Avatar: The Last Airbender
Ridiculous Chapter: "The Scary Door"
"You are entering a world different from your own. A world where many paths intersect and no choice is what it seems. You may choose a direction that leads to enlightenment, or possibly insanity. Or maybe you'll explode, or turn out to be a werewolf. These kinds of options, and more clever ones, are immediately presented to you upon entering… The Scary Door.
"Tendered for your examination, Toph Bei Fong. Age thirteen, as of the day of our story. She is a normal girl who engages in normal enough activities. Normal activities if, perhaps, you are accustomed to passing through The Scary Door."
Toph was settled comfortably into the cushions of her favorite seat, lying back and twiddling her well-picked toes in the air. Things were good. Very good. Still, evening was coming and her feet were getting somewhat cold. She couldn't have that. "I'm chilly. Slippers!"
One of the family servants hurried in carrying the woolen shoes and nestled them gently into place. He bowed and started to back away, shaking, but Toph held up a hand. The man's fake smile faltered for half a second. "Y-yes, Mistress…?"
"I said I was cold. Where's my hot drink?"
"I only brought slippers..." the man had begun to sweat. "… you didn't say…"
"Should I have to?" Toph asked. "You don't think I deserve that little bit of extra thought today? You can't take that much initiative for little old me?"
He was panting. "That wasn't my intention… I made a mistake. It won't happen again."
"I agree. It won't." With a swipe of her hand, the floor opened under the man. He fell, began sliding, and could be heard screaming as he was whisked out of sight. "Bye bye, now!" And she closed the ground.
"You see, the seemingly average Toph Bei Fong has a powerfully not-average power, a power which empowers her to overpower and hold power over the powerless individuals who cower before her power. It's quite a powerful power. Powerful powerful, they might say in Mississippi, though with more of an accent. She can force the earth to swallow up anyone who displeases her. Creepy, right?"
"H-honey?" Lao Bei Fong was calling to her from the next room. He didn't want to get too close. He never did, these days. "We're going out to fetch the birthday cake you wanted. Will you be alright by yourself? You know I don't like leaving you."
Even though she was a little distant from him, she felt his pulse change. "You're lying, dad. You just want to be far away from me."
"What?! No! I just – aieeeee!"
"No one in the town of Gaoling is beyond her control. Her skill and demanding nature mean that she's exempt from the control of others. This one-sided relationship has isolated her, and that's the way she likes it. Or so it would seem."
The door burst open. This was unfortunate, since it was a sliding door, and was forced completely out of its frame. Katara strode through, fists on her hips. Aang and Sokka followed, almost taken aback by her fury. "Toph!"
"Hey, guys!" she lifted a hand and waved. "Want some drinks? I think I still have a couple of servants left to get 'em."
Aang's jaw dropped. He fell to his knees near her, staring. "Why – why are you doing this? To innocent people?! To your family?!"
"Innocent?" Toph scoffed, scratching her instep through her slipper. "They made me mad. What worse crime is there?" She winked playfully at her erstwhile friends, who were all exhibiting the classic physical signs of terror. Sokka was actually shaking so hard that his greaves rattled.
"We can't let you do this. We won't!" Katara moved her arms like a windmill or fan gone berserk. The water in her bag twisted in air, hardening and sharpening into ice and then flew at Toph with great speed…
They hit a wall of rock, and then Katara fell into the destroyed floor, too. She screamed. "I thought we knew youuuuuu…!"
Sokka gaped at the hole, muttering his sister's name repeatedly.
"You… you've gone bad!" Aang's eyes began to glow. "I never would have believed…" his voice became deep and his arms tensed. "… you'd become evil…!"
But while he was tensing and changing states, a wave of dirt rose in front of him and he fell into the ground, too. Aang could be heard slamming into earth below. "Toph, nooooo…!"
When the ground flattened out, only Sokka was left. He was clutching soil in his palms, eyes tearing up and staring at where his sister had vanished.
"You're not going to attack me too, are you?" Toph asked him hopefully, then yawned as though she was a bit tired of this routine.
"No…" he whispered. "… I can't beat you, you're the best earthbender there is. But could you answer me a question?"
"Oh, no problem!" Toph sat up and grinned. "What is it?"
Sokka stood, looking ready to meet his end with some dignity. "Why would you kill them? Why would you think that it was alright? That doesn't seem like you."
To his horror, she actually laughed.
"It's not funny!" he insisted. "It's not, and I can't believe you would pretend…"
"I didn't kill them!" she cried, punching a pillow and in hysterics. "I stuck them into the deep caves under town! They just have to spend a day walking back after that. It's not even a hard landing because you slide for like ten minutes into a cornfield."
Sokka's shoulders slumped. "What?"
She smiled. "Come on, you really thought I'd hurt anybody? Inconvenience them, sure, but that's just because I'm a growing girl and I'm a little mean."
Sokka's heart rate was slowing. He was beginning to see how far this had all been blown out of proportion. "I still don't see why…" He felt like he had to sit down.
Knowing this, Toph stood, gripped his hand and pulled him onto the cushions next to her. He didn't relax much. "I like being alone sometimes, so I got rid of all the people I didn't want to be alone with," she explained. "So I could be happy on my birthday. Just for a little while."
He looked at her, confused, on the verge of laughing. Now that he thought about it, this was pretty funny. There was just one thing he didn't get. "But if you got rid of people to happy, how come I'm-"
"Wait and think about it."
It took him an embarrassingly long time, or else he just didn't want to venture the obvious guess. He didn't have to after she rested her head on his shoulder and gripped his arm. "Oh." It was surprising how quickly he found himself relaxing, now. "Oh."
"Yep. You're not too mad I displaced all those people are you?"
"Well, it wasn't nice at all, but - no. In a way I guess it was good. Very good."
"Thought so."
"Observe if you will the effects of unchecked power in the hands of a single person. While marginalizing other individuals' desires and convenience, the young lady in question has nevertheless found some measure of the happiness we all seek. In so doing, she has through backhanded means invited us to enter a realm wherein unusual stuff is normal, but not so normal that the twists don't give you pause and make you consider story structure in a slightly different fashion than before. A location two blocks down from weird, across the street from a supermarket that sells human souls, upstairs from a haunted bowling alley or something like that. A place called…"
"Hey, Toph, who's that guy talking over there?"
"I don't know. Want me to get rid of him?"
"Sure."
"… The Scary DooOOOOOOOR…!"
Written by Gunwild
Created by Bryan Konietzko & Michael Dante DiMartino
This fanfiction not produced for profit
Avatar: The Last Airbender and related indicia are the property of Nickelodeon, Viacom and MTV Networks
Futurama and The Scary Door © FOX and its related entities
Author's Note: This is just me posting things to work on not being so phobic of having my work read. Don't take it for serious comedy, literature or shipping. And Happy Haloween - go watch Futurama, or the Twilight Zone. Everybody loves and parodies the episode where the kid banishes people to 'the cornfield,' right? They all call it 'good, very good...'
