Chapter Seven: Before Dawn
Note: Sorry for the delay getting this chapter out; real life jumped on me for a while. I should be able to post regularly again this week, and hope to finish the story. The pace on this one is a little slow, because I'm a little rusty after taking two weeks off. Put up with it and next chapter will be better, I promise XD )
Teaser:
"Excuses, excuses," Sokka said. "Now, what are you going to do about my hostage, huh?"
"Why should I do anything? I know perfectly well you're not going to harm Teo, Sokka."
Sokka sighed. "Since when were you such a spoilsport? Play along, okay?"
"If I play along, you're going to be so mashed up it'll take Katara weeks to heal you."
"Sokka, I love games as much as you do, but this one is just stupid. You know I can turn you into paste in about two seconds if I want." Toph considered the situation for a moment. "I would like to know how to managed to hide your life sounds from me though." She could hear his heart and breathing now, if she tried, but they were strangely muffled. Toph found that a bit alarming.
"New stealth suit," Sokka said, smug dripping from his voice. "It's something the Mechanist came up with by accident while messing with some rubber. The material absorbs sound pretty well. We've already used it to soundproof the lab – which is nice, because the neighbors are complaining a lot less. I was wondering how it would do against you. Pretty cool, eh? I told you I was Sokka the Silent! Well, Sokka the Mostly Silent really, but that doesn't sound half as good."
"Hmph. Katara was distracting me." Toph heard Katara start to protest, then the waterbender thought better of it and swallowed whatever she was about to say. Her parole prevented her from helping out Sokka, but apparently the rules of the game required her not to help Toph and Teo either. Or maybe she just didn't want to.
"Excuses, excuses," Sokka said. "Now, what are you going to do about my hostage, huh?"
"Why should I do anything? I know perfectly well you're not going to harm Teo, Sokka."
Sokka sighed. "Since when were you such a spoilsport? Play along, okay?"
"If I play along, you're going to be so mashed up it'll take Katara weeks to heal you."
"Really?" It was odd, but suddenly Sokka sounded more serious. "I mean, I know you could squash me like a fly, but how could you be sure I wouldn't have just enough time to kill my hostage before you hit me? Would you take that chance?"
Toph frowned and thought it over a little more carefully. She had rarely found herself involved in hostage situations. That stupid mess with her old Earthbending teacher and the Rumble promoter didn't count – they weren't out to hurt her. A few years later some bandits had tried to grab her for real thinking to get money out of her father, but that had quickly ended in severe embarrassment for the would-be bandits – embarrassment, and more than a little pain. She'd never been in a situation where someone had taken a hostage specifically against her, though.
Then she caught the sound of Teo calling her name using his undervoice. This was a trick they had discovered only recently, and it had mostly been used by Teo for making her laugh during formal dinners and similar boring events. By pretending to speak without really speaking, Teo could make words that only Toph could hear. And right now, he was saying, "Toph. Let me handle this. Okay?"
She knew he would be watching carefully for her response. Her first impulse was to tell him no. Sokka wanted them to play along, and in a real situation she would not have wanted Teo doing anything risky. On the other hand, Teo had proven many times that while he didn't mind her fussing over him and helping him out every now and then, he was quite capable of taking care of himself.
Toph decided to trust his judgment. She inclined her head ever so slightly in Teo's direction, and heard a subvocalized "Thanks!" in return.
Teo said, "Sokka, you want us to make like this is real, right?"
"Yeah, I do," the Water tribe warrior replied, still sounding halfway serious. Strange, thought Teo. Sokka should be grinning like a maniac right now at having managed to surprise Toph, but he wasn't.
"Okay then. Just remember that you asked for it." Right after the brief warning, Teo leaned forward, then bit down savagely on Sokka's wrist where it stuck out from the sleeve of the stealth suit.
Sokka yelped and reflexively jerked his arm away. Teo pivoted in place, brought his truncheon up, and whacked Sokka on the side of his head, just above the temple. Sokka dropped like a stone for the second time that night. Teo grabbed him to stop him from hitting the ground too hard – despite what Sokka had said about playing along with the scenario, Teo wasn't taking chances on letting him get truly injured for the sake of the game. Katara grimaced when the truncheon hit home, and quickly came over to check her brother out.
"I'm sure he's fine, Katara," Toph said. "Sokka's got the hardest head of anyone I know."
"I don't disagree with that, but there's only so many times someone can get clubbed in the head without it causing problems." Sokka, half-conscious, groaned pitifully. Toph could tell he was faking it, though. Well, mostly faking.
Katara could tell too, but she summoned healing water for Sokka anyway. "You deserved that, dummy," she said as she tended to Sokka's bruised skull and the oozing bite mark on his wrist. "You were holding your sword too far away from him. You should have had it right up against his neck. Master Piandao wouldn't be happy with that sloppiness."
