Koda chuckled. "You think that will stop me? This is how I see it," He snapped his fingers, allowing a small flame that resembled one from a candle to float in the air, " You back down, leave me to demolish the Air Temples, and everything will be okay. Because, you see, this flame is like life, my dear. Do you feel its warmth?" He moved himself closer to Soyala, leaving just inches between them. "Warmth symbolizes life. But sometimes.. well, life has a way of just.. ending." Koda paused for a second, sighed, and blew out the flame. "Tragic." He stepped back slightly away from Soya and waited for her next move.

"I will not back down," Soyala snapped. The water swirled around her fingers, just begging to be used. She let the water fall and moved her arms carefully, using her waterbending to take hold of the water behind Koda. She moved her arms up and down gracefully, gradually pulling more and more water up behind him, until the swell was visible over his head. "Here's what's going to happen," she said, holding the water in place. "You, and your men and everyone else who came with you, are going to leave. You're going to leave the monks here in peace, and you're not going to try to attack any of the other three temples, and I won't test your ability to breathe underwater."

Koda sighed once more. "Hmm.. yeah, right." He motioned for the men on his ship to head straight for the temple. " We'll see about that."He backed away from Soya slowly before breathing fire straight into her face. Sure, it wasnt his best move, but there were more important things to do than sit around babysitting a little girl. " Sorry, hun. Maybe next time. I'll see you around. " He sprinted to the front of the group, throwing fire balls in every direction. To him, nothing really mattered right now.

Soyala reacted instantly, swiping a hand in front of her face to use her water to counter the fire. It was still hot, but it didn't burn or blind her like it would have otherwise. It did distract her for a moment, though, and Koda was able to get a head start. Swearing colorfully (an unfortunate habit picked up from Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom sailors alike), she sprinted after him to try to stop him from doing anything to the Air Nomads or the temples.

Meanwhile, Jianyu was working on helping the monks get things in order to evacuate. Like he thought before, using Soya's name guaranteed that they would listen to him, but he still couldn't believe how slowly they were moving. It was an orderly evacuation, sure, but air was supposed to be an adaptable element. How could airbending masters be so very slow?

He whirled around and fell into an earthbending stance when he smelled smoke behind him. His eyes widened when he saw the first signs of fire in the trees around the temples. That wasn't good... Quickly, he rushed to the treeline and used his earthbending to dig a firebreak. Hopefully, that would buy them some time to get all of the Air Nomads out of the temple.

((Sorry about being MIA recently. I had a huge art project due that literally took up all my free time. But I got an A, so it was worth it. Also, what temple are they in? North or South?))

Koda ran as fast and as hard as he could, never looking back. He jet propulsed himself farther and farther away from Soya, determined to get away. His gaze wandered to the trees around the temple. They were glowing a bright orange, blazing steadily against the sky. He began throwing balls of fire every which way as if they were dodgeballs, and tents were the helpless children just waiting to be hit. The temple was literally engulfing itself. Koda chuckled to himself in midsprint while throwing out orders left and right. The air nomads could do nothing against the fire, but that damn earthbender and waterbender could hinder his plans. He's just have to take care of them.

(Southern Temple. And I completely understand how life absorbs people, trust me.)

Soyala bit her lip as she sprinted towards the temple. She forced herself to ignore the burning trees; she had to help the nomads first. Once everyone was safe, then she could worry about the fire. It would do no good to stop to put out the fire only to have the Fire Nation soldiers start it again.

Up ahead, she could see the soldier from before, running around and spouting fire everywhere. With a frustrated growl, Soyala threw herself into an earthbending move, raising a wall of rock in front of him to cut him off from the temple.

"Leave the nomads be," she snarled. "I'm still your problem right now." She didn't care that she'd essentially just outed herself as the Avatar; protecting the nomads and stoping the soldiers was more important.

With a growl, Soyala use earthbending again, forcing spikes of rock upwards, catching Koda between them and holding him tightly with his arms to his sides. She needed to hurry if she was going to help the monks put the fires out.

"I'll deal with you later," she snapped at him once she had him pinned. Then she turned, made a temporary door in the earth wall, and ran through it, closing it behind her. She had to be able to help the monks; what else was she good for, if not to bend water and earth? Quickly, she caught up to Jianyu.

"I've done everything I can, Soya," Jianyu panted as he created another firebreak.

"Keep helping the monks," Soyala replied as she opened her waterskin. Quickly, she pulled the water out of it and started to put out the worst fires. Thankfully, most of the temple seemed like it would survive, but the more temporary structures outside of the temple were already doomed. While Syala was busy putting out the fires, Jianyu went around helping pull people to safety.

