(They stop in front of a door. As one of the guards moves to open the door with a key, Aang draws a great breath and blows the guard with the key into the door, knocking him out. The breath also propels him backwards and into the guard behind him. They are blown all the way back down the hallway. They crash into the stairs they came down on. The guard is knocked out since Aang used him to cushion his own impact. Aang then airbends himself back up onto the deck and airbends the door at the end of the deck open. He enters the ship and runs down the hall. Cut to an overhead shot from the bridge looking down onto the foredeck. One of the guards Aang just escaped from emerges and shouts up to a guard on the bridge deck in the foreground. The bridge guards turns and runs o.c.)

Guard 2: The Avatar has escaped!

(Cut to an overhead shot of Appa swimming through the water, with Sarah at the reigns and Sokka on his back in the saddle.)

Sokka (drearily): Go. Fly. Soar.
Sarah: Please, Appa, we need your help. Aang needs your help.
Sokka: Up. Ascend. Elevate.
Sarah: Sokka doesn't believe you can fly, but I do, Appa. (Coaxingly) Come on. Don't you wanna save Aang?

(Appa rumbles in response, but doesn't speed up or fly.)

Sokka: What was it that kid said? Yee-ha? Hup hup? Wahoo? Uh... yip yip?

(This last gets a response. Appa rumbles again and begins to flop his massive beaver tail. He begins to hop along the surface of the water as he picks up speed. Finally, with a mighty heave, he takes off into the sky.)

Sarah (ecstatic): You did it, Sokka!
Sokka: He's flying! He's flying! Sarah, he's-! (Sarah gives him a smug look. Then, nonchalantly) I mean, big deal, he's flying.

(Cut to a stationary shot as Appa flies by at high and into the horizon, then cut to Aang running down one of the ship's hallway, looking behind him for pursuers. His hands are still bound behind him. He turns and starts to run forward - right into three Fire Nation soldiers blocking his way, weapons drawn.)

Aang (panting): You haven't seen my staff around, have you?

(Aang runs forward and up and around the guards by running along the walls and ceiling in corkscrew circles. He gets by them with ease and look at his retreating form with surprise.)

Aang: Thanks anyway!

(He runs into another hallway, this time blocked by a single guard. He blasts a fireball at him, but he avoids it by launching himself over the guards head. The frame rate slows as Aang passes, showing how Aang is able to cut his wrist bonds by catching them on the horn of the guard's helmet. The bonds break and the guard is thrown off balance and onto the ground. Aang, his hands now free, runs o.c. Several shots of Aang opening random doors goes by. The last door he opens reveals a snoring Iroh.)

Aang (whispering): Sorry...

(Sight gag: His lips linger behind the rest of his head to say it while he closes the door. He then runs by another open door, stops and turns back to it.)

Aang: My staff!

(He enters and the door shuts behind him. Cut to an interior shot of the room where it is clear that Zuko was hiding in wait for the Avatar.)

Zuko: Looks like I underestimated you.

(After a brief pause, Zuko begins blasting fire at Aang, who barely dodges. He is terrified and he gasps and pants to catch his breath. After dodging a few more shots, Aang rolls underneath Zuko to get behind him. By staying behind him, Zuko is unable to blast him with fire. Cut to an exterior shot of the upper decks of the ship. The long window of the room where Aang and Zuko are fighting lights up every other second each time Zuko releases a blast. Cut back to the fight, where Aang now faces Zuko. He dissipates each fireball with a small air ball he forms with his hands. Aang creates an air scooter and rides around the walls and ceiling of the room, all the time getting licked by the gouts of flame Zuko unleashes at him. Aang terminates the airball and grabs a tapestry off the wall. He wraps Zuko up in it as he passes. While Zuko struggles against the tapestry, Aang is able to grab his staff. Zuko breaks his bonds and they once again square off against each other. After a few seconds of maneuvering, Aang airbends a mattress up off the floor and slams it into Zuko. The mattress propels Zuko into the opposite wall. He is smashed into it and he falls to the ground, onto the mattress. Aang then airbends the mattress up to the Zuko, smashing Zuko into that. Both fall back down to the ground. Zuko looks up in anger to find Aang gone.

Cut to the bridge, where a the wheel mechanism that opens a deck hatch on the floor begins to spin. The hatch opens and Aang airbends himself on to the bridge from below. Aang rushes forward out on to the bridge's observation deck. He opens his glider, throws it into the air and jumps after it. He catches it, a happy expression on his face. Unfortunately, behind him, Zuko has jumped after him in pursuit. With a fierce cry of desperation, he grabs Aang's foot. Both get up and square off yet again. Aang's look of trepidation is tempered as he turns over his left shoulder to see Appa up in the sky gaining on Zuko's ship.)

Zuko: What is that?

(Cut briefly to a shot from behind Sarah and Sokka as they close in on the ship.)

Aang: Appa!

(Aang turns just in time to use his staff to block a fire blast from Zuko. He uses his staff as a helicopter to escape the blasts and comes back down on the edge of the deck, almost falling overboard. He regains his balance and blow three more fireballs before his staff is knocked away from him. He dodges a few more blasts before he is finally knocked overboard. Aang falls into the water below.)

Sarah(hysterical): Aang! No!

(Cut to an underwater shot as Aang sinks.)

Sarah (voice-over as Aang sinks): Aang! Aang! AANG!

