Avatar: The Full Metal Bitch, Chapter 1b of 5

[lavanya_six]

It would have been child's play to throw the little Water Tribe bitch over her shoulder, ride a wave of bended earth to Xin Fu's arena, rip off the top off the mountain and then go in fighting. But Toph was more than vaguely in the sauce and a nice long walk would help sober her up. So rather than drunkenly bring down a mountain on top of the Avatar and the hormone ball that had been nursing a stiffy for her all through dinner, Toph walked in silence with Katara across Gaoling.

Well, mostly in silence.

They were cutting through town when Toph made them stop at a random back alley so she could stick her fingers down her throat. Once she spat the last of the bile out of her mouth, she mused aloud, "So the Avatar, huh? How'd you meet him?"

"Why do you care?" sniffed the bitch.

"I care." Toph pushed off the alley wall and walked back into the street, head now clear enough to feel the feather-pressure tug of the magnetic north and south poles. "The Fire Nation is kinda kicking everyone's asses up and down the street. The Avatar icing the Northern Fleet was the first good news anyone has had since General Iroh chickened out at Ba Sing Se... fuck, six years ago?" She shook her head. "A whole fleet wiped out," Toph murmured to herself. "Makes me wish I had working peepers, if only to watch."

She felt Katara's shiver through the earth. "No, you don't. It was horrible."

"I'll bet." It's strange, but Toph never thought she would empathize with a fourteen year old brat who probably hadn't even had her first monthly yet. Then again, I'm still kinda drunk. "Must have been a lotta bodies in the water."

(They bring in the Dai Li to soften up the enemy. It is the first and last time Toph ever sees one of those bastards on the Wall. They're the ones experienced dealing with obstinate prisoners. The Dai Li gather up the POWs the army has been collecting since the last exchange between the lines back on Day 405, picking out the unhealthiest men and women, the ones who aren't going to last much longer in those squalid prisons. They take them up to the Wall. There are hundreds of Dai Li there; even the Grand Secretariat is pitching in. People in the army joke there must be a celebration in the city that night because it is the first time in generations that the Inner Ring hasn't been occupied by an oppressive power. No one cracks that joke within earshot of the Dai Li. Not even Toph.)

(The Dai Li do it all at once. They push the POWs through the Wall to the other side, but not all the way. They only let them poke their heads and the upper halves of their chests out -- breathing space, nothing more. Their bodies are otherwise anchored in the rock. There are five hundred and six-two total, one for each day of the siege so far, all overlooking General Iroh's encampment. The screams and frantic pleas for mercy must wake up the whole damn Fire Army. All the prisoners on the Wall are firebenders, because that way they demand a lot of attention when they panic and start screaming gouts of fire.)

(The Yu Yan snuff them all out before dawn breaks.)

(Toph feels each arrowhead slam into the Wall, followed by the prisoner's pounding heartbeats stopping, one by one.)

(General Chijiu leaves the bodies in place to rot.)

(Two days later, the Fire Nation builds an earthen platform just out of catapult range. They bring out wagons of their POWs, then start burning them alive, one-by-one, all day, every day, for a week. But when Toph leads Terra Team in the next midnight raid into the enemy's lines, there is a different tenor to their screams. The firebenders have never been afraid to fight them before.)

Toph rubbed her face. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Fine by me," said the little bitch. "You were the one who brought it up in the first place."

"Can your waterbending heal a headache?"

"No."

"Then shut the hell up."

They walked the rest of the way to the arena in silence.

* * *

Sokka sang, "SECRET, SECRET, SECRET, SECRET TUNNEL! Yeah! SECRET, SECRET, SECRET, SECRET, SECRET TUNNEL! Oooo! SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET TUUUUUNNNEELLLLL!"

"Through the mountain!" added Aang, punching a fist through the bars of his cage.

"Shut up!" Xin Fu pitched a rock at Sokka's cage. "SHUT UP! I'll give you a hundred juice boxes each if you shut up already!"

"No dice!" Sokka called back down. Grinning smugly, he said, "Just you wait! When the Blind Bandit comes to rescue us, you're going down!" Sokka pointed at Xin Fu. "Yes, you!" He pointed at the Big Bad Hippo. "And YOU too! And, oh yes, even you, Boulder!"