Koda began writhing and squirming in between the spikes. He was stuck, and he was going to have a tough time getting out. He couldnt come up with a single bending move to release him from the cage. 'Damn, if I had only been quicker..' A lone, straggling soldier staggered out of the ship. "Release me!" Koda hissed toward the man. It took what seemed like hours for the soldier to finally hack his way through the dirt. The town had already been aflame for awhile, yet there was more smoke than flame. Koda knew that the lousy earthbender and the Avatar had been hard at work putting out his fine work. It was obvious that the town had recieved a heaping load of damage, but the initial goal still hadn't been fulfilled. 'Defeat the Air Nomads. Make Father proud.' replayed on a constant loop as Koda jet propulsed himself over the wall of rock. He wasn't going to give up that easy.

Soyala was busy helping heal some of the injuries amongst the monks when she heard someone land behind her. She wirled around to see Koda landing just in front of the rock wall.

"Great Spirits, what will it take to get you to just go away?!" she demanded, falling into a waterbending stance. There was a large clay pot full of water nearby, and she took up the water. "Haven't you done enough damage here?!"

Jianyu came up next to her in a more defensive earthbending stance, ready to protect the air nomads if he needed to. There were airbenders amongst them, certainly, but air didn't do too much good against fire.

Koda smirked slightly at Soyas outburst. He was finally getting her riled up. Well, more than before, anyway. "Hm, I'm almost done. There's still this.. this... this.... and most importantly, you, miss Avatar," Koda obnoxiously roared while shooting fireballs left and right, aiming the final one just an inch above her head.z

Koda easily dodged the wind whips being hurled at him by a few nomads. They wouldn't do much damage to him, honestly, it was like someone getting spanked with a sock. His armor was thick, resembling something of a chain used on fences. He was a single firebender against The Avatar, an earthbender, and several airbenders. The only real threat he saw was Soya, who at the moment seemed like she wasn't the strongest bender in the world.

While Koda was distracted by everything else, Jianyu stomped one of his feet and raised an earth wall between the fighting benders and everyone else. There were wounded who wouldn't be able to get away if the fighting escalated, after all.

Soyala flowed through waterbending katas, building up some momentum in her floating blob of water. Then, with a quick twist and a snap of her arms, she sent the water rushing towards Koda's face, then switched elements and followed it up with several fair-sized rocks. No more Madam-Nice-Avatar. She needed to put a stop to things before they really got out of hand.

Kids didn't have time to see what hit him. In a split second, a huge wall of earth flew up an he was pelted with a mixture of water and earth. 'Miss Priss' really did pack a punch. Koda was stunned momentarily, but quickly recovered, wiping away nonexistent spit on his face. He was trying not to seem weak in front of Soya. I mean, she was superior to him. But he couldn't think that. HE was the best. HE could conquer anything. His father had said so, and everyone knows not to doubt his father.

With a growl, Koda lunged forward at her. He hoped to catch her by surprise by not using an elemental move. His plan failed, however, when he missed her by no more than an inch. Hand-to-hand combat wasn't his finest. He quickly regained confidence and blasted her with flames. From how close he was, it had to do some sort of damage.

By this point, however, Soyala was in the zone. She ducked down under most of the flames quickly, and ignored the ones that did get her for the moment, and slammed a blunt spike of rock into his abs to try to knock the wind out of him. She wasn't quite in the Avatar State, no; she'd been in it once before and knew what it felt like. But she was more focused than usual. She could feel the burns from the flames finally starting to hurt, but she ignored them a little while longer. She had to.

Koda's breath caught in the back of his throat and he fell to his knees. It was an odd sensation, really, not being able to breathe. It was like someone just flicked the off switch in his mind which shut down all functions. A few moments later, he gasped for air and was able to muster up enough strength to stand once more. "Almost, Miss Avatar. But no more of those cheap moves." He growled. He spread his feet apart slightly, bracing himself for the next move.

Even Soyala could see that Koda was wobbly by now. Time to end this. She feinted with the same move again, but this time instead of slamming the rock into his stomach, she forced rocks the size of her head out of the ground to smash into him. Even if his bones survived intact, he would still have some impressive bruises to show for it later. This time, however, she wasn't just trying to wind him. She was trying to knock him out.

Koda smirked as he saw Soya go for the same move once more. He was ready to avoid this one. He dodged left, but was taken by surprise within seconds. The massive rock flew into the air, smacking him straight on the head. Everything went black. He fell immediately back down to the ground, not bothering to even get up. As if he could. He was still alive, sure, but he wasn't going to be waking up anytime soon.

With Koda down for the count, Soyala was able to refocus her attention on the Air nomads.

"Will everyone be alright?" she asked as she and Jianyu dragged Koda to the makeshift medical tent. She could see, even from where she was, that there were people with significant injuries, and she saw burns that she wouldn't be able to heal with her basic healing skill. She wasn't good enough yet to be able to take care of those.

