Unexpected Aftermath

[Since When Was I The Hero?-!]

An Avatar: the Last Airbender plotbunny

By

EvilFuzzy9

It was almost funny, how the tiniest, most insignificant events could so drastically alter the course of history. A kingdom could fall for want of a single horseshoe nail. A butterfly flapping its wings could result in a hurricane on the other side of the world. A twelve year old boy running away from home could turn the destiny of the world upside down.

Fortune was fickle mistress, and Fate a hell of gambler. Whether the outcome of random chance, or a preordained sequence of events, you never knew how things would turn out until it was all over.

Even the smallest differences can change everything. And for Sokka, that difference - his butterfly, his horseshoe nail, whatever you wanted to call it - was a single rotten egg.

Our story starts with a young man of about twenty-three years of age. He was Fire Nation, born and bred, as loyal to his government as any mainlander. He was a rather plain fellow, if easy enough on the eyes, according to his girlfriend. He was the third son of a reasonably well-to-do family, merchants of middling status with a couple of business partners in the Colonies. Nothing major, but enough that his parents were able to send him and his siblings to a decently accredited boarding school with a good - if unremarkable - history.

This young man's name was Lee. A very generic name, perhaps, but fitting for an admittedly generic guy. He had graduated school with overall passable grades - although his marks in the practical sciences had been good enough to catch the eye of the Fire Nation Army Engineer Corps - and he was dating a pretty enough young woman of similarly modest standing and talent. They had been going steady for a bit over a year and half by now, and she had moved in with him a few months ago, to the tepid disapproval of both parties' parents.

By all accounts, Lee was a more or less completely average guy, another face in the crowd. In the grand scheme of things he was not at all important. Nor was he the sharpest arrow in the quiver, honestly. Not by a long shot. Oh, he was a good enough engineer, but Lee was rather lacking in common sense. He was also bit of a slob, and an incurable gossip.

Now, Lee loved having eggs for breakfast. This was important.

Aside from the impending arrival of Sozin's Comet, it was a day like any other for Lee. He was chatting with his girlfriend, who was drowsily nursing her morning cup of tea. Lee was excitedly rambling about his recent assignment to one of airships in the First Imperial Sky Fleet as he set breakfast on the table.

He had made fried eggs, as usual. Enough for the both of them.

However, unbeknownst to Lee, one of the eggs he'd used had been rotten, and he had cooked the two helpings separately, one after the other. Neither he or his girlfriend were aware of this, however. Both of them ate their breakfast, oblivious to this fact. One of them came down with food poisoning.

Now, in one iteration of history, the one most of you are probably familiar with, Lee set the plate with the bad eggs at his spot, and the plate with the normal eggs at his girlfriend's. He would then have gotten food poisoning and been forced to stay home from work, requiring his supervisors to find a last minute replacement.

This was important, because of what airship Lee was assigned to work on. It was, in fact, the very same airship that would be boarded by a certain trio of saboteurs, and he was assigned to the very section where the three intruders would enact the very first step of their plan. In the canonical history, as you might call it, Lee of course got food poisoning, and his replacement - a heavyset, silent fellow - would respond to a broken valve only to be ambushed and knocked out.

But since Lee didn't eat the bad eggs, and didn't get sick, he was the first one who got ambushed by the saboteurs. The outcome was the same, of course. Lee had no combat ability to speak of, whereas his assailants were three of the most dangerous people in the world: The young commander of the Kyoshi warriors, Suki daughter of Ai and Koi, a veritable prodigy in the traditional fighting styles of her order, both armed and unarmed; Toph Bei Fong, a prodigy earthbender, daughter of Grand Duke Lao of Gaoling, and the inventor of metalbending; Sokka son of Hakoda, of the Southern Water Tribe: swordsman, strategist, and initiate of the Order of the White Lotus.

It was foregone conclusion, really. Lee wasn't a firebender, or any sort of fighter, and he was caught off guard besides.

The outcome was the same. Sokka, Suki, and Toph ambushed the engineer, knocking him out and taking a map of the airship, before storming the bridge and beginning one of the most overwhelming examples of guts and strategic cunning triumphing over vastly superior firepower. The three of them working together were able to decimate the Phoenix King's air force, saving Earth Kingdom from perishing in flames. Just as in canon, the outcome was the same.

But the aftermath wasn't.

In a small tavern in the "former" Fire Nation colony of Yu Dao, a bedraggled, possibly concussed mainlander was chattering excitedly as he regaled a small crowd of drunks who had nothing better to do with his account of the Battle of Wulong Forest. He was not much of a story teller, prone to rambling and straying off track, and the stories of that battle had been traded back and forth for weeks, now, ever since the news of the Phoenix King's defeat, but his account provided an unusual perspective, and insight, into the battle.