"The Boulder resents your disrespectful lack of a proper article before the Boulder's name."

"Don't be fooled, kid," said Xin Fu. "The Blind Bandit isn't hard on the eyes, but when she opens that mouth of hers the only thing that comes out is--"

"Well-timed verbal jabs?"

All heads turned.

Toph Bei Fong stood at the far end of the arena's stage, one hand stretched back behind her head, fussing with her ponytail. There was not an ounce of hostility in her body language. In fact, she was still dressed in the same tea green silk shirt and pants from their dinner. Sokka melted at the sight. There's nothing hotter, he thought, than a powerful, confident woman.

Oh, and Sokka distantly noted, his little sister was standing next to the earthbending goddess.

"Toph!" cried Aang. "You came!"

"B-Bandit!" said Xin Fu, giving the giant woman his full attention.

To the Earth Rumble ringmaster, the noblewoman said, "That's Lady Toph to you, bitch." She pointed to Sokka's cage. His heart leapt. "Let the Avatar go."

Sokka sighed at her willingness to sacrifice him. Putting the good of the world ahead of everything else. She really is a hero!

Xin Fu snorted. "I think the Fire Nation will pay a hefty price for the Avatar. Now, get out of my ring!"

"...Okay," said Toph, limbering up. "I was just going to take the brats back and kick your ass. Now I'm thinking I should destroy you, just for that. The world has no place for fools like you in it."

Sokka rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

"Oh yeah? Just you?" The ringmaster gestured to the half dozen earthbending fighters standing beside him. "There are seven of us and one of you, Lady Toph, and we've been battling you since the Rumbles began. We know every trick in your book."

"That was fighting for fun." Toph pinched the bridge of her nose. "I was putting on a show for the audience. You've never seen me go all out. Before I was the Blind Bandit, I was Major Bei Fong of the Terra Team!" She clenched her fists. "That means I'm six foot five inches of Fuck You. Now I'll give you one last chance, Xin Fu, for old time's sake. Hand over the kids and I'll try to forget you talked treason! Leave Gaoling and never return!"

"Very tempting offer," he said, crossing his arms. "And the alternative is what exactly? You're gonna kill me?" Xin Fu laughed.

"I will end you. Permanently."

From up in his cage, Sokka shouted, "Watch this, everyone! It's going to be AWESOME! And hot!"

Xin Fu gestured for the go-ahead. The Boulder and all the rest of the gladiators ringing him walked forward.

The blind noblewoman bowed her head. When she looked up, Sokka knows that it was the Blind Bandit that stood before him. "Very well. You've brought this on yourself, Xin Fu!" She reached behind her back and whipped out one of her trademark killer swords!

Wait. No.

Sokka squinted.

That's... a scroll?

Unrolling it, she read out, presumably from memory, the following: "Under Section 6, Paragraph 3, Sub-section B of your contract with the Bank of Gaoling, I, as the Director of the Bank of Gaoling, hereby call in your mortgage on the Earth Rumble stadium! Failure to provide immediate payment in regards to the remaining balance on your outstanding loans will result in the seizure of all assets!"

"WHAT?! Noooo!" Xin Fu fell to his knees. "I don't have that kind of money! I'm a thirty year lease! I'm ruined! RUINED!!"

"Don't worry," said Toph, rolling up the scroll. "I'll forgive the rest of your substantial debt in exchange for all your personal savings and your share of the Earth Rumble business." She strode forwards.

The Boulder scratched his head. He looked first to the sobbing Xin Fu, then to Toph Bei Fong. "So... The Boulder works for you now, m'lady?"

Toph stopped by the muscled earthbender and affectionately patted him on the cheek. "Quite right, honey. You and your friends are now employees of a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bei Fong Enterprises." She smiled sweetly. "Now, please, throw that traitorous piece of trash out on the curb where he belongs. He's trespassing on my private property."

While the other gladiators dragged off their blubbering former boss, the Big Bad Hippo lowered Sokka and Aang's cages to the ground. Sokka stumbled out of his newly unlocked cage in a daze, blinking bleary-eyed as Katara engulfed him in a bear hug.

Only once his sister had thoroughly moistened his shoulder did Sokka's brain finish processing the full extent of the horrors he had just witnessed. "THAT'S IT?!"