Sage sighed, throwing herself down onto a bed in her tent. She had taken down her hair from a tight cap and pulled out the stuffing from her clothes. She had enough privacy to at least "become" a woman again. It was her home after all. Her mind wandered to hours before when her true identity was almost revealed. That was the first real action she had seen in awhile. Nothing exciting ever happens at her temple. It was always 'fly to here, train with this, bend with that' over and over again for as long as she could remember. God, she would kill for a little excitement in her life. She mindlessly flicked a feather back and forth across the room only to have it fly back toward her face. "What th-" She gasped as Zeizyng burst through the door. "Oh, you pervert! What if I was changing? Huh?" She laughed, aiming a pillow at his head. "Well, I'd just close my eyes. It's not like I haven't seen you naked before..." Zeizyng smirked. He plopped down onto her bed and nudged her shoulder. "Pfft, in your dreams." She shoved him off the bed.

It was determined that the Southern Air Temple wasn't well-enough equipped to deal with the number of wounded from the raid. Really, Jianyu and Soyala weren't surprised; most of the temple had been in flames, and it would take every able hand just to get it back into livable condition, let alone care for wounded at the same time. So it was decided that a few of the able-bodied monks would take the wounded to the Northern Air Temple for care by way of sky-bison, and Soyala's ship would follow by sea. They had even taken the wounded Fire Nation soldiers with them; the monks felt that it was wrong to care for only their own wounded, although the able-bodied ones were imprisoned on the ship for the moment while their wounded were tended to.

Jianyu would curse the moment he let Soyala trick him into flying on the bison.

"This isn't natural, Soya," he squawked as he clung to the rim of the basin-like saddle. "This isn't natural at all!"

"It is for the Air Nomads," Soyala pointed out as she checked on a few of the wounded (although she did linger around Koda for a moment longer than the rest). She did have to admit, though, it was unnerving to be sitting on the back of a flying sky-bison. A little.

"I'm not an Air Nomad!" Jianyu squeaked in reply. "I belong on the ground!"

"And I belong on the ice of the South Pole," Soyala replied. "Calm down and sit still."

Jianyu kept a white-knuckled grip on the bison saddle the whole way to the Northern Air Temple, and was ridiculously glad when they landed on firm ground again.

" Zeizyng! Saku! Where are you?" A young voice protruded through the cloth walls. Zeizyng jumped in front of Sage as she stuffed up her shirt to cover her cleavage and shoved her hair back into a cap, all before the child barged through the door. "People from our sister nation are here with wounded soldiers! You have to come quick to help!" The boy shouted. The three rushed out the door to the front of the temple where at least a dozen air benders and a couple dozen fire benders lay. Sage gasped. How could someone do this much damage? Many nomads were burnt, and some looked as if they were beyond repair. "Can anyone tell me what happened?" She called out in a considerably deep tone.

"It was a Fire Nation raid," one of the Southern Temple monks said as he jumped down from his sky-bison with one well-timed puff of air to ease his landing. "We were fortunate the Avatar was close enough to help us. We would be in your debt if you could help us with our wounded; our temple was damaged in the raid and we have no way to care for them until repairs are made. Our temple is still standing, thank the spirits, but repairs will take time."

Soyala climbed down from the sky-bison saddle carefully, ignoring Jianyu as he clumsily scrambled down and flopped onto the ground with a relieved "Solid ground!" She looked around at the Temple noting the similarities and differences between it and the Southern Temple. She suspected the Eastern and Western Temples were different, but finding out would have to wait until later.

Sage nodded to the monk, watching as the nomads were carried one by one into tents. She pointed toward the oncoming ship. "And what's that, exactly? I thought we only travel on bison." She cocked an eyebrow and stepped closer to the waterline. By the looks of it, the ship didn't pose any threat. It wasn't a fire nation ship, at least. Her gaze shifted toward two people dismounting a bison. They were obviously not skilled in that area. She stifled a snort.

"They're following me," Soyala spoke up, stepping forward slightly. "They were taking me back to the Earth Kingdom when the raid happened." She gave a small bow of respect. "I am Soyala of the Southern Water Tribe."

Jianyu got up off the ground after a moment of relieved bliss and dusted himself off. He'd heard most of the conversation until now, and put in his two-cents.

"And I'm Jianyu Lei Tien, of the Lei Tien merchant family," he said, also giving a small bow. The Lei Tien family wasn't as powerful as, say, the Bei Fong family, but they were good enough merchants to get by.

Sage nodded once to both of them. "Pleasure. I am Saku, obviously from the Northern Air Temple," she bowed curtly, "and this is Zeiz-" She turned to introduce her old friend, but found that he had already gone. Sage turned back to face the two benders, gave them a quick wave, then headed off toward a first-aid tent. She shouldn't dilly-dally with others. They were meaningless, and it's not like they were the Avatar or anything. What needed her- er.. well, his.. attention was the wounded nomads and soldiers.