Sokka groaned pitifully again, this time faking it so obviously even Teo could tell. "Master Piandao never taught me how to take hostages! And even a dull sword can cut – I didn't want to risk any accidents. Me accidentally cutting Teo's throat would have really upset Master Piandao." Sokka tried on another groan for size, but got no sympathy. Shrugging, he gave up on the theatrics. "Besides, it was supposed to be me and Suki together, but she had to stay at the Fire Palace when one of her trainees got hurt defending a village from a herd of rampaging boarquepines. Not fair."
"Excuses, excuses!" Toph said, mimicking Sokka perfectly.
"You should have bowed out, then," Katara said. "But nooo, you had to try the suit." She rolled her eyes at her brother, who was now sitting up and looking much less glassy-eyed than he had been a few moments ago. Toph thought it was a shame Suki couldn't have joined in – Suki knew how to handle hostages. Her presence would have made Sokka's scenario a lot more plausibly dangerous. Of the pair, Suki was the one with the killer instinct behind her pretty blue eyes. Sokka could fight, and fight well, but at heart he was more an explorer than a warrior. Suki clearly preferred it that way, and Toph did too.
"So, what now? Do we get to take you two hostage against whatever's coming next?"
Katara eyed her with a thoughtful expression. "If you think that's the best course of action here, yes."
Which was a strange answer. "I don't suppose I'm allowed to torture you to find out what this is really all about, huh?"
Sokka chimed in, that semi-serious tone back in his voice. "If that's what you think you should do, we'll play along." He grinned. "I promise to scream realistically."
"I don't get this. I thought you guys were just trying to make my birthday less annoying and more interesting, but in some ways you're taking this awfully seriously. C'mon, tell me what's really up. You know I hate being left in the dark. So to speak."
"You know you don't really want us to tell you," Katara said. "You want to find out for yourself." She pointed toward a wooden door at the end of the passage. "The answer's that way, and it's going to be dawn soon. You'd better get going."
"Oh, now there's a deadline too?"
Katara voice took on a note of chagrin. "Oops. Er. Well, yes."
"I wasn't supposed to know that, was I."
"Not really. No." Katara sighed. "Oh well. Can't unspill milk."
"You can," Toph pointed out.
"It's just an expression!" Katara snapped. Toph was pleased by the annoyance finally showing in Katara's tone. No sparring match with Katara would be complete without that.
Teo motioned toward the door. "If there's a deadline, Katara's right – we should get moving."
"Hmph. Maybe I should just curl up here and take a nap. That'll show Bumi I can't be jerked around."
"You know you don't want to do that, Slugger," Teo said. And was absolutely right, of course. If she didn't play Bumi's game, chances were she would never find out exactly what he was up to – which was a risk she didn't care to take, as her curiosity was already raging. Clearly it had something to do with her Tian Mi Shi Liu, what with the dawn deadline and all, but she couldn't imagine what. The sixteenth birthday party was an old Earth Kingdom tradition, but these days it was just an excuse to see whose parents could throw them the biggest and most lavish birthday bash, more an excuse for social showing off than anything else.
Nothing to do about the mystery except plunge on ahead. Sooner or later Bumi would have to stop making her jump through hoops and come clean.
She hoped.
She heard Teo unlatch and open the door. "Um," he said, taken aback. "Slugger, you're not going to like this."
"Like what?" she said. She stepped through the door, and without warning was nearly blind again. "Pebbles and shards, the floor's made of wood!"
"Not just the floor," Teo said. Toph stretched her senses as well as she could when deprived of direct contact with the earth. Behind her she could clearly sense the corridor leading back into the cistern, and Katara and Sokka and Teo in it. Ahead, there were only the faintest of earth echoes. "The whole room is lined with wood. Floor, ceiling, walls, everything. There's some paper lanterns for light, but that's no help to you."
"Separating me from the earth? Didn't we already do this in the cistern? Bumi's starting to repeat himself. We dealt with it before, we'll deal with it again." Toph motioned Teo through the door, gave a cheery wave in the direction of the Water Tribe siblings, then pulled it shut behind her. "You're going to have to lead me to the other door, flyboy. I assume there is another door somewhere?"
"Yep. It's at the far end. The room's maybe thirty feet square, ceiling about fifteen feet up or so." He offered her a guiding elbow, and Toph took it, hating the blindness but enjoying an excuse to link arms with Teo.
They had only taken a few steps when Toph heard the far door latch click, and the door itself swung open. She could tell that someone stepped through, but couldn't "see" well enough to tell exactly who it was. Teo stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh," he said. "I get it. The wood's not there to mess with your senses, Toph. Or at least that's not the main reason."
"You're sharp as a knife, Teo," said the intruder. Toph face-palmed at the sound, instantly understanding what Teo meant.
"Hi, Sparky," Toph said, resigned. "We're in a wooden room because –"
" – because wood burns," the young Fire Lord finished. "If you want to go through this door, the only way out is –"
" -- Past you," Toph said.
(To Be Continued)