* * *

Aang looked to his friend, only to find Sokka staring in outrage at Toph. The blind woman, in turn, cocked her head to the side to present a three-quarters profile to them all. "What?" she asked, staring at nothing in particular. "You're free, aren't you?"

Vaguely confused and irritated, Katara stepped away from her brother. "Sokka?"

The Water Tribe boy pointed at Toph. "I can't believe I thought you were cool! You act all gruff and dashing, but beneath the surface you're not cool at all -- you're The Man!"

Katara scowled. "Sokka! Show a little gratitude -- the woman saved your life!"

"I know, sis, but it's how she saved me that grinds my gears."

Aang scratched the top of his bald head. "I thought being The Man was good?" Modern day lingo was so confusing.

"Not always, Aang," said Sokka. "You're thinking of 'Da Man'. Toph here is 'The Man'. That means she's a big fat boring phony -- a sellout!"

Now Toph -did- turn to face him. She seemed to Aang as if she's just been slapped. "I am not The Man."

"Yes, you are! You're totally The Man! You beat the bad guy by calling in his mortgage! If that doesn't make you The Man, nothing can."

Katara opened her mouth to object, closed it, thought for a moment, then said, "Actually... Sokka's right."

"What?" asked Aang. "Really?"

"I know." Katara rubbed her arms as if to warm herself. "I'm scared too."

"Stupid kids," muttered Toph. Her clenched fists trembled. "Stupid ungrateful brats." The noblewoman took a deep breath. On the exhale, she said, "Can't be happy without a little bread and circus, huh?"

Aang pressed his palms together and bowed towards Toph, knowing full well that the blind earthbender could track his movement and appreciate the gesture. "Thank you, Lady Toph, for resolving this conflict peacefully."

"Pfff," snorted Sokka. "How needs that? I wanted to see a little action!"

Toph said, "You little shi--"

Aang intervened. Darting between them, he again bowed to the earthbender. "Your wisdom is an inspiration to us, Toph."

Toph kicked him lightly in the shin to make him look up. "Forget it, Avatar. Your friend isn't the first pinhead I've ever had to deal with." The noblewoman deflated as she turned and walked away. "My house is still yours if you need a bed for tonight. Least I can do, I suppose."

Whacking her brother upside the head, Katara said, "Way to be ungrateful, Sokka!"

"What're you complaining about? You agreed with me!"

"Only because I haven't been blind to how horrible that woman has been all evening. Everyone in her house is terrified of her -- the guards, the servants, even her own parents! And you should have seen her stumbling over her own feet on the walk over here." Katara wrinkled her nose. "She's a bully and not entirely right in the head if you ask me."

"But that still doesn't explain how you can be so... arrggh! Forget it!" Sokka rubbed his neck. To Aang, he said, "Sorry your hunt for an earthbending teacher was such a bust."

"I dunno." Aang thought of Toph's strange workaround for her blindness, the way she defused the standoff with Xin Fu and held in her temper when Sokka badmouthed her. All of that required waiting and listening. The rest was just... pain. "I have this feeling that she's the one."

Katara said, "I think you're feelings are wrong this time. She's a jerk."

"My girlfriend turned into the Moon." Sokka crossed his arms and inclined his chin. "You don't see me becoming a sad, boring drunk who'd rather sleep in a soft bed than help the world's last hope to defeat the Fire Nation."

Aang yawned. "Speaking of bed..."

* * *

Toph slept poorly that night. Even taking her prized Piandao to her turkey-duck feather bed didn't calm her restlessness. The silence of her underground, metal-walled bunker simply let her imagination run rampant replaying old memories. A handful of catnaps proved unrestful but, thankfully, dreamless. Irritated at nothing in particular, Toph threw on a thin silk robe and went upstairs to the surface.

The house was quiet. Toph felt the sedate footsteps of the kitchen staff preparing fresh bread and pastries for the Avatar's farewell breakfast. She stayed away from them. A quick detour to the front parlor on the way to the gardens found the levels of liquid mercury in the antique water clock confirming the time as a little before dawn.

The dew in the grass got between her toes as she walked across the lawn. Toph enjoys the simple sensation. An impish impulse had her momentarily consider ditching the bench and just rolling around bodily on the lawn. It would probably even make for a comfortable bed. Maybe that's why they call them 'grass beds', she though.