Lee had been there, after all.

He had just gotten to the part where he had been ambushed by the three saboteurs lying in wait, having gone to great length in describing every detail of his assailants' features, when he was stopped by a scrawny old graybeard with a vaguely disgruntled air.

"I know that boy!" he shouted angrily, jumping up in his seat when Lee finished describing the dark-skinned young swordsman. "That's the Water Tribe boy who traveled with the Avatar!"

There were a few snorts from the other assembled personages, and one of the drunks skeptically asked the old merchant, "And how would you know?"

A dark look came into the man's eyes, and he simply snarled, "I'll never forget his face, or his friends' faces." Continuing, his voice barely above a hiss, "He's a menace to cabbages everywhere. The whole lot of them are!"

Normally such a proclamation would have earned uproarious laughter from the crowd, but at the dangerous expression on the man's face the mirth died away in their throats.

There was a heavy, pregnant silence for a moment, before one of the patrons finally ventured a nervous, "Well, anyone could say that one of the Avatar's buddies was there. 'S'just common sense, innit?" he said, and the others nodded in somewhat hesitant agreement. "Yeah! Anyone could say that," the man continued, more confidently. "But d'ya have any proof?"

The mainlander grinned. "What do you know about the Water Tribe boy?" he replied with a question of his own. He had a look on his face like he had been counting on this.

The crowd was quiet for a moment as they collectively mulled over this question. After a couple of minutes, one of the more recent arrivals, who hadn't had much to drink yet, spoke up.

"Isn't his sister the Waterbender? The Avatar's lover?"

One of the more haggard drunks nodded. "Yeah! And he were wunna them non-bendin' warrior types, 'ccordin' ter me cousin in the navy. Wit' a, what do they call it, a, a 'boomy-ranger', or summat o' the sort, weren't he?"

"You mean, the Boomerang Guy?" asked one of the slower patrons, to a chorus of nods and murmuring from the crowd.

"I thought he was Meat and Sarcasm Guy?" whispered another, but he was hushed by his drinking buddies

"Aye," said a grizzled-looking campaigner in one corner of the crowd, gaining the attention of the listeners. In that single syllable, he had spoken with such authority that they were compelled to take notice, his face and arms marked with countless old battle scars, and a sizable chunk missing from his nose.

"I've fought with tha sort before," he continued in a salty accent, "them scurvy, savage Swertings. Ach, they're a fierce lot tae reckon with, I'll tell ye tha'. Near lost me right arm to one o' their warrior types back durin' Azulon's raids. Let me say, ye dinnae want ter unneressimate a Swerting wit' a boomerang! nay unless ye've a death wish. And I pertickerly wouldna want tae face agin' summan like tha' boy what's said tae travel with the Avatar."

The old sailor paused, his eyes flitting from side to side. He had the attention of the whole bar now - even Lee was paying rapt attention to the veteran's rambling - and the crowd had by this point swollen to near twice it's earlier size. After a moment of breathless silence, the man continued, his voice scarce above a whisper.

"A swordsman, they say he be," he said the word with considerable weight, allowing the implication to sink into the minds of his new audience. "Them Southern Tribe warriors be able tae fight well enough wit' nary more than clubs and spears and them whatsit boomerangs. Fermidable enuff, I'd say they be. Ach, but this lad, this Boomerang Guy, he dinnae settle jes' fer tha', ach no.

"A Swerting wit' a sword!" he exclaimed wonderingly, "An' a magic one, a' tha', if half the stories're tae be believed. Able ter cut snicker-snack right through whatever ye please, easy as tha'. An' black as night, the blade be (or so they say), wit' a gilt handle an' magic spells an' all." The old man shook his head. "Ach, tha's naught I'd e'er want ter face. That'd be tae mooch ter ask o' an old man. Tae mooch ter ask o' any man what be in his right mind."

Having said his peace, the grizzled veteran reclined in his seat and took a drag of his pipe, letting the discussion return to the matter at hand.

The mainlander, Lee, grinned again, and he eagerly reclaimed the crowd's attention.

"Yes, that's right," he said. "This Water Tribe boy, this boomerang guy, he had a black sword. Everyone who's heard the stories knows that, right?"

There was some nodding and a general tone of assent from the various gathered drunks and rascals, and Lee's grin widened.

"Well, I just so happen to have irrefutable proof that he was there!" he declared proudly, before withdrawing a long, slender object from the depths of his tattered outfit. It was a sword, a jian of peerless craftsmanship. The blade was black, with a gilded handle, and the pommel was engraved with the image of a lotus. "This is the very sword the boy was using!" he proclaimed.

