It’s The Quenchiest
This is an Avatar: The Last Airbender fic. It takes place in Ba Sing Se during the Fire Nation occupation, so it’s kind of a "Book 2.5," or it would be if it were canon.
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Chapter 1: Run
"Run, Deiro!"
The young black-haired boy glanced behind him. His friend Bushi ran slower than he, so the Fire Nation soldiers were gaining on him quicker. His sword clapped his back as he ran.
"You just had to attack them, didn’t you?" called Bushi.
"They were about to beat a defenseless girl for no reason whatsoever!" protested Deiro. "You would’ve done the same!"
Bushi shook his head. "Whatever," he sighed. "Let’s just get out of here."
Deiro nodded. Using Earthbending, he rocketed himself up and onto the roof of a building, tearing two of its shingles off and using them as skates, which increased his speed.
"Hey, genius!" yelled Bushi. "Have you forgotten that I can’t do those kinds of tricks?"
Deiro grinned sheepishly. "Right," he said, and pulled some more shingles from a roof, which Bushi used as stepping stones to get to Deiro. Deiro created another pair of shingle skates for Bushi. The Fire Nation soldiers continued to follow them, blasting fire at them at any opportunity.
Finally, Deiro and Bushi reached Deiro’s house in the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se. They jumped off the shingle skates, which Deiro flung at the soldiers using Earthbending. The shingles hit the soldiers, knocking them unconscious.
Deiro and Bushi snuck into the house, silently closing the door behind them. "We’re in luck," said Deiro. "It doesn’t look like anyone’s home."
"Oh, really?" came a voice. They turned to see Takara, Deiro’s girlfriend, leaning on one of the house’s walls.
"H-hey, Taki," said Deiro nervously. "Um, we were just—"
"A word to the wise, Deiro," Takara said, "next time you knock out some Fire Nation soldiers, make sure you move them afterwards."
She pointed to a window. Deiro looked outside at the Fire Nation soldiers’ motionless bodies on the ground. He chuckled in the way one chuckles when one is embarrassed. He quickly used Earthbending to move their bodies into an alleyway.
Later, Deiro’s friend Kuri came to Deiro’s house for a visit. She was slurping a green drink from a bottle of some sort. "Hi, Deiro!" she said cheerfully.
"Hi, Kuri," he responded. Noticing her drink, he asked her, "What’s that you’re guzzling?"
"This?" she said, "It’s Cactus Juice, a new drink that they asked me to test. It’s really good. Their slogans are also cute. ‘It’ll quench ya!’ ‘It’s the Quenchiest!’"
"The ‘Quenchiest?’ That isn’t even a word!" said Takara.
"Who made it, anyway?" asked Bushi.
"’Trruap Beverages’ is what the bottle says," Kuri explained. "It’s a Fire Nation company."
"Fire Nation?!" exclaimed Bushi. He swatted the bottle out of Kuri’s hands, spilling the Cactus Juice on the floor.
"Hey!" cried Kuri. "What was that for?"
"S-sorry," said Bushi. "It’s just- you know what the Fire Nation did to my mother: they took her from my home two weeks ago, and I haven’t seen her since. You understand why I wouldn’t want you supporting the Fire Nation by testing products whose sales would help fund their war efforts."
Kuri sighed. "I guess," she said. "I forgive you. I’ll just have to go back down to the factory tonight to get a new bottle."
Bushi’s eyes flashed at this. "Well," he said, "it’s getting a bit late. I’d better head home or my dad will start to worry about me." Deiro nodded.
"’Bye, Bushi," he said as Bushi got up and left.
"I’d better leave, too," said Kuri. "I just remembered that my mom asked me to pick up some tomato-carrots from the Agrarian zone."
"What about you, Taki?" asked Deiro after Kuri had left. "Can you stay for dinner?"
Takara nodded. "I don’t have any plans for tonight. I’ll just send a messenger pigeon to my parents telling them I’ll be here for dinner." She got up to do just that. Deiro picked up the bottle that had held Kuri’s Cactus Juice and stared at it for a long while.
****
Later that night, Deiro was watching Takara and his sister Usagi practice their martial arts in the room Deiro shared with Usagi. Usagi favored hopping and jumping strikes, which was why she was nicknamed Hopper. Takara preferred close-combat maneuvers. A knock came upon the door. It was Barent, Deiro’s mother.
"Takara, you’ll need to start heading home in twenty minutes," said Barent. "You don’t want to break curfew." Takara nodded.
"Man, curfew sucks," said Usagi. "I wish the Avatar would come and save us from the Fire Nation."
"Sorry, Hopper, but that’s not gonna happen," said Deiro sadly. "I heard the Avatar was killed."
"Deiro!" snapped Takara.
"What?" said Deiro. "She’s fourteen, just two years younger than us. She has a right to know these things."
Just then, Bushi climbed into the room through the window.
"Bushi?" said Usagi. "What are you doing here?"
"I followed Kuri to the Cactus Juice plant," explained Bushi. "I broke into the office of the drink’s developer, and I found this." He held up a small booklet. "There were three copies, so I took one. It’s a journal by Cactus Juice’s creator, Shiiro Kashida. Listen to this." Bushi cleared his throat.
"’Having experienced the hallucinogenic properties of the cactus juice firsthand, I experimented with it. Imagine my surprise when I found that a mixture of the juice and several other chemicals created a tasty, habit-forming substance that could rot away one’s desire to make their own choices, effectively making it a mind-control device.’" Bushi looked up.
"Don’t you see? Cactus Juice is a front for a Fire Nation mind-control device. We have to shut that plant down, before the drink is released among the general populace. I don’t know when that’ll be, so tonight may be our only chance. We need to get going now!"
"But," said Usagi, "curfew-"
"I think that destroying a factory that makes mind-control juice supersedes obeying curfew on the priority list," said Bushi. "Do you want to become a fire zombie?"
"No, please," squeaked Usagi.
"Bushi’s right," said Deiro. "We have to stop Cactus Juice, and we’ve got to do it tonight."
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Next Time: Assault on the Cactus Juice plant! Plus, enter a young Firebender named Natsu!