Toph found a seat on a garden bench instead. Grass would stain her robe and she liked the intricate gold weave in the one she wore too much to disrespect the craftsmanship by soiling it. The only alternative would have been to set aside the robe and roll around naked in the grass, but if someone saw her it would cause a scandal and scandals were bad for business.

The view from the bench was sufficient. She always lost herself in the presence of good earth.

Reaching out with the fullest extent of her senses, Toph opened her mind's eye not just to the earth but Earth. The soft-footed steps of the kitchen staff faded away, replaced by the weight of her family estate on the bedrock below. Nearby, the city of Gaoling creaked and groaned with the 'sound' of earthbenders. By noon the city would be a clattering mess of benders groping the earth with their fumbling hands. For now there was no white noise. Nothing interrupted Toph's bid to calm her mind by immersing it in the planet.

She could feel the outline and mass of Gaoling's buildings, their structure and regular shape so odd atop the rolling surface of topsoil, clay and bedrock. Toph can almost trace the miles of paved roads in and around the city -- the ones she herself funded and personally built; a peacemaking gesture to the local business council. They had been nervous after she came back from the Wall, the Bei Fong's most shameful secret turned war hero, and performed a hostile takeover of her father's mercantile empire. Toph knew the roads were built to last: she modeled them on the foundation of the Wall, and she smiled at the thought of children walking on them a thousand years in the future.

There were ghosts in the earth, ruins of a Gaoling from eons past. Toph had studied their curious architecture at length before. She paid it no heed that night. She did not want to think about the past.

Narrowing her field of focus to just the immediate area, Toph saw the estate garden and everything for hundreds of feet around: burrowing insects in the dirt, squirrel-doves scurrying along tree trunks in the hunt for bugs for breakfast, the dizzying geometry of the ant colony near her family's ancestral shrine, and something new -- the deep and sluggish reverberations of a sky-bison's giant heart pumping blood through its ten ton body.

Some four hundred feet beneath the garden, at the very edge of her small-scale perception, Toph felt that small vein of copper in the bedrock that has delighted her for months. It would be child's play to burrow down to extract it, but Toph refrained from doing so. The vein was small and practically worthless. So Toph amused herself with a private challenge of coaxing out the metal from the surface, using just her toes. No hand and leg movements allowed.

In the seven months since first discovering the ore, Toph had only managed to move it a few inches, but every fraction of an inch was a triumph. She spent her days concentrating on metalbending, alloying exotic steels with only her force of personality. After six years of bending metal nearly every day for hours on end, simple earthbending was joyful play.

So focused was Toph on cajoling the bedrock around the ore to push the copper upwards that she didn't notice Poppy until the woman sat down next to her on the garden bench.

Toph splayed her toes wide for proper grounding. "What do you want?"

"I... couldn't sleep either," Poppy confessed. "I didn't want to wake your father."

Rather than reply, Toph gestured to one of the many other benches littered around the garden.

Poppy said, "I was hoping we could talk."

"So talk."

"About the Avatar."

Toph waited.

"He... he said that to defeat the Fire Lord, he needs an earthbending instructor. Why not you, Toph?"

"That eager to be rid of me, huh?"

"No!" Poppy insisted, though her heartbeat said otherwise. "You are my daughter, Toph, even if you scare me." That shouldn't have hurt quite so much to hear, but it did. "You are also the finest earthbender I have ever known." Poppy didn't reach out like she once did to brush the long bangs from Toph's eyes.

Toph didn't get the chance to bat her hand away in irritation. "Yeah, I bet you're real proud of that."

"I'm proud of you, of what you've accomplished with your gift."

"So what? I'm proud of a lot of things I've done that I shouldn't be."

"And you would do them again because no one else could do what was necessary." Poppy's hand hesitated over Toph's own, but then, quick as a thief, she darted down and interlaced their fingers. The older woman's smooth skin chafed against the calluses they found. "You've done so much in your life, daughter of mine, but you could be so much more if you didn't... didn't cripple yourself."

Toph squeezed those soft fingers. Hard.

"Toph," gasped Poppy, "Bei Fongs have a duty to the people they love."