It had been pure luck that, when Lee swam ashore from being dropped straight from the airship's holding bay along with most of the other crew, he happened across this sword. The weapon had been embedded up to its hilt in the scorched and blackened trunk of a burnt and cracked oak. He almost hadn't seen it, at first, but while nervously looking for a place to do his business, he had been astonished to notice the ash-covered hilt sticking out of the charred, skeletal tree's trunk.

Of course, not being one to ignore such an opportunity when it's given to him, Lee had eagerly prized the weapon from the tree. And imagine his surprise when he saw it to be the same sword born by the Water Tribe boy!

But one of the worldlier, more cynical patrons scoffed at Lee's claim, saying, "If that is the Wet's sword - and that is one hell of an if - then why in the world would you have it, and not the Wet?"

Surprisingly, Lee was not the one who answered this question. Someone else was.

"The Wolf threw it," interjected a gruff, harsh voice. "He threw it to take out one of my men. The blade sheared clear through one of the airship's wings. Cut through tempered, reinforced steel like it wasn't even there."

The speaker, a man who had been up until then sitting at the counter, quietly nursing a strong drink, shifted the hood of his cloak from his face to reveal sharp amber eyes and a stern countenance lined with the passage of years. He had a short, black beard shot through with streaks of pepper-gray. Yet even as unkempt and bedraggled as the man was, he still managed to project an air of unmistakable discipline and authority.

"Who the hell's this Wolf?" one of the drunker patrons inquired as politely as they could manage in their heavily inebriated state.

"The Wolf is the boy, if you could not infer as much from context," the man replied curtly, "and the boy is the Wolf: Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, one of the Avatar's original traveling companions, according to the reports. His armor bore the same clan markings as the armor of the Southern Water Tribe's current chief, Hakoda the White Wolf."

This name garnered some recognition. Hakoda, the leader of a band of Southern Water Tribe warriors, had been a known thorn in the Fire Nation's side during the last several years of the war. His daring, unconventional tactics and ferocity in battle had earned him a good deal of infamy, as well as the moniker of the White Wolf, and no small price on his head.

The man, seeing the crowd's reaction, pulled a water damaged scroll out of his pocket, unfurling it and showing its contents to the crowd. It was a wanted notice with the stamp of the previous Fire Lord, Ozai Azulon's son. On it, there was a sketch of the young man, giving his name as Sokka, along with a list of aliases, a general rundown of the offenses for which he was wanted, as well as a note that he was wanted 'alive, if possible.'

The man continued.

"As of my last briefing before the... incident... at Wulong Forest, I was informed that the boy was believed to be the son of the White Wolf after breaking him and two others out of the Boiling Rock-"

This earned a collective spit take from those patrons familiar with Fire Nation strongholds.

"That boomerang guy broke out of the Boiling Rock?-!" exclaimed one, who looked to be of heavily Fire Nation descent. "Ash and soot," he swore, "That's unbelievable! How could a kid do that?"

"By being crazy, I guess," reasoned another.

"That or some sort of tactical genius," agreed a third.

"Well, didn't he and those two girls take down the entire air fleet by themselves?" interjected yet another.

"There had to have been more," someone else protested disbelievingly.

"I only saw the three," said Lee with a shrug. "If there were more than that, I didn't see any."

And so the discussion progressed, and the seeds of a legend began to grow.

A/N: A plot-bunny made of pure crack that somehow managed to lodge itself in my brain, even after not having done any "serious" fanficcing in several months. It germinated from a simple idea, a silly notion, that I had conceived some time after finally watching Legend of Korra months after just about everyone else had. While I was (mostly) privately bemoaning the honestly most likely abysmal odds of Tokka ever being canon, I tried to think of a way to reconcile my Tokka obsession with the seemingly nigh-total canonicity of the, to me, comparatively bland and uninteresting Sukka.

Like most things, I reached a resolution via dual parts laziness and perversion. Much like how I have ysed my headcanon Hayate the Combat Butler OT3 of AyuHayaHina as a way to let my preferred LI and near-favorite character (Ayumu Nishizawa) have her cake and eat it too, I ultimate concluded that the best solution to the Sukka vs. Tokka debate going on in my skull was a little something I like to call Tukka, a threesome crackship of Toph x Sokka x Suki.

And then somehow that evolved into the plotbunny of a world where Sokka's contributions to the thwarting of "Phoenix King" Ozai's scorched earth blitzkrieg plan get a bit more attention and respect than they appeared to receive in canon.

Edit: 7-14-13 - Corrected a few bothersome grammatical errors, edited a sentence or two for better flow.