar with since not even Hama was around.
Confused, Katara and Suki approached one of the guards. After all, their relationship with the waterbenders was better than their acquaintance status with Mai and Tom-Tom. Not to mention they did indirectly push their father into a mentally strained state.
"Oh, you two are up..." the guard was none other than Boron who led a team to one of the islands in the way for restocking supplies. He glanced at the two before suddenly smirking knowingly, "Can't find Nik, huh? Did the three of you sleep well? He looked... refreshed. So do the two of you."
The two women instantly scowled, not fond of such talk with Boron which was strange since the two were particularly tolerant when it came to Nik.
"Just tell us where is he... and Sokka, too, for that matter." Katara frowned.
"And Aang," Suki nodded.
"Oh, Hama, too." Katara continued the distended list with an earnest tone.
"What about Rena?" Suki looked at Katara.
"Rena, too," Katara looked at Boron as he scoffed, "The two of you done with this? The herd of Komodo Rhinos is missing. The tracks led us to a dead-end so a small party is stationed here to guard the encampment while others went to scout the surroundings. It's almost an hour already, so they should be returning soon enough."
"Missing?" Suki frowned and looked in the direction where the Komodo Rhinos once rested but instead of going over to that spot, she turned and walked towards where Mai and Tom-Tom were practicing despite the boy huffing constantly as he was out of breath for a long time now.
Katara followed curiously. With almost everyone in their known out of the encampment, Katara found that this might just be a chance to know Mai a bit better.
However.
"I'm hungry," Katara looked down at her stomach. Aside from hunger, she felt sore, too. While she thought that constantly riding Nik would help assert her dominance even when she thoroughly enjoyed being tamed by him, the aftermath hit her crotch more than she could have expected. Although not showing it on her face since training every day would bring her even greater exhaustion, Katara found just how much she needed to recover.
'Should I ask Suki how she managed it?' Katara thought internally but then decided against it. It was already awkward that she slept with Nik, Katara wasn't going to take any chance of accidentally frustrating Suki by talking about the aftermath.
"Well, we'll eat something once Nik returns. He's hungry almost all the time," Suki shrugged.
"We?" Katara blinked as Suki stopped and looked back with an equally curious expression, "Why? You don't want to?"
"I want to!" Katara stated instantly before coughing and employing a more dignified expression, "Ehm, I mean, I can wait, I suppose."
Suki stared at Katara for a full minute before scoffing, "You don't have to act."
"Great," Katara groaned with a relieved smile as her shoulders slumped slightly, "Because I'm really hungry."
Suki shook her head with a smirk and the two soon reached Mai and Tom-Tom.
"You have to stay up and dodge."
Mai commented as she threw a ball of snow that landed on the boy's face accurately. He slumped back instantly and whined, "Mai, I'm tired!"
"Then you shouldn't have left," Mai picked up another ball of ice before holding an uncharacteristic and short smirk, "What are you going to do? Call mom on me?"
"I won't do it again! Sorry!" Tom-Tom bagged, "Please, no more!"
"It's only snow."
He heard Mai's voice as another ball of snow crumbled over his face.
"Did you make all these snowballs?" Suki inquired as the duo finally found themselves facing a large cluster of snowballs placed neatly behind Mai.
Mai stopped momentarily, much to Tom-Tom's relief as he sprawled on the snow. Turning to look at the duo, Mai frowned for a moment, a hint of displeasure flashing through her eyes but she soon replied, "Aang waterbent it."
"Even when I told him not to!" Tom-Tom gasped.
"Can we watch you two train?" Katara inquired seeing that Suki was looking around curiously while Mai was simply unfazed by staring at the duo without averting her gaze even once. It was kind of eerie.
Tom-Tom flinched but his eyes suddenly gained a trace of mischief and he quickly sat up, "Mai, you said I needed to experience other forms of combat."
"Because you just made an enemy out of the Phoenix King. What did you expect? A pat on the back?" Mai replied calmly while the boy pursed his lips. He just wanted to ride Appa and skip the academy for a few days, that's all. Who knew that he'd get pulled into such a whirlpool of mess. In fact, Tom-Tom was feeling a bit relieved that Mai was here. His sister was emotional support for him after all... right after his mom.
Hearing her words, Tom-Tom's eyes glimmered and he explained with an innocent expression, "Then... shouldn't you first hold a combat exercise with them? Aang can waterbend so I train with him a lot but I don't know how the Kyoshi Warriors fight."
Mai glared at Tom-Tom, instantly seeing through her younger sibling's poorly directed diversion and dashed his hopes in an instant.
"Experience comes best firsthand. Do you want the experience of sparring with a Kyoshi Warrior? Then spar."
"Do you need to be so strict with a kid?" Katara finally couldn't help but question while wondering if Sokka would have been this harsh if not for the short age gap.
"It amuses me," Mai narrowed her eyes as Tom-Tom lowered his head with a frustrated expression. Katara could... actually relate to this. Of course, the way Katara and Sokka did things to each other for their amusement varied from time to time. Glancing at Tom-Tom, Katara smiled, "You trained with Aang, right?"