"Endless pity. Open derision. Chi blocking specialists. Drugs. Metal cages." Toph almost broke Poppy's slender fingers. It would be easy. It would feel good.

The woman she used to call her mother whimpered.

Toph let go.

Poppy stole her hand back and cradled it against her bosom.

"You don't get to lecture me on duty," Toph said. "A real mother would have loved me for who I was. She would have let me earthbend in the open instead of hiding me away like some unwanted bastard child. She wouldn't have let me go to B--" Toph swallowed. Fuck. She wasn't going to give this bitch the satisfaction of crying in front of her. "Leave."

The matron scurried away.

Toph tilted her head back to point her blind eyes into the tree branches overhanging her garden bench. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"I wanted to check on Appa." The Avatar slipped off the tree branch and out of Toph's tremorsense. It took an unnaturally long time before his toes dusted across the ground several feet below. When he spoke, his tone was uneasy, "I don't understand. Why did you hurt her? She's your mother."

"So what?" Toph snapped angrily. He had overheard their conversation, hadn't he? "She had it coming, trust me."

"But... why?"

"What are you, dense? Poppy and Lao treated me like garbage for the first fourteen years of my life, and that was before they found out I was great at--" And here Toph stopped herself, cheeks flushing with self-aware embarrassment. Unloading my soul to a twelve year old. How pathetic is that? "Kid, it's none of your business."

"So that justifies taking revenge on them?"

Toph gritted her teeth.

The Avatar hopped up onto the bench, which would ordinarily be impressive since the bench was sized for her long-limbed frame. This time Toph heard the subtle shift in the air that signaled him airbending. Just to prove he'd been hanging around those Water Tribe kids too much, he slid up next to her like they're conserving body heat in a blizzard.

("It really gets cold up here on the Wall," says Lim, slipping under the covers as Toph chuckles in agreement... and to hide her nervousness.)

Toph earthbent the bench apart, creating a few inches between them. The Avatar took the hint and didn't try cozying up again.

It didn't stop him from trying to make conversation. "Hurting the Fire Nation hasn't ever made me feel better." And Toph knew he was telling the truth; his heartbeat never so much as fluttered. "My people have... used to have a saying. 'Revenge is like a two-headed rat-viper.' While you watch your enemy go down, you're being poisoned yourself. Toph, does hurting your mom help anyone?"

Toph didn't dignify his inappropriate question with a response. Nothing compelled her to, not even the weight of a thousand generations before hers demanding dutiful respect be showed to the Avatar. The only person she answered to now was herself.

He asked her, "If you hate your parents so much, why are you still living with them? Even if you weren't as rich as you say, you could just earthbend yourself a new house. Heck, you could make your parents a new house if you like this--" His shifting weight signaled he was gesturing to everything around them, forgetting that she was blind. "You could even turn them out onto the street if you really hated them. So why don't you?"

There was the soft pop of someone's knuckles cracking. Toph was alarmed to realize that it was her own fingers that had curled into tight fists. She quickly unclenched them, bile rising up in her throat.

"I," Toph said, voice wavering, "am not going to apologize. Now please leave me alone."

When he spoke, it was with a voice that was far too knowing to belong to a twelve year old. Toph was starting to realize it didn't. "...Y'know, your mother was right about one thing. We all have a duty to the people we love."

Her response came reflexively, "I don't love my parents."

"Is that who you think she was talking about?" Aang stood up off the bench. "A greasy swamp guy told me a little while back that we're still connected to the people we love, even when they're gone. Time is an illusion, Toph, and so is death."

On that note, the Avatar left her in the peace of the garden.

* * *

With the knot of acid in her belly, Katara was surprised there wasn't soot raining from the sky when she, Sokka and Aang went into the dining room for breakfast. Katara hadn't dreaded anything this much since those hours waiting for the Fire Navy to arrive at the doorstep of the Northern Water Tribe.

Lady Toph was again seated at the head of the table. Unlike the previous night, she was sitting properly in her oversized chair. She wore a green silk robe, embroidered with stylized badgermoles. There was no bottle of booze in sight but Katara wasn't betting against the noblewoman's milk being spiked.

Katara left her own glass of milk untouched. She had not forgotten the cramps and other unpleasantness when she'd had first tried the stuff back on Kyoshi Island. There was no polite way to ask for water, and she wasn't going to ask Lady Toph for a favor... or talk to her at all if she didn't have to. So Katara ate her rice porridge, salted turtle-duck eggs and fried bread sticks without anything to wash it down with.