(At sarah's final scream, Aang's eyes and tattoo's glow white, an expression of determination forming on his face. He turns around in the water and begins to rise towards the surface. Around him, a mighty whirlpool of water begins to form. Cut to a wider underwater shot. Aang, at the center of a now monstrous, inverted tornado of water is propelled toward the surface at amazing speed. He breaks the surface in front of the ship, towering high over the bridge atop his swirling maelstrom of water. Cut to Zuko, who looks up at the swirling column of water and the Avatar at its pinnacle with dismay and fear. Aang lands on the deck, his eyes still aglow, and bends the water from the column around him in circle. He releases it and it expands outward in a shockwave that blasts Zuko and his men overboard. Cut to Sokka and sarah witnessing the scene from Appa's back above.)

Sarah (incredulously): Did you see what he just did?
Sokka: Now that was some waterbending!

(Cut to Aang on the foredeck. He is on his knees, wobbling after the huge energy expenditure. He falls forward, the white energy fading from his eyes and tattoos. Appa lands and sarah and Sokka jump off to retrieve him.)

Sarah (worried): Aang! Are you okay?

(Cut to sarah kneeling and holding Aang, Sokka beside her.)

Aang (drained): Hey Sarah. Hey Sokka. Thanks for coming.
Sokka: Well, I couldn't let you have all the glory.
Aang: I dropped my staff.
Sokka: Got it!

(Sokka runs over to pick up the staff. As he picks it up, Sokka is shocked to see that Zuko holds the other end of it. Zuko was washed overboard, but held onto the part of Aang's staff that was hanging out over the deck. Sokka butts Zuko in the head with the staff three times to the same "doink doink doink" sound effects that were heard when Zuko did the same to Sokka earlier. Zuko lets go and begins to fall to the water below, but grabs the anchor chain in time. He hangs by one hand.)

Sokka: Ha! That's from the Water Tribe!

(Cut to a wide shot of Appa, Aang and Sarah. Appa gets up, shaking off some water. Cut to some of the guards who had been washed way down the deck by Aang's waterbending. They get up, preparing for combat. Sarah picks up a stream of water from the deck and the guards pull back slightly in fear. She tries to whip the guards with the water, but instead freezes the water on the deck, including the water around Sokka's feet in the background.)

Sokka: sarah!

(Sokka starts to chip away at the ice holding his feet with his boomerang while the soldiers move forward once again. Sarah picks up another stream of water and throws it at the soldiers without looking. The camera then expands to show that they are now frozen in a thin sheet of ice. She turns and climbs back up on Appa.)

Sarah: Hurry up, Sokka!
Sokka (to himself): I'm just a guy with a boomerang; I didn't ask for all this flying and magic.

(He finally frees himself and runs up Appa's tail.)

Sokka: Yip yip! Yip yip!

(Once he is onboard, Appa rumbles and takes off. Cut to Iroh who has just emerged onto the deck after his nap, looking up to the sky.)

Iroh (rubbing his eyes): Huh?

(Cut to Appa rapidly flying away from the ship, then to Iroh helping Zuko back up onto the ship.)

Zuko: Shoot them down!

(As Appa gains altitude, Zuko and Iroh in unison launch a massive bolt of fire at Appa. Sarah and Sokka look behind them in horror at the approaching fireball. Aang jumps to the back of the saddle and, using his staff like a baseball bat, airbends a gale that sends the fireball at a right angle away from Appa and into the ice cliff nearby. The fireball explodes, releasing a huge amount of ice from the cliff wall which falls into the narrow channel that Zuko's ship is navigating. Zuko gasps in horror as the bow of the ship and indeed the entire channel is blocked up under an avalanche of ice. Cut to Aang, Sarah and Sokka laughing as they fly away. Cut back to Iroh and Zuko on the foredeck of the heavily damaged ship.)

Iroh: Good news for the Fire Lord. The nation's greatest threat is just a little kid.
Zuko: That kid, Uncle, just did this. (Shot widens to show the prow buried in ice) I won't underestimate him again. Dig this ship out and follow them! (In the background, some soldiers are using controlled firebending to thaw out their compatriots frozen by Sarah) As soon as you're done with that.

(Cut to a close up of Zuko's eyes that fades to a long shot, sunset scene of Appa flying through the clouds. Then cut to a closer, profile shot of Appa and the kids flying through the clouds.)

Sarah: How did you do that? With the water? It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
Aang (sitting cross legged on the bridge of the saddle, a slightly sad expression on his face): I don't know. I just sort of... did it.
Sarah: Why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar?
Aang: Because... I never wanted to be.

(Overhead, a cloud passes over them, momentarily blocking the fading sunlight. After it passes, they enter a shaft of sunlight.)

Sarah: But Aang, the world's been waiting for the Avatar to return and finally put an end to this war.
Aang (looking down sadly): And how am I going to do that?
Sarah: According to legend, you need to first master water, then earth, then fire, right?
Aang: That's what the monks told me.
Sarah: Well, if we go to the North Pole you can master waterbending.
Aang (now smiling): We can learn it together!
Sarah: And Sokka, I'm sure you'll get to knock some firebender heads on the way.
Sokka (somewhat dreamily): I'd like that. I'd really like that.
Sarah: Then we're in this together.
Aang (producing a scroll): All right, but before I learn waterbending, we have some serious business to attend to (he airbends himself over to them and opens the scroll to reveal a map) here, here, and here.

(He points to two spots in the Earth Kingdom, and one spot on the southern Air Nomad islands in quick succession.)

Sarah: What's there?
Aang: Here (pointing to the eastern Earth Kingdom) we'll ride the hopping llamas. Then waaaay over here (pointing to a spot on the southern Air Nomad islands) we'll surf on the backs of giant koi fish. Then back over here we'll ride the hog-monkeys. They don't like people riding them, but that's what makes it fun!

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