Tom looked up and nodded as Katara walked forward while removing her gloves and lowering her warm hood. "Each waterbender, or any bender for that matter, is different. So just sparring with Aang isn't enough. Why don't we learn from one another until others return, hmm?"
The choice was an easy one as Katara gave Tom-Tom a minute or two to regain his bearings and then come at her.
"Tch," Mai clicked her tongue as she stood beside Suki and viewed how Tom-Tom maneuvered himself around Katara. The knives at this moment had tiny balls of ice on the two ends of the custom-made knives to not accidentally hurt someone severely and to not affect the balance of the throw, too.
Still, Mai seemed quite frustrated.
"He isn't even doing that bad," Suki spoke up and Mai was quick to reply, "This is the northern glacier. That waterbender can easily cover Tom's legs in ice and call it a day. I don't know how the Fire Nation ever won against the water tribe."
"You mean to say how Nik caught you yesterday and could have just covered your entire body?" Suki chuckled. She knew how the waterbenders lost to the firebenders. It was quite literally an insider job. But Suki now began to understand why Mai was feeling irritated.
Her words made Mai sigh softly, "I don't particularly care."
"Then why attack him?" Suki inquired despite knowing the answer.
"You don't know? Figures," Mai scoffed.
"What do you mean?"
"Only a coward does what he did," Mai replied.
"You mean save prisoners? Save my life with a giant beast chasing us? Or do you mean something that could have happened in Omashu?" Suki finally snorted. She may have felt amused at Mai's impassive nature and how she wanted to have some form of payback but that didn't mean comments like this wouldn't serve to make the Kyoshi Warrior grow fierce, too.
Mai frowned, too, and then she suddenly looked towards the duo sparring, "You know, don't you?"
"He told us once we confronted him about it," Suki admitted and added, "And he's no coward."
"Us?" Mai grew a bit uncomfortable, "Who else... knows about this?"
"Katara," Suki shrugged.
"The wife, huh," Mai muttered, "You three must seriously be more bored than me to come up with fake backgrounds. Or seriously have a thing for each other."
Her words caused Suki to feel a bit stifled as a light blush touched the tips of her ears when Mai added, "Sounds interesting. Include me the next time. Think of something interesting."
Suki glanced at Mai oddly.
'This girl... is she angry? Or does she not care enough?' Even Suki had trouble understanding what was going on in Mai's head. Then again, this wasn't her specialty.
"The three of you disappeared last night early," Mai spoke and looked at Suki, "Upto something exciting?"
"E-exciting? No! We didn't—" Suki stuttered and Mai suddenly stepped a bit farther away with a cold, albeit disgusting glance shot in Suki's directions, "Pervert." The knife-wielding woman mustered, leaving Suki an embarrassed mess.
"Oh, they're back!" Katara stopped as she looked towards the entrance of the encampment to find a small party returning alongside Appa. Aang was quick to be identified due to his orange scarf around his shoulders and the bright monk habit, not to mention his bald, arrow-tattooed head but as many grew closer to the hunting party, Katara soon frowned, "Where's Sokka?"
The scouting party including Hama grew silent.
"I don't see Nik either," Suki soon frowned and questioned.
"Aang, where are they? Master?" Katara questioned again with a hint of panic in her voice. She was hungry and now she was getting angry too as she got no response to her question again.
"Where are they?!" Katara shouted, snow and ice shuddering under her feet as Aang didn't dare match Katara's gaze, "They... disappeared. I'm sorry. I was there with them and suddenly this insect leg stabbed Nik. There was also a Komodo Rhino. I was there... I attacked while Sokka reached out and they both... disappeared."
"Is... this a joke?" Katara frowned with an annoyed tone, "Because if this is it. I'm going to kill Sokka!"
"Katara," Yoki stepped forward, gently patting her shoulder, "Aang isn't lyi—"
"Don't touch me!" Katara shoved Yoki aside and towered over Aang, "Tell me the truth, Aang! Where is he?"
Just as Katara was about to grab Aang's collars in agitation, a firm grip held her wrist as she winced. Looking sideways with a glare, Katara saw an equally angered Suki glaring back fiercely, "Let's hear them out."
She stated in a tone that left Katara no room for refusal as the waterbender pursed her lips with a worried gaze.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Aang—"
"We don't have time for this!" Yoki interrupted again, "That's what I'm trying to say. Aang, explain things. Master Pakku..."
"I will stay with Aang. I might have a way to find something," Pakku replied with a serious expression.
"You better find them," Hama huffed loudly, "Everyone will follow my directions. You, too, pretty boy. This time we aren't facing firebenders! This is serious!" She glared at Yoki who instantly submitted to the top dog. It was Pakku until last night.
The strange reactions and the sheer gloom on the faces of the benders that went out surprised many who stayed yet things couldn't be more confusing until Aang began explaining everything that happened after they left the encampment to search for the mission Komodo Rhinos.
"When we left, Nik wanted to search on foot and also wanted to ask me a few things about airbending—" Aang began vividly.
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Hidden Title: Millions of families suffer every year.
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