Aang, who had no problems digesting milk, quickly sported a white mustache along his upper lip.

"Look here." Katara leaned over and wiped Aang's face clean with her cloth napkin. Aang fidgeted under her touch but Katara's grip was firm. She soon had it all. "Better."

Lady Toph giggled. "Oh, if the Fire Lord could see this. The feared Avatar... henpecked."

Aang laughed awkwardly. "Katara means well. Don't you?"

"Gosh," said Katara, pushing her bowl away, "look at the time. I think we should get going."

"I don't see why," said Lady Toph, speaking as she gnashed on a mouthful of bread. "Stay in Gaoling. I can set you up with a house here, find you a respectable earthbending teacher. You've got a decent head on your shoulders, Avatar. I bet in a year or two you'll be set to learn firebending."

"Thanks," said Aang, "but staying in one place for too long is a bad idea."

To Katara's side, Sokka nodded. "Word gets around and then the Fire Nation comes charging in. That... that didn't work out well for anyone at the North Pole."

The blind woman pursed her lips. "Ah. Good point." She picked up her bejeweled goblet of milk.

"Besides," said Aang, stirring a pinch of dried chocolate into his bowl of porridge, "I don't have a year or two to learn earthbending with Sozin's Comet about to return."

Lady Toph's hand froze mid-motion. Drawing her lips off the rim of her goblet, she said, "Wait... what?"

"Sozin's Comet is returning at summer's end," said Aang. "Didn't you k--"

A sharp CRUNCH split the air. Milk sprayed everywhere. Katara's jaw slackened at the sight of the crumpled aluminum goblet in Lady Toph's hand. White milk streaked with the green dust of crushed emeralds dribbled down the noblewoman's fingers.

On instinct, Katara dashed around the table to Lady Toph's side. She pried open the unresponsive noblewoman's hand, ready to heal the deep cuts there.

Only there were no cuts.

Katara's eyes widened. "How in the--"

"The end of the summer?!" Lady Toph jumped to her feet, knocking her chair back and pulling out of Katara's grasp. "Sozin's Comet is returning at summer's end and you didn't think that was worth mentioning before?!"

A low tremor shook the house. The dining room chandelier rattled with the clanging of crystal. Dust fell like powdered snow from the ceiling.

Lady Toph raged on at Aang, "You of all people should know what the Fire Nation can do with the power of Sozin's Comet! Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, Fire Lord Ozai will use that same power to do the Earth Kingdom what his grandfather did to the Air Nomads?! Or to finally conquer Ba Sing Se when even his brother couldn't?!"

Aang, skin chalk-white, shifted his eyes to the left and then to the right. "Um... no?"

"FUUKA!!" shouted the earthbender. A haggard-looking servant woman slipped into the dining room. "Clear my schedule for the next six months. I've got a Fire Lord to help kill."

* * *

"You're gonna be a great teacher, Toph." Aang looked back over his shoulder at the woman slumped against the rim of Appa's saddle, a stalk of wheat dangling from her lips. "I just know it!"

"Whatever."

"And I'll bet we'll all be great friends really soon!" Aang looked past Toph to the Water Tribe siblings. They were sitting next to each other at the rear of Appa's saddle, directly opposite Toph. "Isn't that right, guys?"

Katara and Sokka glanced at one another.

"Sure," Katara said dimly. "Best friends."

"We just may be!" Aang turned back to face front. With good cheer and hope for the future, he whipped Appa's reins and shouted, "Yip yip!"






Chapter 2 of 5 will be posted in May 2010

Comments

[clockwerkchaos.livejournal.com]

Evil, horrible, sick thought occurs to me.

If you really want to torture Sokka, Katara and Toph should have their mud fight earlier. "Toph, mud respelling MMMM. Wait no! That's may sister with her. Must resist. AHHHHH."

"Sokka why are you hitting your head on the rock?"

It even makes sense story-wise, this Toph is must less likely to listen to any suggestion Katara makes, and much more likely to be a jackass about it. It's not like the opponent being older or more experience ever stopped her before. And if she puts up a decent fight it might even earn her a little respect.